The Great Pachinko Machine, the Atonement and a Mountain

I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of nights due to miscellaneous bullshit circling in my mind. The spin cycle seems complete this morning which - as it happens - is Yom Kippur, the annual day of Atonement for the Jews.  Now, I don't know exactly what Rabbis have to say about the meaning of Yom Kippur, but I do know that it's the day of Atonement, of forgiveness and becoming One with God.

I have issues with God, as He is known in nearly every organized monotheistic religion I've ever heard about,  because he's the Grandpa in the Sky everyone references as justification for The Patriarchy which in turn, justifies Colonialism, War, Corporatism, Dominionism and other concepts held dear to Democrats and Republicans alike.  Held dear to Patriarchal Dickwads before anyone ever heard of Democrats and Republicans.  But that doesn't mean I don't have my own concept of God which has developed largely from two books - The Hitchhikers Guide the the Galaxy and Cat's Cradle.  Neither of these books attempts to explain what God is.  Cat's Cradle illustrates beautifully how Religion and Government work hand in hand to bamboozle The People.  The Holy Man Bokonon says that everything you hear coming from either quarter is nothing but foma, lies.  Hitchhiker's Guide simply explains that the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is 42.  So since high school, we can say that my world view, or the fundamental cosmology and/or theology in the Triciasphere has been Existential Absurdity.  Frankly, I don't see how anyone can take a long look around this world and come to any other conclusion.

The thing is that this world, from a Buddhist perspective I think - but I get this stuff wrong all the time because Yoga overlaps with Buddhism, Hinduism is thrown in there and so is the Tao but anyway . . . The World is supposed to be an Illusion, and behind the veil of Illusion shines the healing, peaceful, loving divine light of the Universe.  All you have to do is look behind the veil, remove the scales from your eyes, and you can finally fucking relax because all is peaceful and well.

I've been working on achieving this state of inner peace for several months now with A Course in Miracles.  Essentially the Course - which is narrated by a voice that I've come to know as Trippin' Jesus - says that you can walk around forgiving people all day and all year, but when you're doing it with an attitude of Holier than Thou condescension, you're still stuck in the ways of this World, which has nothing to do with God at all whatsoever.  The goal of the Course, which is a self-guided, step by step, practical way to shift your perspective from Fear (way of the world) to Love (way of God), or in secular terms - free yourself from Ego domination and live joyfully within Spirit which connects us all.

Let me say here to all my atheist friends who would say:  God is all in your head -- Trippin' Jesus will say - Of course He is.  Where else would He be?  Ultimately, all you have to do is  make the choice to be at peace with yourself, and start doing the work to remove the obstacles to Peace.  You may still not have a job, or any other fucked up things that happen in this world, but that's all because of the way people in this world act toward each other - namely,  a string of Attacks that are based in Fear. People hoard stuff to themselves in fear that if anyone else gets even the smallest piece of the pie, they won't have enough for themselves.  Look at anyone supporting Romney, or any Teabagger, or the Israeli Government for that matter - and you can easily see this MO in action.  Those people don't know shit about God, or shit about themselves.  They are trapped in their own personal Hells, or the world of Illusion.  Namaste, Motherfuckers.

It's hard to accept all this stuff as Illusion, though, when it's smacking you in the face.  Drones, for example, don't seem like an illusion to the children of Pakistan.  While it's fairly simple to divide events into categories like the fear-based ways of the world and the Loving energy of the Universe flowing through each of us as individuals, and hopefully, one day collectively as the people of the planet - it's not so easy to see beyond Illusion to The Light, particularly when you yourself have suffered an injustice.

Enter Notta Goodman.

