"just shock you like you won't believe…"-MGMT

It's the stupidest things. It's the things you don't notice that trip you up. Those are the things that take you down like untied shoelaces, leaving you face first in the dirt spitting clotting pride.

I was shopping. I needed supplies. I needed sundries. My gophers needed beer. They were throwing kegger. It was a hot weekend; their fur gets all matted and they're cranky without liquid refreshment. I hate to give into the scruffy ruffians, but they'd already knocked over a fire hydrant, and were turning guerrilla on neighbor kids with juice boxes. This was no time for heroics.

"Please, I give you what you want, just step away from the little girl."

So Wussy Robby made a stop at Bevmo to grab their favorite apricot beer. After an hour in the heat of hunting/gathering, I was getting cranky. As MyUnwife would attest, this usually means I need food.

I filled the trunk with Bevmo bags, and staggered over to the Red Robin in the same parking lot. RR is a memory safe eatery. MyUnwife and I only ate there a few times, and never at this one. This RR belongs to me alone--or it will as soon as I sit and swallow my first memory.

MMM, I open the door and the greasy waft of freedom fries smacks my face. That's followed by a frosty AC blast . This is going to be a good lunch.

"how many in your party?"

"I'm a party of one today." I smile.

"Very well, sir. Follow me," says Hostess Girl, in ruby cape.

I obey. She leads me around a labyrinth of munching families and red scuttling drink-tray creatures to a booth built for me. Oh there's a seat across from me, but nobody could fit there even if I brought them. If they did fit, nobody would eat. It would just be a tangle of food arms interlocked and banging in frustration. They might as well paint Twister dots on the table because more than one person can't eat here; trying would just be fun and games. As it stands, it's just me sitting. I'll eat just fine.

I check both sides of the laminated menu card, then settle for the fish and chips before the waiter even introduces himself.

"Hi, I'm--"

"Fish and Chips, please."

"Uhm, ok. I'm Don."

"Can I have a tea too, Don?"

Don's fumbling with his pad. He must be new. A trained professional would already be walking to the kitchen. "What was your drink order again sir?"

Yeah, Don's not a professional. "tea, please."

"And to eat?"

Ok, maybe he is, he's just OCD. We can usually smell our own, but sometimes kitchen smells can block them. I sniff his shirt.

"Excuse me sir? You're food order?"

I can't tell. I decide to test.

"Where's your bathroom?"

"What would you like to eat?"

"Bathroom?"

"Eat?"

"Pee?"

"Eat?"

"¿cuán grande es su mono?"

"Eat?"

I nod. OCD. I place my order. He points to the restroom, then pulls out his monkey. It's a friendly little thing: a cute spider monkey--small but tasteful.

The problem hits while I'm sitting in my booth on my end-oh,, sippin' on tea and ice, laid back, I've got my mind on my menu, got my menu on my mind…. Red Robin is piping in the hits from my past. I just heard Wang Chung have fun tonight, and now Ace of Base is fading out. They saw the sign.

There's a moment of silence before the next song begins. I like this moment because I like to guess the next song. It's part of my day job. I'm like a music cowboy and I'm the fastest gun in these here parts. Ask MyUnwife, she'll agree, and no matter what else she says, she's ONLY talking about music.

I recognized this one. A long soft orchestrated tone. Primarily strings building into something heavy. I know it. I rock my head back and sigh before the piano kicks in and Steven Tyler begins to sing.

"I could stay awake…"

Summer, 1998 Aerosmith, "I don't want to miss a thing." I hate this song. Not really because of MyUnwife. I hate it because it's a sappy sonic Hallmark card. It was written to be a sentimental hit. It worked for millions of sheep, but I'm not bleating along. Don't get me wrong, I like love songs, but I need to believe them. I need to believe there was some sincerity somewhere in the writing process.

Duncan Sheik, he was barely breathing. Yeah, that was unrequited, but he was thinking it over anyway, and I believed him. I didn't believe Steven. The last time I believed him, he was singing about sweet emotion. Now, he's singing somebody else's hit to get paid, and he doesn't want to miss a thing.

Still that's not the worst of it. The worst part of this song is mixed with the unnaturally cold AC, it reminds me of a stint I pulled as a music board operator for a radio station in Palm Desert. They keep radio studios cold too. Not for the employees, but for the equipment. It's extremely expensive to replace an overheated sound board. Dragging a dehydrated board op to the sidewalk by his Nikes and replacing him with a college kid is cheap. It's the music of money, not the people. That's why they keep it cold.

