Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Looking for Love Online: Tips from Women to Men (for Women and Men)

The following are some basic rules for men who would like to date women, or for men who are looking to develop a relationship with a woman and not just jump from unsuccessful venture to unsuccessful venture. These rules apply to the part where you meet on-line and then to the part where you hopefully meet in-person.

1. Tacky ads. You know, some of us really do love walks on the beach and candlelit dinners—don’t mock them and us, the people who have managed to remain romantics in spite of all the odds.

2. Do not send an old or untrue photograph. Truth is better than fiction in this instance. If you’re bald, shine the lights on it. If you’re fat, reveal it (well, covered, please). If you have a wonderful smile, show it.

3. Do not send pictures with your children. You are probably the best father in the world, but, honestly, it feels like you are using your kids to get to a woman, and that is just not good—it is not what a good father would do.

4. Do not send pictures with or of your wife (whether she is dead or you are divorced). Really, how could you think that a woman wants to see her before she has met you? If your plan is to show what a great wife you had, then get a bottle of wine and stay at home to watch the wedding video.

5. Do not send a photograph with you and a vehicle of any type. We will not assume that the size of the vehicle, you know, represents your size, although we may assume that the speed does correlate to your speed.

A Minute to Myself (105)

Influences 

What do you believe to be your purpose on this earth? Do you think that you are fulfilling that task properly?

Get Your Words Off Me: Excerpt 26

I've taken a break lately in posting excerpts from my book, Get Your Words Off Me, but I thought that it was time for a new one, and specifically this one, which explains how he got the master suite and I got the guest bedroom. 

* * *

KICKED OUT OF BED

Why have sex with a man you detest and who makes you hate yourself?

When we were working on our marriage by going to therapy, I felt that it would be an affront to the effort to turn him away when he wanted to have sex. I was, still, unfortunately, seeing submission as a positive attribute instead of what it was: an absolute relinquishment of the self. By cooperating I thought I was behaving fairly, which is ironic considering that his actions were fundamentally unfair and caused me to feel—to be—violated and used.

One night, a few weeks after we had begun our reconciliation process, he got into bed and reached out, touching me, when I was already asleep. That night I finally reacted instinctually—protecting myself, not my relationship. Out of the depths of my sleeping self, I shouted “NO!” He immediately withdrew his hand. I woke, stunned, feeling the “NO!” as it exited my mouth from my unconscious and hung between us.

Then, shockingly, he said sharply, “Get out.” The absurdity of his telling me to get out of our bed when he was the one attacking me, when he was the one who had repeatedly asked me to come back to bed, was enormous. But I realized, as I lay there in the dark with the “NO” still echoing between us, that I had no desire to fight to stay in that bed with him, it was the opposite of what I wanted. I was not going to explain or apologize, or soothe. What a relief to have finally spoken what I felt. So, I stood up, walked out of the room and returned to “my” couch (where I had been sleeping before the attempt at reconciliation).

I have not returned to that bed since; except for one night when he was out of town on a business trip a short time after I had left that room, when I still felt that it was, to some extent, still my room. It is now his bed and his room, I have ceded the space. I should have said, “No, you get out, you are the violator.” But, as with so much else in this marriage, I took what I was dealt and tried my best to survive. And so, in the middle of the night, in my oversized tee-shirt and cotton shorts, I walked out, leaving him naked, alone with whatever demons or remorse may eventually plague him. 

 

A Minute to Myself (104)

Moments

What made today special for you?

Israel Story: Walking to Jerusalem

I cannot believe that I have gotten this far into talking about Israel without mentioning Jerusalem, which is, perhaps, an indication that my journey to Israel was not one of a religious awakening. Even standing in front of the Western Wall (called haKotel in Hebrew) did not ignite a religious fervor in me. I must admit, this disappointed me. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if standing at an important religious site you are suddenly filled with meaning and purpose, and the realization of who you are and what you need to do to fulfill yourself? And that, you know, God speaks to you. Well, that didn’t happen and so the journey continued—continues.

