Archive for March, 2011

I had a settlement conference yesterday.  It is the dissolving of a 46-year-old marriage.  There is about a million dollars or more at stake.  On top of that there is a $10,000.00 monthly income that has to be divided.

The court is going to chop the million in two.  The court is going to chop the $10,000.00 in two.

It is really basic simple math.  The really good divorce attorney knows this.  To continue to fight over dishes, mink coats, guns, and antique model cars is really only for the divorce attorney’s pocket book. 

The devil on my shoulder is telling me I should take this opportunity to splash some more gas on this case so I can generate more firm revenue.  Most attorneys having to put three children through college would.  Most attorneys wanting a Lexus, Porshe, or BMW would. 

I drive a 2003 Toyota Corolla.  

My soul can’t do it.  I am not that kind of person.  I know they have one adult child and grandchildren.  These people should be taking exotic trips together.  They are too old not to.  They should be having sloppy, horrible, old people sex.  They should be finishing each other’s sentences.  She should be warming up his cold cup of coffee.  He should go out and buy her a nice pair of diamond earrings.  They should go on an old people’s cruise.  They should be watching t.v. together and falling asleep in matching dual lazy boy chairs.

I know the source of their breakup in less than 10 minutes of banter and talk with my client.  Out of this discussion his emotional vomit is all over me.  I had to take a hot shower when I got home.

I felt that dirty.

In this shower I  say a prayer to the divine out loud:   “Please do not let me ever love money more than I do another person.”

It is really that simple.  You cannot take that cash with you.  Do you people really not know this?  Tell your significant other you love them.  Spoil them.  Shower them with thank you notes.  Give them gifts.  Take them on trips.  Be in the world together.  Go out for expensive dinners.  Do charity work together.  Spend it.  Save some of it.  Then spend what you save.

Sitting home and hoarding cash, screaming about money when you have a million of it, and refusing to take a cruise?

I guess I shouldn’t complain.  It’s the best paying case I have on our firm docket.

You need to know that I was not always pretty and throughout my middle school experience into my early teens most people mistook me for a boy.  I can honestly say it did bother me at times but for the most part I tried not to think about it.   I can remember wondering how those girls did their hair and make up so cool and perfect.  How did one really do that hair flip thing or get their hair to curl just like that?  I would scour the teen magazine for that secret recipe.  It always seemed that the answer to that question revolved around a new lip gloss or eyelash curler. 

When you are not pretty you are basically left safe and alone. 

I gave up on my looks and learned to be content with my books, learning a second language, and playing sports.  I knew I was weird, flat chested, unfeminine and boyish.  There really was nothing I could do about it because I didn’t really know how to correct it.  I tried to learn how to become content in that skin and hoped someday I wouldn’t continue looking like a scrawny little boy. 

Between you and me I somehow knew I wouldn’t always be scrawny and ugly.  I just had to be patient.  Patient is, exactly, what I was.  I mean don’t all girls want to be desired and considered pretty?  I was tired of being that plastic plant.  I secretly wanted to be that cheerleader that turned heads and be whistled at.

Then something happened.  I got to be cool.  I am not really sure how that transpired but when I was sixteen I dropped out of school for a year and went to Spain.  Spanish men, olive oil, and the bar night life changed me.  When I came back I was beautiful, strange and exotic.  I had more dates than a person would dare to count.  I was fun, witty, smart and a real tease.  No one boy or man lasted more than three weeks.  It was a constant change and a way to keep men that I didn’t know how to control– at a distance.  I was not ready to venture all the way into that sexual pool and didn’t really know how to swim. 

I just really was having a lot of fun just splashing around.

It was sometime after that I experienced my very own sparkler.  He came in the form of a Ted.  He was drop dead gorgeous, tanned, muscled, smart, witty–amazing–when he looked at me sparks flew.  He was fireworks.  I was melted butter. 

He made me think about learning how to swim.  With him I am pretty sure I would have gone swimming.

