Dear Meg,

...I feel for you being all alone & I think if you just had the opportunity the blues might just be swept away. I'll make a bold proposal. If you'll call me early enough for an afternoon arrival Saturday, I'll come, we'll rent some movies, get some take out & a half gallon of ice cream. We'll talk, we'll laugh & we'll have a good time....

You know, sometimes all you need is the thought. That truly made me happy:)

Well...

...I’m back. And I’m in a much better mood. Sorry to whine earlier...I did think a bit about whether or not I should have had a little self pity party online and I decided to do it simply for the purposes of reality. It’s truly how I felt and I’m outta that funk now. I’m sure that I shall revisit it from time to time...but I’ll try not to bore you guys with it.

Anyway, I promised something happy and let’s see if I can live up to that promise. I played Bingo with a bunch of old ladies and ANGRY old ladies to boot. They get all serious about that game, don’t they? If you haven’t been, you simply must if for nothing else other than the shear sociological survey that it is. You have quite a variety of folk there but the worst are the mean people. They’re the worst anywhere but these mean people have so many damned cards to play that they must have to use every single bit of brain power that they possess. These women will SHUSH! you in a heartbeat...and loudly. They shushed me three times...and I was alone! They shushed me for talking to myself. I wasn’t doing it in a psychotic way or anything...more of a “Oh maaaaan!” sort of way after they called 72 when I needed 73. I wasn’t doing it a lot...just every ten minutes or so...after all, I’m NOT psychotic....I swear. Oh, and I lost, by the way.

Three times. Oh maaan.

I’ve been on a cleaning jag today. Right now, at 10:28 Friday night, I’ve taken down the shower curtain liner and it’s in the washer swishing around in a bunch of bleach. Don’t worry, I won’t put it in the dryer. I’m actually considering cleaning the refrigerator. The kind of fridge cleaning where you take all the pieces out and wash them with bleach. Not too much bleach...I heard about a lady who killed her septic tank by using too many bleach containing products. I dilute it, I’d hate to have a sterile septic tank. If there’s one place where you need germs, it’s in a septic tank.

They make entirely too many bleach stuff nowadays, don't they? How did we ever grow up with plain old fashoined soap and water? Nowadays, everything has to have some sort of germicide...everything except the one thing that could use it, edible underwear.

I’ve got that 70’s music channel on TV...Muskrat Love is playing. I was a Captain and Tennille fan back then...yep, I admit it. My first true love was a guy named Mark (not my ex Mark, this was an entirely different Mark) and our song was Love Will Keep Us Together. Yeah right. It never seems to, does it?

That was a cool relationship. He was my pre-med college boyfriend when I was a senior in high school. That made me feel pretty darn cool. He had this really nice 67 Firebird and we drove all over the Chicago suburbs listening to The Beach Boys in that car. He took me to my prom and afterward we had dinner and more dancing at the top of the John Hancock Building overlooking the city of Chicago. He couldn’t have shown me a better evening. My dress cost the “outrageous” sum of $80. My father paid it anyway, that was my graduation present and it was all that I wanted.

Now Night Moves is playing and that reminds me of my first husband. That is NOT a pleasant memory at all. Night Moves wasn’t our song, it was just popular then. Our song seemed to be Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad. This one provoked my father to say, “You should give your husbands IQ tests.” Looking back...he was right. Well, not really, but I am going to have to learn to discern the quiet mysterious type from the moron mutes that I have been opting for. My solution to that problem is to stay away from dreadfully quiet men altogether.

Then there was the husband that extracted this comment from Dear Ol’ Dad: “Margaret, stop marrying men who’s names end in vowels.” (Dad has a way with words.)

Well, my shower curtain liners are done, I guess I better go hang them up. The tub is scoured clean and the curtains will be the final touch on the bathroom. Then, I’ll make myself a pot of coffee in the amazing Cuisinart coffee maker that my daughter gave me for Christmas...I bought some Starbucks coffee and I’m gonna drink some tonight. I usually like the Ethiopian blend but they were out so I got the Christmas blend instead. I can’t wait to taste it from that coffee maker...it’s gonna take me all night to figure out how to use it. I’ll need that coffee if I’m going to clean the fridge.

See ya!

Meg

What color are these eyes? That question has stumped one person.

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I’m not sure whether...

I’m just good at fake smiling or if it’s just that nobody pays enough attention to notice that I‘m faking it, but it seems to be getting easier and easy to just come off as a happy person...whether I am or whether I’m not.

For as long as I can remember, my father told me that, “People hate miserable people.” and “People love happy people.” So, I tried to be happy all the time. I still do. I’m pretty good at it...I don’t want to make anyone else miserable. I don’t want to burden anyone else with the way I feel...and even it I did, there really isn’t anyone to do to anyway. So, I just keep on pretending to be happy. I’ve always said that if you can’t be what you want to be, act as if and sooner or later you will be. So...if I keep on acting as if I’m happy, sooner or later I just might be happy.

I don’t want to contradict myself and be unhappy but, just for the hell of it, I’m gonna do the opposite. I’m gonna tell you how I feel and if you think that that might make you miserable...then I apologize...stop reading now and I’ll be happy again later. I’ll even write something happy for you later on today so you won’t feel as though I am leaving out the “people who love happy people”.

Well, for beginners, I’m pretty sad and lonely. One by one, the people who matter the most to me have gone away. The people with whom I shared my time and my life are leaving me and I can’t quite figure out why. I’ve considered the fact that it may be something that I’ve done, but if so...I honestly don’t know what it is. Trying to figure it out is a very disheartening endeavor in itself. Anyway...with them gone, there are no more family meals, no one with whom to watch Jeopardy, no one to hold hands with during summer evening walks and no one to whom I can say...“Look at that sky...isn’t it beautiful tonight? Oh my God...did you see that shooting star!”

I’ve been in this house alone for a solid week and it’s been a very long time since anyone asked me to play cards, chat with them over coffee or watch a movie. I’m afraid to drive anymore so I can’t even go out to the library and read amongst people. I have no plans for New Years Eve and not a soul has invited me to go with them to a party. I’ll watch the Ball drop over Times Square alone in my living room.

I’m sad because I don’t understand why the people in my life don’t seem to care and I blame myself for some mysterious wrongdoing...after all, why would this be happening if I wasn’t doing something wrong...and why can’t I figure out what it is? I try to do the right thing and I pride myself on that truth. I pray for guidance but I don’t see any corridor leading me to some other code of ethics.

I keep having one health problem after another and it’s not that I can’t handle that crap...I’m actually getting pretty used to it. They call it acceptance. It’s just that I’m afraid of going through it all alone. I was alone in the emergency room the other night and that felt pretty pathetic.

I felt like a homeless person under that sheet. I felt it because that’s what I though the staff thought of me. Not homeless in the fact that I don’t have a home so much as that there wasn’t anyone there to claim me as their loved one. There was no one to worry about why I felt so badly and no one to bitch at that nasty staff for me. Like it or not, hospital...and nursing homes for that matter...don’t think much of people with no family. And, without irate families to contend with, many give lesser care. That’s a fact. Anyway, they certainly looked upon me with a non-caring attitude. I would never, ever...under any circumstances, treat another human being like that. I laid under that sheet and considered the dignity with which I have always accorded my patients and yet there I was...being dismissed by people who are PAID to care.

Of course...there are people who I’m sure care about me. My daughter is such a good friend to me. She loves me so much and for that I am grateful. But she has her own life in Chicago and I’m happy for her and proud of the life she is making for herself. My father cares, but he has taken in his sick ex wife and she pretty much takes up all of his time. I have friends in Chicago and Virginia, but like a moron, I left them all for my husband...one of the bigger bonehead moves of my life. Especially considering the fact that the reason for the move was to run away from one of my husband's most recent affairs, his idea, not mine.

Anyone, everyone has their own lives and that’s a good thing. I had one myself but I lost it.

I won’t get too deep into despair or anything stupid like that...I’ll just be sad for a while. They say that everyone gets sad at the holidays and I bet that’s all it is. I’m sure I’ll be better when the weather gets better, if not sooner.

See ya,

Meg

Oh my...I've finally attracted an Elvis Impersonator....obviously he has never read my posts making fun of them....LOLOLOLOL.

The holiday season is a time for increased visitation at the nursing homes that house our elderly. The homes are full of children, the walls are full of Christmas cards and the faces are full of smiles. The residents sit around in their wheelchairs proudly trading stories of time spent with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The halls are decorated with symbols of the season and the rooms themselves are decorated with care by family member’s or the old people themselves in an attempt to capture just a tiny piece of the holiday spirit. For these people, the possibility of this being their last Christmas is far too real. Next year, it may be for them whom we sing Auld Lang Syne.

Amid all the hustle and bustle of people remembering Grandma on Christmastime, there is an occasional resident who hasn’t so much as a Christmas card on the wall much less a wreathe on their door. No visitors for them...they just get to watch.

How will the historians of the future describe what it is that we do with our elderly? Will they say that we cared for them with the love and care due the people who loved and cared for us? Or will they say that we shipped them off en masse to be cared for by strangers who were paid minimum wage?

Did we accord them the dignity with which they conducted their lives? Did we remember that it was these people who built our world and then, entrusted it to us when the time came? A man who survived the Bataan Death March once told me that the Philippines were nothing compared to life in a nursing home. He meant it. During WWII, he had the hope of a young man...in the nursing home, there was no such hope. For most of these folks, death is most assuredly the only way out....even if that person is a real life hero and a true national treasure.

For those lucky few who have a loving and attentive family, there is more life to be lived. They still have their place in this world. But when family goes away and fails to return, there is nothing left behind but the ghost of a life that is no more. The eyes of these ghosts are empty in a way that surpasses sadness. Sadness would imply the existence of some emotion and for these ghosts, emotion is long gone. The loneliness has turned them inward to a place that can no longer be reached by another human.