A few weeks after arriving at the kibbutz I went to Jerusalem for a weekend. (A weekend in Israel is from midday Friday, when most stores and official offices and services stop so that the Shabbat can be preserved, until Sunday when people head back to work. While the weekend is shorter than in the US, it feels longer, because you don’t go out shopping and filling your time with to-do lists, but have family meals and visit friends or go on day-trips, and generally do relaxing things, even, yes, stay at home and do nothing but eat nuts and seeds.) For some reason I got it into my head that I need to walk into the Old City of Jerusalem, like some kind of a pilgrim. No, not from the kibbutz, but from the central bus station in Jerusalem. Sometimes I come up with these truly absurd ideas, and then as a true absurdist, I act on them. So instead of taking a bus from the bus station as any normal person would do (as all normal people do everyday—this was long before buses were being blown up in Jerusalem), I started walking down Jaffa Road to the Old City. My intention was that my arrival to the Old City would be the culmination of a journey; that it would not resemble arriving at an ordinary tourist site. What better way to do that than by walking in the midday summer sun in the Middle East for two miles down a busy street?

Two miles is not a lot, nor was it an uncomfortable walk. This was, really, my first introduction to a more metropolitan Israel than I had been used to. I almost felt like I was back in New York, what with all of the people walking around and hurrying about. Of course, except in only a few parts of New York do you see men all in black with black hats, and women in long dresses with long sleeves and scarves covering their hair, and lots of girls in long denim skirts, and male and female soldiers strolling about as if it's an ordinary thing (which it is, but not in New York) and so many men wearing kippot (yarmulke) to make me realize that I was, indeed, in a Jewish city (even more so than New York). Jerusalem had the feel of an old, tired city, ancient even in the non-ancient parts.

The buildings were a lot lower than in New York, and older as well, or felt that way since they were mostly made of stone. Everything was in beige stone. There’s a building code that I learned about later that proscribes that all buildings must be constructed out of this type and shade of stone to keep the uniqueness of Jerusalem intact. Sure, that’s the only reason why Jerusalem is unique, the color of its buildings. (At some times of day and seasons, the color is more of a rose hue, and it truly is a sparkling city atop a mountain.)

A Minute to Myself (103)

Remembrances
Is there a period in your life for which you feel especially blessed?

Why Are Bad Habits Bad?

First off, let me explain that I am not talking about seriously bad habits, just run-of-the-mill bad habits. The kind that we develop as children and never seem to leave us, or which we never let leave us.

If I want to pick at the hardened skin around my left hand middle finger (I write with my left hand) then I think I should be able to so without well-meaning people pushing my hand away. I have passed the age of majority and so should not have my mother try to stop me from pick pick picking. Certainly the man I met for coffee the other day should have learned to never, ever infringe upon a person’s right to her stress-relief habits. Is it really hurting your poor heart that I am hurting myself? For goodness sakes, I have ugly fingers anyway, so who cares if they are even less attractive? And it’s not as if I am really hurting myself, the skin grows back, the nerves stay relatively even-keeled, so what’s the problem?

What’s with the holier-than-thou attitude? Don’t we all need a small bad habit? It’s not like a take a knife to my arm or drink a barrelful of beer, I twirl my hair and pick my fingers. Considering the status of my life, I would say that I’m in pretty good shape with my bad habits. Even eating, which I need to curb, is not so bad. While I might indulge in second servings too often, it’s not as if I have ever finished a cake or box of cookies on my own—at least not in one sitting or in one day.

Why are bad habits called bad? Shouldn’t we rename them and simply call them habits? What’s a habit for anyway? It enables your mind to lose its focus or find its focus, whichever you need at that time, without calling attention to the thought process. It’s like white noise, it’s there somehow soothing you without you even realizing it; so why fight it? Does it comfort me or keep me level? Does it enable me to compartmentalize my mind, where the nerves are relegated to being simply soothed while the thoughts are pondered?

And what would I do instead? Because I don’t think that I would suddenly become a pillar of stillness, I am, after all, a kinesthetic learner (a fidgeter to the jargonless), which means I would just find a replacement habit. What could I do instead? I can’t even think of anything. Oh, I know, I could pick at the dry skin on my lips. No, even less attractive. I could develop an itch that needs to be scratched. I could doodle. (Been there, but it just didn’t have staying power for me.) See, I have no imagination here. I need to stay with my tried and true bad habits.

