I’m Starting Over

My future ex and I have been a collaborative writing and production team throughout our whole marriage.  We’ve had some success, but not yet the huge big break thing that we’ve always dreamed about, although several times we’ve come pretty darn close.  Yesterday we walked into a store together and met up with the most amazing opportunity that I can’t talk about now!!!!!!!!!!!

I come from one of those gypsy-evil-eye traditions where you don’t talk about good things before they happen.  You don’t buy baby clothes before the baby is born, etc. etc.  But OMG!!!!

So, I can’t really say much more.  But if & as anything develops, you can be sure I will.  Don’t mean to leave anybody hanging.

Anyway, I’ve been so busy since yesterday pulling pieces re: the above together, on top of getting ready to launch my website.  Time is at a premium.

If we had sold our house by now and living separately, this serendipitous meeting/opportunity wouldn’t’ve occurred.  So we’ll see what happens next.

I showed RN, my jewelry designer, the picture I took of the necklace on my site and she really liked it. She’s even going to download it to use in her portfolio! I’m so glad. I had some trepidation about doing it myself, but I think it came out well and I’m sure I saved myself at least a few hundred dollars.

Today was a very dry just-get-things-done sort of day. Like taking a 12-hour accounting class. I’m almost ready to launch now…. just a few more details…. Aaaaaaagh!

I’m building my store through Yahoo, and even though I’m not yet open for business, the site is up and accessible (except you can’t put an order through), and it’s had over 200 hits. I’m delighted people are finding my store without any advertising, but as a future business-person, it hurts!, because that means there are 200+ people out there that might’ve been shoppers had my store been open by now!

I’ve also been crazy busy teaching at the studio. Half the teachers are out sick this week so I’ve been subbing and can’t afford to turn any work down. There’s just so much I need to do and so much that needs to be done. I can’t wait to be independently wealthy.

All morning working on corporate and tax forms. 

I just applied for my state transaction privilege tax license, then city tax license, and then published my Articles of Incorporation. 

Last night I spent 2 hours learning how to incorporate a check-out system into my website, and I’m still not done.

I’m chafing at the bit to get my site up – almost there……   but details details details.    

MJ and I were supposed to get together today. She teaches at the same studio I work at and we were looking forward to having a “girl day” and getting to know each other better, but she was feeling post-holiday-flying-under-the-weather, so we postponed.

MJ’s been a teacher at the studio longer than anyone else, and is probably there close to 40 hours a week. She does well.

I have taken on a few new students myself over the past few months, as well as some classes, but I’m nowhere close to MJ. Do I want more students? Maybe. It is the most obvious way of increasing my income. My friend Z would call that “low hanging fruit.”

But it’s not really what I want to do.

I spent all afternoon today in my recording studio, experimenting with new sounds. Everything’s a little rough around the edges right now, but I have to trust it will all come together.

VE called last night to see if I wanted to do anything this weekend.

It’s hard. I’m feeling so conflicted. The short answer, yes. But the long answer – well, we made plans to get together next weekend.

He said something like “did you miss me?” or “were you thinking about me?”

The short answer – Yes. The long answer, I’m conflicted, and trying to stay on track.

Since the holiday, I’ve been very busy doing things with my future ex. We spent Thanksgiving together, and since he’s not working over the weekend we’ve been trying to get a lot done around the house, and then all day today holiday shopping.

I’ve been married most of my life, and have never been fully on my own, and I know the time to get that together is now. It’s like a gift to me, (in a painful sort of way), but no, really, I’m still young and have tremendous resources available to me, and as a human being, I need to become fully independent.

So along comes this really sweet, great guy, right?

Do you remember that movie, “An Unmarried Woman”, with Jill Clayburgh and Alan Bates? She gets out of an un-working marriage and is learning how to live independently, and along comes this major sweetie-pie, Alan Bates. They have this great relationship and chemistry, and then in the end, she leaves him, to be on her own, and I know we were all supposed to be shouting hurray you go girl! But I remember watching that movie and thinking “What!!! Why are you leaving Alan Bates!”