The last few days, I've been thinking of him as a worldly fellow because he's all about the Ways of the World.  He's grown up with Colonialism and Patriarchy like the rest of us, and as a financially successful, accomplished African-American man, Notta Goodman has had to deal with his share of shit.  Trippin' Jesus says that everything any of us ever does is either Love or a Cry for Love.  That includes Richard Nixon - one fucked up individual crying out for love at every turn.  It's easy to forgive Notta Goodman for being a self-absorbed, manipulative power-player who uses other people for his own convenience, advancement and/or pleasure, who quakes in his boots and plays possum to avoid confrontation when somebody calls him on his bullshit then retaliates by being dismissive, defiant and defensive. That's just a lonely, isolated spirit crying out for Love.

It's not so easy to forgive myself for being a vulnerable, naive sap, capable at this advanced age of falling for that bullshit.  It's not so easy to see this scenario as Illusion either.  But it easy very easy to see everything around the situation with Notta Goodman as Bullshit.  Those Drones are Bullshit too.  And the Corporate Uniparty that has sold this country into war and ecocide is Bullshit too - Lies, Illusion, Foma.

When Bokonists say, "As it happens . . ." they know things have happened as they are supposed to happen – not because God has some ineffable plan but simply because of of the laws of Cause and Effect in the great pachinko machine of life.

I knew when I was writing that yesterday’s post that I was defending my logic about calling Notta Goodman as disrespectful to women as a date rapist because on some level I felt Bad for mouthing off.  I worried that I had been judgmental and attacking, and that he was right to say my logic was off base.  I wanted a higher authority to say my assessment and analogy was correct.  And on a deeper level, I wanted a higher authority to say that I was not a stupid whore for getting into a car with a manipulative, abusive lecherous, lying, predatory cheater (since he was one of those married guys from the Ashley Madison experiment).  I may have been isolated in my own despair, crying out for love – but hell, so is practically everyone.

None of this stuff was clear in my head, though, until I woke up in the night and noticed that Dr. Monkey VonMonkerstein, one of this life’s great Philosopher Kings had left a comment on Quantum Heap saying he was sorry about those slimy assholes.  My immediate thought was that while I appreciated the sentiment, I was more concerned that my logic was sound.  From that momentary connection of consciousness between Dr. Monkey and me  – or in that Holy Instant, as Trippin’ Jesus says in the Course -- I recognized that I my message in a bottle was a plea to be forgiven for simply being human.  It’s like Dr. Monkey handed me the antidote for Notta Goodman, for various abusive assholes who have shaped my trajectory and for the biggest abuser of all, my grandfather – but that’s another story.

 

Dr. Monkey may not look much like Glinda the Good in The Wizard of Oz, but he sure delivered the same message:  You’ve had the power inside yourself all along. As I’m clicking my heels together three times this morning, “There’s no place like home,” echoing in my head, I’m finally able to turn away from the Bullshit and walk into the Light.  Just like Dorothy discovered when she Awoke – from the Dream, the foma, the bullshit, the illusion – I’m surrounded by Love.  That love lives inside us all and, when we choose, we can embrace it and extend it to everyone we touch.

So today, one of the most vocal atheists I know has functioned as a Teacher of God, which is just about as funny as Vonnegut and his pals from the Council for Secular Humanism saying, “He’s in Heaven now,” when they’re delivering eulogies for each other.  And today, once and for all, I accept the Atonement for myself.  If Trippin’ Jesus is right, and almost every metaphysician I know of says exactly the same thing as Trippin’ Jesus, when one consciousness shifts, others necessarily follow.  It’s that great Pachinko Machine of Life again, illustrating the simplicity of cause and effect.

In Hitchhiker’s Guide, right before the Earth is smashed to bits during the construction of an intergalactic highway, the dolphins make a timely escape and cheerfully say to the clueless humans, “So long and thanks for all the fish.”  Peter Pan shouts out the directions to Neverland, "Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning."  And me, I've got a song stuck in my head again

With deep gratitude and appreciation to my friend and mentor through A Course In Miracles, Max Ryan, who I fondly call Max the Psychic Life Coach, for showing me that it's not delusional to sprinkle a little fairy dust around. It's how we find the magic in life.

