Thank You

I've turned my bath tub area into a place to put plants. Eventually, there may be plants IN the tub.

But what I really want to say here is thank you. I've gotten some very nice responses to my anxiety post here on the blog and elsewhere. I'd send you flowers if I could. Your kindness is beautiful.

Thank You

Thank you, everyone, for your comments on my previous post. I really appreciate your input, support, and the experiences you shared with me.

And the wishes roll in...

Dan snapped this with his iPad when I was only 61 and a half.

I'm older now.

The first b-day greeting came from Bali last night, then France, England, then east coast joined in, moving on to the midwest straight to the Pacific Coast where I got sung to after yoga this morning. It's a world-wide rolling virtual party. A wave. Thanks for being part of it. Sending love right back at you. 

I'm doing one of my favorite things today. Blogging. Yeah--and over HERE too.

Report from Pillville

The latest from Pillville is coming soon. But meanwhile, read THIS if you need a Pillville update. Not much has changed. And yes, the expansion deck is almost ready. Sample cards include:

You've missed three days of your morning medications. Do not pass go. Go directly to bed.

It's 3:30 and you've already had a martini. Do not pass go. Go directly to bed. 

Your caregiver is worrying needlessly about having mixed up you meds. All is well. Celebrate. Have a martini. Send your caregiver directly to bed.

But seriously folks, we're okay.
However, my brain is about ready to explode from all of this celebrating.

Catching the Wave

taken at Hollywood Beach 

The waves have been really big in my neighborhood. I'm not a surfer, but I feel caught in another sort of wave. Check it out.

New website/blog!

I've been a blogaholic for years now. Until recently, there were three Blogger blogs in my blog universe. Now my blog, Birthmother, has moved to Word Press and, in anticipation of my memoir's release with Shebooks, is currently set up as two-headed beast--blog plus author's website. Writer friends, other friends, mentors, teachers: let me know what you think.

Thanks!

I'm over here.....

Hey there, those of you who've stopped by Margaritaville for a drink, come visit me HERE.
I like to drink, and I'm a blogaholic, too.
Or maybe you can just think of me as organized---these thoughts here, those thoughts there. Everything in its place, right?

Fearful Symmetry

In a weird symmetry both the Someone and the man who loves me have been very sick with the flu. I would not know of the Someone's condition, of course, if it weren't for the fact that I have contacted him a half-dozen times asking him to please get a new court order to formalize the lowered alimony he began paying in January. He has invoked his illness as an excuse. A good excuse, as excuses go, but making a phone call is probably not going to spike a fever. Then again, I've become physically ill by having to root through a box of divorce papers.

I haven't seen the man who loves me for a month. Like many who've caught the flu this year, he's had a relapse and sounds positively awful.

Meanwhile, here in Margaritaville, the days tick by in their own symmetry. When I come downstairs in the morning, my mom is already up. She's opened the curtains, and fed the cat, and is standing in her spot at the kitchen island looking out at the water. I go to the gym, and when I come back, she's still there in her p.j.s drinking her re-warmed coffee. We talk. We read the paper. We talk about the paper. I eat my breakfast. She goes to her room to crochet and read, and I go up to my room to read and write. I come down for tea. She has her lunch. I have mine. She re-warms the last of her coffee. Off we go again to our separate retreats.

At five, the ancient cat meows for her special ancient cat milk. My mom gives the cat her "cocktail," and  pours her martini. I begin to prep for dinner and maybe race off to the store. Seven--we eat. She does the dishes. I put away the food and wipe down the counters. I brush the ancient cat while she takes a last scroll through the news on the iPad. She says good-night. I say good-night.

I read. The New Yorker. Jack Gilbert's poems. One of the many books from my MFA colleagues. Prairie Schooner. Missouri Review. The pages from my writing group. And sometimes I blog. When I hear the beep of my mom's oxygen machine turning on, I sink deeper into the reading or the writing. At my desk in the dark, I look out at the shining black water and marvel at rings radiating across the surface. Sometimes I open my window and listen for the heron's croak or the deep gasp of a sea lion as it comes to the surface. I take a deep breath, too.

My Various Nutty Internet, Facebook, Blogger, Word Press, email, and iPad Woes

Dear Evil Cybersquirrels,

Oh you minions who guard the gates of Internet land, let not my pleas fall upon deaf furry ears. 

1) Hasten to hasten my AT&T 3 G connection. Baltimore and its environs is not the moon. It's a major city. People who work in Washington live here.  C'mon.
2) Allow me, oh powerful ones, to comment on Word Press blogs. I am not a troll. 
3) Allow all worthy readers to comment on my Blogger blog. Encourage
 not a Blogger-Word civil war. We wish to be bloggers united, free to comment across the great divide and will divulge the location of secret caches of nuts if you tear down the impediments that mute us.
4) Allow my iPad to drag and drop....okay I'm begging now. Pleeeeeeeese.
5) Allow my outgoing emails to my divorce attorney to GO OUT or upon my return to the land of scraggly rattish-tailed squirrels, I will commence much mayhem.
6) Desist immediately in your misguided attempts to coax me to type upside-down foreign-ly accented words into a silly box every time I want to share something on Facebook. Sharing is nice, oh evil cybersquirrels. Sharing is nice. Nice. You little rabid assholes.

