Fragile Industries

A Thanksgiving Memory, With Gratitude To Truman

I really am grateful.  Stripping the day to its bare symbolic import, instead of turkey, today I thought on gratitude and how living well IS the best revenge. 

 

On Thanksgiving Day a few years ago, my ex woke me early, fully dressed.  He told me he wanted out of our marriage.  He crumpled on the floor sobbing and managed to choke out that he was far too upset to stay in the house (he had soldiered on manfully with full knowledge of his plan for quite some time with a calm exterior so that he could disclose the tawdry affair at a moment of maximum psychological impact) and was leaving, couldn't say where or for how long. 

 

We were supposed to T-Day at Anna's (a wonderful friend I had made at the opera) and I called Anna with incoherent excuses.  I roamed the house the rest of the day, smelling everyone's turkey on the block through the windows, watching families gather, and feeling exquisite self-pity.  I could not summon a single vision of my future.

 

Anna called later, wormed the truth out of me, and Friday the next day arrived with a care package of turkey and kim chee (half her family is Korean).  She bullied me into attending and doing my duty the day after that, Saturday (still no word from my future ex), the night of the annual Opera Supers party, which I chaired.  I had the keys to the venue and the calling tree for caterers, decorations and appetizers, I had to be there before everyone and after the last dog was hung.  I was also in the traditional Super Skit.  OK, it ain't Broadway, but these were 200 of my closest friends.  Anna pushed me into an outfit I never would have dared to wear (If you Google "Issey Miyake" images with my name, there's a picture of me in a vast pleated gold lame blouse mugging for the paparazzi at the party), she mashed mascara on my face and drove me to the Marina location, bitching at my self-absorption the entire time.

 

Bless her heart.

 

I sucked it up and had a fabulous time.  In sexy leggings and heels even though I was fat.  Anna knew that the surest way to get my blood flowing again was to tell me that the show must go on.  Future executors of my estate, take note: forget taking my pulse when I flatline.  Tell me the stage manager is paging me by name to stage left.  I will rise like Lazarus.  That's a good friend.  I am grateful to good friends.

 

And that lizard-brain reaction to a stage cue?  I get that from Mom.  For that I am grateful.

 

Thanksgiving 2003 itself was the worst day in my life that did not involve arrest, cardiac or otherwise.  Within 48 hours, friendship and living well triumphed.  Today I get to look out the window and smell turkey and salt air, I can see families visiting and crashing waves, spumes 40 feet in the air.  For that I am grateful.  Not quite smug, because who knows about tomorrow, but right now, I am content.

 

Truman Capote may have had a more heart-tugging "Christmas Memory" but that's my "Thanksgiving Memory."  Capote, the better wordsmith, had his immortal Sook put it this way:

 

"My, how foolish I am! You know what I've always thought? I've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. But I'll wager it never happens. I'll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are, just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.'

And for that I am most grateful.

 

Going Off the Rez....

 

I'm going away for a week.

I  have had a 12+ hour day getting the home front in order before I leave.  For Mom: O2 deliveries, food run, a bunch of tupperwares for Mom's meals carefully labeled, along with toting 6 (count 'em, 6) liters of Smirnoff upstairs (moi?  an enabler?), directions for cat meds written out, along with lists of phone numbers for everything from my cel phone to the vet to a helpful neighbor, copies of my itinerary.  Lori the White Trash Cleaning Lady is in thrall to Mom and will be here for a few hours every day, so all should be well.

Then the pre-packing: more tupperware to take with me, containing lots of wiccan herbs and crystals and special sachets and god knows what, so that I can cleanse and purify the farm.  20+ acres.  There will be a full cleansing, a sage smudging with outdoor burning of aromatics (lavender, rosemary, eucalyptus, from my own garden, plus bunches and bunches of purchased sage), plus homemade and sewn purification sachets and bath teas -- then a chicken baked with sage, lavender, rosemary --- herbs d' provance ... did witchcraft influence French cuisine?