I was playing somebody's top 20 lite-hits on Sunday mornings. All I needed to do was answer phones, drop in commercials, and be quiet. Piece of cake. During my time there, the Aerosmith track was one of the hits.

The song and the cold air reminded me of MyUnwife. It was early in our relationship. This was our song. We both hated it. When it came on, we'd cringe and dive to see who could change the radio station first. It was cute. Sitting in Red Robin, I remembered that. I wasn't ready. I lost my appetite for a moment.

At least I lost it until I remembered that I had a choice. I had a choice to liquor up my gophers. I had a choice to eat here. I had a choice to make on the menu. I had a choice to touch Don's monkey. Now, I have a choice to be sad. See, I can relive the memory and drink my tea with saccharine self-pity, or I can hate this song on my own now. It's a bad song, it's easy to dislike. Why give my weekend to MyUnwife?

I look around me and take it the sights. I take the song away from MyUnwife, and I give it to Red Robin. Here comes Don, he can have it.

Don drops my plate on the table, and only then offers to refill my empty glass, because that's how things are done in these here parts. His OCD is affecting his tip-o-meters. That's a shame. Still the food is good, and I'm enjoying my meal, and my music by myself, and I'll make that memory last quite a while.

One of these things is not like the others

Ok, I can see the last 3 together, but as far as I understand it, it's
ileagal in the US to add pets to that mix...

"One more time around might make it…"-Soundgarden

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…

I'm within a week from when rubber divorce stamp meets this Rob's road. I'm new at this, does the stamp go on my forehead or my forearm or maybe just my forefather?

"Hey Dad, did we get the divorce?"

"Yeah son, a guy came by and tattooed my chest this afternoon."

"Thanks Dad."

I don't know these things. Like I said, I'm new at this. On the one hand I'm sad because of all that I could have had. Other divorced people worry about wasted time. I didn't waste time with worry. I didn't waste time.

The only time I "wasted" was the time I spent getting a divorce. Before that, I was involved in the economy marriage. At least I thought that's where I was investing. It was my first marriage. Maybe I was doing that wrong too. I had my Dad tattooed for that as well. Was that necessary? It could explain why he's really eager to see me stay single.

"Maybe you just need to get to know yourself for a while, Rob."

That's Dad, always thinking about me. Me too. I'm always thinking about me too. I guess that’s why I also see the divorce as an opportunity. I didn't at first. At first it was only a Schleprock raincloud hovering over my day to day head. Each morning I'd wait for the lightning to strike my butt, each evening I'd obscure my moon. Now there's a little sun peeping through the cloud--sort like a fried egg hanging over me. I'm really worried about what that means.

One thing it means is that I'm moving on.

"How?" you might ask.

"I don't know. I'm 'moving on,'" I'd reply.

"But what does that really mean? 'Moving on?'" You'd press.

"uhm, it means that I was over there, and now I'm over here?" I'd continue, backpeddling.

"But what's the difference? You say you're moving on, Rob, like we're just supposed to accept it? How can we accept it, if we don't know what it means?" You'd counter.

"Look! Over there! Something shiny!" I'd distract.

"What? Where? Huh? Where did Rob go? Huh, I guess he moved on." You'd surmise.

I don't know how to define "moving on." It's like explaining the feeling you get when you gotta pee. "I gotta pee." says it all. Well, I'm moving on, and now I gotta pee too. Great. I just know that once I felt attached. MyUnwife was my whole world. Even when my world waned, she was the part that was still here. Now she's not, but I'm still here.

She's over there.

Why does divorce sound like a Sesame Street?

"Today is brought to you by the letter X."

That's great, but don't expect me to climb in bed with Bert and his paperclip collection. I don't care how much Cookie Monster begs. Ya know, I don't remember that episode either…

See though, This is all new, and I'm a kid watching cartoons. Sometimes things look Jose and the Pussycats cool, other times things look like my future will only be Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. One season was plenty of that crap, thank you very much.

I guess I'm really just worrying over nothing. I need to take one episode of Rob at a time. When next weeks cliffhanger airs, I'll find what happens to divorced Rob just like everybody else.

I just hope everything comes out alright. I kinda like that Rob guy, and I just bought my "I [heart[ Rob" T-shirt. Wait, this one says "I [spade] Rob" Wow, That's a plot twist I wasn't expecting...