Life slips away so insidiously that we actually celebrate the milestones that necessarily mean that we are indeed, slowly losing the things that define us. After we marry off our children and collect our gold watches, all that is left is our “stuff” and our family. All of the “stuff’ in the world is meaningless, especially if our home is a tiny room in a nursing home. Without family and friends, these rooms are little more than death chambers.

There’s a man who resides in a local nursing home who is a ward of the state. Earlier this year, he had no shoes and his case worker was apparently far too overworked to find the time to bring shoes to this man who had no one else in the world who cared whether or not his feet had shoes on them. Call after call to the county failed to produce a pair of shoes. Eventually a kind worker brought in a pair of shoes that her husband no longer wore. America should be able to do better for these people.

With the baby boomers just beginning to hit the nursing homes, those of us who are still able to make a difference had better get the job done because we’re next. Like it or not, we are the next generation to inhabit the old folks homes. Chances are, if you had to move to one tomorrow, you wouldn’t like it. You wouldn’t like the taste of the food, the institutional schedule or the starkness of your room. You wouldn’t like the diapers that they slap on each and every new resident. They know something that you don’t...if you live in a nursing home and you’re dependent upon assistance to get to the bathroom, you probably won’t get that assistance in time.

If you find a nursing home worker that does care, you can be sure that they are overworked and underpaid. Corporate offices are concerned with profits and administrators with state regulations. There’s little more than kindness and decency to motivate these workers. Kindness and decency are a bit more apparent at this time of year than most others...but for the ghosts who sit alone...they’re little more than a distant memory.

In case you haven’t yet come up with a New Year’s resolution, here’s an idea. Vow to make a friend of a nursing home resident. That is truly a gift that will keep on giving, especially if you bring your children along.

OK...

...you guys have me so confused about the titty bars. I thought that all men liked them but here’s a thought:

I have never been to a titty bar either, never could understand the concept. Why would I want to look at something I can’t touch?

I don’t know...why would any man? I guess it’s the fantasy thing, like Todd said. I really wouldn’t mind going with him...I’m almost looking forward to it now. Especially when so many of my blog buddies are encouraging me:

Have Todd take you to one of those clubs!

I like these guys and they wouldn’t steer me wrong so what the hell. If they thought it was perverted, they’d tell me, so I’m gonna trust them and go. I’m so turned on by this honest and open relationship crap that I can barely contain myself. It’s so cool to believe a guy when he talks. I love it. Hell, if a guy bought me some work out equipment and waited a while...I’d buy a pole and ride that fucker myself.

Of course, there were some men who said things like this:

...I wish that my own wife would have been that open minded. She never had an interest in looking at any sexually oriented stuff, she would even bitch if I had a copy of "Easy Riders Magazine" around because of the centerfolds...

I do understand why there are some women who think like that. They feel as though they should be enough for their man...he’s usually enough for them. I guess it’s all in the way the guy goes about it. If he invites you to go with, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t...like I said, if he wants you to be a part of it, that’s pretty cool. It’s not as though men don’t know women like this exist, you’re just being silly not to go along. If you really don’t want to go...stay home or go out yourself while he does it. If it’s a rare thing, it doesn’t really do any damage. It’s just healthy man stuff. Of course...when a man starts using the rent money, there’s a HUGE problem there. But, as an occasional night out, what’s the harm? I think that an honest man should be given some slack...after all, if you can trust him to tell you the truth, you can just relax and enjoy the relationship. Actually, an honest man is a smart man. He’ll end up with a wife who is much more secure and likely to do that kind of stuff with him.

If the honesty tone is set early in a relationship and nothing happens to ruin it, then I think that everyone is more giving and forgiving of such things. But when you can’t trust a guy any further than you can throw him, you’re pretty much screwed anyway. I couldn’t get into my car without looking for signs of Rick’s little tramps. I was consumed with trying to figure out what was going on and he was not even really good at lying, but he was so into what Todd calls “The Deny All Theory” that he couldn’t even consider honesty. You know that, “Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” BS. Rick was great at that. He held so steadfastly to his lies that after a while...I started to believe what he was saying. Todd said that as a teenager, he used that tact and knew that we (women in general) would fall for it. Shame on Rick for using it and shame on me for falling for it.

I know so many happily married men who read girlie magazines that I can’t count them. So...I know that there isn’t necessarily a correlation between smut and cheating. And...I never caught Rick with one (although there was that time that I walked in on him whacking off to the slanted reception of some porno channel that we didn't receive) and he cheated every time a slut offered him the opportunity. “No” was not in his vocabulary. He's stuck at that adolescent phase where all it takes for him to like a girl is for her to like him first. I feel sorry for his next “woman”. Not the one he left me for, but the next nice girl that he finds. He will screw her life up sure as shootin’. Oh well, I’ve got my own problems.

Knowing that Rick will be a miserable bastard for quite some time gives me quite a bit of satisfaction. Sorry if that makes me a bitch, but it’s the truth. And if Donald Trump himself wanted to marry me...I’d turn his ass down for Rick’s 800 bucks a month.

Yep. That 800 bucks is a fun 800 bucks to receive...I must admit. So...I’ll pay the bills with that and let Todd take me to a titty bar. Hell, maybe he’ll even get me that exercise equipment...and I’ll spend the last 800 I get from Rick on that pole.

See ya later,

Meg

A friend of mine asked me...

...if I wanted to go to a titty bar with him last night. I entertained the idea but was never forced to make a decision because he had a flat tire or something stupid like that and never did go. The only reason I even considered it is that it’s something that I’ve never done and I always like to say that I’ll try anything once. I can’t see anything fun in it but I can’t say that for sure unless I try it so I would have, but we never did. In the meantime, I discussed it with Todd who said that he would take me sometime so I guess I will go, but only because they have pool tables.

I’ll shoot pool while the men watch the snatches fly. That’s fun for me, I don’t care if the chicks there are all naked. Hell, half of the women in any bar are pretty funky anyway so it wouldn’t bother me unless they ruined my pool game. I think it might work to my advantage, the men that I would play with would be so distracted that I could probably beat them more easily than I usually do.

What an interesting conversation that topic evoked. Todd tried to get me to say that a woman’s body was more fun to watch than a man’s body. I conceded that the woman’s body might be nicer than a man’s body...but I would STILL rather see a naked man than a naked woman.

Call me kooky, I’m a straight female and that’s just part of being a straight female. If I were to paint a beautiful painting, I might choose to paint a woman, but if I were just going to peek, I’d rather peek at a man.

Am I alone here? I wouldn't be jealous of a man who went to the titty bar, that's one place that I would be pretty sure that he wouldn't get laid. Hell, look at Rick, he'd screw co-workers and convenience store clerks, no place if safe with a cheater and a guy who wouldn't cheat wouldn't do it wherever he was.

My mother took me and my aunt to a male strip club 27 years ago and that’s as close as I’ve ever gotten. Of course, I was quite young and embarrassed at the time, especially with my mother getting so into it and slipping all of her money in the g-strings of buff young men. She had a great time, I didn’t. It wasn’t rotten, just not my cup of tea.

I guess it’s just that stuff about men being visual and women, not so much. I’ve been in many locker rooms in my day and I’ve seen plenty of naked women so it’s not something that I have ever felt like I missed.

Being in sports in high school, we had our locker room antics and joining spas as an adult, I’ve seen more female nudity than I ever wanted to so I wouldn’t bother paying for it. But, I would go with a guy who wanted me to go with him. At least he wanted me to be a part of it. The only way it would bother me if my guy did go... is if he lied about it. But that’s the same way I’d feel about anything that a man did and lied about.

Everything Rick did annoyed me because he lied about it all. He never gave me a chance to respond to anything but lies so naturally, he figured that I was a bitch. It wasn’t what he did so much as how he lied about things. To this day, the man doesn’t get it. He would lie about anything in the world...never once even TRYING the truth.

Anyway, I don’t see me going anytime soon, but you never know. I woke up this morning to my Monopoly Game all over my bedroom. That stupid dog ate most of it and spread it all around my room. That’s what I get for letting him sleep outside of the kennel. That won’t happen again for a very long time. I’ve had that game for years. It survived all of my kids as well as moves to 3 states and it was in perfect condition. Not anymore. Sometimes I feel like ripping up all his chew toys but somehow, I doubt that would help.

Oh, I figured out what that pain was that sent me to the ER the other night. It finally went around my ribs and settled in my back. I guess it was just my usual pain, it’s just the first time that it was in my chest. That scared me and I never considered that it could be the regular cancer pain. So, a few pain pills later and I feel fine.

OK...I’m gonna act like it’s morning and go get dressed and handle some business. I have to pay some bills and stupid stuff like that. I guess I’ll go jump in the shower now...that should wake me up pretty well. So, I’ll see you later, after I run some errands.

Meg

Hi!

Sorry I was gone for so long but my computer was broken. Actually, it wasn’t the computer, it turned out to be a router that my son’s friend hooked up for no reason at all. I ended up bypassing it and that worked, but before that, I had to try all of the obvious things that it could have been and that took 2 days to go through.

First, I tried going through the cable company and that was the most annoying of all the things that I tried to fix. On Christmas, I tried to call and got the C team of technicians. That guy was such an idiot, he had me turning cables around and of course, that didn’t do a thing. The next day, it occurred to me that maybe they did have the new guys working on Christmas so I called back. That guy said it was my network card. I had to listen to the world’s most beautiful music while I waited on hold and that annoyed me because I knew that they were just trying to calm be down and refrain me from getting angry as I waited and waited. The fact that I knew they were trying to calm me down just irritated me more.