 

Then crating a fragile but adorable lamp for grandbaby that I hope makes the trip (LOTS of styrofoam and bubble wrap), books, dog chews, cat treats, sex toys (My farmer is so cute!  He found a toy shoppe in Minneapolis and ordered ahead, there will be a parcel to pick up on the way from the airport -- the advantages of an Asbergian lover is they focus so wonderfully) and if I'm lucky I can pack some clothes.  Those seem optional.

 

I'm more worried about leaving my lush garden than Mom or the cats.  With my assiduous care, 12 gorgeous plants in pots stand on the 3d floor deck, with silk flowers staked alongside and wire-mounted to branches (like that's going to fool anyone)  -- they are a marvel.  Less than 8 weeks from seed, and they are 3'+ tall and 3' wide, bursting with rude good health.  I pray they don't start blooming while I'm gone, I have to murder the boys once they show themselves.  I've gone over the top with organic nutrients and pest control, I have a sensor for light, alkaline-acid balance and watering, I have named every leaf.

 

And now they're on their own for 8 days.  I've explained it to them, they nod their green heads, but I wonder if they really understand that today's soaking, feeding and massage is the last for a while.  Oh yeah, they call them weeds, but these are the most pampered plants in the universe.

 

Thursday, we had a bit of excitement -- a woman was brutally murdered about 2 blocks away.  There may be a serial killer on the loose in My Little Town -- the crime was nearly identical to the brutal murder (I'm just copying the "Breaking News" lingo -- "brutal murder" is what makes it to CNN, as these have) of a couple living about 4 miles up the coast on Faria Beach.  So of course I'm triple-checking locks and windows, but the real threat were all the news and police helicopters hovering within view of the deck.  That's when I got the silk flowers out.  Bless our sweet neighbors -- two came by to remind us to lock up carefully at night.  I think Mom and I are on the list of The Crazy Ladies We Love on Kingston Lane. 

 

All this will wash away once I'm in the pleasant, cow-fucking land of Minnesota.

 

I can't wait to see what happens.

 

See ya in a week or two.

 

Self-Indulgent Musings On Love

It's all good.  It just is. 

Love of family -- even when the obligations of same are enormous. 

Love of nature and green growing things, especially when you've sprouted them from seed and throw down your body before the leaf borers, spider mites, and mold. 

Love of new information, however acquired, in whatever tantalizes your geekiest impulses. 

Love of neighborliness in those folks you see in quotidian life, the bag boys who, you discover, were also punk rockers ages ago and never expected to live this long, or the owner of the used book shop where you exchange your books and she, too, is hopelessly in love with Orson Wells, circa 1947 (and boy, is Rita Hayworth going to be pissed). 

Love shared with classmates from high school who remember when we were all Serious Thespians and we drove aimlessly around our little town drinking bourbon from pint bottles, talking about Tennessee Williams and Stanislavsky. 

Love between those same classmates when we laugh about where we are now -- estrogen-deprived and middle-aged and still misfits. 

Love in gatherings of friends, feeding them, entertaining them, giving of oneself and saying, yes, this is good. 

Love of the furry companions who ask only our continued presence and attention. 

Love of those we've met along the way in shared pursuits, opera, travel, books, food, cooking, life.

Love of a city, a perfume, a sensation, the taste of foie gras.

Love -- the knowing one can love, that it is not dead, the familiar and the strange and the scary bravery in saying, yes, this is another beloved and I will defend and protect and enjoy this human, this animal, this plant, this commonality.

Love.

I'm letting myself do this again. I'm letting myself continue.  I'm finding that those I loved first I loved most, and even if there is no chance for the expected norm of love-partnership-cohabitation-legal ties (marriage or whatever legal construct is appropriate) -- saying this, this is all good.  I will embrace the temporary neediness without expectation.  I will enjoy the now and the future nows with patience.  I will stand astonished at the way life works and how little, and how much, one changes over 40 (gasp) years.

There are times when it is so easy to love, and love beyond limitation, that it has to be right and fuck the rules -- one surrenders.

Dear readers, Devoted Readers, this is the first time in 4 years of blogging I have slipped to the level of such sentiment.  But I can, unafraid, unashamed, without future promise and in the now, say that I love not only family, bag boys, classmates, my garden and pets, I love a human being with all my heart.

