I spent this morning with my soon-to-be official ex-husband and our lovely lawyers going over our divorce agreement with a fine tooth comb, some lint brushes, and finally, a Shop-Vac.  We used his lawyer’s office as our pow wow as it is in an elegant old building in the Annex.  Also she serves cookies and fruit, and coffee if you need it.  It all started out jovial and polite, with some LOLs here and there.  I didn’t really know what to expect before I got there but I wasn’t as nervous as when we started crafting this proverbial quilt a year ago.  Divorces take time and I have had time to think, re-think, and re-master the soundtrack in my head.  It was a long year of some back and forths until we decided it was best just to go over it all together and get ‘er done.  It’s done.  I had only one little mini breakdown which was diffused by my earring falling into my bra. I’m kind of happy I boo hoo’d instead of ranted because I had a whole speech that I practised in my car on the way to the meeting, using the Romanov family as a metaphor.  There’s no point in being an angry bitch.  Did you know that if you make a sourpuss face, it will stay that way?  True story:  I just found out that this wretched, flat-assed “see-you-next-Tuesday”  who I used to play tennis with had a stroke!  And not only is her face in a permanent grimace, it is lopsided and she has to eat her salad from a blender with a straw!  Remind me to send Karma Claus a bottle of hooch for Christmas this year!

Anyway, when I left, I felt both heavy and light, a combination of relief and embarrassment (almost everything embarrasses me, by the way, including this blog).  All the wisdom I’ve gained is empowering but also encumbering.  Now what?  What will I do with all these life lessons?  Am I able to Be A Better Person in another relationship?  Do I even dare try or am I too scared?  Am I just one of those people who should just be single?  I do love animals.  Should I get bangs or just keep growing my hair out?  It’s getting pretty long and I can fit most of the front in my mouth so maybe that is a cue that I should get a haircut or stop trying to eat it.  I am starving!  Should I keep going down Bloor Street, the traffic is INSANE, or should I go down Church and cut across Isabella?  Or is it one way?   It’s 2:00, way past lunch, and all I have eaten was a cookie and a grape.  Ok,, 8 cookies and 4 bunches of grapes that I painstakingly peeled and pretended were my own eyeballs and rolled them around my mouth while we went over a 30 page document, line by line,  LOL by LOL.   Fruit is not a food, it’s a substitute.  Ask Freud.  I also had a banana this morning, in the car, driving up Coxwell in rush hour.  I”m not sure I even bothered to peel it.

Sometimes in times of stress, my stomach gets all knotted up in a nervous knot.  Nothing wants to go in but everything wants to come out, hence my verbal diarrhea blogging impulse.   I think it was a good sign that I wanted meat.  And a cocktail.  Duh.  No fetal positions for me, when I get home.  I picked up a purse sized vodka bottle and a ham and cheese on an onion bun from my favourite band of merry men, The Friendly Butcher.  They do make the best sandwiches, the kind where you’re not having to pick out strange bits of alfalfa and burnt eggplant.  Sometimes that’s all you need.  And a cocktail, and a really song.   With that,  I leave you with this twist on the classic Thelma Houston”s “Don’t Leave Me This Way”  by Black Grass: