One of my Valentines has been my Valentine for twenty years.

And now she isn’t. And I’m not hers.

Oh, gawd.

I may have mentioned that I have been practicing yoga at Bikram’s, which is a sort of yoga for type A personalities. There are 26 postures and two breathing exercises in a sequence intended to have your heart beating so hard at the peak of the thing that you can see it in the mirror, pulsing at the top of your abdomen as your renal arteries do their thing with blood pressure and flow. Just to add a masochistic touch to the business, the room is kept around 100 degrees F, 65% humidity, which makes it perfect for burning off all your bad karma and giving all the martyrs in the room what’s coming to them.

Last Friday Troll was talking in my presence about taking aerobics to remove the unsightly fat from her frame (or, as she put it, “to dump my fat ass.”) and I invited her to yoga with me. Now, generally, to see Othello I merely have to step in and drag him off. He’ll even get off the computer to spend time with me. To get Troll to do the same thing has required some money, whether spent shopping, eating, watching movies…she has been requiring premium entertainment at premium prices to be enticed from the house, and there’s no guarantee that she’ll be pleasant during that interval. I have been carefully not burning bridges, keeping them open for traffic, and making certain that I have been visible on my end of the span. My intention has been, when Troll was prepared to be tolerant, forgiving, and reach halfway toward me, to be ready to accept her hand and pull her closer. For months, this has failed to occur with a constancy that gives one belief in an unchanging universe. Thus the invitation to yoga, and thus my shock when she accepted.

She actually went somewhere. With me. Where she had no expectation of being fed, bribed, entertained, or even comfortable.

About halfway through the class Monday she had to start sitting out postures. Gasping in the manner of a fish on land — who had been required to practice yoga in a ridiculously hot room — she asked, “You do this every day?” which sounded somehow approving. And after class, decided that yoga had something for her that aerobics did not, and will be going to class with me a couple of times a week.

I just lost the only reason I have to spend time at the family house. And another obstacle to my moving on with the divorce. I have been steadily eating away at those obstacles, and this was sort of a big one in a peripheral way. I have been experiencing sufficient money problems that I am becoming reconciled to the possibility of bankruptcy … again … after the divorce is settled, so money isn’t an issue, children are less of an issue than they were. The only thing I can think of that’s left is dealing with a particularly sticky relationship with Zelda, in which she appears to believe that we are working toward reconciliation.

I’ve been doing some things to make that harder for her to believe; taking off rings, telling her to date (and that I will be doing so), refraining from informing her of my daily schedule, and (a big one, for me) I quit explaining/defending my feelings/decisions to her.

Which brings us to last night.
Last night I came to the house to chat with Troll and confirm our Thursday yoga. Zelda spoke with me about this and that and then sat down with me to vent a bit, which is how she sort of clears the decks in her head. She approaches this deck-clearing by listing, with no particular order or emphasis, the myriad ways in which she is dissatisfied with me.

I have some problems with this practice. If I sit down with someone to air my dissatisfactions, I sort of intend to find some way of changing the situation to remove those dissatisfactions. Sometimes that comes from clarifying issues between myself and whoever, sometimes from asking for a change, but it has a point. What Zelda does feels very much like asking me to sit down and be a punching bag for her until she feels better by telling me everything that is wrong with me — for these things are not voiced in neutral terms, they are all “you did this” and “you failed to do that.”

Well, I’m making some changes … have made some changes in how I deal with other people. I felt like a punching bag, I couldn’t see a point to the conversation, so I said, “I’m trying to tie all these kvetches together, and I can’t. What are you trying to ask me to change?” I had some frustration in my voice, but just some. Zelda responded with more anger and more listing of my failings as husband, father, and human being. I interrupted her, “I may be angry for the wrong reason. I thought you were trying to voice a concern to me that you wanted my cooperation in correcting. I am getting a sense, now, that you’re sort of letting off steam by voicing all the things in your head. Is that right?” She confirmed it was. “Okay. Sorry for my frustration earlier. I thought we were trying to do something, not just vent.” Beat. “I guess I get frustrated when you need to vent because it feels like you are trying to beat up on me when you are frustrated.”