A Quantum Heap

The other night, when I was furious and wrote an email to Notta Goodman saying that his behavior toward me was right up there with some date rapes I'd experienced, he finally broke three weeks of silence to say I had taken a quantum leap in logic.  I feel compelled to explain why the two are directly related, even though I don't feel like explaining jack shit to him.  So once again, I find myself using this venue like a message in a bottle, looking for connection and shared understanding - or asking the universe for a Reality Check.

It's hard to discuss something like date rape because there are so many subjective definitions.  Most people I know think notions like "legitimate rape," are bullshit - but plenty of people think that rape involves physical force which is not always the case.  Many Americans couldn't understand how Swedish law worked when Julian Assange was charged with rape.  The woman consented to protected sex, and without her authorization, Assange allegedly went bareback.  I'm not here to debate the contributions of Julian Assange or whether or not he was set up by this rape charge.  I'm saying that when a person consents to one thing and winds up doing quite another against his/her will, that counts as rape even when the man is as smooth as Julian Assange.  Maybe no one was left bleeding and unconscious in an alley, but someone's trust and sovereign self was violated all the same.

Maybe you did go up to a man's apartment willingly, had a couple of drinks and made out.  That's when you decide you don't want to fuck him, but he ignores or laughs at your resistance.  You put up your hands to say slow down.  He pushes them away and starts pulling off your pants until you decide your safest bet is just to do it and get it over with as quickly as possible because he's stronger, isn't listening to you and it's getting kind of scary already.  Consensual? Not exactly.  Physically violent?  Opinions will vary.  Either way, you're hurrying home to take a shower.  Sometimes it is physically violent even if nobody is slapping you around.  You may be into a casual roll in the hay - but that doesn't mean you're into somebody slamming his dick into your mouth so hard it bruises your face and your teeth rip the insides of your mouth.  Some women might kick up a fight, but some of us figure that if he's fucked up enough to use your body like that, there's no telling what kind of shit he would do and again, he's stronger, ignoring you and it's already pretty scary. So you pull your mind as far inside yourself as you can, disassociate from the situation and get out into the fresh air as quickly as you can.

Half the people in America - both men and women - will say it's your own fault for being alone with somebody you don't really know.  How can you argue when you're saying pretty much the same thing to yourself? It's your own fault for putting yourself in the situation in the first place.

When I was in college, and when I was going through a period of risk taking behaviors around the divorce, I found myself in those kind of situations.  One was particularly unpleasant, and that's what I threw in Notta Goodman's face the night I found out he was active on Match dot com.  There's no crime in a man being on Match dot com when nobody has ever once said anything about an exclusive - Notta Goodman never said anything at all.  But when somebody has asked a man straight up where he stands on this undefined association and he doesn't even acknowledge the question - a woman suddenly realizes she's been played by a man who is just as dismissive of her humanity as the fellow who bruised her mouth.

To both of them, she's just a piece of meat.

Players are more engaging and they certainly aren't physically threatening, but recent experience suggests they choose their words with careful calcultion.  For example, a man may tell you - as Notta Goodman told me -- that his overwhelming life circumstances prevent him from devoting the time he'd like to "something significant" or seeing that significant person as much as he'd like.  He never once said that significant person was me.  If I'd have been played before, I'd have recognized his BS when I heard it and walked away at the months ago.  I took him at his word because I trusted he was being honest.  He was being manipulative.  I made a conscious choice based on slippery information - just like a woman who signs on for one situation, then finds herself in a very different one indeed.  When I called Notta Goodman on his behavior, he may have been more outraged and defesive than usual because I compared him to a date rapist, but like any other slippery, self-centered character, he huffed and puffed as if he was an innocent bystander, in fact - he was the victim of my twisted narrative and unreasonable expectations.  It was total bullshit on his part - just like it's total bullshit when somebody says you were having consensual sex when you've been coerced, or you made the mistake of getting drunk and into a car with a man you've only known for a few hours. Those guys will tell you that the minute you got in the car, you somehow consented to at least giving him a blow job.  The arrogance and entitlement are off the scale, and when they excuse their behavior by blaming the very people they've used and manipulated, that's emotionally abusive.

