Karma-nitas

Hello loyal audience. I know it's been a while since I last posted. Yes, I have a calendar and I do know how to read it.


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I've been busy. I'm sorry. Geez, you want your money back?


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My Ex works at a local restaurant. At least, I'm pretty sure she still does. I love this restaurant, but I won't ever go there again. I am absolutely paranoid that she's going to spit in my food.

Is it really paranoia if they are out to get you?

Today it suddenly dawned on my that I spent the better part of sixteen years letting her stick her tongue down my throat. And I generally liked it. So why should I care if she spits in my food?

Spitting is a pretty much universal sign of hatred or contempt.  It's typically directed at the face, but some cultures direct it at the feet - we've all seen it in the movies. Obviously there are physical risks to spitting, such as TB or the flu, but it's primarily a social taboo.

In the middle ages spitting was perfectly acceptable behavior and it was actually considered ill-mannered to suck back saliva to avoid spitting. It wasn't until the 1700's that spitting was seen as something that should be concealed and in the mid 1800's it became gauche to spit on the floor or on the street in mixed company. Spitting in general went out of favor after the 1918 influenza pandemic and with it the collapse of the cuspidor manufacturing base.

Not coincidentally, the mid 1800's saw the development and adoption of Semmelweis's germ theory of disease. By the 1870's Joseph Lister was applying the germ theory of disease to surgical procedures and hocking Listerine. I imagine that it quickly became obvious that spitting wasn't sanitary and eventually became socially unacceptable and vulgar.

Outside of a baseball diamond of course.

So why does it bother me that the Ex might spit in my food? It's not embarrassment, because nobody other than her co-workers would ever know there was spit in my food. It's not hygiene, because I spent the better part of sixteen years swapping bodily fluids with her.

It's control. I don't want to give her the satisfaction of degrading me. And that's why I'll never be able to taste those damn Carnitas again.

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As most of you probably know by now, I am not a religious man. I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, heaven or hell. I'm more like Crash Davis. I like to believe in "the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch and that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."


That about sums it up. I believe this life is what matters. There are no 72 virgins. There is no paradise. The only paradise is the one we create every day with and for the people we love.


But, if I was going to believe in any metaphysical mumbo jumbo, it'd probably be Karma. The concept of Karma can be found in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies. According to Wikipedia, Karma is a concept of "action" or "deed" that drives the entire cycle of cause and effect. Karma applies to the totality of our actions and reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines one's future. If one sows goodness in this life (or previous lives) one will reap goodness. And vice versa.


Granted, since it requires reincarnation it kind of violates my first two paragraphs.


Basically, if you're a Hindu and you're getting shit on all the time it's not bad luck. It's because you were a bastard in a previous life. And if you don't want to be shit on in your next life, you should suck it up and focus on doing good deeds now.


It's a lot like Catholic guilt in the sense that everything bad that happens is your fault. Or if you're Jewish, you deserve it.


It's often summarized by "Life is a field, and Karma is the seed. You reap what you sow. Exactly what you sow - no more, no less." This concept of reaping what you sow was adopted by Christianity in Galatians 6:7-8:


⁷ Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸ Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.


Consequently, the concept of Karma is quite readily accepted in the West. You'll never get an Evangelical to admit it, but it's definitely of eastern origin.


But the rub is that you can be as good or evil as you want in this life, but it won't affect you until you die and get reincarnated. It wasn't until the '60's that John Lennon popularized the concept of "Instant Karma". In Instant Karma retribution is immediate - no waiting. Lennon believed that good or evil action would be rewarded / punished in this lifetime. He believed that good actions were the key to happiness and fulfillment.


He summed it up pretty clearly:


Instant Karma's gonna get you, 
Gonna knock you right on the head, 
You better get yourself together, 
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead, 
What in the world you thinking of, 
Laughing in the face of love, 
What on earth you tryin' to do, 
It's up to you, yeah you. 

Instant Karma's gonna get you, 
Gonna look you right in the face, 
Better get yourself together darlin', 
Join the human race, 
How in the world you gonna see, 
Laughin' at fools like me, 
Who on earth d'you think you are, 
A super star, 
Well, right you are. 


