Prints at the Scene of the Crime

I love the Internet. Its like having your own little DNA lab.  Last week while working on a post continuing my story of my divorce , and checking out my Facebook page, I noticed an ad for Meeting Exciting Seniors in Your Area.  I realized that's what I had been missing in my quest for the perfect date. Or, a date, period. You don't see a lot of ads for meeting worn out, old, bald headed, fat or dried up and wrinkled seniors. An Exciting Senior. Now, that sounded like what I was looking for.  So, of course, I clicked that site.  I moved my mouse over to sign in with a new and improved Username ( you have keep changing these so you can get totally confused and forget your password, it makes you an Exciting Senior also; more like a Senior Moment!);  and to my amazement, my ex husband's name popped up.  Now the carrier/email provider was the recently saved from bankruptcy "Charter Communications" which had been our cable/home phone provider on beautiful Lake Martin and he, to my knowledge, had never used an address with that carrier.  But here it was in plain site. First I thought, well, maybe it was after I left him. Correct that, he left me in a parking lot in Georgia.  But no that couldn't be because the address was on a computer that had left with me when the s--t hit the fan. I did check to make sure that the cable provider was not available in South Alabama where he lives now, but I knew that wouldn't make sense either.  No, this was from a time when we were "together".  As a  child I loved Perry Mason. I remember how he would have the perpetrator of the crime sitting in the witness chair and whirl around point his finger and say "Weren't you there, at the scene of the crime?".  The person would be stunned and afraid and shake his/her (yes, women killed people back in the old days also) head repeatedly. "No, I wasn't there.  It wasn't me".  The classic Some Other Dude Done It. Perry then would say  "How do you explain your fingerprints on the murder weapon?" And they of course would crumble with a confession.  So here I am writing a blog about how easily my ex lied to me and even with a picture that would tell the l000 words that have broken my heart, and I know he will have an excuse. The dog ate my homework, it was dark, I didn't know, the devil made me, you didn't support me,  Or "I didn't join that site.  I wouldn't ever be looking at Seniors".  Well,  he left his fingerprints at the scene of the crime. And so I learn once again, the guy lies. And cheats. I pulled out the old digital camera I used the day of crime and looked at the crime scene photos.  Haven't done that in a long time. I purchased a new camera and threw this one in the back of my closet.  Like OJ with the shoes.  Why didn't I throw it away? Evidence of the crime?  The deviousness of the sub-conscious?  The night after taking these pictures I looked at them for hours. Most were of my feet, a hand went by. Two great shots of the ceiling.   My dogs got in the way.  The pictures were wobbly and lopsided due to my distress.  The one I really wanted of Miss Evil with her wrap open was a blurr of pink and blue and what must have been my thumb.  But one shot was to die for, that is, shoulda', coulda', woulda' died for. The one she poised for with my husband.  The "Here, you want a picture" picture was perfect.  She looking every bit like the devil and he looking like a man in hell. My call did come from my ex.  He did want my comfort. He told me horror stories of lies and  broken things including his heart. Missing money. He thought we might spend a weekend or two together every month or so, but no he didn't really ask to come back. I realize now how fortunate I was I had not been given the option.  I am a sentimental and foolish woman at times, but for once I didn't get a chance to be.

