Archive for July, 2006
Unless you count the last two weeks of suffocating heat and humidity, the weather in Los Angeles, CA, has been fan-friggin-tastic!
It was so nice one evening, on the drive home from work, that I pulled off of Mullholland Drive, then turned down to Franklin Canyon Park. It’s a tree lined park in the canyons, complete with hiking trails leading into the rolling hills that draw everyone to Mullholland, a lake and lots of happy duckies. I know they were happy because they didn’t swim away from me, but said hi (okay, honked), then returned to their duck games. (No, I’m not high — it really happened!)
I walked three-quarters of the lake before I came across a trail leading into the hills. I’m not sure of it’s name, but look for the red steps over the concrete divider on the left of the road. Head cross the street, then up the hill, keep going up for about twenty minutes, then try not to die! It’s a strenous hike. It has everything you’d expect: buzzing bees, a steep, sometimes crumbling path and (according to park signs) the occasional rattlesnake (I didn’t see one, thank you, Jeebus!). When I reached the top, I was rewarded with a phenomenal view that only the neighboring ba-jillionaire homeowners, the hawks and I shared. I hope you get to see it, too.
After that, I was hooked. I found myself looking for reasons to get outdoors. If I wanted to rent a movie from Blockbuster, I walked the long block over there. Same with Starbucks, but I chose the one three blocks away and practically speed-walked to the Galleria. I borrowed a bike from my best bud, Jean Luc, one Sunday, then drove down to Zuma Beach. Though it doesn’t have a bike path, it is Malibu, so it was safe and clean and super duper cool. I biked the length of the parking lot, before walking bow-legged down to the beach, and collapsed onto the sand.
I’ve been active every couple of days — sometimes twice a day — since then. I actually get ansy if I go three days without working out. That’s why I climbed that steep set of stairs off of Beechwood Drive a few days ago. I think Rocky Balboa had it easy compared to my climb!
With all of this activity, you’d think I’d be diligent about eating well, keeping all the yucky toxic junk out of my system. Yeah, that makes total sense, but you’d still be wrong! It’s not unusual for me to order the Big, Fat-Dripping Breakfast burrito (but hold the mayo, cuz that’s just gross!) from Del Taco, a half pound cheeseburger from Fudruckers for lunch, then end the evening with something equally fatty, covered in cheese then deep-fried. Yeah, I’m disgusting.
So imagine my surprise when I stepped on the scale and found myself ten pounds lighter. At 5′ 10″ — okay, 5′ 9 and 3/4,” but who’s really counting? — and 156 pounds, I’m still a big girl…but a big gal who is back to the weight she was when she, sorry, I, met my soon-to-be-ex husband, Endicott. Even overweight, at the tender age of 25, I was curvy, and kinda cute (I’ve seen the photos — it’s true!)…Now that I’m back at my fighting weight, it makes me wonder how I carry this at the not so ripe age of 35.
So, of course, I phoned my best bud, Jean Luc, for support. Guess how that worked out!
“Dude,” I squealed, “I’m 156 pounds! I lost ten pounds!”
“Cool. Let me know when you’re 125 pounds!” He laughed at his own joke.
Oh yeah, no one will notice when I lose a quarter of my body weight! “Oh, something tells me you’ll know. I may not return your calls or emails, but you’ll see me on the evening news. ‘Flo gets a new beau. News at 11!’ ” Then I laughed at my own joke, before adding, “Paris who?!”
Yeah, I’m a dork, but I’m a lighter, slightly healther dork, who feels a little more confident in my bright orange one piece Speedo. And that feels awesome!
It was also pretty cool when Jean Luc added, “Congratulations! That’s awesome! Good job!” Honestly, who couldn’t use some of those well wishes every day of their life?
See you later!…at the beach, the park, the moonlight hike…
Flo
July 26th, 2006
Three weeks ago, I was standing in the kitchen with my boss, Mr. B., his girlfriend, Jane, and her friend of a dozen years, Dora.
Dora was their houseguest that week. She was at the beginnings of a nasty break-up and needed a place to crash for a few days. (Who hasn’t been there?)
I remember meeting her and her boyfriend many months earlier, thinking what a striking couple they were. Were being the key word now.