It's a comforting thought. Real or not, it plays to our innate sense of fairness and justice. We want to see the bastards get what they deserve. We want to see OJ in jail. We want to see Osama bin Laden with a bullet in his melon. We want to see the Yankees lose in the playoffs.


Not the Shelby Township Yankees! They kick ass.


We need to believe right action is rewarded and bad action is punished. Otherwise we're just suckers, right? Why spend your life being good when you could have spent your days being a selfish prick who took advantage of his friends and neighbors.


On the downside, I don't think avoiding cosmic retribution is the best reason to 'not be an asshole'.


I always had a problem with the concept of doing good purely to get into heaven as a kid. It seemed to cheapen the concept of our eternal reward. If you're only doing good things to go to heaven, wouldn't God know that? And doesn't intent count? If you accidentally tripped and dropped a piano on a pre-school field trip, God wouldn't hold it against you, would he? You didn't intend to kill ten toddlers. Sure, they're still dead, but it was an accident.


Same for doing good deeds. If you're only doing them to get into heaven, isn't it a purely selfish act that should damn you to hell?


And while we're on the topic of dead pre-schoolers, why didn't God step in to stop it? He's supposed to be the omniscient / omnipotent one, not me.


I'm working hard to not be an asshole. Not to get into some imaginary heaven. Not to avoid cosmic vengeance. But because I want my Dad to be proud of me.


It's a good enough reason for me.


***


Those of you that follow me on Facebook probably know that the Ex has been working hard to build up her bad Karma this month. I won't recount the gory details, but she's still pretty pissed off at me and sees no problem leveraging the kids.


Yesterday was the one year anniversary of her leaving me to run away to Mississippi. Today would have been our 16th wedding anniversary. Last Sunday was Father's Day. Is it any wonder I've been having a bad week?


I don't know if Karma is paying me back for all the stupid shit I've done in my life. I don't know that I deserve it, but I can't say for sure that I don't. I do know that the Ex has dug herself one Deep Karma Canyon with her actions in the last year. Mountains all around and no happy ending in sight.


So what's my point?


I'm not really sure. Normally this is the point in the post where I tie everything together and we all feel better. But I'm not feeling it today.


What does Karma have to do with spitting in my food?


Hell if I know.


I do know I've got to wrap this thing up and get on to my weekend.


In summary, I'm not overly concerned about spit in my food cause it's pretty unlikely the Ex contracted TB in the last twelve months and I must have been a real bastard at some point to deserve the shit sandwich I was served 366 days ago.


But if Karma is real, I shouldn't be worried about spit in my food any more. That bitch owes me big.

Oh, and I've still got my pride, but I had to give up the damn Carnitas to keep it.

Peace.

The New Normal

Life is good.  The Indians are in first place.  Spring in Michigan is only four or five more weeks away.  And my divorce is finally over.

At approximately 11:00 AM on April 7th 2011 my marriage was legally dissolved.  In the eyes of the State of Michigan I am single.  No more invitations addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Kraus, no more joint tax returns, no more walking on eggshells.  My house is officially MY house.  It's me and Waffles against the world.

The sun came out as I exited the courthouse.  That's not a metaphor - it literally came out.  For one split second I was almost certain it was shining just for me.

Me and dog are slowly adjusting to our new "normal".  He's upped his napping to 14 hours a day.  I rarely sleep.  We take two to three long walks a day.  He barks at trucks that pass by, I ogle the neighborhood moms.  It's not a bad life.  The strange thing is that after everything I've been through I have an overwhelming urge to just be alone.  Which makes me lonely.

Odd. 

For those of you that care, I get 174 overnights a year with the kids (that's a lot).  I got the house and the dog.  She got anything else she felt like taking.  The kids aren't going anywhere.  It's a great deal for me.

I'm still not completely sure how I felt when the papers were finally signed.  I was relieved.  I was sad.  I was elated.  I felt a profound sense of disappointment.  I was excited for my future.  I felt like a failure.  I was confused.  I'm still confused and I'm still adjusting.  But now that the ugliness is over I can finally relax and let my guard down.  Right?

Right?

Tuesday I got a call from the police.

