Chapter Twenty One; The Great Stripping Adventure

If you ever want to know what is going on with me and my life, just check out the state of my home decor.

I fully admit I am a closet Martha Stuart wannabee (minus the insider trading scandal). My idea of a good time is wandering through Pier One leisurely sniffing scented candles while remarking, “Oh, look at this picture frame,” or “Now this would be cute in my bathroom.” I like to live in a state of constant decorating motion. That is who I am. That is me.

The last year, yeah, I got a little fuzzy on things that make me me. Divorce can do that.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve stepped one heeled shoe in Pier One in over a year. And come to think of it, I don’t even own a scented candle at the moment.

But this fall, as my life transformed on several levels it only seemed appropriate that the house make some transitions as well. Forget the candles and the picture frames; I got out the sledge hammer. (And the credit card!)

I ripped out some built in cabinets, bought all new living room furniture, a cool high def flat screen TV, and completely switched the functions of a couple of rooms. The result was amazing. And I knew, I’d found myself again.

A few months later, Audra strikes again when I decide to tackle my dining room. I start by wrestling down the dreadful oversized floral drapes in my dining room, all the while questioning the sanity of the former owner. Who would actually choose these on purpose? Was she held a gun point by the material mafia? It’s a mystery.

Annie joins me in my redecorating madness the next day for what will forever be known as “The Great Stripping Adventure.” (Of the wallpaper variety, people. I haven’t gone THAT nuts through this divorce process.) I secure a steamer from a friend and Annie and I eyeball is suspiciously. It looks a little foreboding and I secretly pray that I do not end up describing this project at a later date using words like nightmare, debacle, or worse yet: explosion.

We find a seam in the paper and apply the magical contraption to it. I explain to Annie (who has never stripped wallpaper in her entire pampered life) that this is either going to be super easy and take a couple hours if the paper comes off well, or . . . I am going to spend the next month scraping off quarter sized bits of paper and convulsing in a fetal position on the floor.

The moment of truth has arrived.

I pry. I pull.

I scream!

For joy!

The wallpaper comes off in ONE gigantic sheet! I have a wallpaper orgasm and Annie, home improvement novice that she is, doesn’t really understand this need for true celebration but she joins in my ecstasy and we whoop away!

One hour later, the dining room is stripped naked and in full monty form.

And although I do rejoice the ease in which this was accomplished, I am kicking myself for living with that repulsive decor for three years when in an hour, it was gone.

Sometimes, we spend so much timing thinking about things that we psych ourselves out and convince ourselves that the process to reach a goal will just be too hard, and we make up excuses, or even run away.

But the truth is you just don’t know how things will ever play out. No one has a crystal ball and life is always and only lived one hour at a time, and uncovered one layer at a time.

So the next time you look at something that you think might be too difficult to even attempt, just forget fear and take a chance on debacles, nightmares, or even explosions. Who knows? It might not be as painful as you think and you may just end up jumping for joy in your dining room.

Chapter Twenty: Out of the Grave!

What do you get when you combine childish regression, a ten foot paper rock, food so good it could qualify as heaven on earth and one afternoon spent doing home improvement with the most positive and talkative woman on the planet?

The best Easter ever!

Alright, so Susie and I do not go to the synagogue or practice impossible yoga in order to cope with our children’s absence on this, our first post-divorce holiday alone.

Instead, these two Catholic chicks set off on an adventure that starts with our hitting the biggest Fundamentalist Christian church in town. (Over achiever that I am, I watch the entire Martin Luther Reformation documentary on the History Channel the night before. I wanted to be prepared in case there is some kind of test.)

I pick up Susie bright and early, blaring the theme song to Lilo and Stitch as I skid into her driveway, rationalizing that a little Disney infusion would ensure a zany start to our Easter escapade.

Twenty minutes later we are in an arena masquerading as a church singing away. We are good. We can totally do this! Catholics sing too, how far out can this possibly be? Although, we are little distracted by the titanic theatrical paper tomb on the stage below, above which hangs a colossal sign heralding the good news, “Out of the Grave.”

“What do you think they are going to do with that?” I ask Susie.

“Who knows but I have an idea!” Susie announces, the little wheels behind her eyes just turning away, “Grave? Dead marriage? You with me? We are out of the grave, Audra! It’s our symbol! Let’s take some pictures by that thing when this is done!”