Now I think I know how she was feeling (although I really have to watch that movie again!). On so many levels, I crave to go right back into a comfortable relationship again. I want a nice man’s arms around me (VE!). I want to go on trips and have someone to walk around holding hands with. I want to jump into bed with someone, ok?

But first of all, I’ve been monogamous for my entire marriage – never even came close to having an affair. So I’m not about to start now. (Yes – we’re getting a divorce, but it won’t be official for another few months. I’m going to wait it out at least that long. No sex till I’m an ex).

Second of all, I know I’m at a vulnerable cross-road, and at what should be an unbelievably exciting new chapter in my life. I don’t know what I want yet, and there are so many choices to make, and roads to explore. Speaking of which, I’m still thinking about chucking everything here and going on the road.

That would be hard to do if I get all emotionally rooted again to a man. I have a monogamous nature, and as free-wheeling as I like to think of myself, I have a hard time being away from someone I’m committed to.

So I am going to see VE again next weekend, and I’m really looking forward to it. But in the meantime, I’m spending every waking minute of my free time working in the studio and working on my new business.

We’ve decided to keep it listed one more week, till the end of this month. We just threw in an additional incentive for the buyer’s agent in the listing.

On the news yesterday (Friday after Thanksgiving – is that “black” Friday or something else? I thought black Friday was when the stock market dropped in 1929) we saw people lined up around Best Buy to save on computers. Maybe some of those lines will drift over to our house.

If the house doesn’t sell by the end of this week, we’re taking it off the market till the end of the year, talking to some people (friends, banks & real estate agents), and doing any additional work that has to be done. Then in January, we’ll either re-list, rent it out, or stay in the house.  If we decide to stay, we’ll re-finance to lower our payments and re-take title as investment partners (as opposed to husband and wife), and wait out the market.

Then we’ll go ahead and finalize our divorce.

My future ex and I decided we would go out to a restaurant for a nice turkey dinner. We chose The Chart House, a restaurant we’ve always loved, both for it’s good food and view of the water. They were serving full turkey dinners today in honor of Thanksgiving.

So there we were, sitting in this lovely place looking out over the water and enjoying the prospect of being waited on this Thanksgiving, and they brought out our “turkey” dinners, and they were DISGUSTING.

We’ve made turkeys at our house for years, some better than others, but none had ever looked like this. The worst you could ever say about one of our turkeys might’ve been “It’s a little dry.” But the turkey dinners we witnessed today, I frankly don’t know how they did it!

You know what prime rib looks like? A big thick piece of meat with that big piece of fat all around it? Well, that’s how the Chart House did their turkey. Not only that, but the fat wasn’t just around the piece of meat, but criss-crossing every which way and in between as well. On every piece! It was unique and amazing.

I called the waiter over to send our meals back to the kitchen and he said he’d send the manager right out. The manager came over to our table and apologized. We said to him, did you see that turkey? He said no, so we told him he really needed to see it. So he went back to the kitchen to have a look.

When he came back out, his words were (verbatim quote here): “Ew! That didn’t look so good!” He said we somehow got the worst, but when he was in the kitchen he saw some very nice looking pieces in the pan, would we like him to hand-select some for us? But we had both lost our turkey appetites and decided to go with something safe, like perhaps undercooked seafood.

Just kidding. The Chart House has always done seafood well and what we ended up ordering was very good. But turkey clearly was not their thing.

————–

Side note here from the author: I teach music and we have recitals and I would never ask or expect a student to get on stage in front of the public with a piece they weren’t yet prepared to play.

Side note to Chart House: Arby’s has been doing turkey well for years. Maybe your aspiring Thanksgiving chefs should be sent over there to study?

—————

While we were waiting for our Thanksgiving replacement seafood to arrive, another waiter walked by our table and leaned over and conspiratorially smiled at us and whispered: “I’ve got two more turkey dinners coming up for you!” He was very funny.

