Money doesn't buy happiness

"When all you got to keep is strong,
Move along, move along like I know you do.
And even when your hope is gone,
Move along, move along just to make it through."

-- Move Along, All American Rejects



I've been a little fucked up this weekend... Tom invited me to watch his son's hockey game Friday, probably because it happened to be at the club where Zoe goes and he knows we might be there at the same time. I haven't seen or talked to him since I dropped off his stuff last weekend, and I really needed to do that, and I thought I was getting all sane about the situation again.

Then... hey, come watch the hockey game.

I had decided not to, and went to get my kids early to avoid seeing him, and wouldn't you know it... in walks his ex-wife.

Hmmmm... he failed to mention that she would be in attendance.

Why would a guy want to watch a kid's hockey game with two of his exes? And I've never even met her. "Ex-wife, meet the ex-girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend, meet the ex-wife."

Forget that for the past two weeks, I've been at a loss trying to understand why the guy who talked to me about what school district we should live in, and with whom I had conversations about financing a diamond, suddenly decided that his life was not "simple" enough to accommodate me.

I don't know what he's been going through, but it seemed entirely insensitive to me, to invite me to that hockey game, to put all of us in that situation, mostly the kids.

I'm glad I didn't see him, but I hate that part of me that wishes I did.

This weekend I took down the gazebo out back, took all the chairs in from the campfire, cleaned and covered up the grill... and it was stuff I had to get done, but it was all stuff that was all Tom, he helped me build these things, use these things, live with these things... and so I just couldn't get him out of my mind.

Today I picked Zoe up at the club and we drove directly to the nearest discount department store. "We need to go shopping," I told her. It's what I do when I'm a little off balance. Purge the checking account.

"Why do we have to go shopping Mommy?? I'm so hungryyyyyyyyyy."

"Tell you what, if you do this for Mommy, you can get one thing -- anything -- in the store."

"BUT. I. AM. HUNGRY. I. WANT. TO. GO. HOME."

"Honey, I promise it won't take me long. Mommy just needs to spend some money." Just a few hundred bucks. That's all it will take. Mommy just needs to spend money on crap to get this fleeting neurosis to pass....

"But you always say you don't have any money."

She got me there. But once inside the store, she discovered the toy section, and any concerns she may have had about my possible fibbing in the past disappeared.

And as a payoff, I had to spend the evening putting together this hideous creature of a toy, which is exactly why I wanted a man around in the first place.