So, off to Circuit City I went to get the network card fixed. I met a guy there who used to work with Rick and he saw the name on the computer so he cleaned it all and checked it for me for free. I didn’t tell him that Rick was long gone, I just took the freebie. It turned out that there wasn’t anything wrong with my computer anyway so I took it home and hooked it back up. I called the cable guys one last time and finally got one who asked the right questions and we fixed it. So, here I am.
I had this hideous chest pain yesterday and I ended up going to the hospital but they couldn’t find anything wrong with me anymore than the Circuit City dude could find anything wrong with the computer.

After they did the EKG and a few other tests, they decided that I wasn’t dieing so they put me in the hall and that was just about as embarrassing as it could be. I pulled the sheet up over my head and let people think that I was one of the less fortunate of the holiday sickies.

I don’t feel much better this morning but as long as I know that I’m not having a heart attack, I don’t care too much. I can handle pain, but I would rather not die today. I’m gonna assume that it’s a muscle or something like that and hope that it goes away soon.

Well, I still don’t feel well and I’m kind of sad today so I’m gonna go and feel sorry for myself for a while. Have a good day and I’ll see you later.

Meg

Kim Basinger seems to love backing causes...it would seem as though she is now vying for the title, “Saint of Mothers Who Assassinate Father/Child Relationships For No Good Reason”. After co-parenting daughter Ireland for 10 years, Basinger has decided that Alec Baldwin is no longer worthy of the role of father because there has not been enough “consideration for my time and work commitments” and Baldwin’s presence is a “disruption to Ireland’s life.”

Court documents filed by Baldwin request the “disruption” of “co-parenting counseling” and a change in therapists. Co-parenting counseling seems quite reasonable to most people. Especially considering the history of the couple who have been bickering over the 10 year old since their 2001 divorce.

Of course, we are not privy to any of the particulars in the case. But one would expect that had Mr. Baldwin committed some hideous infraction in the time since the brutal divorce, Basinger would have seen to it that the media was aware of the situation. So, in this case, surely no news is good news. Yet Basinger's attorney fills 69 pages of court documents with reasons why she should not attend co-parenting classes with her ex.

Basinger seems to be leading the charge of women who seek to remove superfluous husbands by proxy. They effectively take away all access to their children from father’s who are guilty of nothing more than existing past their usefullness. Beyond child support, these women are convinced that the men with whom they produced these children serve no purpose. So, these men are banished from the lives of their children by women who find them to be more of an inconvenience than an asset.

Shortly after these men become burdens to their wives, all too often, they come home to an empty house. Phone calls fail to verify the location of the man’s family. That’s because the men don’t seem to call the people who DO know what’s going on, the police. Of course, he needn’t call them, they’re on their way over to arrest him for domestic violence or something worse. Now, the first step is done. He’s out of the house.

The next step is to keep him out of the house and that takes a very long time. But, as an affront to women who are truly victimized, these women manipulate the court system for years in their efforts. The more sadistic of these women begin poisoning the minds of innocent children. A “victimized” wife can get a man out of the house overnight. It takes a “victimized” child to keep them out for good.

The brainwashing that these children receive is extremely effective. It takes some particularly accomplished manipulation to evoke such “obsessional hatred”, that it “extends to the targeted parent's extended family without any guilt or remorse.”

In The Parental Alienation Directory, Dr. Douglas Darnall states that the young victims of mothers consumed with hatred, "have no capacity to feel guilty about how they behave towards the targeted parent or forgive any past indiscretions." Dr, Darnell describes a pattern of behavior that he has termed Parental Alienation Syndrome and it is not a pretty picture. Although men most assuredly have the ability to exact this behavior upon children, for whatever reasons, the majority of parents who inflict PAS upon children are women.

Loving mothers want to see their children surrounded by as many people who love them as possible. But the mother’s who cause children to have “difficulty making any differentiations between...personal experiences with the targeted parent” and “what they are told by the Obsessed Alienator.”, are more concerned with some fantasy life where the father simply does not exist than with the welfare of the children. In a society where we chastise men for not rising to the occasion when they father a child, how can we let these mothers off the hook when they steal not only the father, but the father’s entire family from the child? Grandmother’s, Grandfather’s, aunt’s and uncle’s are all fair game for these women.

When the accusations fly, the extended family is not immune. A women in metropolitan Atlanta accused her daughter’s grandparents of standing by while the father, “struck her once, throwing her to the ground. Then, he struck her again and she fell to the ground again.” In this devastatingly classic case of Parental Alienation Syndrome, this particular father is about the give up on his daughter after two years of fighting with his ex wife. He has been arrested 3 times, his elderly parents have been named in abuse accusations filed with the Paulding County Georgia court. During the Christmas holidays, the counselor ordered by Paulding County told this father that “the best Christmas gift that you can give your daughter is to stay away during the holidays.”

When Alec Baldwin requests a change in counselors, it’s entirely possible that he may have good cause. With “therapists” out there telling fathers that they can best serve their child by “staying away”, perhaps Baldwin’s request should be given due consideration.

Unfortunately, “severe alienation is usually irreversible” and more and more men like the Paulding County Georgia father are throwing up their hands in utter desperation after years of false accusations and alienation from their children. Until judges and therapists, along with the public in general, recognize PAS for the crime that it is, father’s without Baldwin’s resources will continue to “stay away”. Hopefully, Baldwin himself will continue...to the best of his ability...to be a “disruption” in his daughter’s life.

For more information, go to: http://www.parentalalienation.com/pasdirectory.htm

Meg

...I’m a man and I think that your ex should be shot. He’s the type of man that gives the rest of us a bad name. I always pay the price for the damage that these men cause when they behave like animals...

Honey...I hear ya. But I think that I could take it further...it’s HUMANS like these that give the rest of us all a bad name. Male or female...he makes all of us look bad. Whatever.

I guess sluts need love too. What would sluts have to do if their weren’t men like these? They’d have to count on geeks and perverts to have sex with if their weren’t married men who cheated.

I think I’m going on a trip. I may be going to Arizona next month, I hope so....I’m freezing here. I’ll let you know later. I’ve been there once and it was about this time of year. It was nice and warm. I got a sunburn skinny-dipping in a beautiful pond that was supplied by a stream that was full of melted snow from the Rocky Mountains. I was 18 and having a really, really nice time.

I met a man named Roger who lived in Phoenix and he was a photographer. We went driving from Phoenix to Carefree Arizona to Nogales Mexico, all through the desert in a 4 wheel drive pick up. It was pretty fun. He brought his camera along and I’ve been afraid of those pictures popping up ever since.

Back in the day before my husbands had totally trashed my self esteem, I had much fewer inhibitions and much more confidence in myself. So, when he asked me to pose for him, I didn’t mind one bit.

He had a bunch of stuff in the back of the truck and amongst it all, I found some black leather chaps, a vest and a cowboy hat. So, I did what any fun loving 18 year old would have done (keeping in mind it was the 70’s), I put them on. Roger started taking pictures and I’ve been nervously waiting ever since. From what I remember, they weren’t anything bad...I never got to see the pictures...but I didn’t do anything freaky. I just posed by some rocks. I had never seen Hustler and at that time, all of my ideas would have come from Playboy and back then, even THAT was pretty sedate by today’s standards.

I doubt that they would be bad...just embarrassing. I’d almost like to just get it over with and have them pop up on the internet...just so I can stop worrying about them.

Is there was one time in your life that you would like to revisit? I’d like to go back to that trip from Chicago to San Francisco. It took a few weeks to get there and I had a BUNCH of fun along the way. Roger was only one of my adventures.

Then there was Keith, a one testicled British dude, who I met somehwere near Needles or Blythe California. He was a placemat salesman, traveling all over the country selling placemats to restaurants. He had an office on Hollywood Blvd. and had to go up there for a little while so I walked down the street to Mann’s Chinese Theater, or whatever they called in back then. I went to a few of the tourist places and when it was time to go back and meet Keith for lunch...I went to his building and sat on the curb in front of it.

While I was waiting, a few guys asked me for a date. I was absolutely full of myself. I thought I was hot...getting hit on by so many men in Hollywood.

When Keith came back down, he took me to a Hungarian restaurant for lunch. During our meal, I bragged to my friend about all of the offers that I had turned down for him. He burst my bubble and for that....I shall never forgive him.

He said, “They thought you were a hooker.”

I suddenly became forlorn.

Then I embarrassed my date by asking the waiter dude for ketchup. I don’t know what the heck that stuff we were eating was. It looked like beef stew with large pieces of vegetables and meat, but I never did find out what kind of meat it was. Anyway, Keith didn’t like it when I requested ketchup.

Fuck him. Burst my ego bubble, will ya? And that from a man with one testicle. How dare he. By the way, I don’t know what happened to his other ball...he told me but I’ve forgotten. I do remember not believing him when he told me that he only had one testicle...but I can safely say, after a medical evaluation, that he was...most assuredly, down a nut.

Yeah, that was a fun trip. I often wonder where those guys are. Anyway, THAT’S where I’d go if I could revisit one certain time in my life. Shortly after that I got married and it’s been downhill ever since.

Meg

You know...

...it never occurred to me that men would think that the tree was getting it up the ASS in that picture. I’m such an idiot. This is one way that we think differently...I didn’t even see the sexual nature of that picture. Not like you guys did...not enough to consider portals. Men see sex in every single thing that we do...I missed it in a picture of a tree fucking another tree. What a nit wit, of course men would look a tad beyond the humor of the situation.

So...guys figured that the tree had an ass and that the tree on the bottom was the tree chick. How narrow minded of you. Couldn't the bottom tree be the guy with a strange tree dick? In tree sex, it is possible that the man is on the bottom.

