Omnia Mutantur

People always talk about what a complicate mess getting married is. What they actually mean is that the marriage ceremony paraphernalia, all those things that people go through to get a perfect wedding – which often means impress as many friends as possible, and make people they dislike jealous – carry with it the need for an obsessive attention to detail, a forsaking of your life usually attained only by dervishes, anchorets and Massively Multiplayer Online Games addicts.

Getting married is actually pretty simple. You show up, you sign a couple of papers which you probably perused with less care than you review a monthly credit card statement, get your witnesses to sign, and prestó! Single life is over.

In an ideal world, getting divorced would be just as simple (“I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee”, anyone?): you simply outline the conditions for termination up front when signing the contract … er… getting married, and when the time comes you simply notify the other party. If the distribution of wealth is not to the agreement of one of the partners then you bring in arbitration, otherwise it’s over.

Getting a divorce, now, was complicated. To be honest I half expected scenes right out of the War of the Roses, but the stars just weren’t in place: we didn’t have that much china, Hellen doesn’t cook or socialize much, I don’t have an expensive sports car that looks just taken out of its Matchbox package, our staircases aren’t that big and, well, I’m not insane. When Hellen announced she was moving out, I just told her to take whatever she wanted from the common assets and we’d square the distribution of wealth after.

I did not expect the legal complications that costarrican bureaucracy would spawn, like when the judge’s office bounced the divorce papers because they were printed on legal paper instead of on letter sheets. OK, nice to follow protocol and all, but they took three bloody months to realize that this difference was there. When I met with Hellen once more to sign the papers again I half-expected that this would be the first of many times I would have to see her to correct tiny legalese details, when what I actually wanted was just to get her out of my life as soon as possible.

Throughout the process I kept hearing Danny DeVito’s words: a civilized divorce is a contradiction of terms.

Hellen actually behaved more like a reasonable person during the process than she did through most of our marriage, which surprised me at first, until I realized that as Dan suggested, she was probably only playing some sort of mind game by moving out without knowing who she was playing with, while I take the lying and cheating seriously.

It may also have had to do with the fact that the divorce was an effortless process for her: I retained an attorney, got him to draft papers, used my bike messenger to shuttle things around, and all she had to do was find a couple of thugs to help her move the furniture and household items she was taking, go to the bank to cash my checks, and sign the divorce papers. When at last my attorney called one day to inform me that the planets had aligned, the gods smiled, Cthulhu risen and the judge approved my divorce, I called her and asked she never contact me again.

Easier said than done.

It was pretty quiet for the first couple of weeks, which was probably the time it took her to realize I had blocked her from my AIM and Yahoo accounts. Then she started calling, and not recognizing one of her office’s PBX numbers, I picked up. Every time I asked her to not call me again unless the judge had screwed up and we had to sign something else in order for me to finally attain my release.

Eventually I learned to recognize the office numbers and just started pressing Ignore every time one popped up.

Why this rant? Because the last time it happened I actually had fun.

On October 1st I’m at the beach with Viorica, taking a long overdue vacation. After spending the day getting horribly sunburnt at the beach but enjoying myself like few times in recent memory, we watched a magnificent sunset before heading back to our room to rest. Being the telecom addicts that we are, we took our cell phones out of the safety deposit box. Vero called her twin sister, Angi, and I just layed on the bet and let my mind wander.

A little tune snapped me back to reality. Picking up the phone, I cursed through my teeth. Vero looked at me sharply, wondering what prompted the expletives, so I showed her the phone.

Just as I was going to press the Ignore button once again, she warbles something in Rodian to Angi, hangs up her phone, snatches my v70 and answers with a Jessica Rabbit-like voice.

“Hello?” (pause) “Yes, this is the number.” Another pause. “Yes, Ricardo….” Turns to me and raises an eyebrow. “Give me a moment, let me see where he is…”

She puts the cellphone down, wrinkles her nose at me and waits.

“Still there?”, she finally returns. “Ricardo is taking a shower, can I take a message? … Hello? … Hello?”

Turning to me, she shrugs. “I think she hung up.”

