ouch.

so, the divorce...

went well. i mean, the showing up to court part went well enough. the judge was super nice, which i really appreciated. she made me read a statement swearing that i don't have any kids and was requesting a divorce because things were not working out, then she signed the papers and i was done. i was pretty close to ecstatic (and relieved) for the first half of the day. then alvin called just to make sure that everything was taken care of. that was when i started crying, the first time. it's been so much more difficult than i anticipated. i thought i'd be kinda mopey for a couple of days and then bounce back, but it's more like every time i'm alone i break down crying and can't stop. it usually starts when i'm in the car, i guess because i'm alone. crying and driving are a little bit hazardous. i need my therapist.

i know that i'll be okay at some point in the future--right now, not really. i don't regret it, but i completely underestimated how stressful and upsetting it would be to have everything finalized. of course, how could i have known? i was fine up until now. ugh.

update!

i've had issues with friends* in the past--or, rather, they've had issues with me--where i fell out of touch with them for a while and then got back in touch and we had to catch up on however many weeks/months/years it had been since we last talked...which is difficult, obviously, because it's much easier to keep someone updated on how your life is going on a daily basis than on a monthly or yearly one. so. i'm having the same problem with my blog, where there's so much going on that i don't even know where to start, except my blog's not bitching at me to stay in touch more frequently or don't bother. that would be rude.

so yeah, rundown of the past month and a half in bullet format because it's easier:

• prison is going well. my clients occasionally frustrate me, but overall they're incredibly resilient and impressive in terms of the crap they're overcoming in order to get on with their lives. i appreciate that they keep trying even in the most difficult circumstances, long after i probably would have given up. it's kind of amazing.
  
  
• classes are going less well. one class is much more uninteresting than it could be, and the other is taught by someone who is completely ineffective as a teacher and, among other things, keeps trying to get me to talk by commenting on my quietness and then demanding that i say something. that tactic? so not working.
  
  
• i'm getting divorced, officially and finally, next wednesday morning. we go to the courthouse, sign papers, and then we're done. afterwards there will be cake--unless your name is alvin, and then you don't get any.
  
  
• i was dating this girl for a while and it totally ended up not working out because she didn't know what the hell she wanted, which was made extra difficult because she was also immature about how she handled things. anyhow, that's over, but it's for the best, in part because it was so short lived that i didn't have time to whine incessantly about it on here. i feel like i handled my end of it very well, which i'm proud of.
  
  
• i had this god awful stomach virus last week that i'm pretty sure people are tired of hearing about and that i would totally shut up about if not for the fact that, at the time, i thought i was going to die. three of my roommmates also had it, and tonight david was telling me about a story he heard on NPR about a highly infectious intestinal bacteria that's spreading among younger people and pretty much fits the description of what we all had last week. it used to only be found in people who were already sick and in the hospital, but apparently now it's spreading more like the plague. one woman who had it had to have part of her intestines removed. i thought mine were going to be removed, too, but that was because i was convinced i was going to throw them up. it was that bad. i'm better now.
  
  
• random aside: while having dinner tonight at a chinese restaurant, i overheard the couple in the booth behind me ask for ranch dressing with their eggrolls. you know, ranch does make everything better, but still. the server person was completely appalled, and i was amused, and the guy who wanted ranch with his eggrolls, he was very disappointed. which makes me wonder: has he successfully ordered eggrolls and ranch dressing before?

*i'm not referring to you.