Playboy Mansion South -Chasing Bunnies and Eating Rabbits

Every day I ran to the mailbox to see if my invitation to the upcoming nuptials had arrived.  What would I wear?  Should I get my hair done?  Could I lose 25 lbs and 30 years in time for the event?  How did those escort service things work? Would there be a pre-nup?  Are they worth the paper they are written on?   Questions, questions and more questions. Then before the invitation to the event of a lifetime arrived,  my accountant called from Alabama.  She had a few questions about the dissolution of our family corporation.  My ex and I had maintained joint ownership of our business and now everything was his. At least from a business (and debt) standpoint.   We talked for a while, she saying she was so very concerned about me; how were things? We talked about all the calls "Miss Evil Something" had made to me, how many times I blocked emails only to find a new user name stomping on me. She asked if I had talked to my neighbors, how were things going with my ex, really??? I said I hadn't and that I just didn't really know how they would feel talking to me about all this.  Well, she thought that they would love to talk to me. In fact, she said that they were talking to everyone in Alabama about what was happening at my house on Lake Martin. Charter Communications was just thrilled at the long distance communication coming from our area.  My predicament might actually save the entire company from bankruptcy. Demand for the Internet was way up.  It seemed that quite a few "old dried up women" like me were angry at their husbands for spending too much time trolling in our pristine slough. Supposedly for fish. Wondering did she have a sister?  Apparently Miss Evil seemed to spend an enormous amount of time sunning on the pier. Very small bathing suits are not uncommon at Lake Martin and any old coot could get an eye full, but most people felt uncomfortable seeing a 62 year old man groping a 22 year old girl floating on an old l8-wheeler tube drinking Bud lite.  It looked like something going on at the Playboy Mansion. Southern style. The "dried up old men" were having a field day and not bringing home any fish. To the "old dried up" Christian women in Alabama, Hugh Hefner is not an idol.  He is just another ugly old man chasing young women.  Mothers of small children were struggling to keep their little ones indoors during the day and domestic disturbances were way up. Even the male dogs were barking like some bitch was in heat in the neighborhood. Also the girl had a run in with one of the neighbors (one of the "dried up Christian variety") and had used the old let me expose myself routine to shut her up.  You know that ended the discussion and not in a pretty way. The police had been called to the house at least twice.  The house was falling apart, my ex and his love were single handily bringing property values down in the neighborhood.  The loud music, fighting, fussing, drunkenness on the pier and police sirens were getting on every one's nerves. Not to mention the groping.  Tons of people had found the house as party central when my ex was away. Tons of cars in the driveway. Mostly old cheap ones (the cars and the visitors). I asked about the wedding and she said, "Oh, I don't think that's happening". It seemed the last time the police were called there had actually been a little domestic violence mentioned. Now let me say, I was not delighted.  I am not a mean and vengeful person.  But I swear I did feel just a tiny bit giddy as I hung up the phone. There's nothing like a little blood(his) shed to cement a "we are in love" relationship.  I waited now not for the invitation to the wedding  but for the phone call I knew would come. Surely he'd see the error of his way and come home.  Surely he'd want me back.  After all "we were in love".

He Went to Zales

When you are living through something like a divorce, illness, major catastrophe like a hurricane or probably a tsunami (hopefully never to be there) you go through the motions.  You do the normal everyday things but you are not really there. You can see it on the faces of people in Japan, they are stunned by what has happened to them.  I know I bought groceries, played with my grandchildren, walked through the mountains, but most of it seemed to be a dream. And then it became a nightmare.  The harassment started.  I got an email first.  "You are just an old dried up woman." it began.   They came every few days, usually in the evening. A lot of misspelled words.  I'm not talking can't spell meningitis, I mean can't spell head cold.  Couldn't spell Alabama.  My first thought was WHY is this girl bothering me?  My second, must be trouble in paradise. Then phone calls started.  Sometimes I would get 4, 5 a day.  Always with the same slurred speech telling me of my "old dried up self".  Now, I might have to go there on the old, but the dried up part was a little too personal.  Mostly she told me "We are in love.  He wants a divorce." A few times I would answer and yell, "He's getting one, OK?"  Sometimes they would be like sweet to start out and then within two seconds she'd start cussng and yelling. Once she asked how I was doing!? These were just the messages.  Not conversations you understand.  The calls followed me to Florida when I went with my family on vacation, they followed me to church,  they followed me to bed in the evening.  When I told my attorney he said there was little that could be done.  "Don't answer the phone."  Now that was helpful, cause the girl could text in her sleep.  Sometimes I still think I hear the beep. 24 in a row in one day. Even after the papers were signed the end of June, the emails, calls and texts continued.  To break the monotomy, her mother started emailing me.  Now who on God's green earth would tell her mother that she had just broken up a l3 year marriage and it was to be with a man 40 years older, old enough to be her grandfather.   Would you be proud of your daughter?  I got the "mother's" name, tranced her email address to a nursing facility in Ankcorage and called her.  She pretended she was a nurse but I had already learned from HR she was cleaning bedpans. She reiterated with the"Well, they are in love" speech and I told her I didn't care if they were green and purple and flying upside down, leave me alone.   The best email came in August when the "Mother" ( I think some of these were fake because she couldn't spell either and I think the Mother really was a little concerned that her daughter was a nut) sent a very short email .  "They are in love. And he has bought her a ring at Zales in Ankcorage."  Now had I ever doubted that "they were in love" I knew now that it was the truth.   He got it at Zales. Paid over $3000 for it.  I will not devulge how you learn that kind of stuff.  But it had to be love.  Its the diamond store after all.  Yes, they were getting married as soon as the 60 days waiting period was up.  They had about 2 weeks to go. And joy above joy, she had a five year old child that was now living with them. He would be starting school in September.  Where in the two seater Porsche would they put the car seat?