Ricardo Personal

After many attempts by ye gods of work to keep me from taking time off, I managed to elope to Jacó last Thursday. The plan worked because it was sneaky about it: didn’t make any firm plans until the day itself, logged on early to AIM to discuss work issues as if nothing was up, and then, once I decided the Loki of Leaves was distracted, I sprung for the phone – in about half an hour I had gotten Vero to go with me, hired a cab and made reservations. By the time Recreation Rascal realized something was up, it was too late for him to intervene.

I’ll be uploading some photos to the album below (the thumbnail is for my favorite):

And since it’s been a while since I’ve uploaded any pictures of myself, here’s a photo that Viorica took. I almost feel compelled to title it portrait of the artist as a lecherous old man.

Ricardo Personal

My friend Jose Ulloa just sent me this South Park version of myself. I thought it was pretty apropos.

Ricardo Personal, Random funny stuff

Lately this blog has become almost a dead drop for things that most readers won’t have a clue about. It’s as if I’m trying to make it into an online variant of the cypher messages that spies place in newspapers:

From Timmy to friends: My mongrel Grubby has been spotted.
We think it was him running towards the car.

This post will do nothing to stop this trend.

In the end, I chose not to go. If I’m going to be alone,
I might as well do it without company.

Ricardo Personal

It is often uncomfortable when an acquaintance of the opposite sex begins riding me about any issues that may even barely gravitate near the vicinity of relationship topics. It’s not that I am not open about my opinions on that very specific – or for that matter, any other, random, general, out-of-a-blue-sky – subject. No sirree. As anybody who has even a passing acquaintance with me will point out, maybe as an attempt to warn you, my poor impulse control affects me specially when I’m attempting to refrain myself from allowing my personal opinions to hit somebody with the force of a typhoon, a tempest that knows not the difference between friend and unknown, passing acquaintance and that girl I’d really like to know better.

Why then this apparent reluctance to get into a very specific, very narrow area of conversation?

In a first, very superficial level, it has to do with trying to not come off as a any more of a jerk than either absolutely necessary or than, well, what I usually just do from my own basic, almost automatic actions. I am aware that it often yields better results to just behave like a complete bastard, but that’s a game I’m not interested in playing.

On a deeper level, it’s a simple cost-benefit analysis. Entering a discussion about relationships with a woman that’s not close enough to me to be anything more than an acquaintance is almost certain not to bring me any profit, and more likely than not, will cause me to end up with a headache, some bad temper and a couple of Lynchburg Lemonades ahead of the game solely in order to calm down. This is directly related with the fact that somebody who has at best a superficial familiarity with me would dare attempt to convince me – as they inevitably do – of just completely screwed up my perspective of the world is, how I have intimacy issues, or how I’m just a bloody sociopath.

Like I needed them telling me.

A few days ago I’m having drinks with this girl that I sometimes hang out with. We’re not close, we just have a good time together so we hang out a couple of times a month. For some reason she begins quizzing me on why I haven’t begun steadily dating anyone after my divorce. Rebuking my not interested yet attempts at – for her own mental safety – changing the topic, she insists that all I need is a regular female presence in my life, somebody to soften me and convince me that not all women are rabid bastard whores. Abiding by the rules of engagement, I just tell her that I don’t have that view of women by a far stretch, which should be proven by the fact that I’m there having a drink with her and not sitting in my underwear at home, watching The Brood and mumbling under my breath about carving up my ex-wife and burying her in the fridge, and again I attempt to steer the conversation.

She will have none of it.

“We have different opinions. Let’s just leave it at that, and agree to disagree, OK?”

“Sure, we could,” she replies, and I can hear the but floating over her head. “I’m not trying to convince you, I just want to understand you.”

Which is false, but she may not realize it. It is possible that she is just so used to getting things her way, that she doesn’t even notice anymore when she’s attempting to shape a person’s view of the world to her own. But after all, thrice I gave her the chance to end the conversation early and just get out of it graciously, and thrice she insisted. Not even Peter got more tries than that.