I enthusiastically agree, as of course I am so on board with all things metaphor.

Of course, when I struck this deal I was blissfully unaware that the evangelical/fundamentalist/Pentecostals of the world are far more hard core than Catholics when it comes to suffering. This service took longer than it takes for the Catholics to choose a new pope as halfway through I am literally starving to death. (I don’t even get a tasteless communion wafer or sip of wine to tie my over? Who are the martyrs now?)

But wait, I soon forget my salvation starvation when the lights go down, the music goes up, and the paper boulder’s purpose is becoming increasingly clear when the service turns into the Price is Right, the preacher morphs into Bob Barker and the I Got Saved game show begins!

Testimonials pour forth from the gigantic screen in the front and a girl named Jenny announces, “I got saved at Kid Camp at the age of five!” People clap and holler, the pianist behind the preacher plays at a show tune pace on his electric keyboard, the spot lights zoom in on the artificial tomb and the pastor leads the crowd in dramatically chanting:

“Jenny! You are . . .OUT! OF! THE GRAVE!”

Jenny bursts forth from the boulder, high five’s the pastor and sprints down the aisle leaving sin in the dust! The drums are a drumming, the bass player is a rocking and the congregation goes into an Amen tizzy fit.

All the while, two Catholic woman stand with their mouths agape as this repeats no less than 157 more times. Bobby, Bill, Cathy, Diane . . . they are all:

OUT! OF! THE GRAVE!

Our stunned silence can only last so long. This is, after all, Susie and I.

We quickly move on to stifled heathen hysterics trying SO hard to be respectful of the salvation show. I am clinging to her, she is gasping for air and we are turning every shade of magenta trying not to appear to be the blasphemous babes that we are.

We are failing.

People are staring.

It is obvious to all bible bystanders by now that Susie and I don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hawaii of making it outta the grave and that our poor unsaved souls will be taking up permanent residence IN the grave. (We are clearly not good contestant material for Tomb or No Tomb.)

An hour later, I am weak with hunger (someone throw me a Jesus wafer, will ya?) as the super saving ceremony comes to a close. We slither up front and boldly ask the pastor to take our picture in front of the big fake rock. Reverence goes out the window as I strike a Vanna White pose and snap, photographic evidence to forever commemorate one interesting Easter Sunday is secured.

The rest of the day finds us having a truly religious experience at an Easter buffet (I am still dreaming about that apricot glazed cheese filled crepe thingy), donning our painting clothes and tackling my formerly hideous dining room. I am blessed with Susie’s constant chattering the entire time and we finish up in a couple hours. I think I hear angels sing as I survey the paint job.

My Easter this year looked nothing like those of Easters past. It did not include an egg hunt, chocolate bunnies, my giddy children, a reverent mass, and my homemade glaze atop a ham for the first time a dozen or so years.

But what it did contain was an adventurous day with the two components that makes living this life a trip and anything but dead: endless laughter with a true friend.

And I am feeling pretty darned saved because of it.

Chapter Nineteen; Birth, Booze, and other Bad Ideas

One little two little three little Advil, four little five little six little Advil . . .

I liken the experience of drinking oneself into oblivion similar to giving birth.

I mean really, both decisions originate with similar thought processes that have many people expounding later, “Boy, it sure seemed like a good idea at the time!”

Coincidentally, both decisions not only start the same but are marked by strikingly parallel experiences: intense physical agony and the obliteration of brain filters that would normally prevent a typically smart girl from articulating primal emotional thought processes of the very idiotic and irrational variety. (i.e. threatening castration of the child’s father if you live through the birth. Or, say, oh, I don’t know, drunk dialing an old boyfriend at midnight simply to inform him he is an ego maniac. Whoops . . .)

Oh yeah. Big time.

The obvious disconnect in this comparison is that the birthing scenario does result in a bundle of joy after all that pain. The drinking one? Not so much. (Well, it can end with a kid too but let’s not walk that dog, shall we?)

The only bundle in my most recent intoxication situation had me wrapped in my comforter at the end of the night desperately wishing my bed would stop spinning. As for any joy, the fact that I did actually have some Advil was probably about the only “Whoopee!” moment I experienced the rest of the following day.

And finally, both adventures also lend themselves to amnesia. Because obviously in order to wash, rinse, and repeat we tend to forget the labor pains and the hangovers. Short term memory loss in order for a year or so down the road to once again find yourself thinking, “Hey, now that sounds like a good idea!”