The Rewards of Being Auntie Mame

 

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It is amazing (or maybe not) how many blessings, like the flowers in the picture above (blossoms from the Loire Valley -- 2007), I find in my own back yard.  I have come to adore the next generation in my family.  They are wiser than I at their age -- perhaps that's to be expected in the logarithmic advance of time.  And there is something very green and fruitful and fresh in the communion with people one has known before utero, known the parentage and followed along their lives, which tag along one's own.  And then, suddenly, wonderfully, catch up -- and have wisdom to share.  Let's never get so old that we can't appreciate that. 

And hey nieces (I'm talkin' 'bout you) I was the one to send lace-trimmed-hand-embroidered newborn-sized dresses from Bloomies in Beverly Hills (where I worked at the time, mid '80's) just because I KNEW your mommies and daddies were clothing you in Oshkosh or thrift store.  After that, you were on your own for style.  And you've made me proud.  Style is wisdom -- style is self-confidence -- style is originality.  You've both got that going in spades.

Come see Auntie Mame here in Bakersfield-By-The-Sea and we'll go have caviar (or a vegan alternative) and champagne.

Public Notice

"Like Lisa, who, oddly enough, was all fired up and was blogging spoon-fed 'info' from [Athena] (her actual name's Heidi, and she hates it), but she stopped. I'm thinking that Heidi's beating her down on a daily basis until she does what she's told to do or she's turned against. I'm assuming she realized that either the past is dead or maybe she had a little something to do with it too. I'm thinking that Heidi's beating her down on a daily basis until she does what she's told to do or she's turned against. But Heidi blurs that line for you, if she lets you think at all for yourself."  - my ex husband, in email to an ex of his, 5/16/09

Fragile Industries quotes the above syntactically awkward passage in order to state the following:

I have never blogged in any way except from my heart, Devoted Readers.  If I've been spoon-fed anything, it's my own delicious cooking.  For anyone who knows me, the notion of me being beaten down until I do what I'm told to do is beyond laughable.  And for anyone who knows my tastes in perversion also knows that the bottom is boss: she does exactly what she wants to do while making the top think he's in charge.  This is part of the power exchange, and anyone who wants to play those games knowledgeably is well aware of that as well.  Unfortunately, some folks are drawn to that game who have no idea of the real equation and hope to gain some faux power.  I am not, and have never been, anyone's pawn.

Public notice:  I'm a fucking pigheaded stubborn ex-wife who tells the truth as she knows it, uncolored by anyone else's revisions or whitewash.

The only reason I stopped writing "Full Disclosure" here is that I want, very much want, to get on with my life which is rich and full and wonderful. There is no residual thrill in trashing exes.  But if the ex is now spreading actionable threats to other women in his life, I will correct the record.

Did I have "a little something to do with it too"?  Undoubtedly, and I have expressed my regret for this in manifold ways here on the fragile industries channel, and privately to my ex.  Did he ever acknowledge that he had "a little something to do with it too"?  Never.  Ever.  Not a single expression of regret.

I will not be taunted into doing what I don't want to do.

Let it be known that my ex is a liar, a bully, and a weakling.  I will defend with every weapon in my arsenal, legal advice, physical presence, financial assistance or otherwise, any woman he injures.  That's just the decent sisterly thing to do. 

Let it be known that I do this of my own free will, of what sound mind I possess, and with the blessing of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, may she enfold us all in her holy whiskers.

Feh.

PS: Have I mentioned lately, dear readers, that I have shed 5 years of near-celibate isolation to fall in love?  See how life goes on?

Here's a picture from my trip to the Loire Valley, France.  New, lovely blossoms.

 

Not So Full Disclosure

In which I call a time out.

Devoted Readers, I can't go on.  *holds hand to brow, slumps shoulders*

Suitably melodramatic ... but really, I can't.  All this bile and old old old stuff.  It's a toxic place for me to live.  I spent Wednesday evening and part of yesterday trying to write the last two chapters, and felt physically ill.

Chapter the next was going to describe how I decided to attend the Oakland hearing with Athena, how another friend came along for further moral support, and the fun of imagining the ex's face when he saw us.

