Happy Anniversary to me..

I am writing this while sitting in the corner booth of a dimly lit Chinese restaurant in the southern suburbs of Kansas City. "The rich part," I reply when asked where, specifically. I am a weekly regular here, forced by urban sprawl and the fact the the only other nearby restaurant is overpriced and "run by rampant misogynists", as my music store manager warned me the first time I ventured out for food. So I sit alone here, a legal pad or a book at my side so I don't have to stare around the restaurant while I eat. I've decided I really enjoy taking my meals alone--it's an hour long meditation of sorts, as I sip tea slowly and concentrate on the bamboo shoots hiding like buried treasure at the bottom of my soup cup. It makes me feel content to have a quiet moment during my thirteen-hour workday, although this newfound affinity for solitude probably won't do much to improve my practically nonexistent social life.

It's amazing what sleep and several hundred milligrams of antibiotics did to lift my spirits from yesterday, even though today should've technically been categorized as shitty. In the middle of teaching lessons, I received a phone call from The Husband. During the past six months of our official separation in July, my husband has become convinced I'm not only freely dating, but also wallowing in sybaritic excess and having extraordinary amounts of sex with every guy I date (possibly all at the same time, and in a champagne glass shaped hot tub I'm sure he believes I installed the moment his feet hit pavement). So when he calls my phone, he does so with the intent of breaking up one of my sweaty, passionate, carnal rendevous with whomever I may have seduced for the afternoon. You know...the mail carrier. Or the pizza boy. Or the Orkin Man. Whatever.

The point is, he doesn't just call to leave a message, he calls and calls and CALLS until I break down and pick up the phone. Tonight he called twice in the middle of a piano lesson with Kiersten, a 6-year old sugar addict who has a penchant for throwing tantrums when it's time to leave my studio. Tonight when I realized The Husband was serious about wearing me down until I answered the phone, I cut Kiersten's histrionics short by putting her parka on myself and booting her out of the studio into the arms of her mother, who had a package of Twizzlers and a Sprite ready to soothe her savage little beast for the ride home. I slammed my door shut and answered the phone mid-ring with a curt "What?"

"I hope you're observing today", he said.

Christ, was it Lent already? Should I have been fasting? I shot a furtive glance around the store for people with ashes on their foreheads and realized mid-peek that it was actually just Monday. I'm sort of flaky that way.

"Observing what, exactly?"

"It's been one year since...you know."

Ahhh, yes. 'You know' meant the day I discovered the cache of emails he had written to women within driving distance of our house, packed my possessions into a Rubbermaid container, and began the most humiliating month of my life living in the basement of my parents' house. With a curfew. And chores. After realizing what he was referring to, I think I said something really lame like, "Oh, right. Thanks for letting me know" and hung up, fighting a chuckle that threatened to bubble up in the back of my throat. I was sort of bemused that he had called at all, and totally mystified as to how he expected me to observe the practical dissolution of our marriage. Hair shirts? Self-flagellation? Noisy sex in the champagne tub with all my supposed paramours? I was completely flummoxed.

So really, the only way I can see to observe such a huge upheaval in my life is to simply stop observing it at all. (At least until I finish saving up for the divorce lawyer). I should stop living life as some sort of demi-widow, hiding behind drab clothing and a plain face and spending my nights at home with Bravo TV and my cats. If the past year has been a process of revealing fresh wound after wound as I faced the incredibly unsavory truths about my life and marriage, maybe the next twelve months will bring subsequent healing and recuperation. I truly hope so, at least.

I promise legitimate weight loss posts, rife with all kinds of discussion about calories and good carbs and Hydroxybetalean-5 product criticisms tomorrow, because whining about my life is tedious even to me, so I can only imagine the torture you must be going through to read this. In the meantime, remember to gather with your families to observe National Erin's Separation Anniversary. Fireworks and hot dogs at midnight!