Really: is there anything more boring than the musings of a middle-aged woman on the road to what may very well be, yes, divorce?

Here's some other things that make it even more tiresome (or is that pathetic?):

1. Long term relationship (17 years of matrimony + 5. No: 6)

2. Husband younger by 10 years. Husband dashing, successful. Me? Same age as Madonna, sans wardrobe, pecs, entourage. Although I do look good. Shall I tell you how many have expressed suprise, even shock at how old I am?! See? Add one to the tiresome column, and start a new one: desperate.

You see, I've always looked younger than my true age.  When I was 17, only the most lax bouncer with no concern about job security in the most who-gives-a-shit bar would let me in, even with my reasonably good fake ID. I was still getting 'carded' (as they say in New England and many other places. In New York, on Long Island, it was 'proofed') at close to 40. Only sometimes, though. And now, at an intake for an Ovarian Cancer Early Detection Study a couple of years ago (I have 2 first degree female relatives who have had either breast or ovarian cancer: more good news) when the nurse comments that I seem too young to have an 11 year old son, it makes me angry. Angry that she is  in charge on running a very important womens' health study and yet is totally divorced from what things look like in the real world, or that she thinks my self-esteem is so low that I would actually believe that I could look less than, what? 30?! Am I a doddering matron?!

But I digress, as I suspect I will in the course of this...this effort to be 'doing something' so that when I come out on the other side I won't just be the same and older. I'll be different, I'll be better, I'll have something under my belt to show for it. I'm thinking of learning Italian as well.