What?! Has hell frozen over and I just wasn't aware?

One hour ago.

Text from Ex: "been thnkg.i'm at a loss for words n i think the courts r going to have 2 figure this out...its sad n w/the timeframe Lawyer said, i cant promise i can hold off the IRS."

(Background: Ex is apparently in deep shite with the government. We know those sluts mean business, too.)

Second text: "i really wish we could of figured this out ourselves..now we will have 2 pay others 2 figure this out...wasted money that i don't have..this stinks."

My reply: "It does. Do you want to try and work it out by ourselves?"

Ex: "i think, if we do, in the end we will end up w/more...hate 2 give it to attorneys n accountants..etc.i am willing 2 do it but i think only we will loose...."

Me: "More what? I don't understand." (Blond moment extraordinaire.)

Ex: "the more money i have 2 spend on other people..attrnys etc..will be less money for us."

Me: "Can we talk this out like 2 rational people? And can we talk on the phone? This texting is making me nuts."

The phone rang 2 minutes later, after which transpired a shockingly logical conversation. I truly thought I had morphed into "We're not in Kansas anymore" Dorothy and that a posse of little orange people were going to surround me and begin singing, "Follow the Yellow Brick Road." I literally went out on my terrace to see if there was a tornado slinging a tree my way to hit me in the head and send me into dreamland.

This conversation was probably an outcropping of our settlement conference on Friday, which was fiercely heated at times. ("Ex, are you f*cking kidding me that you want my motorcycle that I owned free and clear two years before we even met?! Did a squirrel just crawl into your brain and take over your thought process?") However, after an hour and a half of back-and-forth negotiations with no resolution, Lawyer and I left. I was feeling lower than Britney when she can't find her bottle of Grey Goose.

Lawyer, on the other hand, encouraged me by telling me that it was a beginning and that it's possible this could settle out of court. He urged me to attempt to begin a dialog with Ex in order to save some money for both sides. Hence, my conversation this evening.

Considering that Ex has acted somewhat irrationally (oh, and that's a euphamism, just in case you missed it), I'm not too hopeful. However, it seems as if we will be speaking, if not actually meeting in person, later in the week.

If a mutually agreeable solution is reached, I'm pretty sure that seven horsemen will descend from the skies on winged creatures, signaling that the Apocalypse has finally arrived. I'm not all that cynical, but we are talking about the guy who bugged our house, hacked into my email, put a P.I. on me in our first year of marriage, installed a GPS unit on my car, and hired some thug to break a (platonic) male friend of mine's legs. As I write this, my hope for a rational settlement is waning faster than O.J.'s popularity.

And the leg breaking incident? Perhaps I'll write that one for you tomorrow. Now where's my wine? I'm going to need a buzz to get through that post.

Oh, and P.S. to the dude who found my blog by Googling "Grandpa Gets a Woody"? Ewww!