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    Showing posts with label divorce. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label divorce. Show all posts

  1. It Was My Fuchsia Anniversary

    Tuesday, March 29, 2016


     
     
     
    Though Good Friday does not land on the same day (or even the same month) each year, my divorce was on a Good Friday, so I consider it my anniversary. This year, my anniversary began waking up after a full night’s sleep. That still feels like a luxury to me. I opened an email I received from a woman who is part of a comedy group. She was responding to an inquiry from me. She thanked me for my communication and told me she’d have me on a comedy show in the summer. That was a really great way for me to have started my day.

    Then I had to meet a co-worker to give him some papers. He was coming to the front of my house which made it real easy on me. He also happens to be a pastor. Though I do not follow a religion (other than the Golden Rule) and he and I were not born into the same religion, I find him very comforting. I told him what Good Friday meant to me, and he laughed. I said, “I know that’s not what the religion had in mind.” Then he, in his way, connected it by saying it was the end of one thing to be followed by something better. He emphasized “better.” I said that just coming home to me is better since I’m a nice gal. I let him know that though I had no religious connection, hearing what he said did feel comforting.

    I was meeting with my best friend for breakfast and for doing some chores together for me. I am more challenged by some daily tasks than I used to be. I’m still in process of finding my way back to me. (When I speak to God, after safety and health for my son and me, I typically ask God to help my son find his way back to himself, his own heart, and reclaim his loving soul.)
     

    Before my buddy and I met, I wanted to accomplish something I had been neglecting (there are many choices, unfortunately). I turned one disaster area into a sparkling, good to the touch, once again usable area. That felt so lifting to my spirit. Then I did other stuff and got five bags of garbage out. Whew.

    My buddy and I enjoyed each other’s company as we typically do. We shared our current happenings. We find humor where we can when we can. I can’t be thankful enough for such a wonderful friendship. We managed to buy some stuff I needed, from a fly swatter to lightbulbs and all sorts of things like that. He did things for me in the apartment. He is such a brother to me.

    After we parted, I bought fuchsia flowers for myself. I also bought a bottle of wine.

    I managed to fill a couple of more bags of garbage. This time when I took it in the alley of my building, a rat ran by, I screamed, set the bags down on the ground, and scooted out of there.

    That evening I had plans with Debbie Bazza. We went to an open mic in New Rochelle. I met other people doing comedy which is always a good thing. Then Debbie and I went to one of my favorite places – the Starving Artists’ Café on City Island. She was planning to drive me to a point where instead of 3 buses, I’d only have to take 2 buses back home. However, after drinking some, I wanted to stay past the time she wanted to. So I was willing to take the 3 buses. But Debbie asked her friend to drop me where she would have. That was nice. I was good with that. But when it came time to leave, I was offered a ride all the way home by one of the musicians. I accepted.

    The ride home was comfortable. Conversation felt easy. Driving wasn’t frightening. I asked if I can contribute to gas costs. He said no. Then when we were already on my block, he asked me something that felt uncomfortable, over the line, and disappointing. My eyes must’ve bulged. He swore that it was a joke because in my comedy I mentioned a penis-free zone. I told him the zone was real. (It is those attitudes and comments and the hurt they cause that is part of why the zone exists.) He was laughing and apologizing. I really felt he was regretful because up until then, it felt nice. He even seemed like he’d be snuggly. When I got out of the car, he didn’t just zip away. He waited until I got inside. I wanted that to speak louder to me than his turn-off comment. I turned around and waved goodbye.

    I came home to me, my somewhat improved apartment, and my beautiful fuchsia flowers. 
     
     
     

     

    Posted by Mindy Matijasevic at 10:01 AM | Labels: , , , , , | 5 comments | |

  2. My Valentine's Day, etc.

    Tuesday, February 17, 2015






    I was absolutely thrilled to have a nice-sized audience at the Clarion Theatre as my Valentine on Saturday night.  No pressure for sex later.  Perfect.  I really enjoyed myself.  I saw someone who I haven’t seen in a very long time, and seeing her was a good thing.  Though the gap in time was very large, the hug was as wonderful as or better than ever. 