Chapter the one after that (may have needed a few installments) was going to describe the hearing itself.  As it concerned the specific case, it was anticlimactic.  No guns or swordplay, a quick resolution, Athena presented the case brilliantly, again, and the ex waffled inepty, again.  The judgment was rendered swiftly, and Athena won.  Again.  It is now final and incapable of any further appeal.

The courtroom experience itself was open for great comedic literary expansion, as we had to sit through the first two appeals, each of which was a landlord-tenant dispute, each of which took an hour, each of which was defended by a succession of "Dumb and Dumber" landlords, all heard by a very senior (80+, is my guess) judge who was severely hard of hearing and kept mislaying papers and files.  As time dragged on, it took on the absurd dimensions of a Monty Python skit.  

But it's over and done.

The tale of the ex's exes continues. While there is some residual satisfaction in knowing that we could all write each other's stories, and that women as bright and capable as myself (brighter and more capable, even) fell prey to the same con job, were fed the same lies, were subject to the same betrayals and sponging, and have been similiarly besmirched to future exes, you know, it gets old.

We can't change him.  We can't change our past, singly or collectively.  I wish we could prevent future harm, but the more energy we expend on this the more power we give him in our heads.

There's enough else in my life that this has become a time sink.

So I apologize to my Devoted Readers for leaving them in the lurch. 

Corporate note: Fragile Industries has divested its holdings in the business of exes and is investing in the future.

Full Disclosure, Chapter 4

In which legal issues are discussed.

Early this year, Athena took the ex to small claims court. She petitioned to collect the monies she had advanced to the ex when they were together, when she expected his fortunes to reverse and his affection to continue, unsullied. As I had, for years. As all his women had. Because Athena is smarter than me, she had the documents to prove it. In addition, she allowed in her claim those small sums he had advanced as partial payment. Her petition to the court reeked of honesty.

The ex actually appeared in court to answer the claim, though he filed no opposition papers nor a counterclaim. I had bet that he wouldn’t even appear. The small claims judge heard Athena’s case, simply presented, and turned to the ex. “Did she give you this money?” “Yes,” said the ex. “Do you owe her the amount she claims?” “Yes,” he said, “But …” The ex claimed he was owed money for handyman work on her property. The impatient judge said, that has to be a separate claim. You filed no counterclaim. In fairness, he asked Athena about the obviously fraudulent invoice of recent invention the ex waved around. She quite honestly responded that she had never seen it before, it had never been presented to her for payment.

The judge banged his gavel, rendered verdict for Athena and called, “Next.”

I was very glad for her, not for the money, it’s not about money, but because someone, finally, had called him to account, called him on his abusive pattern.

Then she told me he had filed an appeal.

Now, Devoted Readers, you may not know my professional background. I blush to admit it, but I am a damn good lawyer. After an honors degree from USC Law, and five years in private practice, specializing in appellate law, I transitioned to public service with the courts. I spent a year as a chambers attorney with the First District Court of Appeal in California, writing opinions for a great justice. I then served a dozen or so years with the California Supreme Court’s Civil Division, ending up as Senior Research Attorney for the Civil Central Staff. I loved my job, the constant writing, being on the cutting edge of the law without having the impediment of being an advocate. My job was finding the true resolution of knotty problems, and recommending to one of the leading state courts in the nation which cases were worthy of their attention. The job required not only keen skills in legal research, writing, and insight, but an appreciation of the politics and personalities of the Court.

The ex had attended numerous Court events open to spouses, and though I rarely took my work home, he had listened attentively when I shared with him some of my challenges at work, both in pure law and the interoffice realities. As I had listened sympathetically to his work stories from an animation studio, when he had a real job. That’s a good part of marriage.

I thought he might have learned something from ten years with one of the best appellate attorneys in the state. Like knowing when not to appeal a dead-dog loser of a case.  Apparently not.

Full Disclosure, Chapter 3

In which I meet Athena.

A few weeks later, I received an email out of the blue from my ex’s most recent ex. It was a long letter, sent to a mass mailing of women gleaned from his email history.

