Chapter 15, or Divorce and strippers

             On February 24^th [2009], a Tuesday morning, The Ex called me.  His lawyers had informed him that judgment came back and our divorce was final as of February 11^th.  He was so casual.  It was like he was telling me he was feeding the cats or doing his laundry, not that our marriage was officially, legally and in all other ways over. 

            My mind started racing and my head started spinning.  I had been divorced for 13 days and didn’t know it.  (I probably would’ve made Valentine’s Day a whole lot more interesting if I had known.)  I was divorced.  It was real.  And none of the redecorating or burning stuff or cleansing or sexcapades had done anything to make hearing it easier.  I still missed my husband, I still missed our life and I still missed my cats.  What happened to the man who had fought so hard for me?  Why had it been so easy for him to walk away?  Was it because of that girl from his work?  Of course, I didn’t have any answers. 

            So, after his call (what a great way to wake up) I cried.  I wallowed.  Then I had a brilliant idea.  Divorce Party.  Vegas.  But I’ll get to that later.

            My friend Savanna works at a cigar bar.  She texted me that Seduction!  Exotic Men of Magic was going to be there.  A combination magic and strip show.  Sounded like perfect timing to me!

            When I got there, she told me she had two other friends there for me to hang out with so I wouldn’t be by myself.  They were Bill and Jackie.  Before the show started the Men of Magic walked around with pamphlets describing the different kinds of lap dances we could buy.  Bill bought the most expensive one for Jackie and me.  It was $100 and you got to go on stage and get a lap dance from all four guys, a picture with them, a tee shirt signed by them and a backstage pass.  (“Backstage” being a visit to their trailer.  Classy, right?)

            The show started and there was some mediocre magic followed by some mediocre dancing.  When it was time for our lap dances Jackie didn’t want to go on stage, so I went by myself.  I had never had a lap dance before so I was pretty excited.  I don’t know how they’re supposed to go but these guys put my hands in their pants and their heads between my legs and basically dry humped me.  It was hot and hilarious at the same time.  One of the guys was so young I actually thought it might be illegal for him to give me a lap dance.  And I wasn’t sure if I could get an STD from hand to stripper-dick contact, but that was one of the things going through my mind.

            When the show was over I got my picture and my tee shirt and instead of having them sign the tee shirt, the margaritas in me thought it would be funnier to have them sign my chest.  One of the stripper-magicians took me “backstage” and tried to bone me in the trailer.  I didn’t know where the hell that guy’s dick had been and I didn’t even want to think about how many condoms it would take to protect me from whatever he might be carrying, so I politely declined.

            It was no Chippendales, but it’s still a pretty fun way to remember the day I found out I was divorced.

Chapter 14, or We're gonna need several

In February 2009 I went to Sacramento to visit Anne.   We met up with her boyfriend, James, and a bunch of his friends at this cool pub.

            Earlier that day James told Anne that his friend, who is quite the ladies man, was going to be in town and to tell me to watch out.  Anne told him, “I think Jen can handle it.”  So now, of course, it’s on.  Did I mention that at the time I had not had sex in six months?  I was dying.  I thought my vagina was literally going to shrivel up and close like an unused piercing.  So, bring it, Ladies Man.  Bring it.

      Talk a little, drink a little, flirt a little...we’re totally gonna do it, let’s get outta here.  While Anne and I were driving back to James’ house, he called and asked if we needed anything from the store.         
 

I said, “Just condoms.” 

Anne reported back, “Condoms, lots of condoms.”  And then we giggled like mischievous junior high school kids at the prospect of me having hot scandalous sex.

            Besides Anne, James, Ladies Man and me, there were three other guys.  We all hung out a bit but it didn’t take long for the three other guys to realize that people were going to be having sex.  So they went for pizza.  Anne and James started looking through the music selection and Ladies Man sat next to me on the couch.  We made small talk and he kept asking when they were going to go upstairs and suggesting we take their room and I kept telling him to be patient.  I mean they were basically choosing our sex soundtrack, that’s not something to be rushed.  Or maybe it should have been rushed because they chose Eminem.  And then they scurried up to the bedroom.

