Well, I wrote a poem tonight for the first time in several years. It’s a habit I should get back into. I used to think I wasn’t any good at it, but then tonight I opened up several of my old poems again and found a depth of personality and character I didn’t realize I had when I was younger.

I decided to go ahead and place these on my site for all the world to see. The link is over there on the sidebar if you’re interested. If you don’t have time to read them all, the ones most worth reading are my most recent one, written tonight, Train, written in 1998, and poem16, written in April 1999. There are tons more in there as well if you have some free time.

I realized last night that I already have everything I need here. Well, maybe not “here” physically, as I have a lot of close friends throughout the country. I passed willfe the PHP contract for Kevin, and so far he’s doing a great job (Kevin came back raving about him.) I’m doing site design for SimpliColo. I signed a ton of new customers from IBI (two yesterday) and am currently working on a “big fish” there. I’ve made new friends here and around the country, and pieced together some old friendships as well. I’ve discovered there are many people out there who care about me and love me.

I’ll be just fine.

So I called my mother today (er, yesterday, now), and I finally told her that FG and I had broken up. The first words out of her mouth are, “Oh no! He was supposed to help me buy a new car at Christmas!” And then, “And I even bought him a Christmas present! … Do you think he will still help me buy a car?”

Alright, Mom, I’ve just broken up with my boyfriend/best friend of 7+ years, and the first thing you can think about is he’s not going to take you test-driving. (I told her he probably would anyway.) If anyone wonders why I hate talking to my mom on the phone, this is why.

BTW, I called my dad on his cell a few days ago and he abruptly hung up the phone on me because “your mother is coming into the garage and I don’t want her to know we’re talking without her involved. She’ll just get jealous.” So now I can’t talk to my dad either. I actually liked talking to him. 🙁

I turned on the Tivo today to see what was cookin’ and discovered an Oprah show from Friday that I hadn’t yet watched. It was titled “Swingin’ in the Suburbs.” I had no idea what I was getting into until I hit Play.

The show was about married women who cheat (apparently 17% of married women have cheated; 28% will cheat — that’s as opposed to the 50%+ of men who will cheat.) There was a familiar refrain from the women — “My husband didn’t seem to love or appreciate me, so I cheated…” It seems about half of them ended the marriage and half of them didn’t. Regardless of whether the marriage was still ongoing, everyone was pretty miserable (which echoes my recent experience.)

The other half of the show was devoted to couples who “swing” (voluntarily have sex with other couples.) This is the one thing that just floors me every time I hear about it. Why the heck do you marry someone only to go out and have sex with other people?! Swingers say it enhances their sex life. Oh, bullshit. If your sex life needs enhancement, you have more problems than going out and fucking other people will solve. I just don’t get this “answer” to that problem.

Statistically speaking, if I get married in the next 2 years, it only has a 55% chance of success. On average, a first marriage lasts only 8 years. This is completely and totally depressing.

Will it stop me from getting married in the future? No… but it will force me to take a long, hard look before I do. I don’t want to be involved in any facet of this hell in my future, and I especially wouldn’t want to be the person who was cheated on. And “swinging” as a solution to cheating/relationship problems? Blech.