And...no. I never did that. BUT...

...there was this one time. The guy slipped one in one me after I had slammed a few beers down. I guess he figured that I wouldn’t notice or maybe even that I might not mind. I slammed that door in his face and, pardon the pun but, toot sweet. Make this my official proclamation...there truly is a never never land.

The jack ass said that it was an accident, but no other man, before or since that little incursion, has ever gotten so fucking lost. I might have believed his bullshit, if he hadn’t already told me that his ex wife liked it up the ass. I was never then, nor I am now, anywhere near as stupid as the men in my life seem to think that I am. What nimrods.

So, to answer that question. Nope. Except for that one time and that time doesn’t really count because I didn’t enjoy it.

Well, my mind’s pretty much a blank this morning except for that dick up the ass story. I suppose I could watch TV...I could watch that for a while but it’s really pretty stupid. I like two shows, Cheaters and Punked. After that...I hate television. I have to check it every once in a while to remind myself how stupid people are but other than that, I have very little use for that box in the other room. It’s easy to get rid of that thing, just do something else. There are a few reruns that I like but they don’t have a Seinfeld channel and they don’t have an old Dick Van Dyke channel and until they do, I’m not watching it.

I do feel pretty left out when everybody chats about TV people. I never know anybody that they’re talking about. I watched Seinfeld but before that, I had pretty much stopped watching network TV when they cancelled MASH. I’m really out of the loop.

People find it hard to believe that someone has never seen a single episode of Survivor or those rehashed 50’s talent show things. I seem to remember something called the Amateur Hour. These guys have truly sunk to new lows. Maybe I Dream of Jeannie wasn’t dreadfully sophisticated, but it was different.

There was a time when movie actors wouldn’t be caught dead doing television and now they’re all doing movies based on the same TV shows that they made fun of twenty years ago. If things go in cycles, I’m at the spot where I came in as it relates to television and I’ll be back when they come up with another Seinfeld.

They even redid a stupid movie...King Kong...which was so dumb that I couldn’t believe that they could miss the only thing that people came to see, the special effects. They had never seen anything like that before.

Sometime around the time that Pong came along, an ape on the Empire State Building ceased to be intriguing. I can still appreciate a good movie, I just see so few of them. I’m waiting to see who they get to swoop in as the Lone Ranger shouting “Hiyoooo Silver...away!!!!” That Banderos chap would probably do that role, if you let his silly, soft speaker of a wife be in it too.

Oh, by the way....the Sorry Seaman lives in Alabama. That’s right folks...the married man who married the woman down the street before his REAL marriage was over lives right smack dab in The Heart of Dixie. Some Navy-nuts are gonna be roasting over an open fire this Christmas. This one is too good to be kept all to myself. Wouldn’t you think that this would be quite the challenge to Dr. Phil?

On that note...I have to go wash my dishes now. Maybe not. Maybe I can find a car chase or something on TV. See ya.

Meg

Well, well, well...

...it seems as though some Atlantans have taken offense at my thought’s on their driving “skills”:

“...I have to keep yanking you back to reality -- you're the one who spends so much time in traffic court...”

Oh yeah? Listen, there’s nothing wrong with my driving skills. It’s just that the cops all want me. Either that or they want a raise. A cop friend of mine wrote me that:

“...my evaluations usually reflected the fact that I was not much of a ticket writer. "Needs to be more pro-active in traffic enforcement related duties..."

Well, the fact that some cops are chastised for not being as “pro-active” as they should be when it comes to ticket writing implies that there are some who are commended for it. Isn’t that a scary thought? These yahoos get raises for writing tickets.

Once I sent a patient to the emergency room from the nursing home at which I was working. I was quite sure that she had a fractured hip and right or wrong, she was in far too much pain for me to control so I sent her out. As the paramedics wheeled her down the hall, I was informed that, “If they don’t admit her to the hospital, the insurance will make us pay for the trip.”

I spent many years training to be a nurse, never once did anyone mention insurance as a consideration when sending people out for further medical care. But, a consideration it is.

There are some decisions that should never be made with concern for financial gain of any sort. The law and medicine are two such professions where it should never enter the minds of those in control.

The cops that write as many tickets as possible, like the psychiatrist who treats people for 20 years and never cures them, should be dragged and quartered.

Oh, by the way...remember the lady who found herself the victim of a cheating husband, fraudulent divorce papers and still married to her louse of a spouse? Well, the debauched husband had her dropped from his medical insurance from the US Navy even before the fake divorce. Here’s an update from the “wife that counts”:

“...Great news!
I just got off the phone with a woman in the HQ of the Navy department that handles this kind of stuff and as of this morning fraudulent wife is removed from the insurance and I am back on, retroactive!...”

Methinks that the “wife who doesn’t count” will be notified in a rather official manner. The Navy will see to that. You don’t have to call Cleo to know that this guy is in some serious hot water, water so hot that the Navy will want to ship his ass inland...to maybe...Fort Leavenworth? Stay tuned...I think the shit’s about to hit a submarine propeller in that household.

“...maybe he left you because you couldn’t satisfy him...men need sex...”

Since you have never been the recipient of one of my blow jobs...I’m gonna let that one go. But trust me...it was I who begged for sex. And not in a kinky way. It was more an act of desperation. And this from the man to whom I gave the ultimate gift...I brought another woman into our bed for him once as a present. It was a woman that I knew he liked. There was nothing more that I could have done.

All I got was a big hairy back to my face and I even tried licking that nasty thing. Believe me when I say that I would be doing that for a long time and with many detours. I could be totally under the blankets doing my thing and all he would do was snore. The doctors gave him testosterone patches and Viagra...but he never used them. Go figure.

Well, I have a flat tire and it happened in the driveway so I have to tend to it. I’d rather break down on the highway because all I have to do in that situation is stand there holding two pieces of a jack looking confused. Someone will help very soon. And, my car that doesn’t work apparently has the wrong tires. My son said they wouldn’t work...apparently they make different sizes. Whatever.

So, I have to get dressed and act like I’m leaving my warm house for the bitter cold outside. I hate that.

See ya,

Meg

Hey Woodie, you know, this was fun in 1847, but my back hurts now so could you just hurry up and get it over with already?

Too bad I didn't consider that while it was still a viable option.

It would appear as though our government is eavesdropping on us. Our fear of exploding airplanes has been manipulated into an entity that the NSA and White house are using to garner more and more power. With power being such a valuable commodity, one could easily accuse the government of gouging our Constitution, and the freedoms that it accords us, in the midst of a disaster.

The special actions being conducted by our government are, by mere definition, unknown to us and therefore we are left in a position where we must give blind faith to people who proclaim to act on our behalf. Apparently, next we just have to hope for the best.

We must have blind faith that party loyalties and political alliances will not be placed above the ideals that we are espousing with this war on terror in the first place. And, we must have faith that this will occur in a terrain where party loyalties and political alliances assure survival.

Yikes.

It’s a shame that this issue, like most others, are squabbled over according to party lines and political correctness. Too many politicians lick their thumbs and stick them up in the air instead of considering what the right thing to do might be. Now, these people aren’t in the positions they’re in because they have done much thinking about what the right thing is. They’re where they are because they’ve kissed a lot of...babies.

There isn’t much room for a maverick in American politics. They just don’t fare well at election time when endorsements are sought. The backing, financial and otherwise, is given to those who have played the game well enough to be accepted into the most powerful clique on Earth.

The worst part is that if one does question the efforts of the government, they’re branded a traitor to something...their political party, their President or even their country. If they do that on a good day they run the risk of being branded a conspiracy theorist, therefore effectively diminishing their validity more than a little bit. If they do it on a bad day, they are most certainly a turncoat.

So, what are we supposed to do when the government snatches the ability for us to communicate in private? It would probably be a good idea to make very good use of our freedom to communicate publicly right now. We need to think about this while we still have the inalienable right to exchange ideas. Like a person who takes medicine, we need to consider which benefits outweigh what risks.

When Americans are attacked, we are constantly reminded to, “Do whatever you would normally do. The terrorists want you do be afraid. They thrive on it. Go about your business as you usually would. That’s how to defeat them. Don’t let them win by changing your habits.”

Well, is that not what our government is doing? Are they not changing habits rather drastically? They are grabbing more power and they are not a group known for giving back power back once they have obtained it. This time they are taking our privacy and those who question the move are told, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”


What?! To whom was the right to privacy guaranteed? Did we promise criminals that they could have privacy? Did we promise it to the terrorists? Or did we promise it to innocent people with nothing to hide?

How can the desire for privacy equate with having something to hide? That’s just stupid and an argument that only a very shortsighted individual would deliberate. It’s a very short leap from that line of reasoning to tossing people in a lake because, “If they’re innocent, surely they’ll float.”

Questioning our government shouldn’t be considered partisanship, it should be considered citizenship. And a good citizen should always exercise his freedoms or like muscles, they will waste away.

Total power is not exacted overnight...it must be taken slowly, piece by piece. A people must be desensitized to the loss of freedoms over time. An authority must come at you as a friend, acting on your behalf, in order to gain and maintain power over you. There must be promises of security and peace somewhere along the road to complete domination. It doesn’t hurt if there is a common enemy, a group of people that all others perceive as a danger to their way of life. And, of course, if all else fails, divide and conquer. It works every time, just ask Hitler.

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

"He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm."

Meg

It’s funny...

...how an insignificant action of one person can have such far reaching effects upon others. My son, unbeknownst to me, sprinkled copious amounts of cayenne pepper onto a pizza. Then, he cut the pizza into pieces and offered me some. I put two slices of the pizza on a plate and sat the plate on the table. As I was getting myself a drink, I decided to feed the fish. On one finger I had a tiny bit of pizza sauce and I accidentally got some of the fish food on it as I was feeding the fish. I didn’t worry, I just figured that maybe the fish would like a bit of pizza flavored fish food. After all, the Italians do great things with seafood.

