The Gay Divorcee

Today's movie quote comes from the old Astaire/Rogers film, The Gay Divorcee:

Pining? Men don't pine. Girls pine. Men just... suffer.

I cannot BELIEVE after looking forward to sleeping in all this dreadful week, I've woken up at 5am. I tried to go back to sleep and I spent precisely 24 minutes before giving up, making a pot o Joe and watching reruns of the Daily Show. Which, btw, was fairly classic this week with James Oliver ("Senior Carryonoligist) standing at "Heathrow" reporting that the British aviation ban on liquids should include humans who are in fact 75% liquid are walking bombs. He also pointed out something I can't believe I didn't think of, which is, what level of viscosity is liquid banned? Such as clotted cream? He warned us of the evil layer of explosive liquid that can exist between delicious lumps of cream.

Anyway, I digress. Though I don't know what I'm digressing from. I had a long day yesterday and work up sore this morning. I managed to get to the bookstore and got my Rwanda book I've wanted - We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. And for something a little more sobering and serious, I picked up Conversations With Bono. I meant to get it whenever it came out (a year or so ago?) when I sat next to someone on a plane reading it who said it was suprisingly interesting. I saw it on the table at Borders and read the foreword written by Bono and it twigged by interest simply because he said doing this helped him process his father's death (his mother died when he was an adolescent).. Actually, what really got me to take the book to the register is he said exactly verbatim what I had said to C (version 2.0) on why I needed my space, "I've just not been myself lately" and took that as yet another odd sign that I'm on the right journey.

Speaking of a journey, I had some closure on Matt. It was an odd way to get that closure. We had a big party at work yesterday, and somehow I got in charge of the raffle. That sounds like rather simple job but it's actually a mountain of work. So we realized - at the last minute - that we had no objective judge to judge the dessert contest. So the members of senior management and I were standing around discussing who we could get to do this. I said to Lala, "Go get Matt. He'll eat it. He'll put anything in his mouth." Lala says, "Why do I have to get him?" and I said, "He won't do it if I ask him." Lala said, "Why??" To that and to her great observation, K said quite seriously, "It's her ex-husband. It's like asking your ex-husband to do something nice." I agreed publicly and openly and said, "It has been totally like a divorce."

That was a huge thing for me to get out in the open. In case you don't know, Matt and I were often accused of being an old married couple. Whether it was an argument about something no on else understood or my ordering for him off the menu at a restaurant he's never been to before - and ordering precisely correctly - or just the fact that we spent more time with each other day and night than our significant others..it was in many respects like a marriage. He farted in front of me, routinely so I don't know how much closer to marriage you get that than. And it's been just about 2 years of that. So our demise from a few months ago has been just as disruptive, uncomfortable for third parties, and miserable as any break up or divorce. And like divorced parents, we get along for the children (the project) when we have to but the minute the audience leaves, it's back to 'fuck youse'.

Getting some unsolicited recognition for the fact this guy wandering around is like an ex-husband for me was actually very liberating.

See, all happens for a reason.