           

            This is the part where we were almost kissing…almost kissing…aaaaand we’re kissing!  Hot, full body tingles, weak in the knees kissing.

            We took a quick break to turn out the lights and met back behind the couch for more kissing when I asked him in my most sexy half whisper, “Do you have something?”

And he said back in a sexy half whisper, “Yes.” 

So I said, “Do you have several?  Cause we’re gonna need several.” 

Again, he said yes.  I like a man who plans ahead.  So we were kissing and began having what could tie for the best sex I’d ever had.  And then he got what is popularly known as “Whiskey Dick”.  (In Ireland they call it “Drink Droop”.)  So we took a potty break and started back up and there was a knock at the door.  The other three guys were back from pizza.  We quickly threw on some clothes and Ladies Man went outside to talk with his friends.

            When he came back in he suggested we go to Maggie’s place because that was where he was staying while he was in town.  Maggie had been at the pub with us, but had left early.  So I called Anne upstairs and told her I was going with Ladies Man to Maggie’s place to have more sex. 

           

           This is the part where we boned down a few more times in a tiny apartment on an air mattress.  Thank you yoga.  Thank you very much.

            In the morning we got another lay in before Maggie woke up.  At least, I don’t think she was awake yet.  But before we got our morning session in, I woke up feeling bad stomach pains.  The morning after drinking it, beer does bad things to me; I get what I call “the booze poos”.  Sexy, right?  So, I woke up feeling awful, I needed to fart and poop and the bathroom was about 15 feet away from where we were sleeping so that was not going to happen.  I considered going outside to fart, but I thought he might still be able to hear.  I considered turning on the shower to drown out the farts, but what excuse could I give for turning on the shower?  And then it hit me: ceiling fan.  Brilliant.  I turned on the ceiling fan and tried to squeeze out the toots without making too much noise just in case the ceiling fan wasn’t loud enough.  I wasn’t a hundred percent, but I felt much better.  A little later he went in the bathroom and turned on the ceiling fan and closed the door.  I couldn’t hear the ceiling fan, but I could hear him peeing as if he was standing right next to me.  So the ceiling fan didn’t drown out any sounds.  Excellent.  Well, I guess if he did hear anything he wasn’t too grossed out to bang me. 

And morning sex technically means next day sex, which technically means not a one-night stand.  I mean, do the math.

So Anne and James became my two favorite people for having a friend to get me out of my six-month slump.  Or as Anne’s brother-in-law put it, “I hear some guy took the dust offaya last night.”  I think that’s my favorite quote ever.

The Twilight of my life

I thought I had a very thick, icy, vampire strong layer of protection around my heart so as to prevent me from letting it get broken again.  And then I met someone whose most perfect perfection melted the thick ice, and the whirlwind movie style romantical scrumtrulescense of it all broke down the vampire strong layer of protection.  Once my heart was exposed, my brain no longer had a say in my actions.  I dove right in, junior high style, to the Edward and Bella-ness that it was and just…let it.

And that poor unprotected heart of mine got broken.  So now, it feels like the part of New Moon where Edward leaves because it’s the right thing to do (or whatever stupid thing) and Bella is just floating through life in a pool of misery.

It’s been a while since I shared some of my awful poetry from high school.  There is one particularly fitting to the sad patheticosity (spell check had no spelling suggestions for that word.  I feel like that’s a win for me) of how I am feeling right now.  Feel free to laugh and cry.  It’s a real gem.

Between Now and Forever

Somewhere in your head

You’ll hear me laughing

And somewhere in your mind

You’ll see me smile

And somewhere when you’re

Walking down the street

You’ll think I’m there

Because you’ll feel my presence

Near you for a while

Sometime in the night

The wind won’t whistle

And sometime in a park

The birds won’t sing

And sometime in this silence

You’ll remember who I was

Because that voice of mine

Inside your head will ring

Somewhere down the road

Nights will be lonely

And somewhere down the line

You will feel down

Because you’ll feel like something

From your life is missing

And you’ll realize

You’re needing me around

Sometime in a dream

You will kiss me

And sometime in a dream

You’ll hold me tight

And then you will awaken

With a sadness you can’t bear

Because you’ll feel a painful

Emptiness inside

Somewhere in this sometime

You will miss me

And sometime in this somewhere

Won’t be never

And when it happens you won’t know

Just how much time has passed

But it will be somewhere

Between now and forever

And I’ll be waiting between now and forever

I told you it was a gem, did I not?  I think it could easily be a country song.