Then, I tasted the pizza. It was one of those bites of food that are so hot...and unexpectedly hot at that...that it took close to 10 minutes for my mouth to cool off. I was doing the universal sign for “This crap is too hot!!!!!”, fanning my mouth with my hand. I’m barely over that now and I’m thinking about the fish...did that happen to them, too? It wouldn’t take much cayenne pepper at all to burn a fish’s mouth.

I pigged out last night and ate a bunch of Popsicle's...actually they’re fruit-sicle’s...I love those things. I eat them in a manner that would probably require some sort of 12 Step Program to recover from. I can easily eat the entire box of 6 in an evening. A friend of mine thinks that’s ridiculous but I say that it’s no worse than drinking a 6 pack. Actually, it’s sort of the same. You want to finish them both before they get too hot. And once you start enjoying them, it’s hard to stop until you either run out or fall asleep. They're both habit forming and neither one of them is very healthy for a person.

But, I would rather eat a box of Popsicles than drink a 6 pack of beer. You might get fat...but you won’t get stupid. My buddy was drunk the other night and I had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of one of those phone calls where the drunk person is making little sense, misinterpreting everything that you say and having little arguments....all by themselves.

I didn’t have to say a thing, as a matter of fact, I tried not to. I didn’t realize that he was drunk at first. He really wasn’t drunk when he first called me, but somewhere along the way...I noticed the slurring of his words and realized that he wasn’t just in a very good mood that night, he was drunk. He went from being happy to word slurring to “Shut up!” to “You just don’t understand.”, all within 30 minutes. The phone call was longer...but that’s how quickly he went from relatively sober to totally shit faced. What a fun conversation.

I tried to be nice...I suggested, “Why don’t you drink some water and take some aspirin before you pass out? It might help your hangover.”

“Well listen you...it’s MY GOD DAMNED HANGOVER AND I’M GONNA SAVOR EVERY MINUTE OF IT....because it’s MY FRIDAY!!!! Do you hear me? And who are you to question what I do?”

“I’m just trying to help...that’s all.”

“I’m a BIG BOY....do you hear me? A BIG BOY...and me and my other BIG “BOY‘S” went out for some beers...I told you that! We had beerwings. I like beerwings. I bought my buddy beerwings and I DON’T CARE IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT!!!!”

I think beerwings are a combination of beer and chicken wings. But who the hell knows, he was quite a mess. For all I know, he could have been seeing beer mugs flying through the air.

'Tis the season to be stupid and many of us are going to get pretty good and stupid at least once this holiday season. I think that it should be a law that all phones are turned off when people start drinking. Especially with cell phones...now drunks can call you directly from the bar. They don’t have to wait until 3 am when the bars have closed and they are at home.

Once a person can conduct an entire argument by themselves...it’s time to get off the phone. What I don’t understand is how someone so drunk can even manage a phone call. Unfortunately, they always seem to dial the correct number immediately before they lose all comprehension. So, I think that we should have built in breathalyzer's in the phones. That should be easy enough...just combine electronics with alcohol monitoring...I’m sure it could be done relatively easily. OK. That’s MY idea. If anyone copies it...I reserve the right to sue them.

See ya,

Meg

Hi.

I don't have anything to do except to wait for the Bears game to start tonight. I found myself channel surfing and thought that my time could be better spent so here I am. Channel surfing is an activity that, like soap operas, I think that I should eliminate from my life.

So, like Pine Valley, I say goodbye to channel surfing. I’ve tried to go cold turkey on the clicker altogether but I just can't seem to do it. They don’t have a methadone clinic for clicker addicts so I would have to quit on my own and that would just be too difficult. I couldn’t do that without an idiot around to change the channels for me and since I got rid of Rick, the idiot supply has pretty much dwindled to nothing around here.

I should be nicer to Rick but he irritates the hell out of me. He always has, and by writing this thing and taking cheap shots at him, I no longer have to suffer in silence. I've stopped finding myself thinking, “Oh shit, I’ve married a moron.”

I’ve met quite a few men who are general shits in one way or another...but most of them have been MUCH brighter than Rick. Of course, that didn’t take too much doing but in the past year and a half, there has only been one guy anywhere NEAR as dumb as Rick. He was only 29 and while that may have accounted for some of it, he was most assuredly a moron. I've met many intelligent 29 year olds. This one was as dumb as dirt. Yet...he was the one and only person who could set my alarm clock.

Many people with IQ’s approaching 150 had attempted to set this stupid alarm clock. It took me an hour to do it myself, the alarms and pre-sets, when I HAD the instructions. I got it set and promptly lost them. They’re in this stupid house somewhere, but I don't know where.

Ever since, I haven’t been able to set the stupid thing. I can’t do the pre-sets so I just set the alarm to the most annoying sound that I can find. That’s usually country music or rap...that crap exasperates the hell outta me. Anyway, I suppose that Rick could have probably set the stupid thing, judging by the one idiot who DID get it right. And, after all, that was Rick's “field”. Fixing little tiny shit at a desk all alone, surrounded by TV's. This job has left him with a very low rate of social incindence.

He has no place from which to learn the norms of society. What he does soak up, he does so by watching television. He’s apparently watched a few too many Jerry Springer's to think that screwing a bimbo in a trailer park is acceptable. I have to keep reminding myself that he is, and always will be a social clod who can’t summon strength of an honest man on any given day in his life. When presented with the option of telling the truth or taking the path of least resistance, integrity be damned, he will lie his way out of anything that you haven’t collected DNA evidence to otherwise establish. Rick never cared how many laws of physics his lies would break...if you didn't have him on tape, it didn't happen. This is why I love karma so much.

So, for now, I just get to sit back and watch karma beat the crap out of this freak of masculine society. I have made e-friends with a lady who gets to do the same. Only she's QUITE the lucky jilted woman, she gets to sit back and watch karma kick the Holy SHIT out of HER husband.

This bum had an affair with some nasty bitch from down the street and moved in with her...leaving their children in the embarrassing situation of having to see each other in school. How awful must THAT be? Can you imagine? Affairs so totally mess up children and so many selfish people don’t seem to care.

He dropped his wife from the medical insurance that he got from the US Navy even BEFORE the divorce. Just to be a jerk. Even the Navy is having a few "issues" with him and his fraud.

Then he married the neighborhood tramp and somehow, did so before the first marriage was final. So, my e-friend has just found out that she is still married to the bum. Everybody except the new "wife" is aware of this situation. This ass, like Rick, has chosen the path of least resistance, lying his way through life...when sooner or later it will all blow up in his face. Once you start lying like that, you pretty much ensure that any relationship that you might have is totally bullshit anyway.

Ain’t karma grand? The very same behavior that gets one into a relationship where the children are humiliated is the exact same behavior that ends up annihilating any chances of a happy life with the current sap. There is a woman out there who thinks that she is happily married to the man that she stole from the family down the street when, in reality, she is nothing more than the "wife who doesn’t count" in a bigamist relationship. Ha. I love it.

The wife who DOES count has so much class and her children are so considerate that they are keeping it “in the family” for the sake of the other innocent children involved in this mess. This fool dumped a woman of refinement for a tramp. What a moron. As Louise said, “You get what you settle for.” This guy has settled for lowest of the low amongst woman-kind...a husband thief.

Do you think that you might know who the lucky lady is? Look down the street. At any given moment, somebody, somewhere, is falling for a HUGE line of bullshit...he or she is just sitting there in their lazy boys, channel surfing, thinking that thier life is just what they think that it is.

I used to be one such happy idiot. The line of crap that I fell for was so long that it evoked interest from NASA. They considered using it in that crazy "elevator to the moon" scheme. I get to smile knowing that Rick is out there, devatasting the life of somebody else. And...with any luck at all...his next relationship will be as doomed as is the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Shame of the Neighborhood. And since this cretin STILL goes out of his way to convince me that he doesn’t know, nor has he ever known, a woman named Gail Glenn...I have a feeling that he is, most assuredly, involved in something low and filthy. He is still lying, so I can rest assured that he is still one miserable bald man.

Karma...I love ya!

Meg

I love men...

...and I think that most of them get a raw deal when it comes to divorce. I feel badly for them and wonder why some women are so intent on stealing fathers from their own children. I’m not a man hater and I’m not a women’s libber...not by any sense of the word. But, when the man in question has behaved atrociously...I can’t work up a healthy sympathy for them.

I never asked Rick for alimony and it never occurred to me that I would get it...the thought never crossed my mind. But, when we went to court for the second restraining order, the attorney that represented me from Cobb County Legal Aide saw to it that I was awarded alimony or spousal support or whatever they call it, much to my surprise. I was surprised even further when I was invited to mediation and informed that the spousal support would be going up and staying up rather than going down every year in $100 increments. Like I said, I never asked for it and I was rather hurt that Rick would rather pay $800 a month than to stay with me until I could go back to work so that he wouldn’t have to pay anything. But, he was in such a hurry to leave that he agreed to everything without ever once balking at the alimony, medical and dental insurance and the other little things that he had to pay.

So, that’s the deal...he has to pay me $800 a month and he can’t seem to get it straight. When he isn’t telling me how much he loves me (or when his girlfriend is right next to him as he speaks to me or writes to me), he is telling me that he is totally caught up with the alimony and that he can prove it. Well, I told him that he should just go ahead and copy all the proof that he has so that we can get it straightened out. After all, if he is telling the truth (and that’s quite an IF there), then there is a bunch of cash floating around somewhere because I don’t have it.