Mr. B’s girlfriend/my friend, Jane, suggested that Dora talk to me about the little blog I keep titled www.idiotexhusband.com. I was about to mention I also registered the domain name www.idiotexboyfriend.com when Mr. B looked up from the salmon he was burning in the broiler, “Flo, you need to give up that website.”
Though my boss was a lawyer from Brooklyn turned music manager (think American music legends, people) and never shied away from sharing his feelings, that statement shocked me. I looked around the room to see if anyone else heard it, too.
“First of all, you’ve got better things to do with your time…”
I interrupted him, “Uh, no I don’t. Not really!” That got a big laugh from Jane.
“Oh, sure you do,” he said. “Second, it’s a rotten thing to do to your husband after he helped you.” He pointed his spatula at me, “He paid your medical bills when you were sick.”
I stopped giggling to agree with him. “Yes, he did. That was very kind of him. He didn’t have to do that.”
He turned back to the broiler, “What you’re doing to him is wrong.”
“In fairness, I’m not as pissed at him as I used to be. I had some major ammunition from a recent fight we had last month and I didn’t even use it!” That got a bigger laugh from everyone but Mr. B.
While I know he’s right — and have struggled with this very subject for months now — I’m not fully ready to give up this blog. This is my one outlet for self-expression (too bad the url justexpressingmyself.com is already take!). Right now, I need this site.
Instead of dropping IXH altogether, it might be better to refocus my goals. I’m thinking less angry stories about my soon to be ex-husband, Endicott, and more stories documenting my journey through divorce (which was one of my original goals for IXH when I started it fourteen months ago). If you act now, I’ll pepper in the occassional bits of sex, drugs, and rock and roll…Uh, no I won’t. It seemed like a cool thing to write ’til I remembered we’re talking about me, not Mr. B…but if you end up at his house in the Hills at some late night party, I bet he’d be more than happy to share them with you.
If you have any suggestions for new features, feel free to click on the contact tab at the top of the screen and let me know. While I still haven’t gotten back to several readers who left comments last month, I will definitely address them, and anyone else who writes me, in the next couple of days.
Adios,
Flo
July 5th, 2006
Though yesterday’s post read like all my previous, “Now do you see how my soon to be ex-husband is a jackass?” stories, it was meant to be more than that. It was unclear because I mistakenly left out a couple of facts that I’d like to include here.
The last several times we spoke, even when he asked me to return to our oh-so-happy union, I didn’t yell at Endicott. I didn’t react with instant anger as I did prior to mid-June 2006. I treated him with kindness, and respect while I firmly stood my ground. In short, I treated him the way I would like to be treated…I know! I wouldn’t believe me either!
I’m not sure how to explain this without blowing the little bit of discretion I own, but here goes:
In the last two months, I’ve befriended several divorced men. (No, that’s not a euphemism for anything naughty or sensational…as far as you know!) While I didn’t get the particulars of their stories, their halves of the inevitable he-said, she-said bits every divorced person is ready to recite at a moment’s notice (I knew better than to ask!), I saw the results of their failed relationships. With few exceptions they are wounded men, hurt to their very cores. It occured to me that we divorced persons (men and women) all share the same traumatic experience. We are all heartbroken and beat-up, occassionally nostalgic, and always hopeful that love and trust can be ours again.
I haven’t had much practice with that last bit (love and trust) since leaving my husband many moons ago. If anything, I’m flirting with the feelings like and trust. I’m slowly becoming reacquainted with the unexpected, but not unwelcome, sensations known as friendship and fun. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I know Endicott didn’t purposely hurt me. He did his best to be a good man and a good husband to me. It didn’t work, of course!, but I know he tried. Just as I wasn’t as kind to him as I could have been…but I’m working on it. I’ll let you know how that goes, too.
So, yes, I’m trying to forgive him…but I’ll never go back to him.
Though it’ll probably be awhile before I stop feeling bad about our broken marriage, I have it on very good authority that I will get through this. Ideally, I’d like to do more than survive. I want to thrive! I want to be one of those rare persons that actually drops all of her baggage, never to revisit it again. I’m not sure how I — one of the world’s angrier women — could possibly do that, but I sure as heck want to try! I want this more than I’ve wanted anything in quite some time. I think I’m finally ready to do it instead of just talking about doing it.
