I don't

I hate spaghetti and I also hate divorce
You probably already know that but then of course
I like the earthquakes
I like it when the world shakes
I like the cracks it takes out of the walls
When two people, lovers
Are acting like dolls in the arms of each other
That's my alarm
--- Jude, "I'm Sorry Now"

To paraphrase Gerald Ford, my long personal nightmare is over. It's been quite a while since the papers were filed, but at last I went down to the courthouse with Friar, and the final deceree came through. I'm a free man --- or am I just in another kind of prison? The answer is Yes.

By sheer coincidence, the courtroom I appeared in was ten feet away from another in which a child custody case of a child in my class was going on. Three co-workers and one ex had been subpoenaed to testify, but not me. As I chatted with the ex-employee, the mother of the child saw me and got one of her advocates to come and question me so I could testify for her. "God is on my side," the mother exclaimed at the sheer luck of my happening to be there. Unfortunately for her, her advocate asked me two questions and decided that I wasn't needed --- I'm afraid that my expert opinion would not bolster the mother's case.

***

There was no Reading II tonight --- another online class --- so naturally I went out drinking to celebrate. As soon as I walked in, Mr. Hangout began to chastise me over my treatment of that flirty drunk girl on the fourth. "She liked you, dude! Why'd you have to go and push her away like that?" Mr. Hangout is a bit of skirt-chaser himself and couldn't understand my attitude. "She told me she was married," I said. Mr. Hangout and cronies hooted at that. "So what?" he asked. "She was asking for it --- and she was asking you for it!" While it is true that I would never interfere in a marriage, I doubt I would have taken any physical steps with old drunkie, whose name I have already forgotten, even if she hadn't made her marriage clear upfront. Call me crazy, but I tend to distrust inebriated hookups.

I was a bit mopey at Hangout tonight, because I'd gone over to Maddening Angel's for a brief visit at her new digs. It'd been a while since we'd been face to face --- she'd been out of country and I've been extremely busy with class and work before that --- and right away all my old mixed-up, ambivalent feelings came back. I was so happy just to sit on the couch with her, and so crushed when she talked about her recent social life. I dunno, I'm nuts.

Waitress T came by to see me for a single drink at the Hangout, which was nice. Friar asked if she was "my latest thing," as if I'm some sort of serial dater, and not a poor unattached solitary schlub with a couple of female friends. No, T's just a friend, and only a sporadic one at that.

Near the end of the evening, when we were both a little tipsy and expansive, Friar gave me some tough talk about life in general and about MA. He doesn't think much of her, irritated by the way he perceives that she plays the part of the cute girl toying with the affections of her friends. And there's a lot of truth in that. Friar's rough outline made her seem nothing special, and certainly no one who'd be good for me. And indeed, in these very pages I've often written the same thing: I know MA and I would make an atrocious and short-lived couple, but you know, penser clairement avec le coeur est inutile.