One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

My head was hurting and so was my heart but I just couldn't walk away.  I kept thinking of the old joke where the woman finds her husband in bed with another woman and says "What is that woman doing here?"  and the other woman gets up, gets dressed and walks out and the husband says "What woman?".  That picture played over and over in my head.  I pulled into a filling station and got out and filled up the tank using my husband's Visa.  I looked across the street at the very classy restaurant and lodge and knew that I would spend the night there with a great dinner and a very good bottle of wine, or two.  Courtesy of my new best friend, My Husband's Visa. But in the meantime, I was heading back almost before I knew I was doing it.  I pulled in the driveway on two wheels. Grabbed the camera and starting taking pictures. "For Sale" sign, new toy,  trashed yard.  I caught myself almost knocking on the door but instead went in with my best Ricky Ricardo impression, "Lucy, I'm hooomme". You kinda' had to be there.  And he was...surprised.  No, that's not right.  I think he was confused.  He seemed to be looking around like he didn't know what to do.  No, it was anger.  He was looking for something to hit me with. He was mad at me for coming in and ruining his Memorial Weekend.  I snapped a couple of shots then started to the bedroom.  I expected that Miss Evil would have locked herself into the bathroom ( I know that at 22 if I had been caught in such a mess I would be in there with the shower curtain pulled, crying my eyes out, door locked) but NO, that didn't happen.  She was standing there in the master bedroom wearing a towel and a smile.  I realized then she had on some kind of wrap thing.  Blue. I tried to focus to take a picture but my hands were shaking so badly and my husband was yelling at me when all of a sudden  Miss Evil opened the wrap.  "You want to know why he left you, look at this, here's a picture".  I know I heard it but I still even now can't believe it.  I was so shocked that I fell backwards right into my husband.  He was grabbing at me and the camera and we both fell into the wall. The dogs were barking up a storm.  Miss Evil snatched up the wrap and started yelling "I am not going to take anymore of this mess, get her out of here, right this minute".  You would have thought I was the "other" woman.  She seemed completely at ease in my house, naked with my husband.  My husband and I both stumbled toward the back door.  Me snapping away at God knows what and him yelling.  He pushed me out the door, just as Miss Evil came running into the den.  "Here, you want a picture, take a picture of this" she yelled while throwing her arm around my husband's old wrinkled neck.  I snapped my last shot.  I left the same way I came in.  A mess. I got to the car and my sweet puppies came over.  I felt that I was abandoning them but I knew I couldn't take them to the lodge and I knew I couldn't drive to Georgia.  I would pick them up the next morning with the movers there as a buffer.  Now, I'd go call my family and friends and have a nervous breakdown.

