free at last

Ah, how many of us make that novice mistake of sharing our shiny new blogs with our friends and family? How brilliant of Constance the First to create a safe place to start again. Thank you, thank you, thank you, oh mighty Constance the First, for giving us this chance to start over.

Here we can blog about the real things in life. For example, we can describe with brutal honesty the most frustrating things about our husbands' penises... I, for one, have been dying to share that I am disturbed by the way my husband fails to clean up after masturbating. Each night I literally leap over the rug we have by our bed for I know this is his receptacle of choice. I have attempted to convince him to try - well, anything, really - a sock, a towel, a tissue - but honestly, it's a victory I've gotten him to admit that he soils the rug at all.

Which leads me to the other annoying result of my hubby's self love... I actually know what he does when he does it because it often wakes me up. I guess we should've gotten the bed in the commercials where the bowling ball does not knock over the glass of wine, cuz in our bed the spanking of his monkey feels just like someone is shaking me to roust me. So I lay there, pretending to be asleep, wanting to switch positions for now that I am awake I am acutely aware of whichever body part has been losing circulation thanks to my bizarre sleeping position (has anyone else ever wished for detachable arms?) and I wait. I silently root him on, willing him to finish, though I am seldom ever able to fall right back asleep anyway. (He is, of course, basically instantly knocked out...) I know, I know, if I were a good wife I would wake up and offer to help out. Or my sex life would be so active my husband wouldn't have to take care of his own needs. But I'm not a very good wife, apparently.

Which leads me to my next big secret topic - my very large self. I am sure my size has had a deleterious effect on my sex life. Just this very Monday I weighed in at my highest ever - 212 pounds - more than Oprah, even, and she is considerably taller than me. Very depressing for someone who shed nearly 75 pounds seven years before. I didn't think I'd allow myself to even get used to weighing anywhere close to a number that started with a 2. So imagine my surprise that I have recently blown right past that marker by another dozen pounds. Obviously there is something eating at me, maybe here I can figure out exactly what it is...

At least since Monday I have been eating right and making it to the gym. And I don't do the weenie workout that my so-called gym buddy prefers. She will only brave the treadmill and she mocks me for adding incline. She doesn't even work up enough sweat to have to wipe down the machines. But then, I don't want all you Constances to think I am a petty snit of a woman (though I may in fact be). I'm just explaining why I've been ditching said buddy pretty proactively lately. She is entertaining enough, though, in that she (allegedly) has lots of casual sex with random guys she meets on the internet. I hope for everyone's sake that not everything she says is true, but her stories are pretty disturbing and they sure make the treadmill time fly by.

Anyway, today is day four and I am feeling a bit more challenged about making it to the gym. I am sore, unmotivated, and very much wanting to drink. Which brings me to the other thing this blog may be about - my not-so-secret fear that I may be an alcoholic. Funny how the alcohol and my weight gain go pretty well hand in hand, right? I'm thinking if I can conquer the one (my size) that the other (my souse) will quietly fade away. Lord knows I'm not letting my inner lush pull me down again. Not this time. Or so I hope we'll see. Today she wants a drink but that's just cuz she's feeling all whiny and impatient about the other thing that I will likely blog about here - law school.

Yep, I'm finally doing it after, oh, about fifteen years of thinking about it. I don't mind saying that I'm a fairly bright girl who tests well. As a result I am in a very good position during this, my application season. Already four very fine schools have invited me to join their ranks along with three other lesser (but still esteemed) institutions. And though I have only heard back from one of my true "safeties," I have been too lazy to withdraw from the other two. I figure I paid for the application - I might as well wait until they render a decision even though it's pretty clear I won't enroll.

Anyway, the big "problem" lies with one of my three "reaches." I fully expect rejection from two of them, but one, one has been flirting with me. I am so on the cusp of admittance. I am literally one phone call away. Only this phone call is not a sure thing. And it could come (or not) any time between now and April. So every weekday I wake up and remind myself of four things.

1. Nearly 80% of people who get the first call (as I have), get the second one.
   
2. It doesn't matter when you get in, just that you do.
   
3. Even if you don't get in, it is better to have loved and lost... and all that crap.
   
4. Every day brings me one day closer to finally knowing.

Only today I am having trouble believing (in) myself for whatever reason - mostly cuz a couple of people on-line reported having been admitted in the past two days. Each time I am passed over I am forced to wonder if I am that dreaded one in five. I knew my numbers were borderline (for this school), but my essays were good. Good enough to get the first call, right? Anyway, I am 95% certain that this whole extended wait thing is just the universe's attempt at teaching me patience. Everything in my life seems to try to teach me this virtue. I always pick the wrong line in the grocery store. My husband is slow and constantly makes us late. I would surely be stuck in traffic all the time if my town were actually big enough to have traffic.

