Category: Just Shelley

In St. Louis I’m visiting one of my best friends, who also happens to be my ex-husband. Divorce isn’t always a negative event, and sometimes both parties can grow from the experience, as Robert and I have done. Oddly enough, both families and associated friends have also come to see that our relationship has evolved into something as close but different and have adapted to the change well.

Rob and I share joint custody of an intelligent, loving, playful cat named Zoe. She lived with me last summer when Rob was in Alaska, and is now living with Rob in his very cat-friendly place in St. Louis. Today I spent the day playing with her, cuddling her…and of course I have a photo of her to share with you.

Beautiful sunrise, too little sleep, and only instant coffee to drink since I forgot to get beans yesterday. Incoming mail box with 83 emails. The sweet and the sour. Yin and Yang.

I’m still thinking of the SF Gate article. One thing I liked about it was the different look at Islam portrayed in the article. Since September 11th, we’ve all looked for common points of connection between the three major religions – Christian, Jewish, Muslim. We looked in churches, in shared services, in philisophical discussions, and in the books representing each faith; in other words, within the sublime elements of religion.

We should have been looking at the everyday practice of faith, at the fact that all people have one thing in common: sometimes we would rather take a nap than attend a meeting, religious or otherwise. We don’t tiptoe at the tops of temples; we walk at the base. If we want to connect, we have to join hands on the ground floor.

My, aren’t I deep early in the AM. Must be the instant coffee. I promise to buy beans today.

-earlier-

Nothing like having to go through your postings for the day, correcting all the misspellings, fractured grammar, dangling participles, and unwashed pronouns.

However, I have my fishies to keep me company.

Nice fishies. Tasty fishies. Gollum. Gollum.

Watched Shrek tonight; it suited my rather off the wall mood resulting from writing on books, articles, and this heah (that’s accent, not misspell) weblog for 18 remorseless, unforgiving, and unmerciful hours! Fingers are permanently hooked.

To bed!

Hey I remember Madge!

Those were such twisted times — women were doctors, lawyers, corporate officers, cops, software developers (ahem), writers, and heads of state. But the TV showed us with our little pinkies in a bowl of green dishwashing soap with no thoughts in our pretty little heads other than being pretty pretty for Joe The Stud.

I didn’t mind the Madge commercials as much — they’re still around in spirit if not in actual products and people. The one I hated — hated with a deep purple passion — was the one that had the tune:

 

We can bring home the bacon
Fry it up in a pan
And never, ever let you forget you’re a man…

Cause I’m a woman…

It was for Enjoli. These ads were geared to making any woman feel inadequate if she wasn’t the perfect Mom, Breadwinner, and Whore.

Suck prunes, Enjoli.

Speaking of which, this little segue found me Work at Home. Great stuff!

That was fun.

-earlier-

I must talks about her separation, divorce, and self-discovery. Sometimes, angry is not only good, it’s healthy.

I wonder how many of us are in the process of divorcing, or have divorced recently? My own marriage of 18 years ended in 2001. And I’m one of the lucky ones – I’m still friends with my ex-husband.

No matter if you have a “good” divorce or a bad one, you’re still adrift, floating without anchor. Lonely. Unfocused. Lost.

The greatest joy for a person who is newly divorced or separated is to reach that point when you feel normal being single.

-earlier-

Working today — should finish a chapter by tonight. Triumph! Time for a weblog break, and then apartment cleaning and lovely walk on the beach. Life’s joy is found in the simplest things.

My new weblog look will be pretty much as you see now – plain, grays and black and white, little bit of fire, and lots of blogstickers. I have new ones into the blogsticker machine:

-Roll me over in the clover
Roll me over lay me down and blog me again.

The Mae West collection:

-Why don’t you come up and blog me sometime?

-Opportunity knocks for every man, but you have to give a woman a blog.

-Any time you got nothing to do–and lots of time to do it–blog.

-I’m a woman of very few words, but lots of blogging.

Pretty soon, my weblog will look a lot like my kitchen refrigerator.

-earlier-

The sun is shining and it’s a brand new day. I’m not going to waste any more time on “the suits”; instead I’m going to focus on only positive things today. Go for a drive and a walk. Work on my book. Clean my apartment. Ignore the clutter and debri on weblogs.com. Compliment folks.

No, I’m not on drugs. I haven’t had my morning coffee yet.