Last month, I didn’t yell at him. I felt sorrow and regret that 1) we can never go back to the happy place we shared for the first half of our relationship; and 2) he could not let me go, just as I could not release my bitterness.
What is it that all the twelve step followers say, realizing you have a problem is the first step to recovery? I recognize I have a problem. I desperately want to fix it…I’m making an appointment with someone tomorrow.
I have so much work to do…
Adios,
Flo
July 4th, 2006
The following exchange took place mid-June 2006 (and pretty much every month since our separation began in December 2004):
“Are you happy, Flo?”
“Am I happy? What do you mean?” I know exactly what he meant, but continued on as if I didn’t. “Financially, spiritually, emotionally? Specify.”
Endicott answered quietly, his voice broke, “Yeah, all of that. Are you happy?”
That’s how it started. He asked if I’m happy, reminded me we were happy together (so long ago), then promised we will be happy again, better than ever, if I return to him.
He has changed, you know. That’s what he said anyway. That’s what he always said.
My usual reaction was instant anger. “Are you f*cking kidding me? I’ll never go back to you. I’d rather be homeless than ever live with you again!”…Yeah, that was harsh (and almost true on several occasions).
After sixteen months of separation, sixteen months of my saying, “F*ck no, I’m not going back to you!” he could not accept my decision. He still wore his wedding ring. He still told me he loves me, how he always will. Half of the time he spoke to me, it was with amusement in his voice, as if sooner or later, I would see how funny this whole misunderstanding (our divorce) really is, then finally return to him.
At some point in the last couple of months, it occured to me that his devotion has very little to do with me as a person, and more to do with me as a possession; as if I’m another object to be collected and stacked in the never ending piles of junk in his home.
If you have ever been to Endicott’s home, you’d know exactly what I mean.
He owns a four thousand square foot duplex in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles. It’s one of those decrepid Spanish style homes in need of many expensive years of renovations. It’s the house you drive by from time to time in hopes of seeing a for sale sign out front so you can scoop it up for yourself. Well, keep on driving folks, ‘cuz he’ll never let it go.
Both floors of his home, as well as the four car garage behind the house, are covered in boxes stacked three (or more) feet high. As long as I’ve known him he has been “cleaning up” the house, throwing out items, only keeping the most important items. Like the boxes of t-shirts and flared jeans he wore in junior high over thirty years ago. He’ used to push them on me, insisted I try them on; when I did — and goodness help me, they fit! — he was angry and hurt when I refused to keep them and wear them on a regular basis. To justify their presence he said they’d also be great as props. Props for what, I’d ask. For a play or a film he might do in the future, he’d reply. Uh-huh, I’d always say before asking if he ever used them before (no), and if he had anything written down where he’d use them again (no).
I could ususally live with the stacks and stacks of stuff for a few weeks before I felt overwhelmed by the volume of abandonned plywood furniture, the empty champagne bottles from some dinner I no longer remembered five or six years earlier, clothes his ex-girlfriend left there in 1990. I’d yell at him to throw out the crap once and for all. He’d get equally angry, yelling that he did throw out a lot of stuff, but I never gave him credit for any of it. No, I’d yell ever louder, you just moved your boxes of crap into different boxes and restacked them across the house! “You don’t give me any credit for anything, Flo!” he’d shout. I could see our neighbors in their front yards staring at his house as I screeched, “You don’t deserve credit for anything, Jackass!”
…Wait, it gets better…
That reaction was tame compared to when I was hurt by the stuff in his house. Like the time the carpet in the stairwell came loose. I asked him for months to nail it down, but he was always too busy to take care of it. I tried to fix it myself, but the arthritis in my hands, shoulders and elbows hurt too much to do anything as physical (and seemingly simple) as swinging a hammer. One evening, as I walked down the unlit stairwell (a short in the hanging lamp that was never fixed though he promised it would be one day), my shoe caught on the rug. I teetered there for a moment thinking, “Oh crap, I’m going to land face first and die!” Fortunately, I landed (hard) on my ass and slid down a several steps before coming to stop, twisted and bruised up by the piles of stuff that sat on the stairs. Five years later I still have the lump (soft tissue dammage) on my ass as a souvenir. Thanks, Endicott.