    I can’t wait to see the tape of the show.  Each comic shined.  Every audience member seemed quite pleased as they said goodnight to me on their way out. 
    It was the second Divorced Divas of Comedy show, and it was also a success as was the first one.  So far, so good. 
    Speaking of divorce, I checked my ex’s 3rd wife’s Facebook page (yes, I did), and nothing.  During their first year, she posted all these nice little things.  I thought, wait until you really know him.  The honeymoon must be over, as they say.  I will say this.  She was all into being a wife (I don’t know if this was her only marriage), and he appeared to really be lucky to have found yet another nice woman to love him.  But facades fall, and there is just so much one can get away with in life.  What the mind forgets (or refuses to deal with), the body remembers.  He’s having his share of things.
    My concern is our son.
    The adult son of one of the guest Divas attended the show, sat up front, and enjoyed himself.  When he first arrived, he and his mom had a delightful hug.  Sorry, reader, if I just drooled on you. 
     

     

    Posted by Mindy Matijasevic at 12:00 AM | Labels: , , , , | 3 comments | |

  3. I saw someone at an open mic who I haven't seen in quite a while.  He's a person with many personal problems, the biggest being his unawareness and lack of ownership of those issues.  (I'm not putting anyone down for having problems, as we all do have our share and then some.)  When he got divorced, I wanted to send flowers to his freed ex-wife.  By then, I felt I had had a small taste of what she had endured. 


    Unless I'm totally projecting, I always sensed a warm beating heart in him.  But he seems to have major issues with women and people in general, but mainly women -- a great lack of respect.  His behaviors are often repulsive.  When I knew him, his driving was extremely rage-filled.  I often felt I'd be safer on the NYC subway.  Each time I accepted a car ride from him, I felt I was taking a risk with my safety.  That scared me about myself.


    We met while we were each going through the end of our respective marriages.  (I wanted mine to end; his wife wanted theirs to end.)  We lived in the same borough.  I was just getting started in comedy.  He'd been doing the comedy open mic circuit for a number of years and been in a few shows.  There seemed to be some ingredients for a friendship.  He'd done some friend things like ride his bike from the Bronx to Manhattan to attend a poetry reading where I was featured.  He attended my comedy debut as did many other friends.  I went with him to open mics before I participated, so I was considered actual audience which is appreciated by open mic comics.  When I ran a poetry reading series with an open mic, I'd let him perform even if he wasn't there to hear the feature or the other open-mic-ers.  It seemed it could be a mutually beneficial comedy pal relationship.  I knew it couldn't be more than that.  I would have welcomed another friend, but he was at the point in his journey where he made fun of his wife's use of the term 'emotional abuse.'  So since he couldn't see he was doing it by making fun of her real complaints, I knew our depth of friendship was very, very limited. 


    Then things started getting weird and uncomfortable.  One summer day, he picked me up to go to an open mic.  When he saw me, he scowled and said, "You look nice."  His tone sounded pissed off like I'd done something offensive to him.  I didn't even know how to answer.  I felt defensive.  I had to remind myself that most people aim to look nice and not crappy.  So if that was a compliment, this relationship had a short life.  Another time he may think he complimented me was when he told me I looked like I could be Angelina Jolie's mother.  He's quite suave with the ladies, as you can see.  When his not-yet-ex found weed in their car, he, a man in his forties, told her it was mine.  He told me after the fact and wanted to know if I'd agree in case I was ever asked.  He was going through a divorce and she didn't approve of weed.  (At first I felt her as too straight-laced, but in all fairness, he had told her he would stop when they got married, so she had every right to expect he didn't indulge.)  I figured he had a lot at stake since they had a young child.  I didn't feel okay with this, but I agreed to say it was mine in spite of my insides screaming at me not to.  This was rapidly becoming a relationship that was bad for me.  In a way, I think because I was weaning off of my bad marriage, it may have been part of that process.  He was showing himself to be another person I shouldn't be with.  But I didn't love him or feel attracted to him, so in a way, it was like a much lighter version of bad-for-me situations.  Emotionally, it makes sense to me that it was part of a detoxing process. 