“You know how I don’t have a car?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You know why?”

“Sure,” she retorted, happy that things were apparently going her way. “You don’t like driving.”

“Right, there’s something of that too, but it’s also a matter of cost.”

“How come? You are doing well, I’m sure you can afford one.”

“Indeed, I can afford to buy a car. I chose not to.”

“Why?”

“Because the car has hidden costs beyond the purchase. You have to maintain it, for instance. Which is no biggie, it’s just more cash. But then you become dependent on the car, having shaped your life around its being there to get you places, and the single time the blasted thing dies on you, it completely fucks up your day. You can’t just leave the dead car in the middle of the city and go to that meeting you have in 20 minutes, can you?”

“Well, you could,” not too sure of either her response or where this was going.

“Ok, right, you could. But what happens if you have to be someplace and there’s an accident. Somebody hits your car, and you have to stay there until the police and the insurance people arrive?”

“You had an accident, people will understand.”

“Yes, they probably will, but it already screwed up our plans. Not only that, but if the accident was bad, then you have to send the car to the shop, and re-arrange your week around the fact that you don’t have a car anymore.”

“You just get a taxi, then.”

“True,” I replied, glad she was on board with the train of thought. “Which is yet another extra cost, on top of the cost of purchase, maintenance, insurance and now the bloody mechanic.”

“So what? You just don’t go anywhere, then?”

“No, I do. I just always get a cab.”

“But it’s more expensive!” she pouted.

“Only if always, or at the very least most of the time, things go hunky-dory with your own car. Which never happens. Plus, a cab has other advantages. If your usual cabbie isn’t available, you simply call another one. If their car breaks down in the middle of the city, or gets into an accident, you just get out of the bloody cab and find alternate means of transportation. You don’t have to worry about parking, or gas, or mileage, or insurance, or maintenance. In general, it’s just much more convenient to pay for cabs when in the city.”

She put her hands on her hips, defiantly, with a look on her face that told me she was certain she had found the hole in my logic.

“But a car gives you freedom! What if you want to go to the beach, or the mountain, or someplace far?”

“How often do you do that?”

She thought about it. “Well, once or twice a month.”

“I’m not going to buy a car for using once or twice a month. I’d rather rent one, or take a bus. That way I don’t even have to drive.”

“Where are you going with this, anyway?”

“You wanted to know what I think. I’m just pointing out that not having a car is not only cheaper and more convenient, but that just getting the services on a case-by-case basis gives me a lot more freedom and flexibility. Agreed?”

She didn’t reply and just stared at me, worrying her pretty head with how agreeing to that would backfire later in the conversation. I pressed the point, and finally she acquiesced.

“OK, agreed. It makes sense. Now, what the hell does that have to do with you not going steady?”

“Well, sweetie, it’s pretty much the same thing.”

I seriously doubt I’ll be hearing from her again.

Ricardo Personal

I make my own choices, I pay my own prices. And then I have the gall to tell people not to do the same thing and expect different results.

Pfft.

Bastards are remembered for their potential for good. Nice guys for the single time they failed to be there.

Ricardo Personal

Last development week before the project is going live, and I’m also dealing with this acquaintance I sometimes go out with. She’s damned cute and often fun – until she goes Sylvia Plath on me at the very end of the night. Go Gamalate Go!

Ricardo Personal

Until somebody gets broken.

Ricardo Personal

I know myself. I don’t think I need a personality test to tell me that I’m demanding. And to be entirely honest, I’ve tried to become more flexible, not looking for a perfect woman but balancing out the plus and the cons. But people sometimes don’t understand that just because a girl’s good looking, an entertaining dancer and you can ocasionally have fun with her, it doesn’t mean that you can simply ignore the fact that she’s completely dead inside.

Ricardo Personal

Some quizzes are amusing, like the one about Dante’s Inferno that banished me to the 2nd level of hell for being Lustful. One about who’s you anime girlfriend yielded funny results, when it turned out I was assigned an ageless, amoral murderer as my most likely girlfriend.

Who’s Your Anime Girlfriend?

Ricardo Personal