Our Exes Do Live in Texas

It's not just a song, it's absolutely true. Both of our exes live in Texas. My ex-husband is currently stationed at a base in San Antonio, and Joel's beloved ex-wife lives in Houston. What made me think of this... well on Sunday I was in the kitchen and heard voices outside the bay window. I peeked out and saw that Joel, who had been working outside, was chatting with this really cute guy sitting in the driver's seat of his car. I simply thought he was some neighbor guy from down the street or whatever. Joel is friendly with all his neighbors. I fleetingly wondered if maybe Joel could hook me up with this guy. Remember now, Joel is just my pseudo-boyfriend. He's not a real boyfriend. I'll have to explain all that one day I suppose. It's just such a looooooong story.

Later that evening, Joel told me who he had been talking to. It was his ex-wife's first ex-husband, Phil. He just wanted to drive by and see if Joel still lived here. Wow! He actually made a special trip to the ghetto to see if Joel was here. Yep. The loser's still here.

"I didn't know Phil was that comfortable with me to just drive by and see if I was still living here," Joel said. "He still has Jax, and he's being a sparkplug as usual. I told him to 'come by with Jax any Saturday or Sunday; I'm usually here.' I said he could even drop him off for a couple hours if he wanted to."

Jax is a dog that Joel and his ex-wife Annmarie had before they divorced. When she abruptly left Joel in 2003, he couldn't keep Jax because of his extensive traveling schedule. Annmarie couldn't keep Jax either because she was moving to Texas to start her new career as a flight attendant. I think the story is that she called Phil and asked him if he wanted to adopt Jax (who was a year or two old), and so he did. I wonder if Phil really will come back here with Jax for a visit.

Phil told Joel that Annmarie is on Husband #3, a pilot for Continental. I said they should get the guy's name so he could join their club someday.

"What club?" Joel asked me.
"The Ex-Husbands Club," I smirked. "You guys could get together monthly for drinks or whatever and bitch about Annmarie."

Joel actually thought that was funny, which is odd because he does not care for my sense of humor. (One of the many many reasons why he is my pseudo-boyfriend. God, I can't wait to get out of this stupid relationship.)

I, on the other hand, kept my two dogs from my marriage, and my ex-husband Braden voluntarily pays me $200 every month in "doggy support." I love him. We don't speak much now as we did when we first divorced, which was done quite amicably in Cali. In 2004 he got stationed overseas for a couple years, and only recently has he returned to the States and is in Texas for a little awhile before going to his permanent assignment in Oklahoma. He will be at the same base as Joel's older sister Beth, whose husband is military as well. Hey, I just thought of something. On Sunday I had suggested to Joel that we go to Beth's for Thanksgiving. He thought that was a great idea and phoned her. Beth is all excited now. So if we're going to OK City for T-giving, maybe I'll be able to visit with Braden, who should be there by then. But maybe he won't be in town then; he might go to visit his family or significant other. Oh well. Just a thought. I'll have to shoot an e-mail off to him.

We e-mail only a couple times a year now. The last time was in February when our 12-year-old dog died suddenly (sniff sniff). The time before that was when Tyson was born in June 2005. Before that, I think we actually spoke on the phone. He was visiting the States and called me on my birthday in December 2004; I was a couple months pregnant then and was feeling very very bad. It was so nice that he called. I will never ever find another guy like him. I guess I have Divorce Remorse sometimes. That'll have to be a future blog title for sure.

He's Gay Straight

Early Sunday morning, at 2:30 A.M. or so, the phone rang and my heart stopped for a second when the guy on the other end started talking. I thought it was Del, my former pseudo-boyfriend from Cali. (I know, I'm pathetic, to have two of these kinds of relationships.) After about 20 seconds of my heart palpitating, I asked "Who is this?"

"This is Joel. Don't fuck with me, okay?"

He was drunk of course. And his voice sounded all high and gay and drunk, exactly like Del's, and the only time he used to call me was when he was drunk. That was the only time he found me attractive too and wanted to have sex with me. Asshole.

So Joel was drunk and Gordon was passed out in his Jeep. Joel didn't know what to do. What a moron. I told him to call a taxi; that's a lot cheaper than getting a DUI. Then he proceeded to tell me how he met this guy Chris in the bar, and Chris looked familiar. So they started chatting and it turns out that Chris sold Joel some carpet from Home Depot about a year ago. Then Chris starts putting out "gay vibes" to Joel. Joel gets this a lot. He says he's not gay, but I say he has quite a few gay tendencies. According to me, he's a gay-straight male, meaning he is heterosexual but with lots of homosexual qualities and mannerisms. For example, his laugh. Joel does this high-pitched girly laugh. It's embarrassing really when he does it in public. One time he did the laugh at a friend's house and he jumped up and down while clapping his hands. His friend and I glanced at each other in an Oh-my-God-that's-so-gay moment.

