100 Things Divorce Taught Me - Six, Six, Six

42.  I missed the ribs.  So I learned how to make them myself.  And I excel at it, she said feministly.
43.  Being single means not finding the last elusive EKG lead until days after the surgery.
44.  Occasionally, not having someone to whine to sort of sucks.
45.  One learns not to whine so much.  Hopefully.
46.  The creativity thing is improving.  For instance, I'm back to blogging.  You might have noticed?  I am doing more art.  Not a lot more, but some.  And tonight I plan to put the finishing touches on a new video.  I haven't done one of those since my photo assistant/best buddy died two years ago.  I'm excited to have gotten back on that horse.  I painted a mural/cartoon on one of the doors going into my house.  Next project is to finally repaint my "The Jacksons, Est. 1999" sign with something about "Bistro Raquel" so I can rehang it on the patio.
47.  Car repairs are now the bane of my existence.  There is no greater suckage than trying to arrange to get the vehicle in the shop and myself to work in another town/another county all at the same time.  Once that is accomplished, I've got to get the oil changed on my motorcycle.  Again I'm reminded of how must worse this would be if I was also trying to wrangle children at the same time.  Single parents are strong, strong people.
48.  I read an article today about how "Managing Your Feelings Is Not My Job".

• "One of the almost unconscious (and completely unpaid) jobs that women are doing all the damn time is managing their own behavior in order to manage men’s emotions.  We do it so much that we’re often not even aware that we’re doing it.  While the Jungian projection is that women are “too emotional” and “let their emotions run away with them,” the fact is that, of course, it’s most men who really can’t manage their own emotions."   

Holy hell.  I have done that for much longer than I'd care to admit.  Or even think about.  I excel at this, too.  And I'm slowly but surely getting really pissed off about it.  Nevermore, she said ravenously.  (And please don't feel the need to point out to me that not all men have trouble managing their emotions.  I am well aware of that and I will assume you are an idiot if you try to mansplain this to me, she said judgingly.)
49.  If I ever do date again, it will be because I met someone who is an emotional grown up.  And maybe they will even be smarter than me, she said challengingly.
50.  I cracked myself up when I realized that, as per number 42, I considered learning to cook something to be a feminist triumph.  In my case, it's valid, she said reverse role reversally.
51.  Now that I have the whole bed to myself, I awake each morning to find myself virtually cocooned in a seriously decadent number of pillows.  Not prissy little decorator pillows, but substantial, softly-cased, and seriously smushed sleeping pillows.  A few years back we splurged on a memory foam mattresses.  It's too dang hot, but I can't give it up - it's way too comfortable.  Between the mattress and now all the pillows, I really hate getting out of bed in the mornings.  Having to exert some sort of muscle power in order to hold my body in whatever upright position I'm aiming for seems like far too much to expect from someone who just spent eight hours in a trough of libertinely luxurious, cottony, bliss, she said hedonistically.
                         51a.  I like adverbs, she said grammatically.