Maybe there are people who don’t need bad habits, or whose bad habits don’t involve a degree of self-mutilation. Maybe they watch too much tv, or shop too much, or curse too much. Who knows? Maybe some people need to tell other people that their habits are bad. Me, I’m of the “you leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone” type. So don’t come by to criticize me, I can do that pretty well on my own. And I promise I won’t ask why you have six packs of gum in your bag, or why you are playing with your keys on your keyring, or why you have a stack of papers growing on your floor.

A Minute to Myself (102)

Solitude
As you reflect upon moments of love and happiness with which you have been blessed, what do you feel moved to do?

Note to Parents

Parents, please note:

• your child’s teacher does not hate your child;

• your child’s teacher does not have it in for your child;
• your child’s teacher is not failing your child;
• your child’s teacher does not purposely NOT tell the homework assignment to your child;
• your child’s teacher does not purposely NOT pass handouts to your child.

Parents, if your child is telling you those things:

• maybe it’s in your child’s mind;
• maybe your child has done something to disturb the teacher;
• perhaps your child talks during class;
• perhaps your child sleeps during class (oh, sorry, rests his head on the desk and closes his eyes so that he can better concentrate);
• perhaps your child does not pay attention (oh, sorry, focuses well but the way the teacher expresses herself is not understood by your child);
• perhaps your child left the handout in class;
• perhaps your child did not: do the homework, take the homework from home, take the homework out of the backpack, and/or pay attention when the teacher collected the homework.

Does your child clean up his/her room when you ask him/her?

Hmmm, maybe there’s a pattern here that is repeated in school.

But wait, how many children do you have and do you ever get upset with them?

As a high school teacher I have approximately 125 students. Guess what?

• It bothers me when they don’t do their work.
• It bothers me when they don’t pay attention.
• It bothers me when they mock me.
• It bothers me when they try to annoy me.

Yes, it’s true, I am a person.

So next time you want to accuse a teacher of sabotaging your child’s future, go find your kid in his room and speak to him—honestly—about what is really happening in school because it generally is not the teacher’s fault that he got an F, D, C, or B (if you are so grade-greedy).

Signed,
A caring but annoyed teacher.

A Minute to Myself (101)

Guidance
Have you served as someone else’s guide as he/she sought to find his/her path? How did this make you feel?

 

My Ex-Husband Never Became President, Neither Did I

The other night, watching Michelle and Barack Obama on the stage in Grant Park I couldn’t help but (yes, think of myself) think of how we choose the man we will marry (and I am assuming in these days of SAHF, the woman we will marry). I am not talking about being a gold digger, but about the selection, both sub-consciously and consciously, that we ponder as we date, especially when we are too young to have a resume to present. Don’t we pick people who we think will succeed? Don’t we go with the guy who we think will go to the White House of his chosen profession?

I think that we are able, to a certain extent, to decide who we will fall in love with. All of the things that you find wrong with a guy in the first five minutes of meeting him, isn’t that just your way of telling yourself that he doesn’t meet your expectations for a husband? Granted some of the rejects are on their way (my first and only set-up blind date seemed to be on his way to being a bigwig in whatever field he was in, but all I could talk about was how I was moving to Israel in a couple of weeks, and he had to go back to the office to finish some things after less than an hour), but we do have to be somewhat selective. And even those who go for the deadbeats, don’t they usually talk about how they think they will turn him around? I worked with a woman who kept referring to the fact that her husband was a diamond in the rough when they first met, and after a few years he had built a successful company.

But going back to the Obamas, I’m sure that they were taken with each other’s physical, intellectual, and emotional compatibility as well as the potential that the other has in making her/his way in the world. I mean do you really want to hitch yourself to someone who has no ambition? Obviously we want success for ourselves, but don’t we also want to be with someone who has stars in his eyes—especially at the beginning of the journey?