Chapter 13, or The show must go on

           My friend Lyne is a writer.  A very good writer.  She wants me to say she is an amazing writer, and as she spent countless hours editing this thing, I will appease her.  She is quite amazing, and wrote a show called My Totally 80’s Reunion.  Perhaps you’ve seen it?  It is a dinner theater show (or as they in the biz call it, “interactive theater”) where we, the actors, are the reunion committee for a high school reunion (which we named Valley High School so that the initials are VHS.  Get it, like the tape.  So 80’s, right?) And the audiences are the reunion guests.  We sing and dance and mingle with the audience.  The characters are the jock, the prom queen, the preppy, the nerd, the stoner, the valley girl, the band geek, and I play the head cheerleader (shocking, right?).  It’s super fun and couldn’t have come along at a better time.  It’s good to have friends who write shows and then ask you to be in them without making you audition or prove in any way that you’re talented.

            The best and worst part about the show is the director.  He’s the hottest man I’ve ever seen in real life.  He’s so hot I want to cry.  He’s so hot I would reconsider my stance on having kids just to have his babies.  The funny thing is, after meeting him I told Lyne how dreamy I thought he was and she laughed and said, “You’ve met him before!”  How I could forget meeting a guy that delicious is beyond me.  I mean, I was married when I met him but I still had eyes. 

He is the best part because he makes for great eye candy and something to fantasize about later, if you know what I mean.  He’s the worst part because I want to bone him and I can’t.  It’s like torture!  The reasons I can’t bone him are partly because we work together and mostly because he doesn’t want to bone me.  But that last part can be taken care of by feeding him a little Jose Cuervo, no?  No. I tried that and it didn’t work.

            We had a show on New Year’s Eve [2008] and it was my first single New Year’s Eve so I told all the guys in the cast that they had to kiss me at midnight.  But, really, it was Operation: Get Hot Director to Kiss Me.  So at midnight, I went to all the guys for my kisses and saved Hot Director for last.  He was sitting down and I went up to him and said, “Are you ready?”  My clumsy sexiness was totally wasted on him, but whatever.  I got my kiss.  Then, when we were all leaving, I made him kiss me goodbye.  I got two kisses from Hot Director!  It seriously made my New Year’s.  Is that sad?  That’s sad isn’t it?

Chapter 12, or Nice house, I bet the rooms are huge

           It was time to get my Christmas tree [2008].  In the past we put the tree in the truck bed.  Well, I didn’t have the truck anymore and I wasn’t about to put the tree on top of my Honda.  Luckily, I had gotten a flier in the mail from a Christmas tree farm that provided free delivery.  I went to the tree farm by myself and picked out a tree by myself and tried not to picture myself as a sad Sally Albright dragging my tree through the snow.  I also tried not to think about that being my first Christmas without The Ex in 10 years.

            Fortunately, the cute Christmas tree farm guy, who was really a Fireman, (of course he was) quickly distracted me.  He helped me find a nice tree and took it to the guy who gives it a fresh cut.  I happened to mention to Fresh Cut Guy that I had no one to hang my Christmas lights this year.  Low and behold, Fresh Cut Guy was also Christmas Light Hanging Guy!  How convenient.

            So now, both Fireman and Fresh Cut Guy were going to deliver my tree.  Either it’s a two-man job or I’m that hot.  I’m going with…I’m that hot.  They followed me home and brought in my tree and set it up on the stand and even trimmed it some more.  And then, guess what happened?  They left.  What?  I don’t understand.  What happened to “This is a nice house, I’ll bet the bedrooms are huge” leading to sex on the stairs because you just can’t make it all the way upstairs.  I guess that kind of stuff really does only happen in porn.