Fake It Til' You Make It

Battles are won and lost both on and off the field.  A plan is essential to any truly successful campaign, whether its war or politics.  I usually only read Cosmo in line at the Supermarket but now I bought a copy,  also Woman's Day, and Elle.  I wrote Dr. Phil a very long and moving letter which never was answered. I wrote Oprah also but she had ignored me before so it wasn't as hurtful. All the girls (and published literature) said the best way to get my husband back was to play coooool.  If he wanted another woman, I'd become one.  I got a wig and pink and whites.  A personal trainer.  Skinny jeans. Every time we talked, I was at a party, hiking with a club, attending a singles' event.  These were not lies because we had managed to buy our retirement home in a gated neighborhood which offered all these things.  I played trivia on Tuesdays with a group which included a Nudist.  He did invite me to Sunny Valley (I swear this is true, here in the Bible belt we have a 40 acre Nudist Camp) for the day but I declined, seeing as how I spent more time talking to the trainer about my husband, than training.  Besides I got too tickled just thinking about Volleyball and Bowling.  Horseback riding, now there's a picture. I went to the Monday Night Picnic and made friends with the girls who golfed and signed up for lessons.  I told everyone my story and got a pretty good laugh.  Didn't matter what I did, I smiled.  Now the reality could have been the I cried through Knocked Up alone in a movie theater, but you won't ever hear it from me.  It was dark in there and I brought my own tissues.  Also if my husband made a deposit in the checking account, I made a withdrawal.  I know you think that's too easy and surely he would have figured that one out, but what can I say.  On line banking and a private detective are suggested in every divorce article I read. It took three withdrawals before he called me on it. Maybe he didn't know we had branches of Wachovia up here in this desolate place. Now you could chalk that up to emotional trauma but I think he was just so used to me being a good, nice and fair person that he expected no less of me.  After all I was "Not that kind of Girl".  I read on line until the wee hours of the morning memorizing every post on how "I Successfully Won Back My Husband"  and "How to Get Your Man Back". I was sweet and then insane, but I was not as insane as he was, so I thought I was handling things pretty well. I talked to my attorney and our accountant and decorated my little mountain home.  Girlfriends visited and we went to dinner and I kept smiling.  All the time my heart was absolutely breaking in two.  Most days I felt like someone had reached up through the ground and grabbed my heart and pulled it right out through the soles of my feet.  It hurt to the very bone.  He wasn't much, but he had been mine and I loved that man so to heck with playing coooool.  I had to do something. But what......

If I knew what I know now, I would have shot him when I first saw him

After failing to find any way to conj ole, reason, sweet talk, or convince my husband we were too old to get a divorce, my plan became evident to me. I would just go on down there to Alabama and make him see reason.  But just in case he didn't see reason, or my side of it, I scheduled a mover to show up at the house in Alabama on Friday before Memorial Day Weekend.  I would travel down on Thursday, unannounced, and get things settled down and back to normal. First rule, tell no one, until its too late for them to stop you. Second rule, tell them so they will stop you. I drove into the driveway of our home on beautiful Lake Martin where I had always wanted to live and dreamed of retiring and found that in just a few weeks the place had become a haven for beer cans and litter. It looked like we had hired a goat for the gardener. The screen was ripped on the door, weeds had taken over my flower beds and trash was everywhere. My twig arbor was chopped to the ground. My angel statue was gone from the garden.  The wreath was off the front door.  A For Sale Sign was in the front and a new Sea-doo was in the back. My husband's little Porsche was missing but the dogs met me with open paws and slobber. The front door was ajar and the back one standing wide open. The air was on and running for its life. The house smelled funny?!.  The garbage can runneth over with beer and wine bottles and dirty dishes sat in the sink. The refrig only contained "go boxes".  Why, this man has lost his mind missing me! was my first thought. But my second was there was another scent in the air. Smelled like the perfume counter at Walmart after four l0 year olds came through. The TV was on.  The computer was still a humming. I walked to the master suite and a duffel bag sat in the blue rocker in the corner.  A purple thong was on top. From one end of the vanity to the other in the adjacent master bath was an assortment of blow dryers, curling irons, flat irons and stuff that would make the CVS jealous. A bottle of perfume sat in the middle. I gently turned it around to read the label.  "Something Evil".  I walked over to my bed and smelled the pillow on my side. My pretty 600 thread count blue and white Ralph Laurens smelled like "Something Evil" alright. I wiggled the duffel bag and a plane ticket fell out. It had a name. Here I sit, years later, wishing I had dumped everything into the duffel, taken it to the lake and sent it off the end of the pier. I wish I had gone to the kitchen and gotten a fork, picked up those thongs and taken them out to the big oak tree by our bedroom and rubbed them up and down in the poison ivy that infected that tree. I wish I had gotten the gun and sat and waited on them to come prancing in.  But I am a lady, and so I cried and called my sister. She told me to get in my car and leave.  So I hid my car two houses down and  I packed up the extra car with everything I could get my hands on including our new coffee maker that had those cute little pods with it, and the pods, all the liquor, insurance forms, copied everything including his passport, and drove that car into town and parked it in my attorney's lot. Of course, my attorney was on the golf course, but his secretary told me, get the police to take you back, get in your car and leave. The police man who took me back to get my car,  told me, get in your car and leave. My daughter who I called crying said get in your car and leave. My best friends all said the same.  Yes, they were right.  I needed to get in my car and leave.  So I grabbed his Visa off the dresser and our camera, as an afterthought, and got in my car and left. The only problem was I passed this cute little Porsche filled to the brink with an old man and a happy, happy young bitch. And as they passed I got the slightest whiff of "Something Evil".