Even my friend Julia, the one who will be here on Saturday from Cali, thought for the longest time that he was gay. She has known Joel for about 20 years, and she is the one who introduced us, an event she wishes had never happened and has apologized profusely for, but that is another story for another day. Joel went to high school in the late 80s with Julia's oldest son, Mick, and I think they were on the same wrestling team or something. Julia always thought Joel was after her son for a gay relationship. And I guess Joel acted gay, he never brought any girls to any parties at Mick's house, and he never spoke of having a girlfriend. Then came a day in 2000 when Joel announced he was engaged and moving to Denver to be with his future wife. Julia was shocked!

"I thought he was gay!" she said. "And he's marrying a woman?!"

When I first visited Joel in Denver, he said he had to take me to this bar/lounge near his home to show everyone that he's NOT gay. This sent up a red flag with me. One of a dozen of red flags back then. Why oh why didn't I pay attention to all these red flags? More about that in another post. So I was his "I'm-so-not-gay" arm candy that evening. We stayed for one drink, enough time for the regulars and the bartender to notice that he was with a chick and to conclude that "Oh, he's not gay." Riiiiiiight.

So the gay thing came up again that very early Sunday morning. I teased him about it, and he kept saying "not funny." The dumbass drove Gordon home in the Jeep he was passed out in, and then slept for a few hours at Gordon's house until his son Shane, who is 16 months old and just 2 months older than Tyson, woke up loudly at 7 a.m. Then Gordon's wife Peggy came crawling down the hall with stomach cramps or something. And there's Joel in the living room, wiggling his gay-straight fingers in a hello fashion.

I had pulled the all-nighter/all-morninger as planned. Ty and I gassed up the car at 8 a.m., got a Denver Post and ate Burger King for breakfast. He loves the French Toast and I love the ham, egg, and cheese croissanwich. I put him down at 8:30 or so for his morning nap when 15 minutes later Joel arrives home. He is bearing breakfast from Burger King-- French Toast for Tyson and a ham, egg, and cheese croissanwich for me. It was sweet really, because I don't eat BK breakfast very often. Maybe once every two months. So it was very nice of him, my gay-straight pseudo-boyfriend.

Will Work for Clothes

I was in a comatose state today until 4 p.m. or so. And when I say today I mean Saturday, August 26th. I finally made it out of the house too, albeit was 7:50 p.m. but I made it to the mall with little Tyson in tow. We walked around the new Macy*s. They had quite a few suits that I wanted to try on, but for tonight I just looked. I figure if I get a nice suit for interviewing, then maybe I'll actually apply for a job just so I can wear the suit.

It'd be nice to be earning money again. I miss clothes shopping so much. I haven't really bought any nice clothes for a couple of years. Another reason is all the weight I've gained. When I first moved out here to Denver from California, I was a nice size 4. Now I'm like a size 10, and I feel so hefty. I have so many nice clothes in my closet, but I can barely get some of the pants and skirts past my thighs. It's ridiculous. I swore I'd never be this fat again, but it's taken only a year to gain 20 pounds, which on my 5'1" frame does not look good. Drugs, diet and exercise-- I need to be more consistent. At the end of July I told myself that if I could just lose 2 pounds a month, then I'd lose those 20 pounds by the end of next May, just in time for swimsuit season. But I eat whatever I want and am just a lazy ass.

Yesterday we went for a walk to Dairy Queen. It's about a mile away, so it was good exercise. I'm sure the chocolate-dipped cone negated any calories burned by walking, but still... it was a good stroll and it felt good to get out of the house, even if I looked like crap. Today I showered, curled my hair and put on makeup. I found some black "maternity" pants in my closet that fit me perfectly and wore a beige lacy Ann Taylor shirt with my brick red suede mules I purchased at Nordstrom maybe 3 years ago. The reason "maternity" is in quotes is because they're not really maternity pants. They're just regular size 8 pants from Banana Republic that I bought when I was 4 or 5 months pregnant and my usual size 4 pants were too tight. I remember that day when I bought quite a few things from Banana. Pseudo-boyfriend/baby papa, whom I shall now refer to as Joel, was getting on my case because of how much the clothes cost and when would I ever wear them again after the baby was born?

"It's my money and none of your business really," I told him.