He went to Michigan State University and this made him exciting.  I was a local girl at the community college and I hooked a ride determined to see him football season.  My girlfriends and I all loaded up into that big boat of a car sailing 45 minutes one way to that frat house party.  He said he would be there waiting for me.  My girls were going for the M.S.U. men, beer and wine coolers. They were also going for me.   We were crazy and we always had fun.  We were the cool kids and everyone wanted to ride in our car.

When we got there it was animal house.  I had never experienced anything like it.  Crazy, fun, beer everywhere, groping, kissing, booming music and a bon fire loaded with furniture and a couch were all stacked and packed in that backyard.  My girls dispersed into that crazy frat madness like shooting marbles.  I just decided to walk around and retreat back to sit on the front porch steps.  I wanted to wait for my cherry bomb.

Time slipped bye.  So did several conversations with guys coming up and telling me how sweet I looked and asking me my name.  It was fun.  I was flirty.  I had that much perfected.  In the end I made it clear I was waiting for my Ted.  Beers were offered taken passed. I drank.  I had time to pass.  It was getting dark and through that clouded beer foam came a face I recognized.  He was six foot two all chest and neck.  Hands the size of plates.  “Hey beautiful what are you doing here?”  I knew this man. He was three times the size of my witty gorgeous Ted.   I had been at his home in East Grand Rapids.  I was hired to tutor his younger brother.  They were affluent.  I knew his father drank whiskey and coke.  He stepped though and beckoned that I sit with him on the frat house couch.  So I did.  I knew him.  I told myself he was big, harmless and safe.  My girls were scattered throughout the house–we always had a plan.  Never leave alone with anyone and stay close. 

I remember telling myself that I was O.K. on that scratchy plaid couch.  I knew him.

Now over the years I remember that we talked for a long time.   It probably was too long and I was too caught up in being cute, smart and deep.  We talked about school.  We talked about his brother.  Then the conversation turned to me and he confessed he used to look forward to me coming to their house.  This is the part where I told him about Ted and how he was my 4th of July.  More beers were passed.  More beers consumed.  “Hey beautiful, I don’t think he is coming.” Before I knew it this huge mass was caressing my cheek, pulling my hair, his mouth was on mine and his body was pinning me to that hard couch.  It was all so fast and rough.  I suddenly could not find air and my hands pawed at him like a kitten.  I remember he laughed at me.  “Isn’t this funny?” I was funny. I kept saying, “no, no, no” and He said I didn’t mean what I was saying.  He was kissing me hard and deep and I could not breathe.  He was holding my head to the side while one hand pulled my shirt loose.  He liked pulling the back of my hair.  His hand held my head pulling me harder toward him.  He was under my shirt and down into my pants touching places without permission and places that I wasn’t ready to have touched by a man. He kept calling me baby and telling me how beautiful my smile was.  I  was demanding he stop.  I tried to push.  I shouted for him to stop.  I then started to beg him to stop.  I think I even used the words–“please stop.” He seemed to become more sickly determined and stronger at each stage of my repeated requests.  I started to kick and somehow I got that mass off for a second, hitting the wooded floor and trying to make a run for it.  I even believe I started to scream.  He stepped over me and grabbed at my back leg.  I think it might have been that football block and scoop.  His shoulder hit my waist flipping me up and jolting me onto his shoulder.  I didn’t wait and started to kick and pounded my fists into his lower back and into his ass.  I know I felt my heart in my head.  I was an upside down spider monkey alert and engaged.  He was determined and scaling me up those frat house stairs.  It was full panic ripping into my chest.  I was groping and grasping at anything and everything.  I was hot, angry, and very afraid.  I grabbed people. I grabbed the banister. I was kicking so hard I thought he might drop me on my head.  I remember I thought I might just fall onto the steps and break my neck.  My shirt was a mess my pants were unzipped.  A crowd surrounded us and somehow I got pulled free.  I remember my girlfriend Pam got into his face and started shouting obscene words and jabbing her finger into his face. “Hey you dick, asshole, put her down!” Free from his hold he just stood.  A pure satisfaction smirk in his eyes. He was huge and arrogant with a big cocky grin.  A group of guys surrounded him pulling him back down the stairs into that lit frat house hallway.  I lowered my gaze and he was swallowed up in that sea of men, beer cans and pounding music.