No, I didn’t go into labor this weekend (thank God). But the bed just stopped spinning a little before noon and I am almost out of Advil.

Last night was oh so, not a good idea.

Chapter Eighteen: A Man Free World?

The lesbians of this world might be on to something.

Or the nuns in the convent.

Both lifestyles, after all, are testosterone free.

But the truth is one thing I never want to be is a man hater. I certainly am not going to lump all of mankind under one giant “They are all assholes/idiots” heading. That is just not me.

But seriously. The men in my life in the last twenty fours have just left my head reeling.

First, there is the ex-husband: Mr. Drama on a level that would cause the words in this blog to overflow the screen, fall onto the floor, and leave everyone reading this standing in verbal vomit, and we can’t have that. I hate to “go there” but let’s just say by the end of the day yesterday, I was practically giddy with the thought that I no longer (or ever again for that matter) have to live with or wash the boxers of this irrational man. (And as Forest Gump would say, “That’s all I have to say about that.”)

Secondly, there is my gym stalker. Well, not really. Nice guy. Funny guy. (Okay, hot guy, there, I said it. Happy?) And a very not so subtle oh so after me for no less than six months guy. Somehow I ended up in a sweat flicking contest with him yesterday. “I sweat more than you do! No I do! No I do, take that!” What kind of middle school regression ritual is this? I think it’s called flirting but I haven’t done very much of it since 1993 so I’m not sure exactly.

And lastly, there is the aftermath of my former Dating Land Traveling Companion. I am inclined to lump all that that was and is into the category of “a good thing.” Even though it was hard, I celebrate that toward its end it differed significantly from my prior relationship track record. Back in Act One, I always played the role of stubborn control freak living in a stone tower, wearing a suit of armor and seeking pseudo protection behind emotional walls thicker than the earth’s crust (43 miles at its most pronounced depth).

But this time around I lost the steel suit, took a wrecking ball to the stone walls, and instead opted to try on some (GASP!) vulnerability and (SHOCK!) raw emotional honesty.

Not bad. Not bad. Checked myself out in the mirror. Hmmm, looks good on me. Fits better than I would have assumed. The vulnerability is still a little snug, but it might stretch out if I wear it for a while.

And besides, the view is so much better from here without so many walls in the way. I think I can actually see my reflection more clearly now.

And so . . . lesbian or nun? I do wear a lot of black, the nun thing could work? Sister Mary Audra Elizabeth, maybe? But lesbian? Nah. I'm eternally entrenched on this team and I don't plan to entertain the concept of a switcheroo there any time soon (or ever).

So, even if I have endured some testosterone driven confusion as of late, I will never wave the man hater flag.

THAT much I do know.

Chapter Seventeen: The Mysterious Stink

It’s 3:00AM.

Holy crap, what the? Argh . . the dog peed. Somewhere . . . in/on/or near my bed.

Good GAWD.

I feel nothing wet but the stench is unbearable, sour, and gross. And I can’t figure out what exactly he peed on. My pillow? Sniff. No. My comforter? Sniff. Not there either. Argh… I can’t find the source. Geez Louise. (Well, I am a mother. Bodily fluids yuckier than this have accompanied me to bed in my lifetime, none of which I feel like expounding upon here. Hence, I decide to just roll over, away from the agonizing aroma for the remaining four hours of sleep I have left. I tell myself, “I will find the pee tomorrow while humming the theme song to Mission Impossible.”)

But what is this? When I shift the other direction, I discover that the air on the other side of my bed is filled with the intoxicating scent of the lilies on my nightstand (a gift from my Mom for Easter). I can’t believe the fragrance, it takes me off guard. Wow. Who knew flowers could smell so good without having to shove your nose into the petals. I breathe in deeply.

Turn my head to the right. Ew. The pee.

Turn my head to the left. Ah. The lilies.

Needless to say, I slept with my head turned to the liberal lilly left all night long.

As a writer, my metaphor radar is constantly up and this one is so blatant how can I not comment? Obviously, life itself is filled aspects that are a mix of sorrow and sweet, depressing and delightful, stinky and sensational.

It makes me wonder. Is there really such a thing as a pissy rotten day?

Or is it simply a matter of which direction I turn my head?