He said that was true, and he just had to learn that I have a different spending style than he does. Which is absolutely true. He is happy to shop at Ross Dress for Less. I have 4 or 5 stores and labels that I am loyal to. Mostly Banana Republic, sometimes Gap for casual clothes, Victoria's Secret for jeans and some tops, The Limited (although not so much nowadays, especially because the nearest one is way down south at Park Meadows Mall). I love that Foley's is now Macy's; I love, love, love shopping at Macy's. That is where I shopped when I lived in Santa Barbara County.

Joel doesn't really have any money to spend on things. He works for a bank downtown doing super-secret stuff for a net income of $1808 a month. I, on the other hand, was making $2704 a month as a teacher here in Adams County. In California I was netting about $3400 a month, which was really really really nice, even though I was $50K in debt with credit cards. But my little condo had appreciated tremendously during the housing boom, so I sold it for over a quarter of a million and moved here to Colorado, with a nice profit of over $100K. I remember I paid off all my credit cards (WOW! that was a great feeling), put down $50K on my new, much larger house, and saved the rest, which is almost all gone now because that's what I've been living off of for the past year that I haven't been working. But at least my house is being rented out to two very nice young ladies, so my mortgage is now covered. The only expenses I have now are my auto and home insurance, my student loan, and some new credit card payments, which I don't know how this happened. I've fallen into the old habit of racking up debt for which there is nothing to show for. More musings on this another post.

Joel went out this evening with his best friend, Gordon. They don't go out often; maybe once a quarter. Gordon drinks waaaaay toooooo much and then drives himself home. If Joel drinks too much, at least he's smart enough to just hang out at the bar to sober up and then drive home. I do not drink very much nowadays, but the past couple of days I've been craving a margarita or some Jello shots. I even put out on the counter some tequila and lime Jello to make some, but I haven't yet.

Tomorrow is Family Day. I'm thinking maybe I'll get Joel to take me down to Cherry Creek to go shopping or Park Meadows. I'm going to pull an all-nighter/all-morninger to try to reset my circadian rhythm. This going to bed at 5 a.m. and sleeping until 1 p.m. or later has got to stop. I feel like a bad mother for neglecting Tyson in the mornings. Joel does wake him to change him and give him a bottle of milk, but he's not a baby anymore. He should be eating a good solid breakfast. I will be there tomorrow (Sunday) to make sure he is well-fed.

A New Day, A New Blog

I awoke yesterday and it was still officially morning. In fact it was a full 20 minutes before noon. Such is my new dull life as a single unemployed-by-choice mom. That evening I decided that I would start a new blog. Whether I'll keep up with it is another question. But I like this theme so I think I'll stick with it.

I am 35 with a Masters degree in Education. And now I live in the ghetto. I call it a ghetto but my pseudo-boyfriend/baby papa doesn't. He refuses to use negative words. He won't say "cheap" because he thinks "inexpensive" is a nicer term. But I say he's a cheap bastard. More about that later in another post.

So here I am, in the ghetto. It's a trailer park in Thornton, which is a bedroom community north of Denver where pseudo-boyfriend/baby papa has been living for the past 5 years. I've been living here almost four months now, since May 2006, motivated mostly by financial reasons and some by baby (now a toddler) reasons. I actually own my own home, a very nice 3-bedroom, 2-bath ranch-style house with a huge unfinished basement in a very nice neighborhood in the growing part of northeast Thornton. I purchased it in October 2004, the month I unknowingly got pregnant. I love that house and miss it very much. Now I'm living in a trailer, or as pseudo-boyfriend/baby papa would call it, "a manufactured home."

It's actually one of the nicer trailers in the ghetto here. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1 office room, and a huge long-ass garage. It's a roof over my head while I'm not working and have no real income. I was an elementary school teacher for 8 years- 7 in California and 1 here when I first moved to this area, a decision that I sometimes wish I could take back. But then I wouldn't have my precious little son, whom I do love but I still can't believe that I'm someone's mother.

I know I won't always live here in the ghetto. It's just a temporary situation, until next summer, or maybe the year after that, AT THE MOST. I was supposed to start working again, teaching this just-now-starting school year, but I've been so unmotivated. I know part of it is the depression, which hits me pretty badly every now and again. And part of it is that I'm not ready. I don't know if I want to stay in teaching or get into another career field. I want to make money; I know that. Enough to live my single life, fabulously of course, (Yes! I'm a Sex and the City girl) while taking into account the needs of this child I'm responsible for. I know that I will work soon, and the money I make I'll be able to sock away into retirement and put towards A NEW CAR!

The most exciting thing that happened to me today is that I spoke with my good friend, Julia, in California, and told her about an awesome airfare I found at united.com to Denver for Labor Day Weekend. We booked the flights tonight, and so she will be here next Saturday. I shall delight in showing her my new ghetto home.