My legs buckled.  My lips were swollen and raw.  My face was scratched.  I had his saliva on my cheeks, neck, and behind my ears.  The places he touched burned of humiliation. 

It really was the first time I was angry at the world because it had showed me that it could be jagged and unsafe.

I love my crappy little house. 

I love this home as well as anyone can love any innate object.  It was a foreclosure and my parents bought it for me. 

Some people move in with their parents after a divorce or crises.  I just rent from mine.

Between you and me, the real reason we are in this house, is out of grandparental fear.  The thought that I would move their grandchildren into a trailer park (which would also house some sort of fat slobby child molester) was the motivation of this purchase.  If it weren’t for these girls I would be sleeping at a shelter or under a bridge (ok I could move into my office and just take showers at the Y) but I really know my parents bought this home for the girls.  They feel sorry for them because these neat human beings were involved in a messy nasty divorce.  My court file at the local courthouse is going on volume III.

Like all mothers my kids are the most beautiful, exciting and wonderful people ever.  They deserve this token of their grand parental affection.  I am deeply humbled and thankful to be renting from my parents.  It is not something I asked for.  It was a gift to me out of my apparent failure to maintain our previous standard of living. 

So I am so content with my hot cup of coffee, my rental agreement and my crappy little house.

This home is a four bedroom & two bath fix-it-upper.  I love the imperfections because I am set to scrub, paint, tile and floor over dirt and uneven floor boards. I am amazed at what the Lowe’s store manager (Dave) has done for me.  I am amazed at what paint, tile, varnish and what a few new wall plates, ceiling fixtures, books and family photographs will do. 

The kitchen walls are so nasty and I was tired of looking at them.  I had no more money for paint.  So on this night while eating dinner I decided we should write on our walls.  It was an, “Ok kids write quotes that inspire you.  I want real quotes, I want substance, I want the walls to speak to us.” 

That moment I decided I was going to be a mom that let us all write on our ugly kitchen walls.

It was, “Really?  We can write on our walls for real?”  It was better than wine this intoxicating moment.

So I write phrases like:  Risk is the price of opportunity; the road is always better than the inn (Cervantes), the cruelest lies are often the ones told in silence, When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless and intelligence cannot be applied (Herophilus), the elevator to sucess is broken you must take the stairs…

They write phrases like: With great power comes great responsibility (spider man); I love you to the moon and back (Sam McBratney); and E = Mc2 (Einstein), what lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us (Ralph Waldo Emerson)….

We make this home our own.  In a sad sense I know my children don’t bring many friends over like they use to. When we lived in our 3,000 sq. ft. palace they would have slumber parties that ranged in the twenties.  Imagine twenty teenaged girls.  I was MJ making pancakes in the kitchen the next morning watching six boxes of tony the tiger get swallowed whole.  Now they can only bring over a friend or two.  Just not the same kind of room nor same kind of decor.  But I see that these friendships are more solid and real.  I mean they would only bring someone over that really cared for them and wouldn’t judge them on this house.  These real friends also write on our walls. 

This house set us out to painting and pulling out carpets together.  The girls kicked it in gear and not a complaint.  They all picked out their room colors.  I am determined that they get to decide what to hang on their walls.  They get to decide their flooring.  In this home freedom is lavished.  No restrictions.  Creativity, knowledge and hard work are expected.  Compliance, control, horrible harsh words, anger, hate and limited choices went out with the rolled up bad carpet.  Be kind and good.  Be who you are and if you are not sure who you are set sail and find yourself.  This is what I want to teach these human beings that are in my care.  I want them to become life long learners.  I want them to express themselves.  I want them to grow and be free.    I want them to find themselves for them.  I am afraid to mold them into what I want.  No more putting people in glass jars with only breathing holes and no more crates and cages.   No one trying to define me.  I am set out that no one is going to try to define them.

I have decided that our house of estrogen will have a front yard full of flowers.  I now have control over and I can spend money however I want.  If I want to be irresponsible with it—it’s mine— I am that free spirit.  I choose family, I choose exotic vacations and I choose flowers that attract butterflies.  I am not my credit score.  Trite, simple minded, flippant and so very female brained?  Yes, it’s me living life with a soul.  It’s about our own road on that indivdual journey.  You and I both know that we all end up in that cold dusty ground and we can’t take anything here with us. 