Notta Goodman isn't as awful as Ann Coulter or Dick Cheney.  And maybe he wasn't as bad as the date rapist I threw in his face when I was provoked.  However, I maintain that they each represent a point on a continuum of abusive behavior toward women, and there's not a damn thing wrong with my logic.

Velvet's Celebrity Lifestyle

On October 6th, shooting will begin on an independent film in which Velvet is an actor.  One of his buddies finally got the funding all sewed up for what appears to be an updated version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - but I can't say anything about it until I am fully apprised of the details of the Non Disclosure Agreement Velvet signed earlier this week.  It's been notarized and everything.  Velvet even has a contract and will be paid handsomely for his performance.

He's beyond excited about this turn of events, especially since his costumes are flashy track suits, matching running shoes and sunglasses custom made to coordinate with the ensembles.  He seems to be doing well at school too, but he's already thinking that he will need to lay out a semester to film a movie in Vegas.  Apparently, he and the buddy, who will have to have a code name sooner or later, came up with the Vegas idea while they were in a nightclub downtown.  The friend has established a few relationships with owners and bartenders at trendy nightclubs which enables the children to have tables and tequila shots and sundry perks that typically come with VIP rooms and celebrity treatment.

Velvet says that being in a movie feels so natural and right for him that it just shows the Universe has a plan for all of us, and it was never in the Universe's plan for him to become an engineer.  Going to Tree Hugger may have been fighting the plan in terms of career choice, but according to Velvet - the whole thing worked out perfectly because if he hadn't flunked out, gotten depressed and been hanging out with Hawkeye the trustifarian last spring, he never would have met the film maker.  Now that he feels aligned with the Universe, all Velvet has to say is:  My Plan is Sound.

That may even be a catch phrase in the movie.

I'm excited for him and very proud - and the worst part of it all is that if anyone could spontaneously land a role in an independent film that leads to recurring cameos for his character, it's Velvet.  He and another friend are partnered as Buddies in the film who provide comic relief.  It's kind of like Jay and Silent Bob:

The kids will be running around the city shooting this movie for about 60 days.  I will be focusing on renovating the new place, so I'll be having to secure some funding of my own.  I'm confident all will be well, though, because I'm feeling nicely aligned with the Universe these days too.  

Now that I sent Notta Goodman that final salvo, I can see again why Velvet says my trouble with men is that I'm a Klingon.  Truly, I'm an easy going, fun loving woman for the most part, but I don't do well with Patriarchal Imposition. It's the clueless egoism and dismissive superiority that get me - especially when they refuse to take responsibility for their bullshit.  Everybody has their own bag of rocks, as my mother says, and in every relationship, there are times when each party's bullshit collides with the other's.  It's just that people should own their bullshit and do their best to recognize the other's perspective as valid even when the perspective doesn't match their own.

I'm happy to say that even when Velvet and I get pissy with each other, it's easy to see that Velvet owns his own bullshit well enough to maintain healthy, positive relationships with his friends - and especially with Cupcake. Turns out that Velvet is more mature than Notta Goodman in that department which means Velvet is more mature than tons of men since I'm pretty sure Notta Goodman is a typical specimen.  I'm evolving into a substantive, mature woman too, despite Notta Goodman's accusations.  I learned so much about the way my own ego operates in relationships through that distant, harmless interaction that I'm beginning to give up my need to DO something to find the right man.  A Course in Miracles says, "I need do nothing.."  We only need to choose to align with the flow of loving universal energy which is basically The Force, as defined by Obiwan and Yoda.

