Advice; or how to keep busy when you're not.

I get most of my ideas in the car and then I have to figure out a way to remember them until I get home. I’ve tried a tape recorder but everything sounds so lame when I play it back. The voice in my head is so much more intelligent than the one that hits the air. I’ve tried calling myself and leaving a message; same problem. I’ve tried writing while I drive but the result is illegible. So I simply make a mental note to remember. Sometimes it works.

The ideas come to me because I listen to the news on CBS radio and sometimes what I hear is so provocative I need to respond. For example, this morning, the commentator introduced a doctor who was going to tell us how to avoid salt to lower blood pressure. His brilliant interview consisted of telling us not to eat it. How many people do you know who have gotten high blood pressure from bathing in it?

Another expert told us how to avoid conflict with your “ex” by cutting him or her out of your life. In the case of shared children, she advised “not to beg”. Huh? Okay, she acknowledged that, when you have children, it is impossible to completely cut your former spouse out of your life. Arguing is pointless and counter-productive. But begging? She admitted she was calling on personal experience when it came to the begging. Apparently, her ex-husband became her ex because he’d found someone else and she compounded the problem by begging him to stay. I think much better advice would be to get rid of the bastard. Don’t fight; don’t argue, don’t beg. Just consider yourself lucky that the bastard is now somebody else’s problem and pity the poor woman who poached your man; he belongs to her now. As a veteran of parental divorce and spousal divorce, I believe the best way to deal with an ex-spouse is to try to remember, as quickly as you can, something… anything… you once liked about this person to entertain the notion that you might want to spend the rest of your life with him or her. I’m not saying ‘forget the negative’; just put it on the back burner. You’re divorced so you don’t have to live with the shtick anymore. Close your heart from hurt. Don’t let it fester. Get out. Get busy. Value yourself. The sooner you can do that, the sooner you can normalize relations for the sake of your children and the sooner the stress leaves your life. This is not to say that there aren’t a bunch of ignorant assholes out there that make reconciliation next to impossible. But the sooner you can find a way to cut your dependency on this person, the sooner you will be on the track toward a happy life.

So, it seems I have discovered something else to “do when you’re dead”: give advice. Hope it helps.