My Katie likes candles.  So we go to IKEA and buy tea lights in bulk.  We hang tea light lanterns from the branches of the front yard tree.  We eat dinner on a pick nick table in the front and the whole lovely tacky neighborhood can witness our family cena full of flowers, wine bottles, and tea lanterns.   

I choose to fill my room full of books.  I choose to have a messy room in which I don’t hang up my clothes and I don’t make my bed.  I drink tea and I drink wine and at times I have eaten my dinner in bed when I come home from the office at 9 p.m..  I write in my journals and light up 10 tea lights.  I am surrounded by art and photographs of my memory treasures.  I am happy and I am safe.  I don’t have to please anyone but myself and the girls.  They are so easy to please and all I need to do is love them.  They are like plants that only need fresh soil and water.

We choose to use positive and nice words in this home.  We choose banter and teasing but everyone knows the jabs are an exercise in wit and fun.  The words in this home, while at times can sharpen, usually are soft, fluffy, and safe to land on.  Honey, sweetheart, I love you’s, you make me proud– all resonate.  I constantly tell them how amazing and wonderful they are.  I am proud to protect these human beings.

In days I feel less successful due to my monetary set backs I say silent “thank yous” to that heat and hot water gods.  I wrap myself up in my down comforter and I try to calculate how much I have to save for my next home improvement project and when it is I will next see blue Lowe’s Dave.  I know tomorrow is more money and another project and with that thought I smile.

This crappy house is a gift.  I am in a better place here.  We are set on making this ours and making it even better.

I love this store.

I love their underwear.  I love their push up bras.  In addition this is the only store where I can find a bra that makes me two cup sizes bigger, I can reapply my makeup and lather on the sparkling sugared pear cream, spray glitter and perfume and come out feeling:  Sexy.

Where was this store when I was in my 20s and actually had that killer body?   Why did it take this long to get this kind of underwear to the masses?  Their marketing is genius.  It’s fun, flirty and classy. We see half naked women displayed in the mall and no one is covering up any eyes.  When you walk out of that store you want to be holding that pink and red striped bag out for the whole man world to see.

Daring the men to ponder….hmmm….wonder what is in that bag?

Ok you ogling me walking out.  I just got the bombshell bra and now I have cleavage.

I got the boob job without the job.

Ok, so my secret is out.  I am not well endowed.  But when I wear that bra I get looks I  never ever got before.

Men look at me different.   (Ok I am asking myself, “Am I actually bay watch or in my moment of insecurity are they only pondering:  A.  True  or  B. False?”)

Regardless, I determine, it is the power of the boobies.  I now know what the babe watch babes experience.  I am bullet (err) padded proof.

I tell you you can’t be in that store without wanting it all.  The whole sexy black and red package.  You get the garter, a corset, the lace underwear and really sexy slip.  They look sexy.  They feel sexy.  You just keep saying that sexy word.  Sexy, Sexy, Sexy.

This store knows how to use words like hot, flirty, naughty, lace, push up and panty.  Even colors in this store sound better than crayons: satin peach, rustic red, cobalt black, passion pink, emerald isle green.

Just so you know redheads look good in black and green.

Ok I got flaws but when I put on some lace with clips and high heels I am Hollywood.  I am not that woman in yoga pants running kids to soccer practice with snot all over my tee shirt.  I am not that tired analytical creature in the courtroom plain and grey.

I am a sexy super hero.   I am, for a moment, playboy.

When I do the hair and mix it with the deep dark deep make up, the sexy dress, boots and that lace underwear I am a Nicole Kidman or a Diane Lane.  No longer plain and simple.  I am that other woman.  I actually get stares.  I get phone numbers.  I get men pulling up to my window on the expressway giving me a thumbs up.

I really am not making this up.   You even can ask Amy.

It’s true.  It’s the power of sexy underwear.

A toxic voo doo, hex or man spell even if I am showing it off  for only the cat.