(And yes, I zeroed in on the super secret pee spot the next morning. And yes, I washed that blanket. And yes, one dog up for sale/adoption/abduction.)

Chapter Sixteen: The Fake Easter

“I am thinking the synagogue, seriously.”

“I am pretty sure the practice of Judaism does not support Easter. If it did, the followers of this faith would not be Jewish.”

“Exactly.”

Susie and I are plotting our first Fake Easter, i.e. our first holiday without our children. Both of us will be experiencing this divorce reality for the first time and we have vowed to spend the day together while attempting to be as creative and positive about it as possible.

I am lobbying that we spend our Easter Sunday at a temple somewhere chanting and meditating in a painful Yoga pose. I am thinking if I can just get my ankles behind my head I might be able to distract myself from this sucky dimension of divorce. Susie is 100% on board and has already begun stretching every night in preparation. “I can, I can put my toe to my nose. I am almost there!” (The mere visual of her attempting this physical feat while on her cell phone is almost enough to cure me of my whining about the whole Easter deal. What a nut!)

The weekend prior, I had what I referred to as “The Real Easter” with my children.

The Easter bunny came a week early, my daughters donned their pastel dresses, and we treated Granny (my Mom) to an all you can eat Sunday buffet after church at Granite City. My kids thought it was great and seem to honestly view the “double holiday” as a perk and benefit to having divorced parents. (At least, that is the cunning lie I tell myself. And I am not a very good liar so it isn’t working all that well.)

The truth is that holidays are the staple of pain when it comes to divorce. And since I don’t want to be a pain hog, I fully acknowledge that my children will bear the brunt of this division. For the rest of their childhood they will celebrate two of everything. All I can do is acknowledge the burden they will bear because of a decision they had nothing to do with while my ex-husband and I work together to do everything we can to minimize their trauma.

And shower them with far too many chocolate bunnies.

And so next Sunday Susie and I will not be sitting in the church we always sat in on Easter. It will be too hard and only serve as a reminder of how different, scary, and even lonely our new independence may be at times.

Instead, we will be struggling to twist ourselves into pretzels at a temple somewhere, giggling instead of chanting, and making it through our first Fake Easter in the best possible way:

Together.

Chapter Fifteen: Green Beer and Glitter

When my day ended yesterday, I knew it had been a good one based solely on the fact that I was washing green glitter off my face before heading to bed.

After all, any day that leaves me literally sparkling has to be worth noting.

St. Patrick’s Day. I have never actually celebrated it. Not really. Oh, maybe I’ve been known to bake a shamrock shaped cut out cookie or two in my life or worn the obligatory green attire, but other than that I have spent my adult life at home on this pint drinking day of leprechauns and Irish folk tunes.

“There is an Irish band playing at the Aquarium downtown, want to go?”

I am all set to turn down this eleventh hour invitation from one of my girlfriends. It is a Monday, people. I have a job. Besides, that’s a total college hang out and I would feel extremely out of place. But then I reconsider.

And call a sitter.

After all, this is Act Two. This is a new life. And the new me. And the new improved version of me decides that if I was hit by an asteroid tomorrow wouldn’t it be a shame that I’d never danced a jig while downing a green beer? Tragic.

Faster than you can say pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers I am in the only emerald shirt I own standing in a cloudy bar sipping grass colored beer and stomping my feet to what I swear is the soundtrack from Titanic, the scene where they have one hell of a party below deck in C class. I practically expect Leonardo de Caprio to sidle up to me at any moment and whisk me off my feet. (Eat your heart out Kate Winslet.)

Instead, I am abducted by some curly haired kid who twirls me around and slurs that I am the prettiest girl in this whole damn bar. Actually, the whole damn town. Maybe the whole damn world. I just laugh at his alcohol induced awe, drink the compliments instead of the beer, and allow him to whirl and weave me from one end of the dance floor to the next. At one point some girl tosses glitter across the dance floor and we are both doused from head to toe in sparkles.

The band is exuberant and joyful, and I soon lose my drunken dance partner (intentionally) and trade him in for my girlfriends who are taking up the entire front row, clapping and singing along.

And in the midst of the singing and the music I take just a second to inhale the energy all around me and give thanks.

For life and music. For friends and glitter.

But mostly for a second chance around that seems to be suddenly lucky and charmed, and oh so magically delicious.