Once I settle into this ultimate relaxation, the right man will come into my life.  Plenty of men have landed in my living room, and although it seems like they were all Mr. Wrongs, they all had something to contribute to my development.  Notta Goodman was another walking, talking Patriarchal Imposition - much like that Preacher from The Mountains.  Both were certainly ego driven, but where Notta Goodman was controlling, the Preacher believed God had given him a greater authority and understanding than others.  Neither one of them meant anything by it, though.  The Narcissist, on the other hand, was a decidedly malicious, petty, bitter little man who did a lot of damage to the people around him. Even still, that relationship taught me very important lessons.  In my despair over that relationship, I finally experienced Grace and found my own Light.

Women face a different set of challenges in the world than men - but everyone suffers under The Patriarchy.  It's why we all need to embrace the paradigm shift now more than ever, and ride the wave to the future.  The solar system will be aligned with the center of the galaxy very shortly.  The energy has been shifting and swirling around for several years now, and most of us are uncomfortably anxious right now - and not just because of electoral politics and pervasive uncertainty.  Global consciousness is slowly shifting so that one by one, more and more of us are learning how to Be The Change.

I'm glad me and Velvet - and Buzz Kill to tell you the truth - have all taken great strides in that area.  I hope one day Notta Goodman pulls his head out from up his ass and owns his shit.  I have a feeling the Preacher from the Mountains did, and people around me are taking responsibility for their own choices and standing more and more firmly in their own beautiful light every day.

I learned from The Narcissist that when I play by someone else's rules, even if those rules make sense on some level, I'll go nuts because I compromise my own integrity in order to please a power-broker.  I chose to play along with Notta Goodman because I was convinced we had much to learn from each other.  I learned a lot.  Maybe he learned something too - or maybe our interaction will lead him to greater self awareness down the road somewhere.

I'm on my own road now, and so is Velvet.  Who knows where these roads lead?  But I trust we're going in the right direction and we need do nothing but stay in touch with our spirits and follow our hearts - or as Joseph Campbell used to say, "Follow your bliss."  

Steve Harvey vs Notta Goodman

I sent this email to Notta Goodman this morning in response to his statement that my shit was out of control  I freely admit that I went over the top the night of a million emails and unanswered phone calls - but when you're convinced someone isn't listening to you anyway, it makes sense to go over the top to see if anyone is really paying attention.  Given that I had said this bullshit with him reminded me of a couple of date rape situations in my past, I can understand why the man was defensive, and he may never read this letter. It will make me feel better to share it with someone, though, so I post it here with gratitude to my dear friend Mean Jean, one of the original Menopausal Stoners and a very good witch, who insisted I read Steve Harvey's book, Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man, and with sincere appreciation for all my supportive compatriots out there in blogland who understand that this whole blog is my message in a bottle.

An Open Letter to Notta Goodman:

I continued writing to you in the face of the silence for a number of my own reasons, but I never used the blog to sort out all the mixed signals from you, as I normally would have, because I felt it would be disrespectful to you.  With that avenue closed, I could only turn to you.  You responded enough to suggest you were cool with staying in touch albeit at a safe distance.  We did have a date planned in May, and then finally saw each other in July.  You said you needed time and space, and that's what time and space looks like. When you became more responsive in August, it was encouraging, but the way you announced that you didn’t have any rubbers in July continued to bother me.  Your tone pointed to an attitude about women usually associated with Republican Congressmen.

You clearly thought it was perfectly acceptable behavior to go two months without saying a word to a woman and then expect her to have unprotected sex with you with no questions asked. In addition to demanding unquestioning trust, you obviously believed birth control to be fully the woman’s responsibility despite the fact that your oldest child was absolutely unplanned and you yourself said your youngest was an attempt to stall the inevitable dissolution of your marriage.  As it happened, I had just finished reading Steve Harvey’s book and decided it was time to clarify where I stood in this equation.