(By way of exculpation for the sender, this was only after she had hard evidence of his abuses.  As, after he broke into my email and computer, I checked the ex's computer, and found not only email evidence of his affairs, but a photographic record, on the desktop, of one of his more anonymous sexual encounters. It proved he had had unsafe sex, exposing me to God Knows What.  During the time I visited my mother over Christmas.  Feh.  His outrage over being hacked is soooooo disingenuous.  Even a year after our split, he was still hacking into my email and erasing messages.) 

As a preface to my letter, this woman, I’ll call her Athena, in mind of her strength and wisdom, said, I know you are not a party to his recent actions, but perhaps you’ll find this interesting, or words to that effect.

Of course, I was skeptical. But as I read this letter, I recognized very old patterns, very old lies, the same ploy of the repentant bad boy, the claims of victimhood, the same damn cycle of financial abuse, told by someone of uncommon erudition and expression. Moreover, I admired the tone. The overall purpose of this communication was not to tell off the “other women,” not to claim victimhood, but instead to tell the straight story of the ex’s relationship with her, what she was told, where he was and when, so that the multitude of other women in his life during that time could compare notes and know the truth. Instead of the ex’s spin. I applauded her chutzpah in doing such a thing. I wished one of his disappointed lovers had done the same for me during my courtship and marriage, when it might have made a difference.

Athena had brought about my ex’s Worst Nightmare: that all the women he was juggling, setting at odds, filtering all information between, would come together and realize the depth of the dishonesty. At long last, he was exposed as a user, a gigolo, who targeted attractive, intelligent, sensitive women who incidentally were women of property.

I was appalled that, all claims to the contrary, my ex had learned nothing, repented nothing, but kept repeating the same pattern, over and over and over again, and hurting other women.

At first, I responded hesitantly to Athena. As our communication broadened, I more and more admired her. I wished I had her confidence and self-possession when it had ended with the ex, to warn others in the spirit of warning, not blame and hostility.

A few days later, I telephoned the ex to give him one last opportunity for explanation. I asked him, when are you going to stop hurting women, good women, who do nothing wrong but love you? He said “It’s complicated,” and hung up.

Shortly thereafter, I went to San Francisco on one of my Culture Whore visits, full of opera and museums and treating myself to good food and better friends. I met Athena while I was there, and liked her immediately. We learned much from each other. She and I were on similar ground -- although their relationship had been of less than a year’s duration, she was still deeply wounded yet finding her feet. I was older news, but after a long marriage, at about the same stage of healing. Beyond our broken yet mending hearts, we found a lovely common ground of intelligence, humor, and strength.  That evening, and a later party at Houston's, was full of laughter and wry wisdom.

The ex, sensing this coming together, sent Athena a revealing email: he told Athena exactly how to seduce me and mentioned that in a few years, she could count on a financial payoff as I was heir to a substantial estate. That was the last nail in the coffin. I could not help but wonder how often he had made the same calculation, speaking sweetly to my wealthy mother as he concealed his disregard for me.

Athena and I maintained our friendship, for a true friendship it was, as her life moved on. I considered asking the ex to be a screening board for my future friends. He had a knack of finding women very much like myself whom I might not have found on my own for friendship.

I heard from other ex-friends of the ex’s and learned that he had even reached out to platonic friendships and had obtained money from them, never repaid, friends of durations longer than mine. He seemed to be veering dangerously out of control, the wheels were coming off. He had engaged in no meaningful employment for years, still clinging to fantasies of his own self-importance and brilliance. When I heard all this, I remembered the words of a long-ago friend who said, when I described the ex’s dreams, “He still needs a day job.” The ex was above that. As long as he could live off women.  And lie.

Another friend said, "When he got money from you, he thought he was clever.  But really, he was just lucky."