This was not well received. It diverted the conversation into complaints that I don’t communicate with Zelda as I used to. I readily agreed that that was the case, and allowed that I may even have overcompensated as I learned how not to defend my emotions and decisions. This diverted us to a place where I actually felt it was good to explain, thus:

“For years I have felt that I had to explain, justify, whatever, my emotions, my needs, my wants, and my actions. Recently, I decided that one only defends something one does when one believes that one has done something wrong or that one is going to be attacked as a result. Both of those have been true for me; I have felt that I was wrong if I felt or wanted something that made you unhappy, and I felt that if I felt or did something you didn’t like, you would verbally and emotionally attack me. Whether that is true is irrelevant; it led me to defend everything, which gave me a feeling of wrongdoing or imminent attack over everything I felt that was in opposition to what you felt.

“To take just two examples from this year, I moved out of the house and decided to divorce you, both of which are as opposed to what you want me to feel and do as could be. To be able to cope with my feelings and actions, I have had to pull away from feeling responsible to you for explanation and defense of my feelings and needs, and the actions they lead me to.”

I had more to say, but Zelda was having a meltdown. She shifted gears neatly, and began to discuss the terms of our divorce, asking me the mechanics of how this is to be done, and stating baldly that it needed to happen quickly, as the longer we went along, the more she was beginning to hate me. She did not, she said, want to hate me.

I told her I understood that feeling entirely; it was why I had moved out. We agreed to talk about the nuts and bolts of the divorce this weekend, and get the papers filed. On my way out the door, Zelda said that, if I would agree to give her the terms she wanted on the divorce, she would pay for it. I couldn’t, for instance, have custody of the children, since I was a neglectful father.

What she means, apparently, is that I may have up to 50% of the overnight stays with the children, as long as she has primary custody. I’ll be looking into what that implies, but it strikes me that if I fight this long enough, we can get the papers filled out and filed, Zelda paying, and then I can give in at the last moment, letting her win.

I mean, if the kids are living with me half the time, I have a hard time understanding why primary custody matters. But I’ll look into it first.

I wonder how quickly we can get this done?

Zelda made some noise about my not spending appropriate time with Troll…which is sort of true, and sort of not, as a 17-year-old can be a greater obstacle to intimacy than a father can overcome. But. In the conversation, I noted that I found visits at the family house (where Troll insists on seeing me, if at all) felt like submitting to attempts to control me by Zelda and Troll. Not happy.

Which led me to decide to talk to Troll, ask her if she could help me find ways and places, for little or no money, places and ways that she and I could spend time together. Troll should enjoy the “you make the decision” aspect of that.

And more: I have decided, as quickly as Troll and I come to some consensus (even if it is, “I can’t think of anything, so forget it.”) I am going to stop going to the family house, socially. Ever. At all. Pick up, drop off, that’s it. If Zelda and I have things to do together, we can do them elsewhere.

Wow. I astonish me with my ability to do what idiots do when they divorce, a mere year later than most idiots do it.

There was a bunch of involved, stupid crap from Zelda, which
ended with complaints that I send her mixed messages.

This morning I was complaining about mixed messages and Ally
asked me, “Why do you wear your wedding ring?”

I started to make some noise about keeping me off the market and
not complicating my life and she interrupted me with, “Why do
you need a ring for that? I see a ring, I assume you’re working
on your marriage. I see a man who is married.”

Okay, fair enough. I honestly hadn’t thought about that, about
how Zelda might view my efforts to divorce while I wear a ring. And it’s
the sort of thing she would think of; kind of a passively mixed message. So.
With much lotion and some skin sacrificed, I took off the ring.

And the bottom dropped right out of me. Here I am, bottomless.
You could throw a coin in my top and never hear it strike. I
have been without a ring for two hours and twenty minutes. I
keep looking at my hand, tracing the waist where my finger grew
around the ring.

I guess that, no matter what one says, no matter what action one
takes, somewhere inside is still a little island of denial where
belief in the enormity of what is happening doesn’t go, and
every time one does something new related to that, the island is
chopped up a little bit smaller.

Well. Good to know that I’m human, I guess. If I have to be.

I’m glad to have the ring off. And I sometimes still have a catch
in my breathing when I go to fiddle with it and it isn’t there.