While I agree that there are varying levels of abuse, intentionally ignoring someone you have encouraged to passively accept your silence as logical in the circumstance – when she is asking you directly to be direct -- is so dismissive, condescending and disrespectful that it feels abusive.  Further, although you have every right to be online, when you tell one woman that you can’t be in a relationship because of your overwhelming life situation and then state publicly that you’re looking for a solid relationship and wouldn’t rule out marriage in the future, you are clearly misrepresenting yourself to someone.

I repeat: At any time it would have been very easy to say, “This is all very flattering, but . . .”   That you did not suggests you get an ego hit from the attention and were content to string me along until it became inconvenient. That’s emotionally abusive.  Maybe not as abusive as date rape, but there are similarities between people who use women as playthings and those who consider us whores to be used at will. It’s all on the same continuum.  I never suspected you were a coward until I brought up the rubbers. I lost respect for you when you refused to even acknowledge the question.  I covered my anger with adolescent romance, pushed more aggressively for an answer, and I finally found one on Match dot com.  That night, you were such a chicken that I no longer saw any reason to be tactful or squeamish, but that didn’t mean I was not completely in control of my shit.  I wrapped it up as tightly as I could and threw it in your face.

You can spin your own narrative so that you are an innocent bystander in all this and dismiss me as another crazy bitch with issues, but if you had been real with me, none of this would have ever happened.  I refused to have unprotected sex with a man who clearly takes no responsibility for birth control and won't even say he appreciates a woman after roughly 10 months.  When I asked for clarification of contradicting hypotheses, you couldn’t fall back on Occam’s Razor this time.  You played deaf and let me find you on Match fishing for a solid relationship. You bet I got hostile.  I’ll bet the next bitch gets hostile too, and you’ll keep trifling with us and switching us out – just like Steve Harvey said.

More Importantly . . .

I have closed on the new apartment and once again have a permanent address.  It will be some weeks before the renovations are far enough along for Velvet and me to move in, but that glorious day is in sight.

Meanwhile I'm living with a different friend and enjoying a consistent internet connection.  Velvet, on the other hand, is living with Buzz Kill and Cupcake has her own set of keys.  There have been so many unpleasant episodes at Cupcake's house that she started staying over at Buzz Kill's. Since Buzz Kill is always off training for a mini-triathlon or over at his girl friend's, Velvet and Cupcake have been having a lovely time playing house.  While I am somewhat concerned at the level of dependency Cupcake has on Velvet, everyone has noticed a dramatic improvement in Cupcake's anxieties since she's been away from her family.  Personally, I think her dad probably has PTSD or something from being in the Hungarian Military then going over the wall to come to America.  Velvet says I don't know the half of it - which is okay by me.

I'm sure I'll learn more than I ever wanted once we're moved into the new place.  Cupcake has been part of the landscape for so long that I am glad to help her in any way we can - for a little while anyway.  We'll see how things develop with that situation over the next month while the contractors are turning this neglected old apartment into a gem.  At the closing, we learned Hope, who was in her nineties when she died a few years ago, had lived in the apartment since she was a little girl.  We won't be able to restore all the prewar details back to their original condition - but close enough.  There's a budget to consider after all.  The good news is that Gigi was able to ask an architect friend to recommend a contractor, and I've been very impressed so far.

Of course, they haven't started work so it's still early in the project, but I've met three others who were all dismissive chauvinists and not particularly interested in listening to me.  They reminded me a of some doctors.  I'll be getting the estimate tomorrow or Monday, and then some papers have to be pushed between the coop board and the managing agent which should take another week.  Then an electrician will come in to update the wiring and somebody will start banging out the tile on the bathroom walls.  Some of that tile has been there since 1916, but so much of it was added later that there are three or four different shades of white, and many of them are cracked.  We're able to restore the bathtub and the pedestal sink and that's something to celebrate.  Machinists will be involved in figuring out how to fix the stopper to the tub.