When I started dating mr ex he had just become an officer in the Israeli army and he had plans to either be a spy (HA!), lawyer, or businessman, and perhaps politician down the line; and I was determined to be a writer of the intellectual bestseller by the age of 24 type (no comments). But beyond his career goals, this was a man who was at the center of a few groups of people, and they all listened to what he said (which was good, since I couldn’t always figure out what he was saying since my Hebrew was pretty basic, but it set the stage for me, or rather his stage). Not only was he the nuclei of different groups of friends and colleagues, but also of his family—he was the older son who everyone listened to. One of the interesting things about being in the military (this seems to be pretty universal) is that there is an intense selection process that tracks people, and you can really see how someone is valued and judged by the track he is put on. And boy, was he on an impressive track.

It all seemed good. He had been vetted. But the vetting process only works well if who you see is who you get, and the who does not transform in unknown and unexpected ways.

My point here is not that most of us fail to meet our own expectations, never mind how our significant other fails, but we at least begin with a heightened estimation of that person. I believed he could do all of those things (so much so that I even petitioned against the whole spy business) and I think he thought I would be a bestselling author (even though he didn’t “appreciate” what I wrote).

Maybe it’s harder to correctly analyze this when you are young (I was 22 when we started dating and he was 20) and don’t have much to go on. But there’s always something. What did the person do in high school? What college did the person attend? What was his SAT? What did he do during his summers? What did he do when he got out of college? Sure, it’s not quite on a track, but there’s a general direction.

Which leads me to an awfully obvious question: Am I jealous of Michelle Obama? You betch’ya. Even, God help me, Laura Bush. I made my choice, and I thought it was a good one. For goodness sakes, I thought that I had hit the bonanza with him, that we were on our way to tête-à-têtes in important circles with important people. In my own defense I do want to note that both of these women met their men in their 30’s, after the adult formative years and when there was more to see and assess—you know, more to fall in love with (or not).

Reconciling yourself to your own inadequacies and failure to launch are hard, but it’s hard, too, to reconcile yourself to the fact that your spouse didn’t live up to his own expectations—or yours. And it really doesn’t matter if it is because the world is against him or if he just didn’t have it in him.

Or maybe more tellingly, because other people saw in him a flaw that it took me so long to recognize. 

A Minute to Myself (100)

Togetherness
Are there people in your life whose presence makes you feel touched with grace?

Who Am I? Who I Am.

I sit here thinking of the painful place I am in and how I feel myself about to sink into a deep pool of pity, but I don’t want to. No. I do not want to wallow. I resist the pull of the quicksand of pity—I will pull myself out before I sink in. I am more than this circumstance that has morphed into my life. This does not define me; this has not redefined me, well, not wholly. And I want to channel Scarlett O’Hara: I don’t want to think about that today. But there is no way around what has become a foundation stone, for better or worse.

So I sit here pushing my thoughts away from pity and into the path of pith. And as I ponder, it occurs to me that rather than a separation of body and soul that we have grown up being aware of, perhaps there is a different dichotomy, perhaps it is a multi-tomy or even a uni-tomy. There is not the internal life and the external world. There is not the desire and the reality. There is not the present and the future, or the past and the present, or the past and the future. There is not the perception and the reality. No. It is not even thoughts and actions. I can enunciate what the division of self is not, but what it is doesn’t come as easily. What is a self? What defines who I am? Is it who I want to be rather than who I think I am?

Can I negate my circumstance (all of the things that I don’t identify with because they hurt too much and actually deny who I am—who I should be) and focus instead on that which I acknowledge, of which I might be proud. (Would that be a more spiritual—not religious—interpretation of self?) Why not? Why can’t I consider myself as those qualities and capacities of which I am proud, which I would proudly acknowledge in a self-survey, and let the rest wither in estimation. Why do I have to resort to seeing myself as encompassing the good and the bad; does that really help me? And what does it mean to help oneself? If all of the introspection we do is to help ourselves, guide ourselves to making better decisions, acting kinder in tough situations, being satisfied, even pleased, with ourselves then why not just focus on the glow and not the glower?

Instead of pondering where I have fallen short, why not mull over deeds well-delivered? Wouldn’t making myself feel good at the end of the day be better for me (and those around me) tomorrow than festering over scabs that have been picked at? Instead of endlessly poking around slights, I could spend my talk and think time on how I lived up to self-estimation, and how I can even raise the bar.