    I ignored strange things (which was part of my problems).  Like the one time I went as his guest to a show he was in, he sat with me separated from all his comedy friends.  I thought that was weird and wondered if he was ashamed of me or of them.  Yet he wanted to be with them.  He asked if I minded.  I didn't.  I wanted to see the show.  I was weeks away from my own comedy debut, and I appreciated every free opportunity to see comics in action.  But I found it very odd that he kept us separate.  He went and sat with them at times and then with me.  Had it been a 'date,' it would not at all have been acceptable to leave me alone for periods of time.  I thought it couldn't be any clearer that it was not a date.  Plus my ex was still in my house, and I didn't do the cheating thing, so if this guy was someone I'd have wanted to date, I wouldn't have hung around with him at all.  It would have been too difficult for me. 


    After seeing me perform at my debut, he said that I killed.  For those of you not involved in stand-up, the language is like sports and war since it's a very male dominated arena.  I don't connect with the language at all.  Bomb, kill, disarm, hit them, etc., etc.  I see it more as a party.  If everyone's laughing, we're having a good time at my party.  I don't make the folks sitting up front feel regretful at all.  I have a very different view.  I was happy that he enjoyed my performance.  I considered us comedy pals, and this was my first public stand-up performance, so it meant something.  But I assumed he enjoyed it when that wasn't really what he said.  He said that I killed which was a comment on how the audience received me, not necessarily that he enjoyed it.  And that hadn't occurred to me then.
     
     
    ...to be continued...

    Posted by Mindy Matijasevic at 4:57 AM | Labels: , , , , | 9 comments | |













  4.  
     
     
     
    In the neighborhood donut shop, I had a chance to speak briefly with a woman I was once close friends with.  I think in a very few sentences, we were basically caught up on the big picture without the details.
     
         "I like your hairstyle.  It looks glamorous."
         "Even though the beautician ignored my instructions and I didn't like it, when Tommy saw it, he said it was marvelous."
         "Who's Tommy?"
         "Tommy's been around for about thirty years."
         "Well, we haven't really spoken at length in about that long or more.  I've been married and divorced.  My son is twenty-two."
         "Your son is twenty-two.  Wow.  You look good."
         "Now.  Even when I'm not all fixed up, I at least look like I want to live.  In a bad marriage, death doesn't seem so bad.  It would all be over."


    ***
     




    ***

    Posted by Mindy Matijasevic at 6:32 PM | Labels: , , , | 2 comments | |

  5. DIVORCE, IKEA FURNITURE & MOTORCYCLES

    Saturday, April 6, 2013

    By Lisa Harmon

    This is the year I have to bite the bullet and learn to ride a motorcycle. I don't know why I have to do this, except that I don't want to be a pansy jerkface forever. Also my husband wants me to learn. He says it will boost my confidence and help with my comedy career and everything else. I can just see him beaming with pride as I take his smaller bike out for a solo ride, and filing for divorce after I drop it. It'll be OK, no one will see me crying inside my full-body cast.

    Another good way to get a divorce is to buy some Ikea furniture and put it together, together. They call it a desk, I call it “Box o' divorce!” At least when you split up it'll be easy to divide the desk fifty-fifty, because that thing is still not put together!

    I don't want to divorce the Super, but with men you never know. If they divorce you, you're lucky! I've been watching so much stupid television I'm convinced about ninety percent of marriages end when the husband kills the wife. And my husband has all the tools at his disposal – helmet bags (perfect fit for a human head – mine!) bungee cords (for strapping stuff to the back of the bike, like your wife's dismembered body), and of course all the chemicals and basement rooms he has access to as a Super.

    But if the Super wants a divorce, he'll probably do it the biker way: loosen the screws on the backrest and take me for a ride on a bumpy road.

    Any time I've ever had a fight with the Super, I've never had the gumption to get a divorce. First I get so angry I can hardly see straight, then I turn on the computer to search for “Divorce lawyer + New York City”. Then I start watching puppy videos and clicking “here for a free Red Lobster dinner for two” and before you know it, I forgot why I turned on the computer in the first place. A slow internet connection and short attention span have saved my marriage on several occasions.

    But I have to admit that marrying the Super was the best thing I've ever done. I'm happier married than I ever was single. I never thought marriage was important but I'm so glad I've got someone who cares let's say, for instance, if I were to get hit by a tractor-trailer. That gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, and its not just the Super's back hair touching my arm.