Txt

A collection of words you're otherwise unlikely to see on my blog...

"I can't see further than my own nose at this moment…"-Camera Obscura

Scooby Dooby Doo!

It's weekend time boy and girl (cuz I've got my readers numbered)! I usually only get one day off a week, but once a month the heavens open up and the powers-that-be smile down and hand down a second day. Because even the dogs get to eat the Scooby Snack crumbs from around the masters feet.

"Ranks Raggy!"

This is a 2 day weekend.

Scooby Dooby Doo!

So what am I gonna do? Nothing. Well at least not today. I'll blog because, you dear reader, are my sole necessity. I'll toss out a few words, you'll pretend to laugh and then go read a real funny blog, or the comics. I hear Marmaduke is really funny today. Ok, that's a lie. When was the last time that happened? Sorry 'bout that. It's what we do. I blog. You read. Marmaduke isn't funny. It's ok, it's our routine. We count in these things every day.

Everybody has them. In relationships we do the same thing. We build routines around routines like they're some intricate wave pattern from a pebble splash in a marital pond. In a relationship, It's two corresponding rings that meld and interlock to create new patterns as they rush the shore.

She may vacuum while he does laundry. Maybe that's not your pattern. Maybe your pattern involves one vacuumer and one sofa cushion flattener. Cushions are wily you know--and skittish too. Vacuum motors and sewing machine engines send them springing for the door. That's why I don't run my vacuum much. I also find the silt layer helps keep the cushion weighed down.

And before you write in to tell me, my Mr. Know-it-all friends with your boy Sherman. Yes, I know. A sewing machine has a motor, and not an engine. I was just having fun with words. Try it. Having fun? It's good. Oh…your fun includes picking apart Rob's words? Great, get in line. My fun includes talking to myself like I'm talking to you. I'm having a blast. It's my day off.

Anyway, the point is, we all have our patterns. When you get married, you try to blend them. Some blend, others crash and clash, canceling each other out. MyUnwife and I held pretty solid at most sound ripples. There were other things hurled that could tsunami out of control. Take the toilet seat cliché: not a problem for us. Little splash--so to speak. She didn't care if it was up, I didn't care if it was down. "look before you leap" was our bathroom motto.

On the other hand, there were other things. Things that were burs in the flesh. And a bur in the hand is worth two on the toilet seat. Take for instance our philosophy on refill. Refilling what? You name it: sugar bowl, toilet paper, cat fur…whatever. Her philosophy was "refill when low." How low? Well that was between her and God, and neither one wanted to share the divine secret.

Me? I'm more of a "refill when empty" kind of guy. Why would you refill before that? There's something there--use it. It makes sense right? Well this led to a few---we'll call them "misunderstandings." She called me lazy. Why? Because I never refilled anything. I called her "over aggressive." Why? Because she always refilled everything before I had a chance. How can I refill things that never get empty? The only things I could fill were the things that I liked and she didn't. Sardine tins: always empty when they needed filling. It was a well oiled tin machine. Product empties, Rob refills. Empty, fill. See the pattern? She broke my pattern and then accused me of making her do all the work!

It's ok, we reversed the trend when it came to money. She believed it was supposed to be empty, and I needed to stop spending before it got "low."

"I'm the only one working at keeping money in the account!" I'd shout through clenched teeth (try it. It's not easy! It sounds kind of like a garbage disposal eating those last few bone chunks).

"How can I refill the account if it never gets empty?" she'd smile through pursed lips while refilling the sugar bowl.

"Whatever."

See? We're busy working things out in our special Passive Aggressive way. Yeah, that was us too. It was cool. We looked like to submissive cats fighting: They both rush in then roll to their back, claws in the air, waiting for the other to attack. Neither one attacked; we just filled our little PA sacks for later. So while nobody was filling the sugar bowl, two individuals where loading up on PA anger.

I wish we'd had a weekend. Two days to just dump out our sacks and start over. We all need a release. Some couples argue, other couples play World of Warcraft.

"Honey! You nearly hit me with that arrow!"

"Hold still, I don't want to waste the second one. I know how important saving every friggin' penny is to you!'