            The next day Fresh Cut Guy came over to hang my Christmas lights.  He had just gotten started when he suggested I plug them in to make sure they were working.  Good call.  They were not working.  He said he could run to Wal-Mart and get me a new set.  I was already upset that it was my first time having to put up lights without The Ex and I was on the verge of tears, so I took it as a sign that my lights shouldn’t go up this year.  I gave him some money for his time and sent him home (that kind of thing happens in porn, too).

            I still had to put out all my yard decorations and lights.  I started pulling everything out of the box when it occurred to me that maybe I should plug in those lights to make sure they were working.  Some didn’t work at all; some were burned out halfway through the strand.  Fantastic.  I discovered there was a tiny area for tiny fuses on the plug of each strand, so I changed all of those and had working lights.  I went about the business of decorating my yard and not crying. 

            When I finished and everything was connected, I plugged it all in, and all the lights went out.  WHAT IS GOING ON?!  I stormed inside, and then stormed back outside.  (Looking back, I think that was the only time I’ve ever stormed.  I really should’ve enjoyed it when I had the chance).  I paced a little.  Then I checked the first set of lights and guess what?  The fucking fuses blew.  So I replaced them and everything was fixed.  I was thinking that if another fuse blew, a fuse was going to blow in my head.  I thought too soon.

            The next night I was decorating the inside of my house.  I have a strand of garland lights that I like to twist around the banister.  I’ve had it for years and I love it.  I plugged it in and half the lights were burned out.  It was so old it didn’t even have a fuse box thing in the plug.  So it was trash.  For my tree, I have color lights and white lights.  I plugged in a strand of white lights and half of it was burned out.  It did have a fuse box thing in the plug but changing the fuses doesn’t fix it.  More trash.  I found this very weird and frustrating and annoying and I was not quiet about it.  My roommate was on the phone with her mom and mentioned that all my lights were burned out halfway through.  Her mom said, “Those were The Ex’s half!”  Suddenly, I wasn’t upset anymore; it made perfect sense.

Chapter 11, or The house cleansing party

           It was the beginning of November [2008] when The Ex took the rest of his crap and two of my cats (which I’m really the most sad about, is that wrong?).  The day before he came I lovingly folded all of his clothes and put them in trash bags.  I went through the kitchen and put anything that was his before he met me – anything that I didn’t want anymore - into a box.  I set it all in the entryway for him.  It may have seemed like a nice gesture, but it was not.  The next day, I made Ailene hang out with me.

            We got pedicures to which she brought coffees spiked with Baileys (well, mine was a blended chocolate something).  Then we went to P.F. Chang’s for lunch and early afternoon cocktails.  Then we went to Yard House for late afternoon cocktails.  Then she took me home and I cried a bit over The Ex’s car and house keys sitting on my kitchen counter.  And I cried a bit over my two cats that were now gone.  And I cried a lot over the husband who was missing from my home and life.

A friend suggested to me that I cleanse my house now that he was gone.  As you probably figured out by now, I love any excuse to have a party.  So I looked up cleansing parties on the Internet.  Basically, you do this thing called “smudging” with burnt sage and incense and you have a bowl of salt water to collect the negative energy and you go through each room of your house and smudge and say a few chants, block the windows and doors from negativity.  I’m sure we did it wrong, but we tried our best.  It also said on the Internet that after cleansing you should have a big feast.  Well, it was November so…Thanksgiving dinner!   

I spent the whole day before the party preparing dinner.  I had eleven friends coming over!  That’s a lot of people to cook and provide drinks for.  Luckily, Ailene still had drinks left over from her Halloween party so she brought over cocktail concoctions she called Cleanstinis and New Begin-tinis. 

My friend Savanna said she was going to stop by this shop near her house to get something for the party.  This is how she described the place, “It’s like...um…I’m thinking witches would go there to get stuff for their potions.”  That is still one of my favorite things she’s ever said.  She brought banishing oil, which turned out to be one of the coolest parts of the party.

We stood in a circle in my living room and said the beginning chant, and then I passed out the incense and sage.  And this is how awesome I am.  I bought fresh sage.  Not dried sage.  Yeah, fresh sage doesn’t burn so well.  We put it in the oven with the turkey to dry it out.  Savanna suggested that in each room that we cleansed someone should say something nice about me.  Well, I’m not going to say no to that!

