The Woman Behind the Blog

I have a little scoop to share with you all.  I have had a couple of dates with one of my blog readers, a man going through a divorce (big surprise).  He and I exchanged some emails about my blog and his divorce, and well, one thing led to another, and we decided to meet.  He asked me if I was violating any blogger code of ethics.  I certainly confess ignorance on that issue, but I did consult my Facebook friends and they seemed okay with it.

He is a regular reader of my blog (Hey babe!) so I am certainly not going to reveal many details.  However, our interactions together have brought up an interesting question for me.  It is clear that he likes me largely due what he has learned of me through my writing, and that has led me to wonder if I am really the woman he thinks I am.  In other words, is my writing a true reflection of me or just an idealized version of me?

I have a doctorate in literature so this issue really isn’t a new one for me.  In graduate school, we often spoke about the dangers of assuming that an author speaks through his or her texts, even when he or she writes an autobiography.  Every writer dons a sort of mask when she writes, as her texts are only a representation of her thoughts on a given subject at a given moment.  They are a kind of performance, aimed at a certain audience.  I myself know that when I write about a conflict that I have with my ex and how I have handled it, I choose my words carefully.  I am conscious that friends, colleagues and exes are reading my words.  I also want to represent my divorce in a way that can help others achieve some harmony or cooperation with their exes as well.  While I think I am being honest and at times self-deprecating, I know that I also want to represent myself in a particular way.  I want to show my readers that I am peaceful and capable of resolving conflict.  Sometimes I just want to be funny.  I don’t share with you all my every thought and word (Thank God).  This is not some reality show where you get to see my every flaw, although even those shows are edited for an objective (to entertain?).

As I was musing on this topic, I decided to talk to my ex husband about it to see what he had to say.  Now that was an amusing conversation.  I ask him, Am I really who I say I am in my blog?  He says, I don’t know.  What do you mean you don’t know?  You read me and you know me very well.  Who would know better than you?  He hems and haws and says that he really doesn’t want to analyze that (he’s getting smarter about how to handle me).  I goad him into it, and he says, well, that I’m not always as serene as I portray myself.  We have a good laugh about that.  Of course, I’m not.  I don’t tend to write when I’m angry.  I write with the calmness of hindsight.

Upon reading one of my posts, my blog reader date gave me a really sweet compliment.  While his words were touching, I did let him know that I am not always the way I represent myself.  If I were to get involved with him, there would be times that I would lose my temper or say something stupid or sharp or react to something that my higher self, my peaceful divorcee blogger self, knows is petty.  However, I do know the ideal that I want to be and I strive to reach that goal each day.  So I guess my answer is that the women in my blog is one face of me, and that face is real.  It just changes expressions depending on the circumstances.

A Ghost Story

The pirate wench at GoBerry

Today is Halloween and I am dressed as a pirate lass.  As I sit here waiting to meet my kids, ex and his girlfriend to go trick or treating, I thought I’d regale you with a ghost story, a story of a Halloween past when my ex dressed up as a pirate and took his role just a tad too seriously.

We had just been separated a few months when Jonah decided that he wanted to have a Halloween party for his kindergarten classmates.  As always, I bought beer for the adults because I believe that a bunch of parents of young kids who barely know each other need a little social lubrication in order to mingle.  Since it was fall and I had made pumpkin treats, I got some good dark beers, not really noticing that one particular chocolate stout had a really high alcohol content.  Maybe he was getting into his pirate role or maybe he is just a little shy and didn’t realize that the beer was particularly alcoholic, but by the end of the party my ex was pretty inebriated. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Cook for One

No, I did not cook this to eat all alone. It's my achiote-rubbed Thanksgiving turkey, just to show you that I can indeed cook.

When I was married I made delicious, often gourmet, meals every night for my family.  Not only was I a good cook, but my ex got regular sex as well.  Can you believe that we ever broke up?  He appreciates our weekly family night dinners because he still gets a taste of sumpin’ sumpin’ (not what you are thinking!).