While I'm on the topic of memorable quotes, when the ex had me arrested on the night of our final separation, and I was tossed in a holding cell full of prostitutes, we soon established a common ground and were all sharing our female perspectives.  There I was, middle aged, wearing a twin-set cardigan and tasteful pumps, and they in hotpants and platforms.  When I first walked in, trembling, ready for the movie-of-the-week Linda Blair jailhouse rape, one hooker looked up and smiled.  "Girlfriend, you look sooooo INN-o-cent!"  I remembered the famous line from "Shawshank Redemption."  "But we're all innocent, right?"  After that, I was golden.  I told them that I was arrested after I had gotten upset when I learned that the ex had not only fucked the maid, but a co-worker who had been a frequent dinner guest.  The whole collective nodded knowingly.  The youngest hooker pointed to the cement block wall.  "Honey, you could drill a hole in that and he'd stick his dick in it."  We all nodded again, sisters under the skin.

So I was ready for the revelations of Athena, of old friends, of other exes of my ex.  I was only surprised by the levels of his stupidity.

Next: Legal stuff!

Full Disclosure, Chapter 2

In which I share my backstory.

No, not the whole backstory. Not mine. Let’s just say the ending was painful, unattractive and costly. Not only in a monetary sense -- the ex blackmailed me out of a large sum -- but more importantly, emotionally costly. Every Single Thing In My Life changed unexpectedly and dramatically. The ex had planned and prepared for the divorce, but I hadn’t had that opportunity. Quite literally, I experienced vertigo from the change so extreme that sometimes I had to pull my car over to the side of the road before I was safe to drive. I drank and drugged my way through a few years. I got more crazy, not less. After one last stab at True Love, I had a couple of silly affairs with people I knew I couldn‘t care about, and then went into a cloistered celibacy I could only relinquish on the road, away from home. I got better, better meds, good therapist, slowly got my sea legs back, and though my life still seems directionless from the outside, I have plans, good workable plans, for the future.

During the past five years since I left San Francisco (I will burn a candle on May 10-11^th of this year), the ex and I went through phases of talking and not talking. Unwinding a 10 year marriage takes a while, and little unexploded bombs went off here and there that riled one or the other of us enough to break off communication. The blog post mentioned above. Tax messes I thought he‘d taken care of but hadn’t, resulting in an IRS lien against me of $40,000. Passive aggressive ploys. A few gestures -- such as proposing to his new girlfriend on the day of my 50^th birthday -- and blogging about it, while taking the time to email me his felicitations -- that seemed so pointedly hurtful to both me and an innocent bystander I had to wonder how horrible a person I was to inspire such venom.

Then he‘d send a cheery note or some seemingly concerned comment, such as when one of the cats died, that communication would, tentatively and carefully, resume.

I was spoiled. My prior youthful marriage had ended so amiably. I prided myself on how well I could relate, recover, and move on. So I kept trying to reach that same equilibrium with my more recent ex. What was strange is that, in reviewing my email for the last 5 years, recently, I saw a pattern. Attempting to cure any residual toxins of the past, I had made amends several times, sincerely and after great thought, for the ways I had contributed to the end of our marriage. These amends were accepted with a comment such as, “I forgave you long ago.” This held me for a while, and then a nagging thought would emerge. Had he ever done the same? About every six months, I would ask for the same two things, every time thinking it was the first time: 1) An admission that our time together had not been 10 years of unrelenting misery, but had held some special, magic, moments, and an overall good humor that I still, to this day, treasure. 2) An admission of fault, an apology -- for anything. Anything. Ample grounds for both admissions were plentiful.

Every request was met with silence, at least, always a break in communication for several months, and often, one of the above gestures of enormous hostility.

Until last week, we only had seen each other twice in the four years since I left San Francisco. He passed through My Little Town about 6 months after the divorce, and stopped in to visit me and the cats. I was still more raw than I expected. Watching him walk from his car towards my condo, I felt a deep physical pang. His presence was still Pavlovian to me. His hair remained glossy. The set of his broad shoulders, and his unique stride, was as familiar as my own pulse. It was a civil but uncomfortable meeting.

