It's Dec. 11, 2009, and I'm on the phone with a woman I've chatted sporadically with on OKCupid for a week and a half, working out terms of crashing at her place for a night to avoid a frozen freeway.
Dec. 11, 2025, I have to take a Lyft back from her place, as we got divorced in 2016.
Yes, yes, yes, it's Pete's "woe the hell is me, my life is falling apart" on schedule after four days since my last post.
I know when I've been shot down. She, herself, shot me down in 2004, leading indirectly to my first marriage. It's not out of the realm of possibility that her initial rejection is the only reason we could eventually find each other. (Her kids in 2004 were 1 and 2, and no thank you.)
But that's precisely the issue. I've not been shot down. She claims to not want to date, period, and I'm sort of resigned to our familiar chaos being about as good as I can do -- while remaining a secret from her kids!
Hey, when you live an a van, almost anything looks better. Not that we could make it work. Her kids are in their 20s now and do not like me ... she basically offloaded all failures on her part on me from the time we were together.
In reality, I had to seize control of SNAP benefits in only a couple of months because we were running out of food two weeks into a given month. I'd noted shopping behaviour and was like "no, if we have enough money to make it through the end of the month, sure, buy the smallest Doritos you can at 7-Eleven, but otherwise, I'm done with this bullshit."
The first Wednesday of the month, I'd pore over the circulars and find ways to turn $500 into $1,200 ... I had to leave some on the card because for some reason, one of her sons refused to drink anything but milk. (I was the new guy ... I couldn't just say, "Hey, babe, have you considered telling him to try water?")
Anyway, this is the person whose pajamas I continue to wear. Our reunion really only brought up old ghosts.