I'm Not that Kind of Girl

"I just can't believe he's married".   2Sexy4U also at hotmail.com was horrified that she had fallen for a married man. "I am just not that kind of girl." And to be honest later when I found her on My Space with pictures of her kissing another girl and lying half naked in the back of a pickup truck, she did list the Bible as her favorite book. My husband was, though, that kind of guy and when he learned of my email, he called me and I heard new ways to use the word f--k in a sentence. Over the next few weeks, while my husband was marooned in Alaska on an oil rig, I was able to secure my clothing, things I thought I might want, and things I definitely wanted, like a divorce attorney, half our cash and a new flat screen TV for me to watch in North Georgia. By Mother's Day though, my anger was down, his cussing also and I wanted to come home.  I tried first to bargain, maybe conj ole and then just plain ask "Can't we work it out?".  I learned now all the ways in which I had failed to be a good wife.  I had ______.Fill in with anything. Failed to ____, didn't _____, wouldn't _____. My list of sins included but was not limited to refusing to watch war movies, not wearing sexy sleepwear, letting him watch Oprah with me but not watching SpeedTV with him.  I didn't support him in foolish decisions, expected him to change the oil in my car( that being drive to the JiffyLube, himself)  and had never really loved him.  I wasn't there for him. Now he was gone half our marriage, traveling with his job, so I was alone a whole lot of my l5 years with him.  In fact, I was alone when my mother died, his mother died, my dog died, my other dog died, my cat got killed, my other cat was killed,  birth of my first grandchild, divorce trial with my daughter and for two wrecks.  I was alone and I drove myself to more doctors visits than I care to relive, a biopsy, numerous second and third mammograms, and sonograms looking for breast cancer, to have a pain shot in my back and was alone three days after a hysterectomy.  But I wasn't there for him. But Miss 2Sexy4U was 22,she could be there for him for 70 or so more years. She could put him in the nursing home, Depends and the grave. With any luck.  As women we always believe that if we can just talk to a man, we can reason with him and help him understand.  We are taught as small girls to cooperate and play fair.  That everyone really is just like us. We are taught to share and be "nice".  We give our best friend the most comfortable chair and our favorite doll.  Little boys are taught to win and excel and play dirty if necessary.  They learn to sink their heels in and hold their forts and never, never, never give in/up. We don't just run up the white flag, we embroider it with our initials and little yellow flowers and offer tea to the enemy.  If you are a "nice" girl and you are in a struggle with a man, you lose.  You give up and give in and make nice and he will take you to the cleaners.   Now Sarah Palin can talk "Mama Grizzly" and if my children were threatened or someone was trying to get my designer handbag that I just found in a pile for $l9.95 at T.J. Maxx, I could come out swinging.  So for once, I was determined to do just that.  So I got my nails done and put on my cutest helmet and got ready for war.