Then there was the time Endicott placed a 1′ x 5′ pane of glass in front of an archway leading into a storage room (most of the rooms were storage rooms but this one was formerly a den complete with French doors and a balcony facing the front yard). Again, I yelled, ‘blah, blah, blah, safety hazard, blah, blah, blah, dangerous, blah, blah, blah, going to die!’ “Just don’t go in that room!” he’d say. “I have stuff in that room! One of these days, Endicott, I’m going to forget that’s there and I will trip over it! When I land, it’ll be with that mic stand through my neck! And if I live, I WILL blame you! I’ll make you sorry you were ever born!” (Truthfully, he probably already was, but that’s beside the point, right?) Like the loose rug before it, I tried to take care of the heavy glass panel but couldn’t lift it without hurting myself; it stayed where Endicott left it until, one evening, as I predicted, I walked into the dark room (the light switch was three feet away on another entrance to the room) and tripped over it. I wasn’t impaled by anything, but I did land hard (again) on a pile of plywood furniture and hard plastic office supplies before hitting the hardwood floor (again). Like the fall on the stairs, I layed there crying — half of it from pain, half from the seething anger I would unleash on Endicott whenever he came home — a few minutes before I could pick myself up and hobble away…By the way, he didn’t have a chance to move the pane because I did it myself. It hurt like hell to pick it up — not mention it that could have broke in half and sliced open my hands, wrists, or worse — but I moved it all by myself, then cursed him out for not doing it the first hundred times I asked.
…Who wouldn’t want to return to that?…
Sure, I’ve wanted to say that for years, but there is a point here: Endicott collects and keeps stuff, useful or not, and will not dispose of it regardless of whether it hurts us emotionally, or physically. I’m not a health care professional by any means, but it seems to me that when he chose boxes of junk over his wife, he had a problem. I’d say it’s a shame, he should get help, etc., etc., but now that he’s looking at me like I’m another object he won’t let go of, it’s creeping me out…I wonder if I’ll wake up one day in his basement, chained to the water heater, dressed in his rugby shirt from junior high and its matching high water flares, as he pets my hair telling me how happy we’ll be again…I was kidding, but now that I write that, I feel really uncomfortable! While I’m (almost) certain he’d never make a lady suit out of me or tell me, “It must rub on the lotion!” his relationship with stuff (and with me) is not healthy. How much worse will his situation become before he takes it seriously and gets help? I’m guessing it’s just a matter of time before he’s pinned under something or trips over something else and breaks his neck. Now I’m not kidding.
I have many personal items that I still need to pick up from his place. Much of it is spread around the house, probably already incorporated into stacks of boxes that he’s “cleaning up.” I asked him repeatedly to let me get my things. “Sure, Flo, anytime you want, you can come by and get your stuff. No problem,” he’d always say. I’d counter with, “Okay, how about this weekend? Is Sunday at 11 a.m. good for you, Endicott?” Oh, this weekend isn’t good. I have a shoot in La Habra, he’d say. My sister, from BFE, is back in town Sunday, and she needs to be driven around…
As much as I’d like to have my property back, I know he won’t part with it (or with me) without lengthy (and never ending) discussions of the many ways he’s busily cleaning out the house because he has changed his ways and that’s all due to me and he swears to Jeebus things will be different as soon as I give him a second chance and return to him because no one will ever love me the way he loves me…
No amount of reasoning with him will ever persuade him that he should let me go. Just as no amount of reasoning (or pleading, “Please Flo, just give me one more chance…”) will ever persuade me to return to him. I can say, “Endicott, the last four miserable years we spent together was one day after another of second, third, and fourth chances. We had three hundred and sixty-five days times four years which makes zero, carry the two, six carry the two, fourteen, yes 1460 days to get it right,” until I’m blue in the face, and it won’t make a difference.
He doesn’t want me because we’re compatable and complimentary. He wants me the way he wants the cheesy IKEA particle board furniture he’ll never throw out even as it falls apart in one of his many “storage” rooms while it waits to be donated to Goodwill…
Fool me once, Endicott, shame on you, fool me 1461 times, shame on me.
Flo
July 3rd, 2006