Still the important thing is an outlet. This weekend I have an outlet. I've got an extra day to dump my Santa Sack of passive aggression. "this one's for the guy who cut me off on the freeway…this one's for the old lady with 23 items in the express lane…oh, and this one's for you Tiny Tim, next time you hobble your ass in my way I'm gonna kick that sorry ass crutch out from underneath you, then beat you with it!" I pour it out on the couch while I vacuum. Then when I'm done, and the bag's empty. I refill it. I'm Rob. That's what I do.

"No matter how it ends…"-Radiohead

There she stood, beautiful and petite--flowing dark hair and glistening red lips. The girl of my dreams and she'd been out of my reality for so long. My heart beat fire. How long had it been? Years? Months? Eons? Did dinosaurs roam the earth when we first met, or had that just been a dark fantasy? She looked incredible.

"You look incredible."

"Thank you."

She smiled and blushed. Her dress billowed in the wind like a flag or sail. I couldn't pick which one; my brain slogged grey Play-Doh. What was my name? It didn't matter. So long as those eyes stared into me, I'd be whoever she wanted.

I said Play-Doh? Maybe I'm Gumby? Damnit...

Green slab of clay or not, I'm chained to her smile. Cheesy poems clamor off my skull. All of them shouting, screaming, imagery of the masters. Their words, not mine, and their vocabulary couldn't describe how she made me feel. How I felt. I felt...

"Hi."

"Hi," She giggled

I knew I would marry her. I knew it was our double-helix destiny to wrap around each other into infinity. Was it her beauty? I didn't know. Maybe it was how she ran up and kissed my cheek then ran away. Did it mater? I never question fate.

"Ewww!" I dropped down and hurled a handful of sand. It exploded against her shadow. She'd grown up so much since first grade, and now fate drew us together for second.

Double-Helix intertwined...

I rose and chased her into the sunset.

So it began. I never married her, of course. We couldn't convince our parents of our destiny by spring break, and after spring break she found the Derrick gene. Derrick had more bling per strand. Romance is survival of the fittest, and for a second grader Derrick was fit. I was cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch stumbling into a pit of tar.

My first crush became the first link in the chain of the many "the ones" that got away. A broken strand in my DNA.

Since then the chain has grown, and I'm beginning to see a pattern. Rob meets girl, Rob loses girl, Rob meets girl, Rob loses girl…

I need to break the chain. I need to do it after the first half cycle. I thought I had, but that turned out to be more like getting my pant's leg caught in the chain, and not breaking it.

It sucked, but it's not a genetic problem. I have a choice. I can wear other pants, or I could choose not to. I could choose to slather myself in self pity gravy, or I can just show people the naked turkey that I am. I know, and what a Thanksgiving image that is, huh?

"Mommy, what's the naked man doing on the table?"

"It's just that Rob, blogger guy. Ignore him, he'll go away. Grandma, put down the fork!"

I'm thankful. See, I enjoyed ten years with MyUnwife. Now those years as much a part of me as my hazel eyes and hairy butt. But, MyUnwife misadventure isn't a dominant trait. It's dormant. It's history. Sure, I probably have a few hit and miss relationships left in my jeans, but I don't have to marry everybody. If I've learned anything, I've learned I need to get to know my partner.

I need to separate the keepers from the ones who'll kiss my cheek and run away. That's the chain I need to break. The ability to learn from mistakes is also a part of my DNA. It's time I started using it.

"I get my thing in action…"-Schoolhouse Rock

So I got this email last night, right?

"Fake Rolexes! Make you real, and affordable!" No, not that one.

"Male pattern baldness leaving you left out, an alien? Try Chia Hair circles!" No, just past that.

"Hi" Yeah, that one. Somebody had some real questions. Oh sure, it started with the traditional, "Hi Rob" and meandered through the valley of "how are you, I am fine," but it finally did move on to the Rob moving on question. "What are you going to do to celebrate the divorce?"

Celebrate? Divorce? Well, I hadn't really thought about celebrating my divorce. It just didn't seem like a celebratory event. I suppose I could get a piñata and buy some darts. The neighbors kids are still twitching from the last time I tried that.

"I'm going to Disneyland!"

No. That's not quite right either. Oh, I'll be glad when the divorce is over, but is it really a cause for celebration? I mean the marriage is over. The marriage was the part worth the cake and the rice and the bad 80's tunes.

"Always and forever…"

Yeah, kiss my ass, Heatwave.

The marriage was over a long time ago. Next week, the state of California will recognize it's demise with an event they call "Divorce." Our state is slow that way. Gas is nearly five bucks a gallon, and we've still got people still driving SUVs like they're water powered youth generators.