Transitioning into the lifestyle of a divorcee required me to rethink my shopping and cooking routines.  In the beginning, I found that I was buying way too much food, and it was going to waste.  I had to remember that I not only had one less adult to feed, but I also didn’t have the kids for dinner three nights a week.  And on my free nights, I often go out with friends so I don’t really have to cook for just myself.

However, Monday nights tend to be my solo evenings, and after I get home from a vigorous hot yoga practice, I am very hungry.   Read the rest of this entry »

Our Divorce March

My dear friend Barb says that she wants to see a movie made based on my life/blog.  In her vision, Maggie Gyllenhall would play me and Johnny Depp would play my ex.  She stipulated, however, that it would be the moody, intellectual, glasses-wearing Johnny Depp, not Jack Sparrow Johnny Depp.  Well, that made me laugh because not only is that a perfect fit for my ex, but also because there was this one Halloween where he dressed as a pirate, and, well, he unwittingly did quite the impersonation of Cap’n Jack Sparrow.

We had just been separated a few months when Jonah decided that he wanted to have a Halloween party for his kindergarten classmates.  As always, I bought beer for the adults because I believe that a bunch of parents of young kids who barely know each other need a little social lubrication in order to mingle.  Since it was fall and I had made pumpkin treats, I got some good dark beers, not really noticing that one particular chocolate stout had a really high alcohol content.  Maybe he was getting into his pirate role or maybe he is just a little shy and didn’t realize that the beer was particularly alcoholic, but by the end of the party my ex was pretty inebriated.

Read the rest of this entry »

Turkey Killer…qu’est-ce que c’est?

Sometimes being a bigmouth is a social advantage.  Like Thursday night, when I orchestrated a dinner at Zen with twelve sexy, smart and witty people.  Yet it is also my downfall.  Like Thursday night, when I referred to my friend’s online suitor as the “turkey killer” while he was within earshot.  Luckily enough, he did admit he was a turkey killer.

Let me give you all some of the back story.  I told you that dating in our little town can be tricky, especially if you are part of the community of hot (and getting hotter by the moment) yoga practitioners at Shiva Shakti.  Friend and fellow blogger Naomi Shulman pointed out that eventually everyone ends up there for a class or two.  And some of us stay and practice everyday (me-just five times a week).

One of the great benefits of my divorce is the free time that it affords me and I make use of that time by doing hot vinyasa yoga.  Along the way I have picked up a great group of friends at the studio, and we have formed a bit of a Thursday night club.  We have a core of five or six people that always attend and keep in touch throughout the week with a thread on Facebook.  If you want your email inbox to fill up in a flash, you just join that thread (a string, as one FB neophyte adorably called it).

One of the women and I do online dating, to the mockery of our 25-year-old Jackson (who, by the way, is the only one of us who has a steady partner).  But as my Facebook friends know, internet dating keeps the pipeline flowing and also provides us with much amusement.  Sweet Charlotte was feeling a bit awkward, though, when a guy who does yoga with us contacted her to say that he was very interested in getting to know her.  She is a compassionate animal-loving vegan, and she remembered that last Thanksgiving he had mentioned at the studio that he had killed his own turkey for dinner.  This was very upsetting to her, and so she nicely wrote him back that she remembered the incident and that she didn’t think that they would be compatible.

So I, with the same grace that I demonstrated last week by falling on the metal spiral staircase at Shiva Shakti, put my foot in my mouth by telling her that the “turkey killer” was in class, just as I bumped right into him.  He said “I am the turkey killer, aren’t I?”  Oops.  To add a little more awkwardness to the mix, I had seen him earlier that week in town and invited him to join us on Thursday night.  At that point, he was just a guy who shared a name with a Sesame Street character.  Turkey killer has more of a ring to it.

After class he asked if he could still join us even though he was the turkey killer.  He was the last to arrive, and he proceeded to try to convince Charlotte that he was a loving father and did work on anti-bullying campaigns.  Like I said…awkward.  We had a really fun night, and there were lots of interesting subplots, flirtations, and humorous moments that I can’t really do justice.  I do believe, however, that it will be remembered as the night the turkey killer came to roost at Zen, of all places.