77,760,000 seconds.

***Fair warning: this post may contain too much information. You've been warned fairly.***

"A crumbling marriage leads to no booty
And the mind turns to unclean thoughts of ass."

--Wm. Shakespeare, As You Like It Because You're Naughty, Oh Yes You Are, III, 2.

And in truth it has been a long LONG time. Years before I moved out, really. By my rough figuring and the magic of internet calculators, I believe it has been an even 900 days since I last walked with a woman.

To say my confidence is lacking is accurate. And yet I'm confronted with the reality that at some point in the future I may actually...you know...get it on again. Something about being alone this week has made that point clear. All of the sudden my radar has turned on and I'm seeing women differently than last week. A couple weeks ago it was just an awareness of women. Then it was an awareness of female Jesus freaks. But it's shifted. It's not lascivious - I'm not going to head out there and troll the bars looking for a hook up. That's just not my style. It's just a sudden realization that people do in fact have sex. The really cute checker at my new Trader Joe's? My god - she may be a sex-having person! The really cute girl who works in my apt complex? I think she may have been awkwardly humped by some douchebag at some point in the near past!

It's all made worse by the unexpected appearance of former lovers on other social networking sites. In particular there is one who I had forged a pretty strong connection with just prior to moving to CA to be with my future ex-wife. Ok, yes, things happened. She was also about to dive into a serious, likely marital relationship. And of course that fell apart and she's also now divorced/single. And she looks THE SAME, which is to say she looks great. And I don't. I've made about as dramatic a transition over the last 10 years as one can make.

Saturday night - the night I moved out, Valentine's Day - I went to a show with a friend. It was a tough, tough emotionally challenging day. But I enjoyed the show and the mental respite of the music. And my friend asked my advice about her own love life, which seemed like an odd choice but I was flattered that she thought I was worth asking. After the show she took me across the street to a bar where a large group of her friends was gathered for a birthday party. A birthday party for a 23-year-old. There were cute 20-somethings all over the place (I bet they have had sex, too, now that I think about it). And it was too much. Just too much. I felt too old, too worn out, too out of place, too grown up and surrounded by people who didn't have the same issues, too much the old man with kids, too much thirtysomething in High School Musical. I had to leave and leave fast. My friend was offended, so she said. She just wanted me to let go and have fun. But I couldn't. Not that night. Not to that degree. 

It's all just a reminder that at some point soon I'm going to have to start being a functional human being again. I had game back in the day. I had energy. I was compelling if goofy. How do people do it? How do they manage being single? 

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm spending my Valentine's Day leaving my wife and children and moving to a new state.

Fuck you, Hallmark Card Corporation. Fuck you Jared and Kay Jewelers.

Have a great one! I love you!

God God Jesus God

Ever since it became clear that I was going to have to be single in the Portland-Vancouver metroplex I have started to become aware of single women. It's been mostly a distant, purely observational process. Just assessing the extreme bleakness of the matter.

And here's what I've seen: there are a fair amount of attractive, apparently single women out there. And they seem to fall into two categories:

1. So hip, be-tatted, and involved in things  as to be entirely uninterested in the divorced medical guy with 2 kids who has to look relatively conservative for his job.
2. Smart, funny, interesting, but religious. Not the perfectly reasonable "I'm into spiritual growth, and sometimes I meditate, and I'm kind of Buddhist" or "I go to church for the community connection" or "I go to church/synagogue on the big holidays". I'm talking about "I am living for the glory of Jesus and I am very involved in my church and ministry and I am WAY socially conservative and I ♥ christian rock."

Seriously, what the hell? Why? Why are there so many smoking hot Jesus freaks? It's a total deal breaker for me, because I just don't believe the Jesus myth. I just can't go there. I've thought about it, I've listened, and decided that I'm a non-believer.

Look, this is not some John Fitzgerald Page thing. I don't think I'm somehow superior (oh my, no). I'm not, he says with Noel-Coward-like wit, holier-than-thou. I'm not some crazy sinner. I'm a decent person. The devil probably won't drag me under by the sharp lapel of my checkered coat. I just know that I am not compatible with the saved. I'm gonna be Left Behind, and so I need to be with people who also will be stuck on this earthly realm when God and Son get hella pissed and turn on the taps. 

Grumble.