And so I wait. And my lush suggests waiting would be more fun while drunk. But my liver protests and says we are too old for that sort of thing. The hangovers are a deterrent, for sure. In fact, that is my New Year's Resolution - no new hangovers - cuz I can't convince myself to quit drinking altogether like a real alcoholic. That'd be too weird, especially in law school, I tell myself. So now I am just trying to teach myself to drink like a normal person - in moderation. Which I'm not necessarily ready for. So no booze tonight. I think I will force myself to attend a yoga class instead.

Anyway, in addition to oversharing about my (lack of) sex life, my weight, and my drinking, I shall also share my fiscal reality. I am currently $14,000 in credit card debt, I owe another $7,500 on a car, and I am actually happy about all this for just a few years ago I owed more than $60,000 to the cards. It was mostly wedding and ring related. I have a really nice rock and we had a great party... It was just, we made all those decisions while I was making good money. And then I quit my job. So the only serious progress we've made in paying it down was made by draining our IRAs. This made me cry at the time but now I am relieved. It was a facade - the retirement savings - because ultimately we were charging our consumables (food and gas) to have the money to put towards the future. But since then we've been so close to financial freedom that each year I have allowed myself hope. And each year I have been disappointed. Because I should be working. Which is why I am going back to school.

But you know, I realized, as I found myself not wanting to type it, even here in the safety of the pink walls of my private apartment, I think I am a little mad at my husband that we haven't made it out of the hole yet. Quitting my job was a group decision and part of the conclusion that I could do it was based on numerous calculations of his capacity to work overtimes. A full $8,000 of the credit card debt we are currently in was added this year - as a result of his virtual abandonment of the "plan." Of course, I know I have no right to be mad. I have been spoiled to have these three years off. And he works in a horrible place with horrible people and he shouldn't have to spend any time there, let alone extra time there. And for all I know, his absence has saved his life because people are literally assaulted at his work fairly regularly. (Okay, not so much regularly as irregularly, but still, when is the last time you were assaulted in your work place?) But I feel let down all the same.

And so I should not be surprised to find that for the first time ever we've been fighting. About money. Like normal couples. Only we always thought we were charmed. In our sixteen years together we have seldom quarreled. And even when we did, I have always won. And thus, we suck at fighting. We don't do the really hurtful hateful things that pre-divorce couples do (or at least I don't think we do - maybe I should review that study I read years ago...), but I hate that we are fighting at all.

Worse yet, we are fighting because my dream (of law school) is in direct conflict with his dream (of real estate investing). As you may have noticed, now is kind of a good time to jump in to the real estate market. If you've got the money, that is. Since we don't, really, I am terrified by his plans. Add to the that the fact that I'm about to take on six figures in student loan debt and I am really freaking out. Factor in the fact that this debt will involve moving to a big, expensive city where our rent will easily double while my hubby's income will drop by half (if we're lucky) and then you can see where I am coming from. Do I even need to add that my hubby wants to rent this house out to his younger, somewhat flaky brother? Cuz mixing family and business is always a great idea, right? This frightens me the most, especially since this brother's business isn't always, shall we say, entirely legit. Somehow, seeing as how I want to uphold the law, this fact bothers me more than it did when I was in my twenties. Oh, and did I mention that my hubby intends to list this house as his primary residence, though we know we are moving so it is an investment. Yeah, that's only, you know, loan fraud - punishable by fines or imprisonment or both. (Okay, I know, even my landlady has fudged on this one to secure a better rate, but still...)

And so we fight. This last one, on New Year's Day, was a doozy. Divorce even came up, though he claims now that I misinterpreted his intentions when he suggested it. (Cuz, you know, divorce is a really fuzzy concept, right?) And it makes me sick. In fact, it was Constance the First's baby fight that inspired me to start this blog. Cuz that is so how our fights go.

It's nice to know I'm not alone, at least.

So hello, neighbors, nice to meet you. Hope I haven't scared you off.

Now I've got to run if I want to make that yoga class. I might just run some errands first, though, cuz yoga is an intimidating thing to do when you are a gassy fat girl on a high fiber diet.