On our way home, my future ex said to me, do you want to go for a walk when we get back? I said I would, but first I really needed to blog. He said “Don’t let me stop you. I’m sure you can cough up a few gems.” I was fondly reminded of our beloved, departed cat. She used to cough up a few gems herself.

Note to Chart House: In the name of customer service, if you serve a customer a piece of meat that makes everyone want to vomit and the customer is polite enough to give you a second chance, you might want to think about perhaps offering them a cup of coffee on the house. Or perhaps, serve them a piece of the Thanksgiving pie, which was offered all-inclusive in the turkey dinner. Or maybe, just in good faith, knock $3 off the price of the fish selections to match the cost of the turkey dinner.

They did none of the above. But they did provide the inspiration and (raw material!) for this post.

My future ex and I are still living together until we sell our house. We’re friends and have chosen to spend the holidays together. Our son won’t be in this Thanksgiving, so We’ve decided to go to a favorite restaurant that’s serving traditional turkey dinner.

Our other extended families are celebrating in different parts of the country, and this year neither of us found the whatever to pull all the logistics and travel arrangements together.

A card with a gift arrived from my parents yesterday. They always send one around this time of year. Only this time, for the first time, it was addressed only to me. It was strange, I have to admit. My future ex was definitely taken aback. But I was like – “what did you expect? We’re getting a divorce.”

Neither of us have ever had a close relationship with them, but I’m still their daughter, and I do call over there every few weeks. So I guess in their heads they’ve adjusted the basic math. Two minus one.

Another friend of mine is having a big potluck dinner over at her house. She invited us over for today. I thought that sounded good, but not so much to my future ex, as she’s more “my” friend and he was a bit uncomfortable the last time we were there, so we’re sticking with the restaurant plan.

It’s good we’re getting a divorce. That’s the way it should be. And I’m looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving.

btw – I saw some fabulous artists on Sunday.  Here are some of my favorites:

So I came home Sunday afternoon from my jeweler with my first piece, and needed to photograph it. She had offered me the number of her jewelry photographer, but I told her I was going to try to do it myself first.

Sunday had been a long day and I was tired when I got back home, but I was anxious and excited to get right to business, so I spent the last few remaining hours of daylight with my model, setting it on different fabrics, lighting, positions, etc, and got some ok pictures, but not great, and resolved to get right back on it Monday morning.

I have a little Nikon digital camera I got at Best Buy for $150. It’s not high-end, but it’s not the lowest end either, and has some good features, including many pre-sets for taking pictures in different lighting and different environments, but you have to read the manual, and I’ve never been much of a manual reader.

After about 6 hours into my shoot and growing frustration of positioning good shots that weren’t coming out well, I decided to read the manual.

The section I needed took about 15 minutes to go through. I found my best setting for jewelry was the “museum setting”, with no flash. The museum setting produced the most balanced detail. I had been taking pictures indoors using the “automatic focus”, which included the flash, and what was happening was that  every time the flash went off, it would reflect off of the silver on the piece, throw off all kinds of new light, and I’d lose all the detail.

So, step one – turn on the “museum” setting, and turn off the flash. The pictures started getting better and I worked another hour or so, but was still puzzled at the abundance of fuzzy pictures.

Then I realized, since the shot I wanted was so small and detailed, that the slightest movement of the camera would disturb the shot. Hey! Maybe that’s why they invented tripods!

I didn’t have a tripod, so I improvised by putting a plastic CD-stack holder on a stack of books, then positioning the camera upside down and using the auto-timer (which gives you 10-seconds to get out of the way from the time you push the button). In those 10 seconds, I was able to let go of the camera, so it would lay absolutely still on top of the CD holder, and take the picture on its own.

Voila! Perfection!

Armed with my new technique I spent the next few hours running through the house with my jewelry in a creative frenzy, trying it on every surface and in every setting imaginable.

I’m really happy with how the pictures came out:)