But, he would rather just keep on telling me about the proof and he refuses to show it to me. Yesterday I emailed him asking him if he would be sending the money soon. This is the email that I sent him:

You know...140 and 160 is 300, not 400. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't do the math wrong. Are you going to send the alimony today? I know you got paid yesterday. I'm trying to not be a bitch but I need to know when it will come. Also, according to your records...where are you in the payments? I have you one month behind plus that 100 bucks that you haven't sent from the partial payments, where are you in that picture? OK...I'm tired so I'm going to go to bed.

And he responded:

You know... 140 and 240 is what i wired you is 380 and i already said if your not willing to spilt the wiring fee then i owe you 20 bucks so please get your records straight. Yes i am going to send the money today or tommorrow,yesterday was the end of the pay period and i get payed today. And i'm not one month behind and i can prove it. Have a wonderful day!!!

So, he can prove it but he won’t. Now, part of his probation from when he pled guilty to domestic violence, was that he should stay current on his alimony. You would think that if he wasn’t going to stay current that he would at least be pleasant about it. I was very pleasant when he had some personal problems and everyone thought that I was an idiot for even trying to be nice to him.

Then, there’s the stupid tax crap that he continues to lie about. If Rick would have refrained from lying, I wouldn’t have had written to my congressman and he wouldn’t be dealing with the IRS on my behalf. It looks like he will never, ever learn that.

Todd said that I should just go to the courthouse and have him declared in contempt. I didn’t want to do that but this email has sort of gotten me thinking...why shouldn’t I? I have nothing to lose and I can’t keep telling people that “I’ll pay you when I get my alimony” because I never get it when I’m supposed to. And yet Rick acts all offended when I so much as ASK what’s going on with the money. I guess he thinks that the tactics that he used during our marriage will still work on me.

I need to know what’s up with the alimony so that I can pay or not pay my own bills. I’m not living in a trailer that belongs to my step-grandfather and I actually have to pay rent and bills for this house that he brought me to in this state that he brought me to. So...I guess the moral of this story is that if you are going to take your wife away from her home and everyone that she knows who can help her, you shouldn’t leave her in a state that will make you pay through the nose.

OK...I have to go and find something to do. It will have to be something free because I’m broke again. But...there are a helluva a lot worse things than being broke!

Meg

I received an e-mail today...

...from a friend who lives in Georgia. It was a cute little thing that you would have to be from here (or very familiar with the traffic around here) to appreciate. Since most of you aren’t, I’ll try to explain some of the wild and crazy things that make up the Atlanta traffic experience. I’ve already told you that Atlanta has some hideous drivers. I can’t really blame it on the natives...there’s no way to learn how to drive if there’s no normal traffic around. All they have is the insane roads of this area so they can’t possibly know how badly they drive.

First of all, if you drive the speed limit on the highways here, you will die. That’s all there is to that...it is fatal to drive 55 when the speed limit tells you to because everyone else is going 80. The drivers cut in front of you with no signals...they just see a spot that appears to be large enough for their car to fit into and they do their best to fit into it.

They don’t seem to realize that turning left on a green light is legal...for some reason they believe that you need more than a green light, like a green arrow or something inviting them to turn left. They got the right on red thing down pretty well, they just don’t seem to think that you are allowed to turn left when the light is just a round green light bulb. I have driven around the right side of cars who sit there waiting for the green circle to turn into a green arrow.

Then, they have a huge circle around the city of Atlanta that they call “The Perimeter”. It is a circle but it has signs that give directions like north or south. I drove to the airport once on 285 south. So, when I went to go home, I decided that I should get onto 285 north. I was wrong. I should have taken 285 west. I didn’t even know that was an option. I drove the entire circumference of that damn circle to get back to where I started from. I stayed lost quite a bit back when I first moved here...I wasn’t aware of the Waffle House’s and their importance in the navigational training required to drive here. Any set of directions going anywhere in this area will begin with, “You pass the Waffle House and then...”

Now, if you live in the town that I live in...they have an additional landmark. That is the Big Chicken. The Big Chicken is a one story chicken restaurant with a three story chicken on top of it. At one point the town considered razing the Big Chicken but the people were up in arms over that. They protested and eventually won. The Big Chicken is safe. And thank the Lord for that because no one would be able to find a damn thing around here if you couldn’t say, “You turn left at the Big Chicken...”

Apparently, that stupid chicken is more important than just a navigational aide. One day I was stopped at the red light at the chicken when I noticed that one of it’s two spinning eyes had stopped spinning. I didn’t think much of it and most likely would never have given it another thought if it weren’t for the fact that when I got home...the news was on. I was stunned to hear the anchorman say, “In Marietta today, the left eye of the Big Chicken stopped spinning...”

I didn’t travel very far when I first arrived in Georgia because I kept getting lost. I’m used to Chicago driving...it’s all on a grid system and if you can see the Sears Tower, you know which way is east and therefore, you know which way you’re going. Not here. Here, the roads go in all different directions and there is no way to know which way is east unless you get blinded by the sun early in the morning. As if it isn’t bad enough that the roads go in different directions...they’re all named Peachtree.

One town here actually had to make a law that there would be no more streets named Peachtree.

Unlike men, I do stop and ask directions. But...I don’t speak southern so it doesn’t always help. One day I was trying to find a guitar shop because I needed guitar strings. I drove up and down the only decent sized road that I knew of...Cobb Parkway...trying to find a guitar shop.

When I eventually got bored of that, I stopped at a little shop and asked a woman if she knew where there was a guitar shop. She said, “Sure!”.
She started giving me directions and I was paying close attention to her until I noticed a man standing nearby looking rather perplexed. The woman kept talking and the man just started looking more and more perplexed as she went on. I became a tad unnerved myself. Finally the man asked the woman, “Where are you sending her?”

The woman replied, “Good Year.”

“Good Year?” the man asked.

“Yes”, the woman responded, “She needs a good TAR shop.”

I politely said to the woman, “Perhaps I should rephrase that....GEE-TAR shop.”

“Oh.” she said to me...“No, I don’t know where there is a GEE-TAR shop.”

Eventually, I found a guitar shop. But, I have yet to figure out how to get around safely in a town with circular roads that have signs with normal directions on them and people who don’t know how to read the numbers on speed limit signs. If I had my way...once the sun came up, I would be sure that it was on my left and I’d drive to Florida to visit my father. In the meantime, I’m gonna go to bed.

See ya,

Meg

http://www.dcltribute.com/bigchicken/ History of the Big Chicken...the eyes DO indeed spin, they must have fixed them after this was written.

I googled Waffle House Driving Directions to see if I could find an article about using the Waffle House as a landmark and all I got was a bunch of actual directions...that included turning at, passing or pulling into a Waffle House.

The Big Chicken made me miss the Mill Mountain Star...a huge star that sits atop a mountain that is entirely in the city limits of Roanoke Virginia. I used to think it was one tacky monstrosity...until I saw that damn Big Chicken. Here is a picture of the mountain with the star on it, you can barely see it during the day. I couldn't find a picture of the mountain at night.

This is the Star lit up. You can see it from all over the valley. When I was a little girl, it would be lit up in red if anyone had been killed in a car accident in the Roanoke Vally that day. If not, it was white. Then, in 1976, they had it lit up in red, white and blue for the Bicentennial. I've heard that ever since 9/11, it has been red, white and blue again.

Things that annoy me...

Geraldo Rivera
People who say, “You know what I’m saying?” over and over again
Bottles that in the year 2005...are NOT twist off. At this point in time, you need a little sign that says...“NOT twist off.”...not one that says...“Twist off.”
Seeing movie stars do ANYTHING other than starring in movies
Pregnant/New Mother parking spaces. They need the exercise.
Being nice to stupid people
Meredith Baxter
Women who wear too much cologne
Cell phones, call waiting and answering machines
Oh yeah, phone mazes. I submit that we should boycott them by refusing to push any buttons. Make them speak to us.
Icky men who think they’re hot
Tom Cruise
The Oleson Twins
The entire cast of The Facts of Life
Other people’s children
Junk mail
Shopping carts
Braille signs in places only sighted people can find
Pointy toed shoes
Huge fake nails and heads with a thousand obviously fake braids
People with body odor
Co-workers who sell crap for their kids at work

Well. That’s it for now. There’s a bunch more...but I’m bored with this.

Meg

OMG!!!

I just read what I wrote before I went to sleep and that was frightening. It made no frickin’ sense and I had to fix it and it STILL sucks. Whatever. I was perfectly sober when I did that...just tired as hell. The frightening part is that I felt perfectly competent. After reading what I wrote...I was NOT competent, at least not as much as I thought I was.

Anyway...I just woke up and I’m in a weird mood. If it were a bit earlier...and I wasn’t afraid of the "men in blue"...I would go out and have some fun. But...it’s midnight and I’m just gonna have to go through this mood alone. Well, except for you guys. I’d like to listen to music...it’s one of those moods. But I don’t know where to get it from...the kid is sleeping on MY couch. I think I’ll have to go kick his ass off of it. BRB.

OK...I chose a different tack, I just turned the music on. I’ll let him decide whether or not he wants to sleep in the room with the music playing. If I have to...I’ll find some Barry Manilow music and drive him out like Noriega and the Gregorian chants. Oh...I still have that bottle of sake...but I don’t want it. I guess that’s why I still have it. Oh yeah...I have that bottle of triple sec, too. Damn. What the hell do you do with triple sec? You add it to other liquors and I don’t have any. Then there’s that bottle of tequila with the nipple on it. But I haven’t seen that in years. Oh. Olivia Newton-John is doing “Let’s get Physical”. “Let me hear your body talk...” LOL. That oughta get rid of him. Or, it'll let me know that I could play Black Dog really, really loudly and not annoy him.