    I'm so grateful to have a person that cares about me, shares with me, loves me (and my idiot cats) and accepts me the way I am, oh, and thinks that I'm hilarious.

    Of all the stuff I've done over the course of my life, the only smart thing, the only thing that worked out right, was marrying the Super. I'm so happy to have one part of my life that's not frustrating (like trying to lose weight or make money as a comic). I'm happy to have one part of my life that is fun and not a struggle. I'm so glad the Super likes me. Let's face it, he could find a woman that cooks, cleans, etc. but for some strange reason, he likes having me around. For that, I'm extremely grateful.



     

    Posted by Anonymous at 7:12 AM | Labels: , , , | 4 comments | |


  6. When we left off last week:  During a pay-to-meet session with a respected casting director my mind kept drifting to the married lifetime I’d left behind (seriously, I’d been married longer than most open mic comics have been on the planet!) and my now altered life. I didn’t “change horses in mid-stream.”  I got off the horse, walked into the stream, got pulled into an undertow and there was no lifeguard on duty…  I should have had a snack before this meeting with Twinkie Byrd, even her name makes me hungry.

    Divorce was a heart breaking, game changing monkey wrench in my family, income and eating habits.  Tribeca offered everything just outside my door, or within walking distance: dim sum in Chinatown, brunch in the Village, lunch around the corner at Nobu, dinner in Little Italy, birthdays and anniversaries celebrated right across the street at Tribeca Grill.  My gastronomic choices off Brooklyn’s Malcolm X Blvd. were pretty much limited to a proliferation of plexiglass protected Chinese fast-food take- out joints.  No Zagat rated restaurants, designer name boutiques, or comfy new movie theaters nearby now.  Within walking distance, I had street after street sporting a two per block minimum of store front churches and African hair braiding shops.

    Don’t get it twisted.  The heart of Bed-Stuy boasts wide tree lined streets with the occasional mansion dotting row upon row of brownstone and limestone landmark homes.  And THAT is why in spite of her riotous history; Bed-Stuy was slowly but unmistakably becoming the go to gentrification destination of white folks fleeing $2,000 - $3,000 a month Manhattan shoebox size studios shared with 2 roommates.  Black long time brownstone owners were cashing in selling their homes in a bubble inflated market.  Or they doubled (sometimes tripled) the local rent on the gentrifying influx happy to finally have space, ornate woodwork, no roommates and a monthly outlay reduced by hundreds of dollars. Through providence and timing only slightly ahead of the trend, I found in a century old brownstone, on a short street wedged between Crown Heights and Bushwick, an apartment I could afford.  BTW, time would tell, I really couldn’t afford it.


     

    Dollar signs danced in my head as I calculated how silence had dominated my 5 minute @ $8 per minute session with this casting director, who was going to instantaneously 
    change my career a.k.a. my life. Finally Twinkie (her real name) put down her pen and fixed me with a penetrating stare. Where do you see yourself? She asked.  That’s when one of the voices in my head did a double take.

    Just one of seven voices residing in my head, the Martha Raye  / Pearl Bailey / Carol Burnett  hydra 



     a.k.a.- 
    Martha Bailey Burnett

    Martha Bailey Burnett, is especially fond of  physical comedy: double takes,  pratfalls, spit takes and the like.  The pause following Martha Bailey Burnett’s double take, gave me the opportunity to shut her down before she responded (out loud) with an ostensibly comedic but obviously sarcastic rant about “having paid her dues”… “breaking back into show business”… and “a job that rendered more than a negative balance after rent, food and utilities!” 


         
    To be continued...

    Posted by RHC at 1:00 AM | Labels: , , , , , , , , | 6 comments | |

  7. Pay To Play By Rhonda Hansome

    Thursday, March 7, 2013


    Where we left off last week: I was having trouble staying focused in what I hoped to be a dynamite meeting with a hot shot casting director, since at this point in my life only dynamite could break the log jam in my career…

    I watched Twinkie make marks from the top to the bottom of the paper in front of her.  From my side of the desk I guessed she was either constructing a six-set Venn diagram or designing a need- to- know flow chart of secret drone missions, on my resume. What the hell is she doing?  I was already uncomfortable with the whole pay to play with a casting director phenomenon that became a cottage industry in its self during my hiatus from comedy and performing.  Wasn’t that the purpose of showcase after showcase, the opportunity to be seen by an influential gatekeeper like herself? 
                                                                                                  

    Yes I am an unforgivingly old school by-product of the previous century, but faced with the prospect of being a non-income generating, middle-aged non-performing, performing artist, I sucked it up and stuck my toe in the now.  Paying to meet Twinkie was the iceberg tip of my adjustments.