There is a man at work who stops by my room every day to see me smile. He doesn’t always ask how my day is, and I don’t always want to talk, but his searching out the positive in me, my knowing that someone expects that of me, is what I am probing here. Often I feel better after my smile and nod of thank you than I do after a discussion with a colleague or friend or even my mother because so often our conversations flow to what was not good, what was upsetting, what went wrong with our day. And even after an outpouring of angst and an in-pouring of empathy I don’t feel better, I feel drained—and that is an empty feeling, not a full one, not a fulfilling one.

Maybe it’s me and that is the way I have directed my conversations with people, and if so, I need to stop that. I need to focus on the moments that enable me to smile at least once a day (five days a week). And if it’s other people, then I need to direct our attention to those moments in their day that would bring out their smile if they had a smile-man.

Yes. It’s already working. I have spent a few hours thinking about how to make myself feel better and not how the world is punishing me or how a man can be smaller than a mite and I do feel good. (Or is that the beer and the black and whites?) Perception, maybe that is the key, and the key within that would be to put blinders on to the bad and ugly.

In class, when a student answers a question, or has an insight, or even if s/he reads a passage aloud, I generally say “excellent” in acknowledgement which is surely a bigger pat on the back than the situation deserves, but it feels darn good to say it, and, I hope, to have it said to oneself. And to others I generally comment on how good something they did is, or how good they look. So this looking on the bright side of things is not new to me, is not an alien concept, it is something that came from me—to others—naturally.

Now I need to embrace that positivity for myself. I need to embrace it with the intensity with which I generally analyze the failings of ex man and the glowerings of older daughter. Even if this doesn’t turn into a lifelong conversion, I could really use a break from visiting the dark side for a while. I need a break from that because, really, what is new? Maybe only this intense exhaustion which could use a smile a lot more than it could use commiseration.

Still Looking, Kind Of

I just read a listing on JDate and the guy noted that he is not interested in a woman who blogs about the details of her life. Well la-de-da to you. Why? Is he scared that his foibles will be blazed across the internet and multitudes of people will read that he is sweet and has restored my faith in men, or conversely that he is another controlling man who won’t see me again. Oh well, I have self-selected out of some people’s lives by writing, by communicating, by reaching out to friends and creating new friends. If that is scary to some men, so be it. 

A Minute to Myself (99)

Strength

Where do you feel most at peace?

The Symbolism of a Name

I'm thinking about two names in the news lately:

In Hebrew, barak means lightening, and ram means thunder.

Sounds like an interesting combination we'll be getting.

Mediation, or Sitting around a Big Table with Someone You Hate

My expectation for the mediation on Tuesday was that I would get to sit in my own little room, ex would sit in his own little room, and the mediator would shuffle between us. I wouldn’t have to see him, I wouldn’t have to hear him, I wouldn’t have to be in his presence. Unfortunately, mediator man thought that two adults need to act maturely and civilly, you know, be nice to each other.

He forgot that I had told him we were divorced already, not a good thing to forget. Don’t worry, I reminded him of this significant detail as soon as he started asking if there is a way to save the marriage. Um, what marriage?

Did I say that mediator man is in his 70’s, battling cancer and recently had a part of his right ear chopped off? Perhaps his perspective on life comes from the perspective of a man looking back at the follies of people, but since I am in the prime of folliehood I did not appreciate his view from on high.

When I walked into the mediator’s office I was confronted with a very, very big oval table of heavy wood with six chairs around it. I think it was a dining room table transformed into an office table. But it was wide enough so that we couldn’t be near each other.

(Highlight of the meeting: ex’s chair broke. The wheel of one leg fell off, twice. I was gracious enough to not laugh, but my was that lovely. I wasn’t able to look at him, but I could see him struggling to get the wheel back in.)