I just caught myself singing along to that stupid "Physical" song. I didn’t know I even knew the words. Wow. That’s how much that stupid song was played...I guess.

Oh...I was getting horny again. It’s getting passe...nothing that I can do about it...I’m just enjoying being horny. Whatever. That’s getting to be fun in itself since it’s all I have. Of course...I am in that good mood. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll be spitting nails at someone...but for now, it’s a pleasant feeling.

LOLOLOLOL...“Walk Like an Egyptian” is playing now. I seem to have to wrong channel on. OK, I fixed it. There’s a BIG difference between the 70’s and 80’s when it comes to music.

Well...I suppose that I should speak about something specific....well, I can’t think of anything. Did you hear that Monica Lewinsky went in to have her love handles removed and they took off her ears? I was shocked. That Monica Lewinsky comment navigated itself into a train of thought dealing with blow jobs again. Only this time, instead of performing them...I'm thinking of using them in my performance. Not the perofrmance of an actual blow job...but in my stand up. I’ve been thinking about doing that again recently and I almost went a couple of times but I chickened out. Now I have to go...before it gets too easy to chicken out. I like to do things before I have a chance to freak. That’s why I’m so good in emergencies...I do things without having to weigh the potential bad things first. Afterwards...I do get in that freaked out mode where I think of all the things that COULD have happened.

Once...when I was about 15...I heard a loud buzzing, cracking sound and I ran down my stairs and as I did...I only saw orange. I got down there and saw that the cord had fallen out of the iron that my little sister was using. I threw a blanket over it and stepped on the jumping cord with one foot and pulled the plug out of the wall with the other foot. I innately knew what to do...but afterward I freaked out thinking about all the things that could have happened. I don’t know what that suits me for...but there it is.

I just went outside and noticed that there’s an ice storm going on. I didn’t even know that was an option. Why wasn’t I informed?

I have the 70’s channel on and THEY’RE playing Olivia Newton John.
The kid isn’t waking up. And I’m not coming up with anything worth talking about because I’m an idiot. So...I’m gonna go do something silly.

Maybe I’ll call a disc jockey and bug him. I haven’t done that in years. I could ask him to play some made up song like...“Absolutely 5th Street” by Bob Dylan. I can act all amazed that he never heard of it and tell him that I have a copy of the album in front of me but don’t have a record player to play it on.

OK...see ya.

Meg

Hi Ya’ll!!!

A lady said “Sure enough?” to me twice this morning instead of , “Oh, really?”

Nothing else...just that. I truly am...Deep in the Heart of Dixie.
Anyway...I was thinking about how some of the things that the Rickmiester took away from me were things that you shouldn’t take away from anyone else. He took away my only friend. OK, so he was a rotten friend...but some of our best friends are assholes. I had no one to shout out the answers to whilst watching Jeopardy, so I just sat there, alone in the living room...shouting out the answers to myself. I thought that I was pretty impressive but, of course I’m prejudiced.

He took away my bed warmer. There is no bed as warm as that with a man in it. With the bed warmer...of course, went my favorite pillow. I no longer had that big ol’ belly to lie my head down upon. That was always fun, unless of course...he had an acute case of gastritis. Oh, and of course cuddling. He took that away too. But, he wasn’t very good at it so I’ve been missing it for a long, long time. I did get a bunch of cuddling in this past summer...that was soooooo fun. I did have some fun last summer...didn’t I? I’ve calmed down a bit but only out of having no time to do anything and not wanting to get a DUI. That would be all that I would need right now.

Oh, he took away my guy friday. I had no one to run errands for me. I had to go to the grocery store myself at night when I had a sudden craving for ice cream. That’s sucks. I have to pump my own gas, go out for milk, take care of the yard...such as I do. He took away my driver and my laundry load switcher. I folded the stuff but he transfered it from the washer to the dryer to me, where I folded it.

I hate having to do all of those things myself. It’s not fair. There ought to be some pro bono husband duties performed as part of alimony.

Anyway...he took away someone to watch TV with. We watched a lot of TV. I had to laugh by myself but I learned how to. He said that he can’t watch some of the shows that we used to watch now. Good. I’ll take them...I don’t mind watching them. But, then again, I don’t have guilt gnawing at me 24/7 either.

He took away some things that I could do without...only because he was so bad at them but I am, nevertheless, doing without the following...a personal foot rubber. Someone to go out to Sunday brunch. with. A person to shop with....someone has to hold that bags. I need a grocery bringer-inner. Oh...a wash machine fixer, and a TV/cable/computer fixer dude.

Worst of all...he took away all my “I love you's.” Incoming and outgoing. It's nice to say that and to hear it. That was mean. But I don’t care anymore because now...I just don’t .:):):)

I’m eating a Popsicle...much to the dismay of my little friend who is out there annoyed as he reads this...but that’s OK...I know what he’ll try to do to me. I’ll just pinch his cheeks. I like that. I like pinching cheeks.

Oh...I am just so damned tired that I have to go lie down. Sorry about that. I’ll be back after I take a nap. Have a good day!

Meg

Some bitch somewhere is getting my ruby earrings...

...and that just pisses me off. I finally got Rick past the cheap mouse head earrings that he bought the first gift giving occasion that we were married which happened to be Christmas. I realized something that Christmas that had never occurred to me before. Not once in our 6 year courtship did he ever give me a gift. I don’t know if it was by design or by coincidence...but I know that he bought gifts in the way he tells the truth...when there is literally NO other way to get out of it. Like shopping for the wife at Christmas time. You won’t get laid at all for a good part of the New Year if you give a bad Yuletide performance and if you do...it’s pretty much that lackluster sex that only a man would enjoy.

But we women lie there and do it to ourselves...don’t we? (I almost said that I don’t do that anymore...but duh...I don’t have sex anymore.) I guess I could say that I stopped “punishing” my husbands by the “I’m not gonna enjoy this and I’m too stupid to realize that you’re still gonna get a nut and really don’t care if I enjoy it or not....in fact it makes the entire process easy for you in that you don’t have to do ANYTHING to please me...I’ve made it clear that I cannot be pleased so just fuck me and suffer.” attitude. I believe I figured out the weak link in that theory back when Lauper was hot and Michael Jackson first began dabbling in life as a Caucasian on a planet where everyone knows he's a black dude.

Anyway, I find myself digressing again...don’t I? OK...one fall Rick and I had a mouse in our house. There may have been more than one....we were never sure. We never saw more than one but it got around quite a little bit for one mouse. Anyway, we eventually assassinated the little vermin and by Christmas...that rodent was the furthest thing from my mind. I opened my gift with the anticipation of a young wife, after less than four months of marriage, opening the first gift that my loving skunk of a husband had chosen for me all by himself.

As I opened the small box under the tree that year, my eyes saw two glistening earrings in the shape of an animal head. They were gold...but...“My...Are they.....cats?”

“No.”, he replied with pride. “They’re mice.!” He was smiling with the pride of a four year old who had just painted his masterpiece...on his parent’s bedroom wall.

There was but one question in my mind. Did he go out shopping specifically FOR mouse earrings...or did he happen upon them and exclaim, all agape, “Oh my! The perfect gift!!! My wife...the woman who puts up with all of my bullshit, not to mention the shit on my underwear...she simply must be the owner of this magnificent piece!”?

My guess was that he grabbed the closest thing to the door that was under ten bucks. He evoked that theory one year when I received a doll...AND the price tag!...all for $9.99. And this was not just any doll. Oh no. This doll had a head that spun around in circles as it played "These are a Few of my Favorite Things"...not exactly “our song”...nor was it one that had any particular meaning to me. I wished that I had gotten him a Pet Rock.

The next year I got even with him for the musical, head spinning doll...I bought him a dust buster. I really did. It’s still under the bathroom sink and he can have it back anytime he’d like. I also have his pride and joy...his most prized possession...his Bicentennial Pepsi Cola Bottle.

Anyway, back to the gifts...I finally got smart. I started with pictures. I showed him pictures of what kind of jewelry I liked. Considering what I was dealing with...I tried to start small. I showed him pictures of solitaire earrings. I told him that he could never go wrong with a pair of precious stone earrings. Just simple studs...he was nowhere near ready for anything as complicated as hoops. Anyway, he did well for the last few years. I got the diamonds, the emeralds, the sapphires and the pearls. He was supposed to get me those damned ruby earrings the Christmas after he left. I wonder to whom he has given the rubies?

So, I guess I will have to buy myself the stupid rubies...but I’ll do it with the alimony check. Damn...that bastard has gotten out of another gift.

Oh well, that’s OK. On my birthday, June 29th, I had just found out that he was cheating on me and he had gotten violent with me on the 28th. I took the credit cards and went for a little shopping spree and bought myself a few nice gifts. The only regret that I have is that I didn’t max out the frickin’ cards...but I did put one helluva dent in them:):):)

Meg

Good Luck Greg...wherever you are!

Dear Meg,

“...So why did you stay with him so long. You could have cheated it wouldn’t have been cheating if he was cheating on you...”

Yeah, actually, it would have been. But toward the end, that wasn’t an option. I was too sick to even think about that. And, your email sort of implies that I knew he was cheating and even though part of me did, there was a part of me that didn’t want to believe it. I had this silly notion that we would be married until we were old and gray, my biggest fear being the day that one of us buried the other. I actually worried what the remaining one of us would have done without the other.

But I understand what you mean. I told him a few times that while he was treating me badly, every other man that I came across was treating me quite well. It’s pretty sad when the only man who treats a woman poorly is the one who purports to love her. I would go out somewhere, to the store, to the library or even to the places where I did stand up and men would hit on me, of course. They would talk to me, they would send me drinks or even just compliment me. I would feel so good when I was treated like that...I found myself smiling when I would think about how nice men were to me. Then, I would go home and be dumped on.