Does anyone like to get a phone call from the police?  Best case, this is cause for confusion.  Tuesday was no exception.  The officer identified himself and asked "Are you okay?"

What? Am I okay? I could probably give you a list of five people that would argue that point.


On the plus side, at least someone still cares if I'm alive.  Granted, he's paid by my tax dollars to care, but it counts.

"Um. Yeah. Why?"

"Well Mr. Kraus, we got a call from someone in Ohio who told us your ex-wife posted some pictures of you hanging from a tree on her Facebook account. And some pictures of her with guns.  The caption on the lynching pictures read 'It's cheaper than therapy.'"

"What?"

"Yeah. We're sorry to bother you Mr. Kraus, but procedure is to follow up on these items. Do you know where your ex-wife works?"

"Actually, no. I used to, but I have no idea if she still works there."

"Do you have an address for her?"

"Um. No. She never told me where she moved to."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Really. That sounds bad, doesn't it?  I think I can get it off the divorce papers."

"Okay..."

At this point the officer realized he was dealing with a dipshit who didn't have the common sense to protect himself.


And I don't even know where to start analyzing this.

The Ex and I have no Facebook friends in common.  She purged everyone who had any contact or communication with me.  Everyone.  I don't know a single person that she and I are both still in communication with, much less that I would call a friend.

This means that someone who doesn't even know me found the pictures disturbing enough to call the cops on my behalf!

Wow.  I really want to see those pictures now.

The cops did say that the report came from out of state.

The officer didn't provide any advice on what I should do to protect myself.  Captain Kirk thinks I should keep my head on a swivel and vary my routes and patterns.  Apparently he's been watching too many episodes of Burn Notice.

She's an angry ex, not a burned spy.  I hope.

I'm going to write this off as wish fulfillment on her part.  These last eight months couldn't have been any easier for her, and she's still got an enormous attorney bill to pay off.  If she wants to envision me hanging from a tree, more power to her.  She's not my problem any more.  I'd rather she moved on, but I'm not going to overreact.

But if I don't answer my phone for more than 24 hours, call the cops.

I'll leave you with a really crappy video embed from "Parks and Recreation".  This is Ron Swanson talking about the proper way to burn an ex-wife effigy.  Make sure you stand a SAFE DISTANCE away when you throw the isopropyl alcohol.

Funny stuff.

"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." - Carrie Fisher

The Art of Conversation

I love getting mail about my blog. The responses I get are generally thought provoking, ofttimes touching and always inflate my ego. It's comforting to know there are other people out there.

And every once in a while I delude myself into thinking I may have helped someone else in a similar position.

This week I got a doozy. Johnny-Boy is my most articulate friend. But if you're familiar with my friends, that's no great compliment. I know I retired this blog earlier this week, but that was before I decided to publicly deconstruct a touching, personal, emotional letter from a friend for few cheap laughs.

And this is why I only have 60 Facebook friends...

Johnny-Boy is in purple, your humble scribe will be playing for the blue team.

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Hey Bob,

Very interesting blog post.  I figured it would be better to reply privately rather than post a response visible to the world.

Too bad you didn't realize I'd post this anyway.

The unfortunate fact is, you'll never completely know why she decided to leave.  Frankly, she may not really know why she left either. Even if she told you right this minute why she left:

(a) you probably wouldn't believe her;
(b) she might not know the true reasons herself.

You are preaching to the choir brother. After thinking it over, I completely agree on both points.

You can drive yourself crazy speculating why she left, and it's not going to give you one bit of relief or peace.  At least it didn't for me.

This is about me John. Always remember that. I'm not your f'n therapist.

Even if you did know, would it make you feel any better?  Would it be preferable to hear that she left you because [fill in the character flaw or perceived shortcoming here]?

Truthfully, probably not. I would probably be crushed if she picked one of my obvious character flaws. I think I've convinced myself that I could somehow "fix" my mistakes in my next relationship, but the fact is that it's unlikely I'd be able to affect any real change anyway. And I'm not convinced I'd necessarily think of her criticisms as 'flaws'. I expect some of the characteristics she disliked are simply part of me.