How to Survive Divorce Without Really Trying

Christmas, 2008, was not fun.  Neither was New Year's Eve 2009, my birthday a month later, my husband's birthday a couple of days away, or Valentine's Day the next week.  A pretty nice, mostly thoughtful guy had become Donald Trump( arrogant but better hair!) and Woody Allen( snippy and depressed but taller!) and Attila the Hun (can't tell them apart any longer!) all rolled into one. By the first of March , 2009,  I was beginning to believe that either I had died and gone to hell or a solution would be for my husband to do just that.  Either way, something definitely was wrong.  The last week of March we went to North Georgia to buy what I expected to be our retirement/vacation home.  That trip wasn't fun either.    My husband, soon to be ex, and I walked out of the closing, having just signed mortgage papers, tying us to each other and the bank for 30 years, taking the down payment from my investment accounts, he told me he needed a break and that he was leaving and heading to South Alabama.  He may have been thinking "break" for weeks, but he had certainly voiced his opinion on the house 'we' were purchasing. He had gone to the inspection, checked the attic, rattled pipes and shown up for the closing.  Now he kissed me goodbye and left me standing in the parking lot in a town where I knew no one, didn't have a friend in sight and wasn't even sure where to buy the bottle of wine I intended to finish off sitting in my new empty house where I would sleep on the floor and sit and wait for the delivery of my sofa that the same soon to be ex husband had purchased with me three days before.  He actually had sat on it and bounced a little.  Little did I know that was the only time he intended to sit on it. Little did I know, period.  The next few days are still a blur for me.  I know I drove back to Alabama, sometime.  Took my husband to the airport a couple of days later, sending him off to his reason for the break.  I got a mover and took the things I had intended to put into our "vacation home" and sat and worried.  There's a old saying about evil that it can not hide in the Light and as Easter descended on the South, the lights began to come on for me and as I sang "I was blind but now I see" on Easter Sunday, I did.  One good thing or bad about the Internet is that anything you put out there, its out there. Its not a message you can erase or a letter you can burn.  Do it, say it, email it.  It is now history and someone can and will find you out. If you doubt that you are going to get caught, if you think you can get away with it, if you tell yourself, she/he will never know, oh, Lordy, just think again. I was blind but now i see! One thing I have learned about people, we are creatures of habit.  You may create a new email address, like TheRealStud@hotmail  but you use the dang same ole' password.  It took me about 20 minutes to read the emails that would completely change my life, forever. My "loving and devoted", faithful like an old dog, soon to be ex-husband, 62 years old, can't hardly get off the sofa, had a 22 year old "I thought she was 25" girlfriend. Or in his words "hot girlfriend".  And he was promising marriage, and  "I know I will never retire but its OK" and I will help you raise your 5 year old illegitimate child and be the father he never had ( let alone the father and grandfather you probably didn't have), and so will my wonderful and devoted adult children love you and be there for you as we all move to South Alabama and become a "family".  The fact that I was never mentioned wasn't a shock.  After all, she didn't know I existed, at least until she got my email.