    It was a huge adjustment returning to the place of my birth - Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy - after homesteading, raising a son, reveling in Tribeca and then leaving divorced.  My lovingly supportive yet oddly passive aggressive marriage, to my high school sweet heart- fiancé- husband- parenting partner, began to chafe in its third decade.  In the fading afternoon sun of our art filled, book lined, homey apartment, Phil and I exchanged words that could not be snatched back. I was deeply in love with my husband.  Somewhere along the years I stopped liking him.  Our Dartmouth educated son was grown and leaving the nest.  Soon I’d be the next to go.  I’d grown apart from the man I fell in love with when I was 14 years old.  It felt like time to leave the most significant man in my life.

    At the time I was acting in a production directed by the renowned Woodie King Jr., on NY’s Theater Row.  I had in the offing an epic blues cantata, written by a longtime friend, sure to make my mark as a theater director of note.  I did not have a second thought about the comedy career I’d left in the dust.  But how do you adjust to leaving a lifetime of love?  I clutched my rising possibilities as an actress and director on the dramatic stage. In less than a month I was out on my own.  My timing was impeccable. I left Tribeca for Bed-Stuy, I signed the divorce papers and then right on cue, came the recession, years and years of recession.



    Posted by RHC at 1:30 AM | Labels: , , , , , , | 5 comments | |

  8. It's My Resume by Rhonda Hansome

    Thursday, February 28, 2013


    The look on her face clearly said she was at a loss without a hieroglyphics to English dictionary at hand.  The fact that Twinkie* stared at the object I’d placed on her desk with prolonged bewilderment, prompted my outburst. “It’s my resume.” I offered with my voice slightly cracking. Twinkie raised her eyes with sphinx like inscrutability and said without a blink, “I’m just taking it all in.”  

    So my mind races as the casting director stares at my resume.  It took me three months to construct a new/fresh/now resume of my comedy driven career.  If she can take it all in, more power to her.  Damn, that resume doesn’t tell half the story of my life onstage.  And off stage you ask?    Well, both on stage and off, it feels like I'm starting all over from the middle. 

     Divorced in 2005 from several decades of marriage to my high school sweetheart, I moved from our neighborhood, the center of the universe, Tribeca.  When hubby (now my ex) and I arrived, the Washington Market Area was barely maintaining daytime activity as a food distribution center.  At night it was a no man’s land unfamiliar to even New York cab drivers.  No stores, no street lights, we were pioneers settling on the windy far west of New York’s lower west side.  The abundant loft living space drew the adventurous; hubby and I were game for the hulking subsidized project that had real-people sized apartments and desperately needed residents.  As the area developed Washington Market became SoCa (South of Canal), but really hit its stride with the moniker Tribeca; and the ensuing gourmet restaurants, designer boutiques, lines of limos and film festival. It was literally Hollywood on the Hudson. Came the time, I could not go to Bubby’s on the corner for coffee without a hello to Robert Di Nero, John Kennedy or Lorraine Bracco, my neighbors.

    I came of age in the shadow of burned out shells, and litter strewn lots, the aftermath of insurrection aka “the riots”.  As a pre-pubescent aspirant to the middle-class, I wanted nothing more than to leave the gritty bleakness of the ghetto behind.  Hubby made that possible albeit with stops along the way in a ghetto of a different hue - Spanish Harlem (in the Young Lords' building) and a stint as sextons of a Lutheran church in Flatbush.  I’d made it all the way to the disco dotted, star cluttered streets of Tribeca and now I was back with head bowed on my original stomping ground.  It was a big adjustment returning to the place of my birth Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy.  

    To be continued...

