Court is Now in Session

Court is this afternoon and I'm crapping a brick for some reason. Typically I don't mind the spotlight, but I'm very uncomfortable with it in this sense. I feel as though I'll be under one of those hot lights in a police interrogation room, rivulets of sweat dripping down my cleavage, hair clinging to my forehead in wet strands, with someone yelling at me to tell the truth, dammit! (I've never experienced that, by the way, but I've watched enough Law & Orders to know that I don't want Vincent D'Onofrio bobbing and weaving around my face using his psychological trickery to draw me into his web.)

In reality, I know it won't be anything like that because I only have to be on the stand for about 10 or 15 minutes and Ex is the one who really needs to be nervous right now, but I still feel as though I'm going to the guillotine. You know how everyone says to imagine your audience in their underwear? Today, I'm going to imagine Ex in front of his computer with saucer-wide eyes watching Granny Porn with a spilled bottle of Levitra next to him. That ought to do the trick. In fact, it's making me laugh right now.

I may or may not post an update later today. I'm heading off to Lauren's house immediately after the hearing in order to decompress and probably drink copious amounts of wine, so we'll see if I get back home in any sort of shape to write a coherent post.

I will be so relieved when this day is over. You think that post-pokey Paris looked like she was walking on air? My exit from the courthouse will make her look as though she just watched Tinkerbell get run over by the neighborhood ice cream truck. I'm wearing a dress today but if things go well I still might add a back flip as I exit, because unlike Paris, I wear underwear.

Levitra: No Flirting Necessary

I said yesterday that I have a court date on Monday and that I was really nervous. I remain so, but a little less today, so I feel all right writing about Ex. I hope this trend continues so I'm not jittery when I have to take the stand.

I've already mentioned that Ex hadn't wanted to have sex for at least a year when The Great Email Debacle occurred, but after that confrontation, he suddenly wanted a roll in the hay all the time. He said that he realized that he'd been totally inattentive and absent (he was), and somehow I think he extrapolated that realization into thinking that sex would cure all of our marriage's ailments. My trust in him was completely destroyed at that point, so the thought of sex with Ex honestly made me sick to my stomach and after that, it was I who refused. Several months later, Ex and I had a fight. He was screaming at me and somewhere between the "f*ck you"s, he blurted out, "And I have to jack off 5 times a day because you won't have sex with me!"

Time stopped. I was dumbfounded. A 10 second silence ensued which seemed to stretch into eternity, after which I stammered, "F-five.....times....a day?? I wish I had that much time on my hands."

He tried to backpedal, but it was too late. The truth has a way of bursting forth when you're angry and your brain's censorship level is low.

My birthday came around about a month after that fight and it was a disaster of epic proportions, but that's another one of my favorite stories that I'm saving for later. After that horrific weekend passed, Ex danced every which way to try and explain his behavior. When he left for work that week (he was always gone most of the week and home on the weekends), the texts began pouring in. These weren't even drunk texts, they were just plain odd.

Keep in mind, at this point, I had not yet found out about the Granny Porn, so I was taking his explanations at face value.

"maybe some day i will tell u what else i have been taking..i think that led 2 my frustration/insecurity and let down..i did 2 myself"

I must have asked him what he was taking.

"please do not think i am crazy..i have been reading maxim magazine 4 tips and taking levitra hoping 2 give u some crazy sexual extacy sp ?..i guess i was thinking in my head..fantasy..just maybe..i know i am crazy..but i think it freaked me out...this is not something i can really explain over text"

I have no idea what I replied, but I do remember thinking, "Levitra?! For what??" And then it hit me. He'd been reading Maxim and taking Levitra so that he could, in his words, "jack off 5 times a day"? I was getting warmer, but of course, didn't hit the jackpot until I later discovered he was taking the performance enhancing drug so that he could get off to Grandpa Gets a Woody, among other equally edifying flicks. The thought still makes me shiver.

So when Ex left to go overseas last fall, I was relieved. I had 2 weeks in which I wouldn't feel as though a chloroform-soaked rag was being theoretically held over my face. At one point during the reprieve, I took Ex's car to run errands because I had just washed mine and it was raining. I spotted flashing lights in the rear view mirror. "Damn," I muttered to myself, "just when I thought I'd be drama free for a couple of weeks."

The cop came up to the window looking grumpy, but I suppose I'd feel the same way if I had to stand in the rain while some chick fumbled in her purse for her license.

"License and insurance, please."

This guy was all business. Not even a hello or a, "Do you know what you were doing wrong?" I quickly assessed that I would most certainly not be flirting my way out of this ticket.

"Here's my license, sir. This isn't my car, but I think the insurance is probably in the glove box."

"Ok, ma'am."

I opened the glove box and much to my surprise and horror, about 12 prescription pill bottles tumbled out. I was frozen.

"Ma'am, are those your prescriptions?"

"Uh, no, uh, officer. You see, this is my uh.... er.... husband's car, and I never drive it. He's out of town and uh, I mean, out of the country...."

"Ma'am, step out of the car, please."

I had no idea what the bottles were, so I meekly did as I was told and stood on the passenger's side. The officer opened the passenger door and I watched him pick up bottle after bottle, turning them over in his hands and grunting to himself, "Hm, Levitra..... Levitra..... huh, Levitra.... Levitra?!"