Next week, I'll take all the "Before" pictures so we can document the whole project.  So far, I've tested some paint samples from Benjamin Moore and Martha Stewart.  I think we found a color for the bedrooms, but I didn't like anything I used in the dining room.  I may opt for Vanilla Custard throughout most of the apartment, but we'll see.  I've also been studying the feng shui and using the bagua map to think about where to put some of my treasures.

I'm pretty sure we've heard the last of Notta Goodman unless he figures out that the previous post shows up in search results if you search specific key words - but now that I've lost all respect for him, he can bite me.  Besides, I was much worse with The Narcissist and even though he called Google on me, I had violated no terms or conditions (Ass-Wholes Great and Small, Stonerdate 01.30.2010).  I'm declaring the Ass-Whole period officially behind me. A new fellow will turn up sooner or later.  I'm too young to wind up on the shelf - and as fucked up as some of the experience with Notta Goodman was, I really didn't care anything about him as a person - he was more of a concept since we'd only seen each other a few times in real life.

Max, who is my mentor and coach for A Course in Miracles, told me about a year ago that I'd meet a man who would teach me more about Ego than ever before - and Notta Goodman certainly did that.  There's a lot of material on forgiveness in the Course - and also in Marianne Williamson's A Return to Love.  Forgiveness is a tricky concept because, in the Course anyway, it really just means that you've decided not to hold on to a grievance largely because gnawing on grievances all the time obscures your own light - kind of like clouds across the sun.  It doesn't mean you have to let the person in your life.  You don't ever have to talk to them again - you just have to recognize the divinity within that individual too.  There's nothing anybody here on earth can do that can damage your internal spirit unless you give them that power.  If there's no lasting damage, then there's no problem.

In practice, it's damn difficult to forgive anyone else until you forgive yourself for all the mistakes you have made over the years.  We're supposed to look at ourselves and each other like we look on little kids - they aren't sinister or evil.  They just make mistakes and need correction.  When I think of people like Dick Cheney, it's hard to say, "Mistakes were made."  Notta Goodman may be making some mistakes right now - but I don't consider that it was a mistake to get involved with him because (1) there's no lasting damage at all and (2) I feel like I've made progress on my own healing journey through the interaction.  But just because I don't hold any grievances against him doesn't mean he's allowed to set foot in the new apartment.

I wonder who will be the first man allowed in the new apartment for Romance.  Certainly there will be a new Romance soon.  Woody says there are only two kinds of stories - one is where a stranger comes and the other is where adventure calls.  If we use the language of the Laws of Attraction - then I would say that I'm in the process of attracting an adventurous stranger and togeher we build a passionate, creative, emotionally rewarding, intellectually stimulating, financially stable partnership.  We have a lively, dynamic, affectionate blended family, and our home is so loving that everyone who enters is filled with welcoming acceptance.  The Laws of Attraction are unfolding all this for me right this minute.

If we were on Star Trek Next Generation, Jean-Luc Picard would say:  Make it so!

Notta Goodman = Whatta Schmuck

The episode with Mr. Wisdom is finally finished.  He undoubtedly thinks I'm a lunatic who has created unnecessary drama, but selfish, emotionally constipated men often label women crazy drama queens when they have been called out for their bad behavior.

Since the spring when Mr. Wisdom said he couldn't deal with his shit storm life and a budding relationship, I have suspected that his wife demanded they renegotiate the separation agreement because he broadsided her with the divorce, browbeat her into accepting him as the lawyer for the both of them and then tried to get out of paying child support by saying that the kids were spending 50% of their time with each parent.  That was easier when they did the family nest thing and the parents alternated weeks in the family residence.  But then Mr. Wisdom started going out of town for work all the time, and they got separate residences. With him gone, there was no way residential custody was divided equally between the parents.  She got her own lawyer and as far as I know, the argument continues. Now, Mr. Wisdom and I never talked about the specifics of his divorce because we never spent that kind of time together and were focused on fun and games.  I just smelled a rat.  No good man makes a concerted effort to stiff his wife out of child support.  So I've changed his name to Notta Goodman. 