The Definition of Insanity

Craziness or madness in a series of events and behaviors in human actions or thoughts.  That's the definition of insanity.  Scott Peck, in my favorite non fiction, The Road Less Traveled, says that it is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.   They say in any given situation or gathering of people, one in three individuals is actually suffering from some form of mental illness.  Now we're not talking "crazy about shoes" or "insane over chocolate".  We are talking mental illness as in crazy as a loon or needs to be on medication. I know that while I am a somewhat rational person most of the time; there have been occasions in my life where I have reacted or even just acted completely insane.  Point in fact.  Yesterday.  Now what I am about to tell you does not qualify me for the nut house or even some intense sessions on a psychologist's couch.  But it does qualify me for a little off. I want a dog.  I dream about having a dog.  I volunteer at Pickens Animal Rescue.  I send my grandpuppies presents and my former dogs of divorce presents.  I want a dog. So yesterday I see the most darling puppy.  Looks like he is probably some mix of border collie and something a little smaller.  Paws indicate he will not be a giant.  One black eye. Wiggly.  Sweet and cuddly.  Just want I would want.  I have been talking dog for a year and half.  Ever since I came to the conclusion that my dogs of divorce will not be allowed the generous visitation rights to which I have been insured, I have wanted a dog.  So, now I see this puppy.  I hold it and love it and smell its little sweet puppy breath.  But do I go directly to the shelter and get a puppy? No, I email my ex husband and ask for the one hundredth time, could I please get my dogs back for the two weeks while he will be in N. Dakota on business.  In his answer, he tells me of all the trials of taking care of the dogs.  He will have to get a dog sitter which will be costly.  He can't count on anyone to show up and feed them. He arrived home late last week from being gone for over two weeks and the dogs had no food in the house. His power bill was being run up to an unbelievable amount by abuse. Sounds like a problem for him, right?  Now I have asked this same question for one and half years.  I have always gotten the same answer.  Nothing has changed.  My ex husband has not become kinder or more open to making a small concession.  Thoughtful. The distance between south Alabama and north Georgia has not gotten shorter.  I have not inherited or bought a jet, a blimp, a helicopter or the ability to fly any of the above.  No, nothing has changed.  You have just seen and heard a perfect example of insanity.  Doing the same thing and expecting different results. The answer was "NO".   But because this insanity has resurfaced in my life it has inspired me to tell you about my divorce.  I will willingly put my divorce up against any divorce in the country.  Charlie Sheen, Kelsey Grammer, or Sandra Bullock have absolutely nothing on me. Mine is the stuff daytime TV was made for and it would make a great Lifetime movie.  So for the next few blogs, get your big girl panties on, drag out your snuggie  and a box of chocolates ( or a glass/bottle of wine) and hang on for what I believe to be a ride. Its the roller coaster from divorce hell heading out on the next posting.

American Idols

I hate to admit stupidity, especially when its my own, but I must admit, I watch American Idol.  No, that's not true, I love American Idol.  I am an Idol Idiot. Since the first season, I have found myself glued to the TV watching every heartfelt moment, in breathless anticipation;  trying to figure out, who will be the next American Idol. Waiting to run to the kitchen or the bathroom, two nights a week, until a commercial, only to return sitting on the edge of my sofa.  Loving it.  I see myself 30, OK, 40 years ago with the dream of being a star. A star.  My children and any close friends, that I haven't lost due to this blog, know not to call until Idol is over.  I won't answer.  Everything goes to voicemail until cute "little" Ryan has signed off and I have taken the bathroom run I had been waiting for, patiently.  Listen, I understand now that I can record American Idol and watch it at my leisure, but that's not the same thing.  Anyway, you could accidentally watch AOL news, or Fox or turn on Ellen and have the entire event completely ruined for you.  I mean you know she'll put the one that got kicked off on her show. Where's the suspense?   Its always better to ruin it for yourself by watching live. Which brings me to my point.  Have you watched it this year?  Well, of course you have.  You can admit it in the privacy of your home, on line where no one can tattle on your obsession. But, here's what's bothering me.  Remember all the great singers, and not so great singers that have been on the Idol stage.  We've watch girls blossom and get their teeth capped and lose weight and we've seen guys clean up and become hip.   Its truly lived up to its billing, American Idol.  That's what we do.  That's the true beauty of the American spirit.  The American dream.  We take a second rate, sorta' but not really cute person, or singer as in this case, add tons of makeup, little nip and tuck here and there, a little reconstructive surgery (if necessary), good dentistry and a small fortune in clothes, shoes, jewelry and a good PR person and tons of backup singers, full orchestra, major mechanical enhancements, not to mention those other kind, and walla!!! A star is born.  Now, here we are in season 10 and all they are bringing for us to examine and critique is a bunch of talented, reasonably good looking singers.  No one is tacky beyond comprehension, everybody has good teeth. I mean they are flashing $8,000, what maybe $l0,000 smiles at us and dressed like real stars.  The girls are all dolled up and wearing designer everything.  The guys can sing.  They are mostly cute. This is absolutely the worst, best season ever. What's there to look forward to?  No one needs a nose job, implants, dental or otherwise, nothing. Not even talent.  I am completely bored.  Thank goodness for Steven Tyler and his mouth.