After we finished cleansing, we took the bowl of salt water and negative energy out into the street and poured it down the sewer drain.  I think we may have screamed, “Fuck you, Ex!”  That wasn’t necessarily part of the cleanse…it was just fun.  Then it was time to play with the banishing oil.

It said on the bottle to rub the oil on a candle, banish something, and then light the candle.  Savanna came up with a great idea for this, too.  She said we should each take a turn, “Banish something and light the candle, then pass it around the table.  If the rest of us concur with the banishment, we drink to it when we have the candle.”  So that’s what we did.  I, of course, banished The Ex (technically, he had already banished himself).  But I also banished not believing in myself.  And I banished the mean things he said about me when he left.

        And then it was time for the feast.  My new roommate carved the turkey for me; she was going to make a fine roommate!  A few people left after dinner, but for the rest of us it was karaoke time.  We sang into the wee hours of the morning and then crashed (karaoke Jen and Savanna style is play a CD and sing every song.  And do that with all the CDs until you run out).   

          When I woke up, I took a hangover-curing bath and had a good cry.  I felt emptiness.  Like The Ex was gone from my body and soul.  It was weird.  I think, maybe, the cleanse really worked, despite how wrong we may have done it.  After I realized this, and stopped crying, my first thought was, “Shit, now it’s gonna be harder to lose weight.”

A top ten for jen

One day, I was hanging out with my favorite gay and he said, "I made a list of reasons why you're a gay man."  Then he read it to me.  And it was fabulous!  It took some time and begging to get a copy and his permission to post it, but here it is, for your reading pleasure:

The top 10 ten reasons why Jen is a gay man:

1.   Turn ons: party planning, Disney figurines, cocktails and large penises
(Right away he makes a good point.)

2.   Turn offs: girl on girl, straight douche bags, church, children and sobriety
(I like that he put church and children in the same category as douche bags.  He knows me so well.)

3.   Hobbies: memorizing musicals, going to Disneyland, dusting her Gone with the Wind memorabilia, boozing with friends, and hunting through online "dating" sites looking for "deep committed relationships."
(Yes, I do all that.  Except the dusting part.  I don't dust anything.  Like every good gay man, I have a housekeeper for that.)

4.   Major in college: Drama
(A bachelor's degree in drama and nearly perfect gaydar.  Money well spent, mom and dad!)

5.   Her motto: Every bad situation is made better with theme parties and drinking.
(Duh.  A party should always have a theme.  And I would prefer costume theme parties, but I can never get these straighties to dress up for me!)

6.   A good night out starts with a few cocktails, transitions to some dancing or karaoke with more drinks, closely followed by a half remembered orgasm from some man meat who strayed to close.
(Cocktails, dancing, karaoke, picking off a stray...who could ask for anything more?)

7.  She understands that every good vacation must include plenty of booze and getting some ass.
(One of my gays referred to my travels as my "hump around the world tour."  I look at sex with a stranger in a foreign country as more of a once in a lifetime opportunity than a slutty sexcapade.  It makes sense if you think about it...or if you don't think about it for too long.)

8.  She kicks her friends out of the hotel room so she can have anonymous sex with bartenders at gay pride.
(That does sound awfully gay man-esque, doesn't it?)
 
9.  Want to piss her off?  Tell her about how you believe marriage can only be between a man and a woman!!  Yea that's right shes pro equality and she has the NO H8 pictures to prove it!!!!
(I may not want to marry a woman, but I don't want to be told I can't!  It's called civil rights people!  And they touch up those NO H8 pictures to make you look so fierce!)

10. Sure; kindness, intelligence, stability, and a sense of humor are all important things to look for in a man. Jen wants those things, and right after she finds out how good they are in bed she'll look into all that.
(I mean, come on.  You wouldn't buy a house without having an inspection done, right?)


Thank you to my favorite gay (you know who you are) for creating this awesome list and letting me share it with millions (a girl can dream) of strangers.