In December, 2007, I was visiting San Francisco. The ex had recently returned to town and on a whim, I called and asked if he wanted to meet, get a little catharsis out of the way. He seemed eager to do so. I waited in the museum café for his arrival. When he came in, late, he did not see me immediately, and ordered a coffee as I observed him dispassionately. No pang. If anything, he looked unfamiliar, seedy, even. Was this shabby fellow the man I had loved so intensely? Did he always have such bad teeth? Why hadn’t he even combed his hair? It was a valuable meeting, not so much for what was said or unsaid, but for testing my own reactions. By Jove, I felt nothing. I felt distant enough to be gracious. To tell him, truthfully, that I was sorry his latest partnership hadn’t worked out. We parted on slightly better than civil terms.

On the way to that meeting in 2007, I should add, I had valuable insight given to me by others. In the first few years, as I said, when the ex would do something grotesquely hostile, I blamed myself. My personality defects had prompted a reasonable man to behave badly, I believed. I made an oblique reference to this in my blog. To my surprise, my ex’s girlfriend before our marriage, and reluctantly, during our marriage, contacted me and told me I was not to blame. She had been equally misled, betrayed, lied to. She told me for the first time about the level of his betrayal to me, ongoing even during times I thought our marriage had been sound. I learned of the degree of plotting, his glee at discovering my missteps which played into his long-range plans for extortion. I can never thank that woman enough.

I had never really been angry at the “other women” in our drama. They had broken no commitments to me, and I knew how my ex’s charms could seduce good, sensible women. This new information freed my soul, my spirit. I had other insights from others, slowly emerging over the years. I got down off the cross and viewed my ex as a complete, and completely flawed, contributor to our failure.

So I felt magnanimous, meeting him again, viewing him without desire, and could wish him well, wish him his own insight.

On my birthday in 2008, he called, and we spoke for a few minutes, about little, but I thought he was on the road to a complete life, I could leave him to heaven and felt happy to have moved on.

That’s the backstory.

Full Disclosure, Chapter I

In which I start to unpeel the layers of the onion publicly.

I’ve been good, at least I’ve tried to be good, honest I have.

There’s the occasional dig here at my most recent ex, but humorously done, tolerant. It hasn’t been much of a pose, of an attempt to seem blasé or worse, to curry favor (from him, his friends, or The World At Large). Rather, I’ve felt that some private things should stay private. I wanted to honor the good parts of my married past. Also, there is nothing less amusing than a truly bitter, hateful divorcee. It’s ugly, all that bile. Vulgar to endlessly rehash the past. I’ve been around men and women like that, who can drag any topic of conversation around to the nefarious deeds and character of the ex. Boring.

Another reason is that I really, really dislike the role of victim. I don’t want pity. Feh. Ick. The ex, on the other hand, has made victimhood a lifestyle choice, his preferred or even exclusive ploy to make friends and influence people in his favor. It’s worked pretty well for him. Worked on me. But for the most part, at least in our writing (we both write) we kept the dirty laundry in the hamper.

In fact, years ago, I started a separate, anonymous blog where I could go and vent when the bitterness in me demanded expression. I told no one, linked to it nowhere, and as far as I know, it has never been read, a lonely little orphan blog floating in the ether. Did me a lot of good. Haven’t written there in years and years.

In early 2006, about 20 months after our separation, my ex broke our unspoken covenant and blogged very publicly and explicitly about “a friend” who suffered grievous harm at the hands, and hammer, of his insane ex. How his blameless “friend” still had nightmares, was probably irretrievably broken as a result. A child could see through the masquerade of the “friend.” In fact, I knew my ex had told the story, in the first person, to everyone he knew at the time of our breakup. He led tours through the scene of the crime, posted photos in e-mail to those who could not attend in person.

I was livid. Maybe it’s the lawyer in me, but slander (verbal dishing) is very different when it gets in print -- it becomes libel, out there in the public view. Some very tense and hostile emails were exchanged, and the ex said he would pull the post, but wanted all references to HIM out of MY blog.

Though mine were far milder, I agreed, and glasnost reigned thereafter. I spilled a little, recently, in my post about the Oscars, but that was a small and necessary part of a much longer story about something else.

Today, I’ve got a great story and the gloves are off. And it’s not so much about me, or at least not an attempt to be the victim. It’s about vindication, and friendship and karma. Stay tuned, I’m still writing. Over the next few days, I have a story to tell.