I think the thing that slapped me was self-definition. I didn’t
seem to be mourning Zelda or our marriage; over and over I
kept coming back to “I am not a married man.” For 18 years
(well, more, really) I have thought of myself as a lot of
things, most of which were determined by my circumstances; I am
a student, a waiter, a tech, a father, a becoming-writer.

“Married” was the one that, in spite of my circumstances, I had
decided to be. It was the center from which I ranged, and, now
that it has changed, I was gone. Not trying to be melodramatic,
just trying to relate the feeling. Zelda has been gone for a
long time, my marriage I said goodbye to months ago, but all of
the sudden the “Me” that I thought I knew was missing from my
landscape.

The world I’ve been living in hasn’t been optimal, or even
necessarily fulfilling, but I knew that world.

Today I seem much better, although I’ve still not talked with
Zelda. I think it was the shock, yesterday, more than
anything. That, and not realizing what I was doing, entirely.

I take a sort of pride in being a rational person, but I find
over and over that I live more symbolically than not, and
rationalize afterwards. No suprises there, I think.

There was a bunch of involved, stupid crap from Zelda, which ended with complaints that I send her mixed messages.

This morning I was complaining about mixed messages and Ally
asked me, “Why do you wear your wedding ring?”

I started to make some noise about keeping me off the market and
not complicating my life and she interrupted me with, “Why do
you need a ring for that? I see a ring, I assume you’re working
on your marriage. I see a man who is married.”

Okay, fair enough. I honestly hadn’t thought about that, about
how Zelda might view my efforts to divorce while I wear a ring. And it’s
the sort of thing she would think of; kind of a passively mixed message. So. With much lotion and some skin sacrificed, I took off the ring.

And the bottom dropped right out of me. Here I am, bottomless.
You could throw a coin in my top and never hear it strike. I
have been without a ring for two hours and twenty minutes. I
keep looking at my hand, tracing the waist where my finger grew
around the ring.

I guess that, no matter what one says, no matter what action one
takes, somewhere inside is still a little island of denial where
belief in the enormity of what is happening doesn’t go, and
every time one does something new related to that, the island is
chopped up a little bit smaller.

Well. Good to know that I’m human, I guess. If I have to be.

I’m glad to have the ring off. And I sometimes still have a catch in my breathing when I go to fiddle with it and it isn’t there.

So. To catch everyone up, I have told Zelda we are divorcing,
that I don’t want to try (yes, this has been said before, so
what? In playing her stupid games, I have been “trying”, and I believe in Declarations of Independance.), and that I actually want things to end. My next step is
to get, in fincancially sound condition, onto a day shift so
that I have a reasonable expectation of having at least partial
custody of children. Zelda has promised to fight for custody,
in fact, to fight for everything right across the board because,
she says, the harder she makes this the longer it will take, and
therefor the longer we will be married.

…..Okay….

Day jobs around here run to about a $400/month loss from what
I’m making. If I rejoin the National Guard, I’ll make that for
drill weekend, and, better, will have open to me preferred
status for some state jobs at higher wages. So I’m rejoining
the Guard.

Good Lord.

So. Yesterday I got up before work and saw the recruiter, who
set me up for testing today. They have to make sure I still
know how to read and write. “Mnarra,” you say, “you were a
commissioned officer, a leader in the military machine. Surely
they expect you can read and write.”

Apparently they didn’t test for that when they commissioned me. Or they forgot. Anyway.
I stayed up until 1pm today taking the three hour test in 10
parts, each timed, not allowed to leave the room, speak, read my
book between tests, or even drink my coffee. If I do any of
those things I might be moved to cheat.

I was finishing the tests in about half the time, which left me
with 90 minutes to be bored. I yearned for my book. I yearned
for /anything/ to read, to while the time and help me stay
awake. After a time it occured to me that I’m a writer, and
they provided me with scratch paper.

I could write my own story, and then have something to read.
Hilarious. I break me up. I laughed aloud, gaining dirty looks
from the proctor, who suspected me of cheating using coded
laughter. I kept snickering, though, because the idea tickled
me; when one runs out of books, write something and then have
more to read.

Okay, not so funny, really, but I’d been without sleep for
nearly 24 hours. I free associated my way to a subject, which I
determined would be “ducks.”