Gay Pride for the straight girl

If you have never been to a Pride weekend or seen a Pride parade, do it.  Find out when the next one is in your area and go.  It is the biggest display of love and acceptance you will ever experience.  It is also a buffet of flamboyant outfits, naked men and topless women.  There is good food, great music and wild nightlife.  I have been to San Diego's (which was very calm and well organized) and San Francisco's (which was a wild and crazy cluster-fuck of fun).

My first San Francisco Pride weekend was in 2009.  I went with a gay friend and a bisexual friend.  I represented the straighties.  (We were one lesbian and one tranny short of a tolerance panel.)  Walking around the maze that is San Francisco during Pride is like getting lost in a giant circus tent.  Over there is a group of people partaking in a hula hooping competition.  Over there is a guy painted from head to toe.  Is he hot in all that body paint?  Look, a band!  Let's dance!  Aaaaand there's another naked guy.  Can't not look at his penis.

Throughout the weekend, I kept getting yelled at as we walked down the street.  One time, these teenage kids started following us and one called out, "Look at the ass on that bitch!"  Another time, I was wearing a turquoise dress and this old homeless guy shouted, "Hey turk!  Hey turquoise!"  He may not have had any teeth, but he knew his colors.  (He should put that on his resume.  If he ever decides he needs one.)  Eventually, my friends said to me, "What is going on?!"  I said, "We're in my town, that's what's going on!  I'm hot in Northern California!"

My Northern California hotness got us into a club for free that night.  It was Michael Jackson night (awesome) so my gay and I were dancing our asses off and swallowing drink after countless drink.  We started eyeballing the very attractive bartender and tried to figure out if he was gay or straight.  When I had enough liquid courage (translation: when I was drunk as shit) I walked up to the bartender and said, "My gay wants to know if you're gay or straight."  (Yep, I totally threw him under the bus.  Luckily, he still loves me.)  The bartender said he was straight, so I said, "In that case, my girlfriend wants to know if you're single."  The girlfriend I was referring to was me!  Damn, I was smooth.  You should really be taking notes.

He said he was single and my vagina did a back flip.  I said I'd be sure to tell my friend and then I walked back to my gay and told him the story.  He thanked me very much for throwing him under the bus and as punishment I had to buy him a drink.  I went back to single, straight bartender and ordered another round of drinks.  I made my best attempt to use my sexiest voice and apparently it worked because he said, "If you keep doing that, you're gonna get me in trouble."  So I got all doe eyed and innocent faced and was like, "Doing what?"

He eventually asked me for my number and I was so drunk, I forgot my own phone number.  When I finally remembered it, I was so drunk I couldn't physically write it down.  Like my brain forgot how to tell my hand how to write.  It took me several attempts and several napkins and every ounce of concentration I could muster and I finally managed to write it down somewhat legibly.  He didn't end up calling me...that night.

He called me the next morning!  When I was sober!  (I'm pretty sure random sexcapades are supposed to happen while wasted so as to justify the stupidity.)  My friends decided to walk around and enjoy the festivities for a while so we could use the room.  We decided to meet outside the hotel first.  I thought it would be "safer" to walk around and talk a little before, ya know, banging a stranger.  We got through about a half a block of clumsy small talk when he suggested we go back.  Thank God.

When we were back at the hotel, standing side by side waiting for the elevator, he looked at me out of the corner of his eyes and said, "So.  Awkward and weird."  I was like, "You mean you don't do this all the time?"  Hahaha.  We got to the room and the awkwardness continued.  It felt like maybe one of us was an escort, but we didn't know which of us it was.  We finally got comfortable, so to speak, and he proved to be a pretty good time.  I guess he was the escort.

In the middle of our second go round, my friends called and said they wanted to come back to the room and take naps.  They asked if a half hour was enough time.  I turned to single, straight bartender and said, "Can you wrap this up in 30 minutes?"  He said yes.  I told my friends I'd see them soon, hung up and said, "Let's do this!"  He was young, only 26, so he took direction well.

It ended up working out just fine, but sober, random sexcapades are not the way to go.  Stick to drunk, random sexcapades, the way God intended.  Actually, it's probably safer not to have random sexcapades at all, but let's face it people.  Life happens.  Sometimes ya gotta bang a bartender at Gay Pride.