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.

Long ago humans were of three sexes.  Those of the sun were male-male beings stuck back to back.  Those of the earth were female-female beings stuck back to back.  Those of the moon were male-female beings stuck back to back.  They each had two heads with two faces, four arms and four legs.  At one point they tried to scale the heavens and attack the gods.  The gods feared their strength and debated whether or not to kill them, but they did not want to lose the worship of the humans, so Zeus came up with another plan.  He decided to cut them down the middle to decrease their power.  After the split, the halves sought each other out and threw themselves into an embrace, longing to grow back into one but never being able to.

“And such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover’s intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.”

Before this, human beings did not know love.  The separation of our two halves gave us both the capacity to love one another and the pain of separation and longing.

Oh, pretty.  Right?  Look, we’re all wandering the earth looking for our other half and we’ll find them and everything will be rainbows shooting out of our asses and sunshine and stars and magical magic and birds singing.  HAHA.

WRONG.

Love is a bullshit.

THE END.

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.

And, oh my god, you guys I just can’t talk about my cat’s constipation problem with you.  I have typed up five paragraphs about it and it took me that long to realize it was a really long story about a cat who won’t shit.  I do not want to be one of those people.  So to keep it short and to the point, we spent $500 getting Ducati a diagnosis of constipation and after an enema at the vet he wouldn’t poop but then he did when we got home but then it wasn’t enough but then when we brought him back they said he was “empty” and then the question was “where is the rest of the poop?”  and then we thought that the dog probably ate it like it was one of those failed NASA recycled poop cookies.  Anyhow, I would have preferred to use that money to buy two new living room chairs that were on sale at Kasala, a furniture store that I’ve never been to but for which I saw an advertisement with some cool leather chairs on sale for $199 a piece.  Instead, I got cat x-rays and a cat enema and some shit my dog ate.

In other news, this Thanksgiving we’re going to my sister’s house, which has torn from my clutches one of the “100 Things” I’d like to accomplish this year – hosting this particular holiday.  No one even asked me if it was okay, I was just told that she was having it.  Then I thought – I’ll just have my own.  We can compete for guests.    That’ll show her!  But then she invited people from work, including her boss, and I thought, oh I can’t miss that.  I can’t miss an opportunity to humiliate my family in front of new people. I think she wants to make up for the last time she hosted when she made that whole wheat apple pie.  Seriously.  WHOLE WHEAT apple pie.  This will not happen again.  I fact, I’m bringing my own pie, just in case.  YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH PIE!  This is like…holiday rule number 3.  The first two are YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH PRESENTS and  SOMEONE WILL ALWAYS CRY, PROBABLY ME (because of all the feelings).

Last week I mentioned that the cable company finally shut off the cable they swore they shut off two years ago, so we’ve been forced to do things like “read” and “talk.”  Janie decided we were going to spend several minutes before going to bed reading a book together called Mindful Couples.  This is not to say we’re  in any sort of  relationship turmoil.  Or we weren’t until Janie started reading the part of the book that talks about “when your wife acts like a bitch.”  And you know what? Janie lies.  That’s not in the book at all.  Especially not near the part of the book that talks about how “Janie is a doody.”  Haha, Janie.  TAKE THAT.  So we got to page 3 before we stopped to spend an hour discussing what we find most frustrating about one another, like how Janie is defensive about everything I ever say, even if I’m just saying thank you for cleaning the kitchen and she yells at me, “ARE YOU SAYING I AM BAD IN BED?” and how I disregard all the words coming out of her mouth all the time, especially when they’re wrong, which is always.

We had a really good conversation and I realized that a large part of what makes our relationship so terrible awesome is that we end almost every talk or fistfight heated discussion with laughter.  Someone calls someone a dirty whore and we laugh and laugh and laugh until Gus gets so excited about all the laughter that he jumps up on us and accidentally slips Janie the tongue.  And you probably think I’m exaggerating and unless you are my mom, I want to tell you that this is actually very true.  (Confidential to my mother:  It’s not true.  We end every fight or discussion with “I love you” and a healthy snack, usually carrots or an apple.)  One day, many years from now when we have raised the children I am incapable of conceiving and they become incapable of conceiving children of their own, Janie and I will be in a retirement community and our elderly neighbors will be shocked and horrified as we end each night calling one another offensive names and laugh until our teeth fall out.