I was inclined to overlook all that divorce stuff because I thought he was hot and I did like the Emmy Awards, and besides, I was more interested in cultivating inner peace - which meant that I was spending most of my time working on A Course in Miracles.. The Course talks a lot about how the need for a Special Relationship is driven by ego and guilt so that the Special Relationship becomes an inferior substitute for a relationship with the Divine. It was easy to see my own ego in action within the context of the Goodman Relationship.
Blessed Be

People use special relationships like idols to clog up the space we should use as a bridge to the Divine.  Lots and lots of things can be idols, but the Special Relationship is the most popular.  In my case, the relationship stuff was complicated by a need for an unavailable man.  Notta Goodman was the most unavailable man I have ever been involved with but there has been one in my life since college - except for Buzz Kill.  Buzz Kill had his issues, but overall he was okay in that department.  Actually, we both needed work when it came to intimacy.

Anyway, just like I needed The Narcissist to break the pattern of letting an asshole determine my value, I needed Notta Goodman to break the pattern of the Unavailable Man.  The patterns are probably related somehow - but at the moment I don't really care.  I'm just glad to finally settle the mystery of why Notta Goodman was so unavailable.  He uses people without regard for their feelings to suit his own convenience - and in my book, that's abusive.  Maybe not as abusive as the the guards in Abu Ghraib, but abusive nevertheless.

Whatever.  I finally got aggressive and demanded to know how he could have made such a big deal out of how he was considering my feelings and trying to be fair and then refuse to give me a straight answer when I asked about the nature of our association.  He remained silent until I finally said his silence was just as cowardly as a man who once got me drunk and thought it would be a good idea to shove his cock in my mouth in the back of a taxi.  Goodman took exception to that comparison, but in my view a coward is a coward - and any man who doesn't have the balls to give a woman a straight answer when she repeatedly asks for one is a coward.

So now I know that Notta Goodman is a spoiled, selfish coward who wants to have his cake and eat it too.  I came to this conclusion yesterday when I was all set to join Match dot com again and found Notta Goodman actively playing the field on Match.  Since I know damn well he has an attitude about wearing rubbers, it was quite a discovery to find Goodman chasing pussy and keeping me just close enough to fall back on in case he couldn't bang any bimbos in the flyovers.

Notta Goodman can shove that Emmy right up his ass.  I'm glad he is stuck in a pigeon hole doing stupid True Crime shit TV with some b-list celebrity, lamenting a more glamorous time when he roamed around the world like a Storm Chaser or a National Geographic Wannabee. Notably, Notta Goodman left his wife home alone with two little kids while he was globetrotting - and he probably didn't call her either.

I'm glad about a lot of things - most importantly that I realized my ego uses the Unavailable Man as a way to keep me focused on Lack instead of Abundance.

Last week, on the day when I closed on my apartment, I woke up with Notta Goodman on my mind.  I should have been celebrating the culmination of eight years of effort to finally secure a home for me and my child - in addition to having a job I love, but instead I was thrashing because Notta Goodman wasn't my boyfriend.  That's how the ego works to make sure we are isolated and fearful instead of loving our Selves and appreciating the lives we have created..

It's been a great learning experience because I healed my own wounded child, and I stood up for myself in the face of an abuser.  Notta Goodman denies he is emotionally abusive - but to me, when somebody knows  you're developing feelings for him and continues to use you for his own purposes and tries to make you think he's a hero - that's as bad as those Republicans who believe a woman can't get pregnant in cases of Legitimate Rape.  Patriarchal Dick Wads - and Notta Goodman thinks he can have multiple partners and not wear rubbers?  Maybe I should call him Whatta Schmuck.
I think that's a thing of beauty (#59-101, Explore Beauty Challenge, realia)