Is it worth it to go into the details of ex’s presentation of his case? Or is it enough to say that as I listened to him, I could hear how an outsider would think that what he said made sense but it was all twisted, twisted by a perception of reality that is formed in a narcissist’s mind. Apparently the house has not sold for two reasons. First, we had an offer that I rejected. I practically jumped out of my seat when he said that. There has never been an offer, there was a price probe last summer a month after the house was listed that was so low that even the realtor didn’t take it seriously. Second, the carpet in the entrance is old and I refuse to replace it. Yes, a house built in 1977 with the original kitchen, original bathrooms, original windows, original flooring has not sold because of a worn carpet and not because it is priced as if it has a new kitchen, new bathrooms, new windows and new flooring. Please.

A Minute to Myself (98)

Influences 
As you live though the trials that are a part of life, what is the rock to which you turn?

Letter to the Judge

I was supposed to go to court today to plead to the judge to stop mr ex from harassing me, start paying me what he owes me, and stop preventing us from listing the house at a reasonable price. We came to an agreement during our mediation session on Tuesday so I will not have to go to court. (The post on that is still being mentally formulated but since I am so mentally drained, it’s taking some time.) But I thought that I would post the letter I had written to the judge at my lawyer’s behest. This letter would have been my opening argument in court.

* * *
I have been divorced from mr ex since August 2007. I have been separated from him since March 2005. It is unconscionable that we are still living in the same house.

I separated from him and divorced him because he is emotionally and verbally abusive. He has only gotten worse. Because we still live in the same house I am still an emotional and verbal punching bag for him. He has no stops on his mouth. He curses at me in front of our daughters, now 17 and 13. He insults me in front of them. It does not matter if I go into my room and close the door and lock it, he continues. It does not matter what I say or do, he continues. We are divorced, there is no reason for me to have to live in the same house as him.

We need to reduce the price of the house so that it can be sold. We will both still make money. I am being held prisoner because of his greed and my lack of money.

* * *

I have not slept in a bed since March 2005, except when visiting friends and family or on one weekend vacation. Since mr ex and I separated, I have slept on a couch in the living room, then on a mattress on the floor of the guest bedroom, and since June 2007 on a love seat.

That’s a lot of nights of discomfort.

That’s a lot of nights when I can’t stretch out.

That’s a lot of nights when I can’t roll around trying to find a comfortable spot so that I can go back to sleep.

That’s a lot of time for two girls, who are now both teenagers, but were 9 and 13 when we separated, to see their mother contorted on a love seat while their father stretches out on a king-size bed.

That’s a lot of time for two girls to see and hear their mother being verbally and emotionally abused.

That’s a lot of time for two girls to grow up watching what happens when love dies.

That’s a lot of time for two girls to think that this is normal.

Tears of Joy

Hard to believe, I know, but I am a pretty emotional, weepy woman. Yes, I even cry when flipping through the channels and happen to catch a dramatic scene in a movie in which I have no idea what is happening. So it will be no surprise that I cried last night when Obama won. I cried while I bubbled in my ballot. (Finally a paper trail for my vote.) I cried when I drove by a group of college students standing in the rain at an intersection by my house at around five o’clock waving Obama signs. I cried when I honked my horn and heard other drivers’ honk theirs. Later, I cried when I saw people crying on tv. But who cries on election night, except the candidates and their families? Yes, this was different.

Different because his victory—OUR VICTORY—actually made me feel more American. Yes, I am a white woman, but I am a white woman with no blue blood in her veins. I am a Jewish woman whose family did not come over on the Mayflower, nor did my people colonize the west, nor did my ancestors line up medals from battles fought defending our freedom. My history is not the history that we are continually told represents the real America. And this is not just Sarah Palin being internally xenophobic, this is the America that is continually lionized in films and history books. Obama’s election enfranchises the breadth of people who truly create and recreate the United States of America.

Our voting for Obama shows that perhaps we are finally inclusive. Perhaps kids now will not feel less American because their grandparents came over to escape the horrors of the mother country in the last one hundred, or fifty, or twenty, or even five years and have not been here since the Founding Fathers. Perhaps kids now will feel truly American because their traditions have incorporated American traditions and are not just considered different, and thus wrong. Perhaps now we adults will be able to be fully American even if we aren’t old white guys. And I don’t know about you, but I could sure use a break from those old white guys.

Change. Yes. It’s about time.