Guitar

I bought a guitar today. It was an utter fiscal irresponsibility, but I was really blue and flailing around at loose ends. Grayson and I had packed up a picnic lunch to take to Martin Nature Park because the weather was so beautiful today. But when we got there it was closed up. The sign says they are closed on Monday (which I knew) AND Tuesday (which clearly I did not).

So, in a true funk, we headed home, and when I saw the exit to 63rd street, I just got off and headed to Larsen's. What the heck, I thought, I'm in the neighborhood, I'll just go see how much guitars are. So I went in, and they had this beautiful black starter-guitar for $150, and I bought it.

I'll have to give up food, but I'll have something new to learn, and maybe a little music to lighten my soul.

It took me over an hour to figure out how to tune it. It came with a little electronic tuner, but I had a helluva time figuring out how to use it, until I stumbled across this website that plays the correct notes. Then I realized I was trying to tune it upside down! I was holding it right, of course, but I had the string progression reverse. Yeah, I have a long way to go.

So now it is tuned and sounds beautiful until I attempt to play a chord. But I worked at it tonight until my fingers were sore, and I guess I'll keep at it each day.

I'm a bit stiff today from my time in the gym yesterday. But not too bad, so I should be able to go back again tomorrow. I'm trying to stay pretty busy. Otherwise I get a little blue. Okay, a lot blue.

I talked to my friend Jin last night, just pissing and moaning about my life. I love her like a sister, but she's too bossy to be helpful, in this case. She gave mea bunch of very stern advice I really didn't want to hear, and in the end I only felt worse. She means well, I know, but we're very different people and I'm not going to go about things the way she does. I know she cares about me, that's the best thing. She really wants me to come down to Norman to her place for New Years. I guess I'll go. I hadn't planned on it at first, but I'm sure it will be good for me. This afternoon she called again to try to strong-arm me into going. I told her about the guitar and she just said "Okay, now I'm really worried about you." Guess the purchase of a guitar is a clear sign of impending insanity.

Where's Biff? You ask. I don't know. He's got his own demons to wrestle, as I mentioned, and I don't really know if I expect to hear from him again. It's too bad. I thought we had a lot of fun together, but he just still really has his head in his last relationship, and seems – for now at least – to be too firmly lodged in the past to look toward the future. I think I was a distraction for a few weeks, but the weight of his past heartbreak was too much to keep away for longer than that...or else I just wasn't enough to chase it away. It's part of what is making me so sad the past couple of days.

Gray called today to tell me Steve is planning on showing the house tomorrow, and to ask me to go in and tidy up the kitchen for him. I was pretty short with him, which I probably shouldn't have been. But I was having a rotten morning at that point, and didn't feel like making small talk with him when I know his WoW Girl is probably waiting on him. There's just no making sense of how the human heart reacts to things. Shouldn't I wish him luck, success in love?

No. Even though now I believe that I would not go back to him; even though I've been seeing someone new of my own, I don't wish him well. I don't want him to find someone new. No, of course I don't.

Am I crazy? I think lately I am entering a whole new realm of craziness. It's disconcerting. What will be next? Nose piercings? joining the circus?

Stay tuned.

Okay, so, on a lighter note, here's a video of me taking the Christmas tree out of the house this afternoon. We call it "Championship Christmas Tree Wrestling."

Grayson's Blog

Grayson has started his own blog and would like to invite all of you to come check it out.
Here's a little video he made to announce it. And here's how to get to it: GRAYSOTOPIA



So, I'm pleased to have introduced my son to the blogosphere. He likes the idea of his words and images out there in the world. I like the idea of him finding creative ways to express himself in language and imagery.

A tedious day of errands, today. I dragged G all over Oklahoma City and Norman knocking out little tedious tasks: pharmacy, bank, post office, blah blah blah. Grayson was very patient until the very end, when we were in line at the pharmacy drive in. THEN he began to whine. He whined and bitched and moaned, half jokingly, but serious enough to begin to drive me bananas. Until finally I was struck by a stroke of genius and got the camera out, and every time he whined, I took his picture. Soon he was giggling instead of whining, and I got this funny set of photos. I love that little kid.