Follows the story, since I can’t think where one would send such a thing for other publication, but before I go, yes, I passed the test,
which requires a 31% to pass. I got 99%, the max possible, shocking and amazing
the other folk and proctors. Surely, they seemed to think, the
numbers don’t go that high because people /need/ them to be that
high?

After stupifying my classmates and recruiters (not hard) and
feeling smug for having not only aced the test, but having
written a story in the meantime and then, after reading it
several times, getting some short naps after the test blocks, I
went to the parking lot and discovered I’d left my lights on for
three hours, killing the battery. The kid who scored 29 jumped
my car for me.

Ah, irony.

*********************************************

Working Title: Duck of Vengeance

A duck was waddling morosely near his pond and happened upon a
man. Recognizing immediately — for ducks are much wiser and
more perceptive than we give them credit for — that the man was
the Egyptian god Horus, Lord of vengeance, the duck prostrated
himself saying, “Hail, great god Horus!”

Horus looked down at the waterfowl and made answer,
saying, “Hail, duck. Few are those who call on gods without
wanting something. What would you?”

The duck rose. “Oh, Horus, what I crave is no great thing for
you. I wish vengeance against one of my kind. There is
another duck of this pond, larger than myself and with more
colorful plumage, who has vexed me and made me to feel
inadequate. He is larger, and so, when I move to mate with
another duck, he pushes me to the side and mounts in my place.
Being more attractive than I, the female invariably allows him
to do so. I would have him dead, that I might do as I wish
without competition.”

Horus considered the duck’s words. “Could you not, when he
pushes you aside, raise your wings and move upon him
ferociously, startling him with the viciousness of your attack?
The fight goes not always to the larger duck, after all.”

“No, for I am not a warlike duck. I have quite a sensitive
nature, and tend to retire from confrontation with other ducks.”

“It occurs to me that, female ducks being what they are, in
season, you could simply wait until the larger duck is spent and
then take your pleasure in his wake, as it were. Would this not
be easier?”

“It would, but will not meet my need. I would have the she-
ducks to myself.”

“I see that you are not a sharing sort of duck, either. The
moral quality of ducks does not concern me, however. Make me a
sacrifice, and I shall see your spite done for you, although I
know not what a duck could offer a god.”

The duck considered. “Would a duck dinner suffice for offering?”

Horus chuckled. “Fair enough, although it seems very close to
me giving something for nothing.” With this Horus strode off
through the reeds and sedge in the direction of the sound of
ardent quacking. The quacking almost immediately changed its
frequency and tone, rising in pitch and tenor from lust to
panic, and then cutting off suddenly. Presently Horus
reappeared, a bloodied and beaten duck hanging dead from his
fist. “It is done; you are revenged of your hurt feelings and
unrivalled in this pond.”

The duck quacked a joyful quack and made to waddle hurriedly in
the direction from which Horus had come, but Horus stayed him in
his webbed tracks, threatening him with the corpse of the larger
duck as if it were a club. “Not so quickly! Thou owest me a
dinner, not a carcass! It is best not to welch when gods are
involved.”

It is not suprising that the duck saw the wisdom in this, for
the perception of ducks has already been commented on (as well
as the lacking bravery of this particular duck), and the words
of gods are generally taken for wisdom. He quickly fell to
preparing the body of his rival for dinner. The plucking was
easily done, although the dressing out was difficult with only
beak and webbed feet to work with, but eventually the cadaver
was laid out pleasingly, garnished with cattail roots and wild
onions, seasoned with such herbs as can be found in the
wetlands. He waited respectfully until Horus had had his
pleasure of the meal, and was seated, relaxed, pensively sucking
the last meat from a drumstick.

“Thank you again, Oh Lord of Comeuppance, for this thing you
have done for me. Now, as I feel the fires of Spring upon me, I
must take me to offer solice to the widow Duck.” Flapping his
wings to fluff his feathers a bit, he turned with a cheerful
waddle toward the reeds once more, only to discover Horus again
blocking his way.

“I think not, friend duck, for there is another duck very near
here, recently deprived of her true love under violent and
unjust circumstances, and she has applied to me for scale-
balancing.” The duck looked, insofar as a feathered countenance
would permit, dismayed in the extreme for the brief moment
before Horus’ avenging hands wrung his neck.

“Besides,” said the god, smiling as he began plucking
feathers, “I would have a second helping.”