I Hate This Blog

What’s On David’s iPod?
Closer
Nine Inch Nails
The Downward Spiral
(Old school. This is old school.)

Bizarre Milestone

Ten years ago this Friday, I committed adultery. This, in and of itself, was not unusual. My wife and I had both gotten into the habit. I was about to turn 26. She was about to turn 24. It is, I imagine, something a lot of young couples do, or at least more than you might imagine.

What makes this date worth noting is that unlike previous dalliances (I would never have used the word ‘dalliance’ when I was 26, it would have made me feel old) was that the woman to whom I made what an entirely successful pass was an old high school friend of my wife.

That friend is named Toni.

It became, you can safely assume, a horrible, wonderful mess. And in hindsight you can speculate on the correctness of Toni’s and my decisions, but I wouldn’t give us that much credit. We were not clairvoyant, but we did fall in love, and there was little else we could do about that.

The wife (now the ex-wife) and I had been married for a few days shy of eighteen months at that point. Zelda will be a few days shy of eighteen months on Friday. I used to think my ex-wife and I hadn’t been married very long when Toni and I started fooling around, but when I put it that way I am not so sure.

In any event, I was listening to an awful lot of Nine Inch Nails back then.

Ten years is a very long time. I assume my ex-wife still despises me, she attempted to be in touch with me in 1999, five years ago (five years was also the amount of time between when she and I began dating and when we decided to get divorced: 1989 to 1994) but that turned out to be a mistake, she seemed to think I was still cheating on her or that I cared what she thought of that. I admit, I can use all the friends I can get, but it’s been a long time since I thought I needed forgiveness for what turned out to be the right decision.

Man. Toni and I were together for seven years before we lost Calvin. And it’s been only three years since then. And soon I turn 36. On my eighteenth birthday (1986) I changed my name to David. That means David is turning eighteen.

I thought of emailing my ex-wife this year. Another five years, why not? But I couldn’t figure out why, either, so I haven't. Recently she had her first child, a son. He lives. His name has the same number of letters as Calvin’s, has four out of six of the same letters as Calvin’s, and sounds like Calvin, if you say it while holding your own tongue. Don’t blame me if I thought that was really weird. Though probably not nearly as weird as your imagining me worrying all that through.

Or any of the rest of it.