the long honeymoon

I saw Elvis Costello last night, and when he played this:

tears ran down my face. It happens to be a very sad song, and one of my favorites from "Imperial Bedroom," but I guess what got to me was the topic of a broken relationship. Since mine is.

It was my decision to separate, but instead of my saying so, we went to three sessions of marriage counseling, at my suggestion. I guess maybe I wanted someone neutral present. The first two sessions with one counselor were hopeless; he was not a very good counselor. The next counselor really helped us nail it down.

So I'm moving out at the end of this month. I have a lovely one-bedroom apartment which I can't afford on my salary. And never would have gotten given my salary and my credit report. I used a portion of my inheritance from my aunt, and I am also banking on earning more within two years.

My husband and I are very good friends. We've both cried a lot over this. But we agreed that certain things are not what they should be, and I think we've both known that I am better-suited to living alone.

I am furnishing my apartment from scratch, which I've never done before, and it's costly and scary. My therapist reminds me that nothing is permanent. If I hate the rug once it's on the floor, I can always get another rug (but sell the other, natch).

I'm sure I'm dealing with my fear and anxiety by obsessing over details of my new home. I actually set up a page on Pinterest and have been obsessively "pinning" rugs, sofas, beds, chairs, duvet covers, vases, china, flatware, mugs, glasses, kitchen islands, throw pillows, ottomans...pretty crazy. But, however, it has permitted me to think about what I want my apartment to look like, and I've already chosen the living room and bedroom rugs, I've picked a mattress and I'm very close to picking a bed (platform or captain's). Oh, and I bought a laptop.

I have the keys now, but my target move date is November 30. But first I have to put in at least the rugs and the bed.

I find myself starting to write obsessively about the apartment stuff.

Instead, I will say, I'm separating about 19 years together, married almost 16, and it's scary and exciting, a very new and different life.

Oh, and there's a horrible election today. Or rather, the end of a really horrible campaign. In just a matter of months, I have more bad things to say than I have to say about Walmart (and don't get me started on Walmart, because I've been at that for years). I'm astonished by the classlessness at this level of political race. That scary orange guy has a wild imagination and absolutely no filter. He's dragged down the dignity of a presidential campaign. And people support this guy, despite his proven lack of character, bigotry, untruthfulness, and ugly tactics. Saying "crooked Hillary," apparently, is enough to turn a lot of people against her. Someone told me today that they were voting for Trump, "because Hillary is crooked." I'm pretty sure he doesn't exactly know what "crooked" means, or what "crooked" acts he's being accused of - but he's a Trump guy.

Also, I love that the topic of one of Hillary's emails to Huma Abadin, was, "What was the name of that older Indian actor we met a few years ago?" If forgetting Amitabh Bachchan's name is a crime, I guess she is crooked.

what I am reading now and so on

I am reading the new bio of Steve Jobs. Even though I'm a PC and very suspicious of empires like Apple, I find Jobs to be a fascinating character.

I watched Bollywood movies again a lot of this weekend.  Barry pointed out that I haven't had any severe mood dips since I started watching Bollywood movies.

What I've had, however, is an increased interest in sex, or rather, increased feelings of desire.  Since I've been dead from the waist down for a couple of months, this is a very nice change -- although, as before, there's not much to do with it. There hasn't really been anything to do with it for 3 or 4 years, except enjoy it on my own (ahem).  This is a tough-to-solve issue, and my husband is not much help -- won't be the guy, and won't sit still for anyone else to be the guy (I've never asked, but his attitude about this is pretty clear).  Some months ago, he said to me something along the lines of that he was sorry he hadn't been able to provide the "intimate" part of things, and that's when I realized that there was no hope that he would even try to participate again.  I am determined not to spend the rest of my life without sex, but I'm not sure how that's gonna work.  I had something of a patched-up solution during the early '00s, but that particular scenario, as the other person used to call it, is off the table.

I'm not sure if analysis is helping with this, or if it's just my hormone replacement pills -- that is, the return of desire. Maybe it's just the Bollywood movies.

This is the part of Baghban that didn't make me cry.  What a weepie that movie was!  Here, they celebrate the holiday of Holi, big B looking his fine 2003 self.

In an earlier movie, Silsila, there's another Holi scene, featuring the beautiful song Rang Baarse, but Silsila (1983) made me squirm a little.  Amitabh-ji plays a guy who's cheating on his wife.  His wife is played by his real wife, Jaya.  His girlfriend is played by Rekha, with whom he was suspected of having a long-running affair.  In this clip, he dances at Holi with the girlfriend, where the wife looks unhappy in the back.  The Amitabh/Rekha scene are very sexy, though she barely speaks in the movie -- mostly just looks smouldering.

This song, Rang Baarse, was actually written by Amitabh and his father, who was a famous poet (and I can't remember the spelling of his name just now).  Beautiful song, though not as peppy as the Holi song from Baghban.

Rang Baarse is the third song in the Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap medley, along with Kaike Paan Banaraswala and Pag Ghungroo.  (This is just in case you think I didn't do my Bollywood homework.)  It's interesting to see AB stealing his old steps, but some of them are the best steps ever.

still not much happier

I feel like this whole issue is really dragging me down.  Barry is in total denial.  I think he's just looking at the current event, not the many times I've found cigarette ashes and butts and cellophane pack-bottoms here and there in the apartment ("It's not!"  "It's old!"  etc.).  In fact, earlier in the day that I caught him buying cigarettes at Rite-Aid, I'd found a cigarette ash on the computer keyboard, which he claimed was from a joint.  He never has enough pot in the house to roll a joint rather than smoke from a pipe.  But I let that one go.

But how do I live with someone who's working against me?  Of course, I don't hate him enough to throw him out with no income, or to move out leaving him with none.  Honestly, I hadn't been thinking in terms of "his money" and "my money" up to this point, and I know we spent a lot of "his money" last year -- his inheritance from his father.  But "my money" right now is what I'm going out and earning every day.  He does a lot of chores and housework but he doesn't bring in a cent.  In fact, he has to borrow money that I have to repay (I have no idea how long he owed that $15 to Alfonso, but it must have been a while ago since Alfonso felt he had to remind me).

He has gotten better about bargain shopping and doing without most luxuries this year, since the unemployment and my Dweck job vanished, but I guess he still doesn't understand that payday means unlimited wealth.  He also doesn't seem to understand that doing chores and housework doesn't mean that he can stop looking for work.  We walked by a cell phone store the other days with a "Help Wanted" sign in the window -- why should I have had to be the one to say "go in and get an application"?  I can't work *and* job-hunt for him at the same time.

I can't seem to work or to get much done at all, although I did a frantic cleaning of the kitchen sink on Saturday afternoon.  He washes most of the dishes most of the time, but not the sink or the area around it, which was really gross.  I'm trying to get the place clean, bit by bit, but he never goes past the maintenance chores.  I've been waiting for him to put up a towel rack in the bathroom for eight months or so (and have reminded/complaining from time to time).

I don't really have the time or energy to do the shopping on top of everything else, but I've had to cancel some doctor's appointments so I can do it.  I can't just give him money.  Let him feel like a fucking hobo.  I feel like a fucking idiot.

And all bets are off on any kind of "misbehaving."  As far as I'm concerned, I'm moving out of this marriage, and much as I'd like a single life, I could probably do a little more at this point than bat my eyes.