Leaving Divorceville

Dear friends and loyal readers,

The band is playing the final song at His Big Fat Indian Wedding. The cleaning crew is hovering in the doorway waiting to swish the fancy tablecloths into the laundry bag. Children are running amok eating all the leftover mints. Hems of pretty dresses are dirty, and neckties are stuffed into suit coat pockets. Everyone is tired.

But those of us who live in The City of Angels know about makeovers. A nip here. A tuck there. A stage name. A new life in the sunshine where palm trees wave graceful arms, and some neon-colored flower is guaranteed to burst in bloom at any moment. 

I hope you'll come visit this new place. Unless there's a last minute glitch, you should be able to find me very soon at www.leavingdivorceville.blogspot.com. If that fails, come visit me at:  http://myfrenchunderpants.blogspot.com/ or  Birthmother and look for a link. If you find that I've disappeared entirely...well, maybe the U.S. Marshal has hauled me away.

Thank you for the love, support, wise words, and good humor.  May it all come back to you ten-fold.

Re-Christening

In the next few days, I'm going to be changing the URL of HIS BIG FAT INDIAN WEDDING. The title in the header has been revised for some time. So I might go with MY BIG NEW WRITING LIFE if it's available.
Or maybe MY BIG FAT DIVORCE.
Or BIFURCATE THIS!
I dunno. I normally love titling things, but my brain feels like someone clicked the "mute" button. It's not talking to me.
Ideas? Advice?
Maybe it's a good idea to have "divorce" in the URL? In order to connect with others going through divorce?
DIVORCE OVER FIFTY?
THE LONGEST DIVORCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD?

Gem of a Blogger & Blog Gems

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say. When it comes to blogging, I imitate my friend Elizabeth. There's a list of things that she's done with her blog and I have shamelessly copied them. My latest bit of flattery is Blog Gems. Elizabeth is posting there, so now I am, too.

I like the idea--the connectedness of it all. If you're a blogger or a blog reader, check it out.

Exposure

Blog=Web log.  In other words, a log to be read on the web. Restricting this blog's access to the reading public does not serve my purpose. Which is to say: Here I am. Writing. Read it.
A writer needs exposure.
I could have created  a new blog. Maybe something less problematic--like Cooking for Agoraphobics or Recipes for the Chronically Depressed
It might go like this.
I don't like to go out. Especially in winter after sunset. I might be starving, and my refrigerator will have only 6 lemons, a half-empty carton of milk, a swallow of orange juice, 2 eggs and some yogurt. My pantry will be just as sparse. The freeezer? Gin. Vodka. And a mostly empty carton of lemon sorbet. But I can cook you dinner, and you will love it.
Dinner #1 or Orange is a Happy Color
Bake a sweet potato. Bake it in the oven, not the microwave.
Melt some butter, and swish it around in the what's left of the orange juice. Set aside.
Toast some sunflower seeds in a black skillet. Watch them carefully or you will set the house on fire.
Pour the sauce over the sweet potato. Garnish with the sunflower seeds.
Serve with a side of yogurt.
Dinner #2 or Red is a Happy Color
Toast the dried out dinner roll you brought home from a restaurant a couple of days ago. 
You may brush it with olive oil & foraged herbs.
Or you may spread it with canned tomatoes or spaghetti sauce sprinkled with parmesan. 
Serve with a side of yogurt.
Lunch #1 or Orange and Yellow Are Both Happy Colors.
Gather whatever fruit is growing in your backyard or your neighbor's yard or your alley.
Peel and eat.
Breakfast # 1 or Coffee is a Happy Color
Make coffee. 
Get over your disappointment that the milk is empty.
Substitute ice cream or chocolate (preferably milk chocolate) or powdered hot chocolate mix. Or maybe Kahlua.
Don't use yogurt.
I could have started a new blog. But I like this blog. So here it is out in the open, and the people who get themselves in a tizzy over it shouldn't read it.

Paranoia Will Destroy Ya

Or maybe preserve you.
I like my blog. It's helped me hack a path through my grief. I didn't expect Mr. Ex to read it. So when he accused me of disparagement, I was a bit taken aback. I made the blog private, but I still worried he'd get some IT guy at his Big Fat Law Firm to hack into it and make it disappear.

So I did a Blog2Print book.  http://blog2print.sharedbook.com/blogworld/printmyblog/index.html Now I have a hard copy. It's pretty cool. It's even formatted to include an introduction.
Maybe I'll change my name again. Hire body guards. Move to another state.