He left the bottles on the floor of the car, shut the door and turned to look at me. I thought I saw him try to suppress a laugh. He tipped his hat, looked me up and down, and said, "Have a nice day, ma'am," as he handed me my license.

I watched him walk to his squad, rooted to the ground in the pouring rain. It wasn't until he got into the car and shut his door that he let out a huge guffaw and got on his radio. I can only imagine what he must have been saying to his buddies working the afternoon shift.

I got back into the car and picked up the bottles to shove them back in the glove box. They were all empty. Ex's Levitra habit didn't do anything to save our marriage, but it sure saved me from a speeding ticket. As far as I was concerned, it was a job well done.

"That doesn't look like Lou Ferrigno...."

Several years ago, over cocktails and dinner on one of our nights out, Lauren and I were talking about her wedding. This was prior to my having any firsthand experience with marriage and before I even met Ex, so I was bewildered when she told me that she knew as she was walking down that aisle that she would end up getting divorced. I wondered what on God's green Earth would possess someone to go through with a marriage when they were reasonably certain that it wouldn't end up working out. Obligation? Embarrassment at canceling? The Wicked Witch of Weddings Soon-to-be-Past? Looking back on that conversation, I now realize that she probably had some inkling that not everything with her groom was as it seemed on the surface.

She said, "I drank so much champagne before getting married that I barely made it down the aisle."

To which I replied, "Why did you get tanked before your wedding? Didn't you look wasted in your pictures?"

She shrugged and said, "I didn't care. I knew that if I didn't get drunk, I'd be running in the other direction faster than you can say, 'Hell, no, I don't take this man!'" (This brings up my own thoughts of Valium mixed with champagne - not a combination I recommend - but more about that in the future.)

Lauren got married, probably entirely thanks to the urgings of Mr. Dom Perignon, had a honeymoon that was less than ideal, and wound up living on the third floor of her in-laws' three-flat. Living with your in-laws may sound like being in Dante's Inferno to most of us, but I'm pretty sure that the only reason Lauren's marriage lasted as long as it did is because she and her mother-in-law were instant BFFs. She told me that the only loss she mourned in her divorce was that of her mother-in-law, with whom she would pass evenings smoking Marlboro Lights, drinking coffee, and gossiping. Lucky bitch.

Anyway, for months after the wedding, Lauren's husband, Mike, had been begging her to see a Lou Ferrigno movie that he'd rented, about which he was practically obsessing. Not being the biggest Lou Ferrigno fan on the planet, she kept blowing him off. One morning, Mike went out the door to work and Lauren happened to have the day off. She said to herself, "Oh well, I suppose I'll watch that movie Mike's been bugging me about."

She went over to the TV, found a video entitled "Hilton Head," and, thinking that this was the movie Mike had been asking her to watch for months, popped it into to the VCR.

Mike had forgotten something that he needed for work, and walked back into their apartment just as the movie began to play. He said, "What are you doing?"

Lauren replied, "Watching that Lou Ferrigno movie you've been bugging me about."

She told me that the look of panic on his face matched the look of shock on hers as she spun back to the TV and saw two naked, heavily-muscled men (neither of whom were Lou Ferrigno) engaging in the most intimate act possible for us humans.

In her usual fashion, she turned around to him and said, "Um, that doesn't really look like Lou Ferrigno."

A few months back and after years of no contact with him, Lauren spotted Mike in the grocery store. She exercised her best Charlie's Angels moves, bobbing and weaving through the aisles to hide behind the Starbuck's display, but he had already seen her and tracked her down. After some small talk, she asked him, "So, have you seen any good Lou Ferrigno movies lately?"

"The Daily Motivator"

Yes, I'm getting divorced. No, I'm not bitter, and no, I am not jaded about relationships in general. In fact, I find the divorce process, although traumatic, quite amusing in certain ways, and I hope that this blog helps anyone reading it who's going through the same thing to find the humor in what could otherwise be devastating. Because, hell, divorce stories are hilarious when you get a little distance!

As my first post, I thought I'd tell you a story that I found amusing. Last summer during a fight when Ex and I were still living in the same house, I found out that he, in his paranoia, was routinely going through my emails and forwarding them to himself for the entirety of our marriage. I felt betrayed and angry, even though there was nothing for me to hide. In response, he screamed at me to go through his email, gave me his password, and said that he wanted me to see that he had nothing to hide. It took me a month to actually go ahead and do it, but at the urging of my friends, I finally did. I found a folder in his online account entitled "The Daily Motivator." Thinking that it was probably a collection of inspirational quotes, Bible verses, or cheesy thoughts for the day, I clicked on it. To my surprise, I found that it was a registration for a porn account. Incidentally, the registration date coincided with the time that he completely lost interest in sex, but that's a story for another time.

Anyway, I was shy about logging into his actual porn account, but yet another month passed and I finally got up the nerve to do so. I was expecting the usual.... Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick, whatever. But what I found truly shocked me and made me laugh so hard I nearly choked! I won't divulge titles, but let's just say that the collection of porn featuring women and men in their golden years was extensive, and the titles .... well, those creative types behind granny porn have fertile imaginations to say the least! Yes, Granny Porn. There is such a thing.

He still doesn't realize that I have this information, but be assured that he will find out very soon. At least I now know what motivates him daily. And I know to keep him far, far away from my grandmother.