Woody Allen said it best -- "The heart wants what the heart wants".  i.e., what we long for often cannot be explained or described rationally, but we simply "know" what we want, and it's difficult to swim upstream in that river.  (Granted, Woody said it in the context of banging his adopted daughter, but the idea still holds.)  I suspect that's what happened with your ex.  It's not something that you could have changed or done differently.

That was laugh out loud funny. And touching. "The heart wants what the heart wants." As a closeted romantic, the thought is very appealing to me.

I know, this is all hard to hear for an engineer type who applies the scientific method to everything.  But you really couldn't have done anything differently -- and even if you could, it would have required changing yourself in a way that would have made you somebody other than who you are.  It's not as though you made some "mistake" that you could have "fixed" or that you can "fix" the next time around.  Unfortunately, sometimes just being yourself isn't enough.

"Unfortunately sometimes just being yourself isn't enough." That hurt. But you are right, the changes that would have been required probably would have forced me to give up being "me". I'd never considered that before and I must admit to being shocked by the thought.

I also had the feelings of "everything is gone for good".  Yeah, in the sense of you and your ex and the kids as one family, those days are past tense.  But there's a lot more to life than just being married.  You still have your kids.  You'll still be able to have a lot of great times with them, and to be a good parent to them.  You still have your friends (and have probably gained a few new ones in the process).

I have gained many, many new friends. You know who you are. Not enough to get over 60, but a lot.

You still have your job, and your home, and money in the bank (maybe not as much as before, but you're not going to have to give blow jobs for rent money).

Like anyone would pay me for a blowjob... Try raising venture capital with that business plan.

It's cliche, but you have your health.  Maybe some of the good things are gone for good, but other good things will sprout to take their place.  You don't have to deny your ex's place in any of those memories, or make them any less good because she's in them.

Very true.

The last point I'll mention is that you're not exactly right (I was going to say "you're wrong", but that sounds nicer, don't you think?) when you say that it's only going to get worse. 

I'm never wrong. But I'll concede "not exactly right."

Yeah, the trial won't be fun.  It'll probably (I say "probably" because I never had to go through a contested divorce trial) feel like getting reamed up the ass with an umbrella.

You've never experienced a contested divorce, but you have been reamed by an umbrella? Kinky. At least I know what you West Side Singles do on the weekends.

But in a lot of ways, it will be anti-climactic.  Emotionally, the worst is over.  You've been split for almost a year now, and had almost a year to adjust to the new reality.  No, you're not completely over the experience yet, but you're a lot farther along now than you were last summer.  There aren't any more major surprises in store.  It's hard to see because it is not a type of progress that can be measured, but that doesn't mean it isn't real.  It's like one of those Zen / Buddhist things that Meixner used to talk about in AP English -- you'll know that you are ready to begin healing when you are done.

A Ms. Meixner reference? That's a low blow John. Are you trying to get me to cry? It's not going to work.

Life experiences are not like mountain peaks where you can see which ones are the tallest.  Knowing which part of the process was the worst is something you can determine only when looking back, never ahead.

You just jumped the poetic shark. But I know what you mean.

I lied and am going to make one other comment.  You mentioned the weather.  Don't be surprised if that really is a factor (I'm sure you've heard the term Seasonal Affect Disorder, or SAD).  Face it, we live in a region of the country that has weather that sucks hind tit from December through March.

At least you're not Detroit!

Unless you are truly strapped for every penny in your post-divorce budget, I'd suggest setting aside a few bucks throughout the year and taking a vacation somewhere around next February.

That is a great suggestion!

Four to five days of sunny and warm weather will reset the clock on the SAD-o-meter and make the craptastic winter more tolerable.  (This is "do as I say, not as I do" advice, as I haven't taken a winter vacation since I got divorced; I was going to do something this winter, but then started dating somebody regularly, which has its own positive effects.)  Pick a place like Puerto Rico or southern Florida or somewhere else that will be 70+ and sunny when it is snowing back home, and go enjoy yourself for a few days.

Congratulations on finding a squeeze. Not to be obvious, but unless she's wanted by the po-po she'd probably like to go to someplace warm too.

Assuming you and your ass-brella can get through the Homeland Security metal detectors.

Hang in there and good luck at the trial.

With friends like you it's a shoe-in.

Thanks.