Stealing

Confessions: I like my friend Elizabeth's blog http://elizabethaquino.blogspot.com/   so much that I pilfer things from it. I used the same designer to pimp my blog after I saw how cool hers looked. I opened my blog to ads after she did. I recently added the gadget, "A Link Within" that she's had for awhile & that takes readers to previous posts with the enticing invitation, "You might also like..."
I stole an idea from my friend Paula's blog http://www.myinternalgps.com/ recently, too. I've added to my blog a countdown clock numbering the remaining days in my life (based on a common actuarial table.) Of course, as the man I love reminded me at breakfast this morning, that time could come sooner. I don't mind pondering this at all, & I like that he said that. I want to make good use of whatever is left, & I like the idea of seeing those days tick by & wondering if it might be off by decades. The idea is to keep focused. And to hold onto a wish my daughter M. spoke of right after the break-up. "I just want people to be good to one another," she said. Seeing the number of days shrink away one by one makes me want to work harder at that.
So now I'm stealing something else from Elizabeth. It's not hers actually. It's a poem by Wendell Barry that she posted some months ago.  "Forethought of grief"....I want to not have that.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry

Privacy

Soon this blog will no longer be accessible to the public.  I have sent invitations to those I believe may want to continue reading.
Mr.  Ex will not be one of them.
Why, after all, would he want to read the musings of the woman he dumped? Despite the fact I really have nothing to hide, it's a little stalker-ish, I think. Maybe his new wife can start a blog and he can read that.  She could write about shoes or something.

photo credit: The New School

Thank You, Everyone.......

.....for the emails, comments, phone messages & in-person support. It has meant a great deal & I am in your debt.
Currently,  I'm still a bit thrown off center, but continue to take this opportunity to think and listen.
I'm working on various writing projects, and trying to keep "wondering at beauty, standing guard over truth, looking up to the noble & resolving on the good."
And wondering if I should add "Baby Disparaging" to my resume.



Photo credit: http://blog.tmcnet.com/

CENSORED

So, he said he wanted a disparagement clause in our agreement. That he wouldn't have me disparaging his new family. Not his wife. Not his baby. The title of this blog was mentioned.
I said I was a writer. That I write. That I hadn't disparaged him or his wife or his baby. That if my tongue was going to be cut out, the cutting would be done in court by a judge--not by him.

This blog is taking a hiatus.
In the meanwhile I plan to re-read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott--the very first book I ever read about writing. Here's an excerpt:
A friend of mine recently fell for this non-Catholic priest who seemed very learned and spiritual and tender in the beginning, and then turned out to be a mean little Napoleonic shit; not to put too fine a point on it. She wondered if she could use him as a character. 
Oh, I said, I insist.
"Do I have to make him tall, so he won't sue me?"
"No, no, no," I said. "Make him an uneducated writer, instead of a psychologist. Give him a past, two wives, and a number of kids he hasn't seen in years. Make him homely, make him a smoker, make him an atheist." 
If you're a writer, you probably know the rest.

I wanted to tell the truth as it really happened. To hack a trail through my grief. And I will continue.
Until then--thank you all for reading. From the depths of my no longer broken heart, thank you.

Blogging is the Porn of Writing or Journey to the Center...

I'm in Nebraska at my final MFA residency. I graduate in 6 days. But right now I'm listening to Los Angeles's own poetry goddess Kate Gale. She's here in Nebraska lecturing to me and my fellow students about writing. Journey to the Center of the Earth is the title of her lecture. Which I take to mean we are looking for that lake of fire inside us that fuels our writing.

Here are her rules for writing: #1. Find what sets you off as a writer.  #2. After that fuse is lit let your mind go wherever it wants to.  Don’t stop yourself.  #3. Keep writing past that painful sticky place instead of wandering there forever. Don’t stop with the beating. Go past the beating. Write what happens next on the other side of that painful place. There’s something else past the pain.  #4.  No matter what you are writing, you are going to write something really good. Don’t save the good stuff for something else. Don’t hold anything back ever. There’s more where that came from. You are a fountain of amazing ideas.

Here's what isn't writing: Emailing. Blogging. Sending work out.

But she likes blogging. She has a blog.  http://kategale.wordpress.com/  She says if you blog you should  blog everyday. It's practice writing. Warm-up writing. But she also says that blogging is the porn of writing. After all, you can drink while blogging, she says.
Imagine. Me--a porn queen.

So what I'm taking away is this. Blog every day while drinking. Which means I should write first and blog and drink second. New mantra: Write first. Blog and drink second. Write first. Blog and drink second.

Monet-ize

I might have thought the word "monetize" had something to do with Monet before I started blogging. I ignored the possibility of blogging for bread for a long time, but succumbed after I got anxious about paying my taxes. (I have no idea yet if I've made a single penny.) I like seeing which ads show up on the two of my three blogs that I've monetized. At first, His Big Fat Indian Wedding had ads pertaining to weddings--which was amusing. And there are always ads that might interest writers--which I like a lot. Today, for a short while there was an ad for a divorce lawyer. Now I'm fascinated. Wouldn't it amazing if Mr. Ex's law firm actually had an ad on my blog? I'll need to work some appropriate key words into future posts!

My French Underpants has quite a few ads actually in French!--which I think gives me a lot of credibility as a blogger writing about France. Of course that also means I can't actually read every word on my own blog which is weird. But I might learn a little more French that way.

My third blog, which I won't even name here out of fear that the title could be used as a key word for ad targeting is not monetized. I know what would be hawked there.