    *A real life, big time casting director


    Posted by RHC at 5:15 AM | Labels: , , , , , , | 8 comments | |

  9. Muffin Tops & Butt Crack (not my thing)

    Tuesday, November 20, 2012


    I thought of writing the following as a Venn diagram, but I’m not a computer whiz, so I’ll stick with paragraphs.  Also, I’d only be addressing the overlapping center.  See, recently, due to backlog of undone laundry, I was wearing low-rise jeans from when that was all I could find in my price range.  They are now my no-clean-laundry-day jeans.  They are so fuckin’ annoying.  As I was listing in my mind all that is wrong with me in low-rise jeans, I realized that the same list applies to what is wrong with me having been with my ex.

    I don’t feel good about myself with either of them.  They both accentuate the negative        
       
                  

                                                  ...and give me a pain right about here.




    They may seem okay at first, but they are terribly lacking.  Some think they look good, but they look ridiculous.                

      
    They are irritating and annoying.  While they don’t help me feel upright at all, they require pulling up so often just to appear and feel normal.  The similarities go on and on.

    Since giving less fabric/love seems to get accepted as the norm, we unfortunately get used to this discomfort as too many of us do a crappy marriage.  The bar gets lowered, and what was normal gets renamed.  Now when I am looking for normal pants that know where to hold me, I have to ask for high-waisted pants.   And if I want to meet a normal, loving man who knows where to hold me, well … 


         I suppose if one takes the time it truly deserves, one can find a good fit.                         

    After discovering a store in the Bronx called LuLu’s and H&M in Manhattan both carry normal and affordable jeans, I’ve been slowly getting rid of the unflattering kind.  And as in the separation and divorce, I’ve found…

     

     

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

    Posted by Mindy Matijasevic at 1:33 PM | Labels: , , , , , , | 1 comments | |

  10. My Penis-Free Era

    Tuesday, August 14, 2012

    Part One - The First Three Years

    (Mindy Matijasevic - guest blogger)

    One might wonder how a woman who can still turn heads has gone over seven years without getting laid. Well, rather easily really. It began in a miserable marriage where I regularly told my then-husband that I wanted him to leave. He never honored the vows he took or the words he spoke, so it really shouldn't have surprised me so much when he refused to honor my words. It didn't matter to him who was unhappy. I now clearly see that he gets off on making others unhappy. It makes him smile. Gives him direction- a focus for his evil. Like a child, he enjoys the sensation that he's getting away with something. But as real adults know, no one gets away with anything. He cheated on both wives and was never remorseful. Yet he wouldn't do the right thing and leave. He can lie to the women who, before getting healthy, loved him, and he can rewrite history in his head for his own comfort, but he can't fool his penis. Like wife number one and wife number two, it eventually didn't want to be with him either. He needed Viagra in order to cheat on me.

    To get rid of him in New York where one had to charge the other with something, and after trying unsuccessfully to have him sign divorce papers that charged him with mental cruelty, I knew I was going to have to let him divorce me. We both knew he destroyed the relationship, but on record, I was going to be the one getting sued for divorce. His ego, thin as it is, couldn't do it any other way. His first wife lived elsewhere and was able to get a no-fault divorce. That was what I needed here in New York. My other options aside from letting him divorce me seemed worse. Among the worst were never getting free of him, losing my rent stabilized apartment to him, or a felony being committed.

    I started to believe the devil was on his side when he wasn't taken out on 9/11. He worked nearby. His hours began at 9:30. So many good husbands and wonderful fathers died that day. So many wives, who would have given anything to have their husbands back, eventually received a lot of money to help them maintain relatively comfortable lives. Mine walked out of the deadly fog.

    The apartment was in shambles, looking as awful as my life was feeling. I became overweight. I rarely cooked. I was droopy with depression. Those commercials that would ask if you've lost interest, can't sleep, feel achy, have suicidal thoughts were talking to me.

    Eventually it hit me very clearly. He will never listen to the words from my lips. Those weren't the lips he ever heard.

    For the next three years, I slept in the living room. I had no sex at all with another being. I knew that he was having sex with others. I was so jealous of my husband's lovers. They got to go home without him.



    Mindy is a writer, actress, and comedian. She can be seen this Thursday (8/16) at The Grisly Pear on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, NYC, 8pm show.

    Posted by Anonymous at 12:00 AM | Labels: , , , | 0 comments | |