Anything that other men did to build up my ego was quickly knocked down when I would go home and be ignored by the one man that I wanted to be treated nicely by.

I spent a lot of time, well, I guess I wasted a lot of time, asking him if he realized that he was the only man who wasn’t terribly nice to me. I couldn’t understand why it didn’t matter to him. Looking back, I still don’t get it. I don’t understand the part of a man that makes him want to keep his wife to himself while he has all the women that he wants. He didn’t want me enough to be nice to me but he didn’t want any other man to have me either. Last summer (2004-The Summer of Hell) I asked him if it would still bother him if I was with another man and just the question alone made him mad so I let that make me believe that he still cared.

Whenever Rick left me in the past, he would come back when I had another guy. It got to the point where I wouldn’t actually go out with anyone else, I would just tell him that I had and then he would take me back. The second time that he left me, he left me when I was sick as well.

He left me in a house that we had bought and took the car that I paid for. The day he came home from having the car registered, I asked him why he had it registered in his name alone. He said, “I didn’t even think about it. Don’t worry, I would never take it away from you.”

Well, he did. I had just gotten out of the hospital for something stupid that left me on crutches and came home to find the house empty and the car gone. I couldn’t work so I eventually lost the house and I even had to send my kids back to live with their father. I literally lost every thing that I cared about.

It took me about 6 months, but I got a car and an apartment and I was doing just fine. I was dating a guy named Robert and one day Robert and I had an argument. I was working nights then and I was sleeping at my mother’s house one day when Robert woke me up by sitting on the side of my bed. I asked him why he was there and he said, “I just spoke with Rick.”

I didn’t believe him until he started to tell me all the things that Rick had said. I could tell he was telling me the truth then and I told him, “You’ve just done something that I couldn't do in 6 months.” He asked me what I meant and I told him, “You’ve gotten my husband back for me.”

That night Rick came to my job with a card and a necklace and the next morning, I went back to him. The next time he left me...I just waited a few weeks and then I told him that I had gotten together with an old boyfriend of mine and he asked me to move back in that day.

This time I thought the restraining order would make that BS impossible. But, I was wrong. When he read in this thing that I was interested in someone else, he started calling me again. I asked him why he didn’t call me sooner and he said it was because of the restraining order. Well, it was still in effect, I had it written into the divorce. The restraining order will stop him from calling if it fits his purposes but if it doesn’t, then to hell with it. Go figure.

There’s no way in hell that I would put up with his crap again, I’m too old and he’s left me one too many times. This time he left when I was so very ill and somehow I am still here. It’s been almost a year and a half and this time it’s obvious to me that I don’t need him or anyone else for that matter so I’m not sitting around waiting for him to call me this time.

Men are so nice to me, as they always have been, but this time Rick isn’t waiting at home to knock down my self esteem so I’ve had time to think clearly for long enough to let it sink in that I am, indeed, not as bad as he had me believe. I’ve gotten what I wanted, he was the last one to say that he loved me and he obviously has realized that he screwed up...either because he and Gail have broken up or he simply hates paying me so he called me behind her back. Either way...I win. And, I did it without cheating on him. So, I get to walk away knowing that he’s the one who screwed up and I didn’t lower myself or my standards. I couldn’t have done that if I had cheated on him. So...I’m glad that I didn’t.

It still isn’t perfect, I am divorced at 47 when I never planned on being alone. I passed up a bunch of great opportunities for someone who was SOOOOO not worth it, but I’m still here and what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger so it’s all good.

Now, I’m just waiting for life to come and get all interesting on me. I can do whatever I want to do and although I can’t do much right now...I will be able to soon. I could probably do it now except that it’s so damned cold out that I don’t even want to leave the house but I could if I wanted to. I have a few stupid little things that I need to fix but they aren’t as tough as what I’ve been through so far so I’m not terribly worried about them.

Here I am...as free as I have ever been and as wise as I’ve ever been. That’s a pretty cool feeling. All I need is for a door to open and over the threshold I go. I’m ready for it and I’ve done it without hurting anyone else. Rick can’t say that and although it probably doesn’t matter to him now, if he’s lucky, he will learn someday how important it is to be able to say that.

So, life...here I am! Come and get me!

Meg

PS Aren’t you curious to see what I get after all of this? I sure the hell am.

Here I be!

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Every time I start to think that all men are dogs...

...I find a few that renew my faith in the entire sex. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, perhaps I’d be better off just giving up on them all together. My mother did and I’ve spoken to other women who have done the same. I enjoy men a little bit too much to give up on them just yet...although I must admit that the idea has crossed my mind a time or two.

They absolutely drive me nuts saying things like, "I didn't do it on purpose." when they don't even consider the fact that they didn't go out of their way to avoid doing whatever it was they did. Rick never understood that. I have to wonder if you guys have ever considered THAT. There are so many annoying little things that drive me nuts but so far, I can't find a replacement for them.

Anyway, back to the guys who renew my faith, one guy sent me the following email which makes me think that he has actually considered the feelings of a women, something that I don’t think many men do.

I agree that a true pick-up will almost assuredly not provide sexual gratification for a woman. However, I think that a one-time get together will work under the following circumstances:
1. There needs to be an initial level of mental chemistry established through emails.
2. There needs to be one meeting in advance, for lunch or even just for coffee, to confirm that there is physical attraction.
3. There needs to be a series of increasingly erotic emails where the woman reveals what excites her.
I've done it this way a number of times and I feel pretty confident that not only I, but also the woman, enjoyed the experience fully.

It isn’t that his email showed me that he was a “nice guy”...just a thoughtful one. And I would prefer thoughtful over “nice” 8 days a week. Rick could be nice at times but didn’t think about anything but what he wanted at any given moment.

And then there was this guy:

I just read the morning's Blog and I almost can't understand some people of my own gender anymore. I don't know if some guys have been so pampered by really stupid women that they really think that it is a thrill for women just to be in their presence or what?

So...there ARE men who see how freaky these other guys are. They’ve even thought enough about it to try to understand WHY in the hell the freaks would act like they do. By the way, I do agree with this one that some men have been so pampered by “stupid” women that they expect other women to be as receptive to their asinine behavior and are even offended when a woman with some level of self esteem comes along.

I don’t think the women are stupid so much as they are hard up and lacking in self esteem. I have a little friend who is currently “dating” a guy in jail. She has sparked the interest of a man who has treated her quite well. He has taken her out for dinner and paid for it which was quite foreign to her. He is just a regular, decent guy with a job and no history of imprisonment. When I pointed out the differences in these two men such as, one has a job, the other is in jail, one pays for dinner the other expects her to bail him out, one treats her with respect and the other bitches at her from jail for not getting him out...her response was, “One is gorgeous and the other isn’t.” Well, I met the one who isn’t gorgeous and he isn’t a toad either. But even if he was, he has won this contest hands down in the mind of any thinking woman. She is the perfect example of women who seem to like being treated like crap. She isn’t a bad looking girl herself and with a little bit of self esteem, she could have any decent guy that she wanted.

Perhaps she would be interested in the guy who sent this email:

“Women who would sleep with a guy on the first date don’t deserve to enjoy the sex. They don’t care who fucks them so I don’t mind doing it myself. I need sex on a regular basis and if there is a female who will let me do her, then I will do her....”

Now, this is a man who is, at best, honest and at worst, a bum. But...honesty is a good thing and something that I can respect...even when the truth that he is imparting to me is so wicked.

The other day I mentioned that once a relationship goes bad, especially because of cheating or lying, it’s tough, if not impossible to get the old feelings back. I’m surprised to hear that it’s a surprise to anyone but this guy seemed to learn something from that statement:

“...The other day you wrote something to the effect that you could never feel comfortable with a man that you had lost respect for...this kind of information is helping me to understand why I'm not getting any recognition from my wife for trying to get my personal identity (from that of an unhappily married potentially available for "cheating" man) changed to one of a trustworthy man that could be a good partner for the rest of his life. I think that she may have lost interest in my objective. I may have, with my last affair, finally "burned the bridge" for any further relationship with my wife. The old saying about not knowing what you had until it is lost, would seem appropriate at this point....”

The rest of his email (that I could not post as it may have given away his identity) showed that he is truly sorry for his indiscretions and that he may be worth the effort that his wife needs to put into their marriage. I understand why she may not want to as I lost all respect for Rick after the first affair and to my dismay, never got it back. But...I must say that the honesty that this man put into that email MAY have given me the incentive to try again but Rick didn’t try, nor has he even begun to get to the point where he could say, “This is what I did and I would like to know what I have to do to repair the damage.” If he had tried to be honest with himself and with me, we could have created another type of relationship that may have actually been better than the one that he killed. But as of this day, the man does not have the decency, the maturity or the courage to so much as make the effort to TRY honesty.

Even with nothing to lose, he lies about the most ridiculous things imaginable. He may or may not be sorry for the lies that he’s told, but he still can’t summon the courage to give honesty a try.

I don’t expect perfection...or even a superb specimen. But a man who tells the truth is going to win out over a liar every single time. I would accept, “I would rather not answer that question.” easily but lies are absolute deal breakers.

If you are a man (or a woman, for that matter) and you have been lying to anyone or everyone that you’ve met, try this experiment. Go for one month without lying to anyone. Tell the truth no matter how difficult it may be. Remember that “I would rather not answer that question .” is always an option. If a woman (or man) has a hard time with that answer or your honesty in general, let them go...they aren’t worth the effort that you’ve put into it.

I’d be very interested in your experience and would love to hear from anyone out there who is interested in trying this. I will tell you that your life will be much easier and your relationships much more solid. Give it a shot, you really have nothing worth having to lose.

Good luck and let me know how it works for you!

Meg