Freakshow, Snow Dud and Gingerale

Ladies and gentlemen, I have temporarily taken the pledge. Last night's glass of wine ballooned into 8 or 10 glasses of wine, which seems to have completely breached my emotional dikes. The resulting tsunami took out a couple of small villages. The beaches are littered with the bloated corpses of livestock and mud-covered husks of cars.

That's a fancy way of saying I got drunk and suffered a total emotional wig-out... unfortunately, much of it splattered on Biff over the internet, turning a simple breakdown into an international incident. I'm sure that getting confirmation of Gray's impending liaison with The Wow Girl (taking place, no doubt, even as I type), had more than a little to do with it. Add to this the unfortunate coincidence that Biff had upsetting news from his own emotional arch-nemesis recently, causing him to retreat just when I was hoping he'd prop up my shaky sense of self-worth. I was needy and cloying, picked fights over nothing, misconstrued almost literally everything he said, and ended up a quivering mass of jelly sobbing drunkenly into an empty wine glass. (This last, at least, Biff did not witness, since he was at a safe distance and we were communicating only through Instant Messaging. So you see, it could – believe it or not – be worse.)

Needless to say, I'm not particularly proud of this. The term "mortified" comes to mind... among other, rather less savory, ones.

But one good thing did come out of it. I had a sort of epiphany. I looked at myself, this pathetic lump of self-flagellation and loathing, and realized two things: 1) that I have a lot further to go to divorce recovery than I even dreamed; and 2) that it wouldn't have been nearly as bad without the half-gallon of wine washing over my brain's emotional centers. In other words: the wine doesn't help. I may be "self-medicating," but the medicine is, probably quite literally, killing me.

I realized that if I don't change the direction I'm headed, I'm going to wind up where I'm going. And that is not a happy healthy place full of flowers and fluffy bunnies.

So I have to get a grip. Stop drinking, take control of the choices I make, and especially stop expecting poor Biff to prop me up. The guy has his own baggage to carry, and the fact that he didn't immediately pack up and move to Alaska last night should be all the assurance I could possibly expect after that tawdry little piece of theatre. I have to get the focus back on finding my own way over this thing. And the only way out is through. Last night proved to me that there are no short cuts, and nobody is going to give me a get-out-of-heartbreak-free card. I just have to deal with it as it comes and stop pretending it doesn't affect me.

So after all the bizarre and needless drama of last night, I am grateful to Biff for showing up today. We had made plans to take Grayson and his friend John to the ballpark to go snow tubing, and then have dinner at my place. To Biff's credit, he showed up as planned, which surely proves that he is a saint. Or a masochist. I haven't decided which.

Soooo, all of this brings me to what we will refer to as "the great snow-tubing heist." I paid $13 a person for 2 hours of tubing at the Brick. Sadly, they WAY oversold the tickets, and we waited in line for more than 30 minutes for one 10-second ride down. It was so not worth a second 30-minute wait. Even the boys couldn't face it. What a dud. I couldn't believe I'd paid more than $50 for the privilege of standing in line. It was as bad as Disney, and without concessions. It wasn't even a great run. So we just came back to the apartment and the boys played Grayson's new Wii games while Biff and I lounged on the sofa and talked about our respective emotional train-wrecks. We do at least have that in common, perhaps more than anything else. Though since I seem to be, in spite of it all, some sort of crazed optimist, I like to think there's more to it than just that.

So, tonight I'm watching cartoons with Grayson and chastely sipping gingerale, pondering possible ways for me to Get a Life, save my self-respect and heal my broken heart, all without sending Biff, (or anyone else,) screaming into traffic.

Any suggestions? Anyone? Anyone?