All the umbrellas in London couldn't stop this rain
All the dope in New York couldn't kill this pain
I tore at some scabs before I moved. I'm still reeling with surprise that they still wrench and hurt and sting and burn. My ex-wife owes me somewhere between $350-400 for bills from after we separated, when we were living together. She also has a $1300 couch set that we financed with wedding money and $700 I paid out of pocket, including payments from April through October 2011 (after we separated) to pay it off. Since we bought it in good faith, and expecting it to be ours, and since she wanted it more than I did. I didn't fight over it and decided that instead of asking her for the $700 that it cost me, that $350 would be fine.
Also, I ended up owing the Federales $300 due to not filing jointly, which was the only provision of the divorce agreement. I suppose that not a debt owed though, but rather a breach of contract, oh well.
She accumulated an onerous amount of medical debt. Enough so that me harping on her about paying me back has never seemed appropriate. An opportunity arose last week for her to pay me back in not-money; she works from time-to-time cleaning, I was moving, and was willing to deduct $125 from what she owed me if she cleaned the (formerly, our) house once I got everything out. Basically, it should have taken 2-3 hours, I was willing to deduct $25 per hour for four hours work and $25 on top. I had all the supplies.
When I texted her the proposition, I included the qualifier that if she thought I was an asshole, that I totally respected that and would not hold it against her. What followed was ugly. I wasn't man enough to just back off her bruised pride but I bit down and escalated the conflict (reiterating that, basically, I didn't care if I was an asshole). A tit for tat was next of debt and woe, first she then me. I wasted a text on being sympathetic, but in the end we had to agree to disagree.
I still had to clean out my house, she still owed me as much money as she did at the beginning of the day, and we were both agitated.
So what did it mean? I also still hadn't given up on getting my due, she still hadn't given up on simultaneously playing the victim and hurling insults and name-calling and punishing me when I didn't walk on egg-shells. Yet, honestly, it was admittedly invasive and pushy of me to lean on her, though I had asked nothing she didn't have, unless she really just didn't have time, in which case she could have just said so. So had we gotten any farther than last April? Well, I no longer have her stuff in the basement of my house, since I no longer have a house.
It's funny the things that make you want to drink. For some people it is a hot summer day and an Urquell, other's a crisp autumn evening that harkens to harvest and wheat beer, or a hot gurgling pot of chili and a stout beer. In addition to all of those, the one that gets me is when I am feeling despondent, but want to get aggressive. When I want more desperately than anything to subdue my anger for the sake of accomplishing what I set out for, but I just can't push it aside.
Also, I have yet to see Dime #1 from my landlord of my security deposit. So paying for cleaning may have been unnecessary.
2:49PM 
. I super excited to get to play around with a new book. From what I've read so far this one seems to be cut from cloth of the Betty's of yore. Tonight I delegated dinner making to Mein Beth, for for I will be making peanut butter cookies, chocolate cake, and bananas in sweet coconut cream. Reviews and pics to come...