It's all about image out here. You can tell a Californian from the color of tooth in his ear. It's blue, and it's sending brainwaves to the cell phone he can no longer carry while he's crushing traffic, working the crossword, and scarfing a tofu Twinkie.

Yup, we're a bluetooth state. And we look cool doing it. It's our state motto: "Y Pluribus Beauteous--Nike." The street translation is, "So long as you look good. Just do it." We don't care what it really means.

It does mean that I'll be looking good for my divorce--or at least as good as I did before the divorce. Nothing really changes. Does it really end when the state acknowledges the divorce? Is there a magic cut off and a red ribbon drawn across the date? A Rob runs through it, and the last year and a half disappear from my psyche?

Sign me up for that!

All this divorce-think makes me seek web babble. When things get heavy, I like to see what's stuck under the internet desk. Last night I saw a site that said "Divorce is not a verb."

Wha?

Divorce not a verb? Really? Yeah, that's what the blogger said. She screamed it so loud, it was a boldface post title: 14 pt. font of fury! Considering I'd written a 12 point post a few months ago accusing divorce of being a verb, I thought I should read why this woman pointed her infidelity finger at the lexicon of UnLove.

According to her, it was a perversion of modern society. Sometime after the hippies had slathered their bodies in the Woodstock mud, they started mucking about with the English language. That's right, the summer of love left us with the rude awakening dawn of Muggles, Truthiness, and a terrible hairy fuzz in our mouths.

"Who is that muggle lying in my bed..?"

Lady Blogger further claimed that the action of society opening it's arms to willy-nilly divorce created a verb.

Really? I've been trying to create a verb for a long time, eye of toad…hair of newt…no verbin' luck. All the verbiage in the world won't buy Rob a verb. Bloganista says it's my fault. She says all I need is to slip society a roofie and then seduce it into thinking my way. She says that's how elections are won.

Huh. That never worked with MyUnwife, how could I succeed with a whole culture? It's not like I'm George Clooney charming. I'm sort of like Vern Troyer after you drink a six pack. I am not in danger of adding anything to our culture.

If she was wrong there, I felt her whole premise was wrong. I felt I had to blame somebody beyond my parents for making divorce a verb. So I did what I always do when I'm torn between a crisis of language and an afternoon of work. I researched divorce.

According to the almighty Oz of internet (Google) the word divorce is a verb. It's also a noun. Of course the internet came after the hippies, (Al Gore says he invented it, Al's an honorary hippie scapegoat.) but some of it's resources are older than dirt, so I dug for hope.

I found a site offering Webster's 1913 definition. It seems Webster's copyright died. So did his cat. Now everybody can post it. Go look, his cat's out there, right next to Pavlov's dog. There's slobber all over the stupid thing. It's gross.

Webster's dictionary said that in 1913 divorce was both a verb, and a noun. I think we can stop blaming the hippies.

I even found a site that listed Webster's 1828 version of divorce. Yup. Still a verb. I know a lot of disappointed people: they can't even blame Nixon for this one. Andrew Jackson was around; he's also a favorite blame whipping boy. Point to him. Before you do though, you should continue reading. It gets older.

Webster gives a quote in his definition to show usage.

"Nothing but death Shall e'er divorce my dignities." -William Shakespeare.

The quote's from King Henry VIII. Another of histories blame boys--especially if you're anti Boleyn-icide. It's interesting, because Henry apparently didn't believe in divorce as a part of speech at all, noun or verb. "Beheading" on the other hand was practically a cliché.

Shakespeare was a believer though. Blame him. He used the "D" word. (Not "Death," he used that one a lot too, but "divorce" verb is the dead horse we're beating today.) He was definitely familiar.

Beyond that, Google gets a little blurrier. Even Wikipedia doesn't seem to acknowledge the existence of a union prior to that. There is an Egyptian hieroglyph I found. It's interpreted as verb-divorce. It's a black haired golden guy getting molested by a cat while a woman carts off half his pyramid. You can see Osiris laughing in the corner. Still, the glyph is open to interpretation. It could mean anything…

"Would you like to Super Size that?"

The important thing is that the blogger who blamed hippies for verb-divorce is wrong, and I'm right. I get the spoils, and I blame her. Because the one thing I've learned through all of this: so long as there's somebody to blame, there'll always be divorce, and it will always be an action verb.