I used to get in trouble a lot when I was in grade school.

Seventh grade was my worst year. We had a very weak teacher who took over mid year and in an attempt to make is like her taught us chess and gave each kid 10 jelly beans at the end of the day for being good. She would take away one jelly bean for every rule broken each day.

Since I thought I was such a scream, I never once got a jelly bean. I remember my mother told me that the teacher complained to her that I was the only girl that was as bad as the boys when it came to cutting up.

Which brings me to the point of today’s writings.

Whenever my mother had to go to school for any of us she’d pile on the diamonds for intimidation. I guess that’s where I got my love for big flashy diamonds. I’ll take a big one with a slightly yellow tint over a small tasteful pure white any day.

And whether there’s any reality to it or not when I return something to a store or have to complain about something I feel oh so much better about it if I’m wearing my jewelry.

Listen, I know this doesn’t make me likable but I am what I am.

Back to my point.

Soon I’m going to have to stop wearing my wedding and engagement rings. Then who will I be?

The other day someone who reads my blog said that a friend of his was just told by her husband that he’s leaving. He suggested that she read my blog, thinking that it might give her comfort to hear that someone is going through the same thing. He thought that she might get some insight from reading how I’m dealing with it.

Hearing this filled me with sympathy and grief. I thought about how scared she must be and I knew that she had so much to go through before she even reached where I am and I’m an open wound that has learned that I have no choice but to go on.

The last thing she should do is read my blog. It won’t make her feel better. It will just pour salt in her wound.

If I watch Dr Phil and there is any discussion of divorce, it’s painful to me. Salt

“Desperate Housewives” has a couple who are breaking up and the husband is dating. Salt

My friends talking about their husbands as in  ” ___  and I hated that movie” Salt

Here’s my advice.

What she really should do is go to a shrink who gives medication.

Only when her hands stop shaking and when she can wake up without that sinking feeling and when she can stop thinking and thinking so she can sleep can she deal.

Then she can protect herself from the rest.

What a week. From the pits of despair to the heights of international fame and through it all I am the same humble person. Other than my having to wear a baseball cap and sunglasses to Duane Reade, I’ve hardly changed at all

I mentioned not picking my nephew up at the airport because of Rupert’s brief hospitalization.

My nephew Eric, or Yitzhak as he’s now known, was coming from Israel.

He originally left New York about 40 years ago.

As a college student he went to Europe with a girlfriend. When he decided to go on to Israel, his girlfriend’s parents objected to her going there because it was too dangerous.  He went on alone and she stayed in Europe. I think they were supposed to meet again later.

During that separation she died. I don’t remember whether it was food poisoning or a gas leak in her hotel but it was a horrible tragedy.

My sister, Phyllis, called Eric and told him what had happened. Naturally he was devastated. He said he would come right home.

I few days later she received a telegram saying “Return delayed. Letter to follow.”

It seems he decided to stay on and study in Israel.  A year or two later his brother went to talk him into coming home and he too decided to stay.

Some of the details of this time  are vague to me but this is all how I remember it.

Both boys became Hasidim. Although I grew up in a Jewish home, my mother kept kosher, we followed a Conservative path, but by no means Orthodox, the Hasidim were as strange to us as any foreign religion.

They eventually had arranged but very happy marriages and many children.

My sister Phyllis and her husband Bern finally accepted the situation although it took some doing with the differences between them.

Phyl used to tell the story of walking through a marketplace in Israel with Eric, Yitzhak by then, and when she wanted to stop and buy them some nuts or something he told her not to. In a very serious voice he said they might have worms in them and he’s not allowed to eat worms.

Clearly annoyed she answered “I’m not allowed to eat worms either Eric!”

Although there were some years of separation with me when I decided to marry dave, a non jew, eventually that all passed and we became as close as ever.

Since his mother’s death my home has become his home when he comes to New York

Whenever any of his children come with him they love the fact that I look like their father and we both laugh all the time when we’re together. For that reason I seem very familiar to them as they do to me.

Having him visit is no easy feat. He will only eat Glatt Kosher food. He will not use my silverware or glasses, pots or pans.

Try making a salad with plastic knives.

I look at him sitting across from me and I don’t see the grandfather with a long white beard, dressed in black. I see the sweet boy who always stayed in my apartment when I was single and who went roller skating with me down city streets when we were way too old to do that.

I see how happy he is with his giant loving family and though 40 years ago we would have given anything to bring him home, we would have been wrong.

Yesterday was a weird day. Mostly bad but ending up okay. Not only did I almost murder the dog I love like my own son but on the way back from the Animal Medical Center I was interviewed by the New York Times.

Liz and I were walking home with Rupert in his carriage, still a little loopy but thankfully on the mend. After the morning I’d spent I was really feeling happy.

A movie star handsome young man, 29 ( I know because I asked him his age after he asked mine and Liz made him show his press card) stopped us to ask about the traffic surrounding the closing of the bridge for the making of Batman.

Unfortunately he only took 2 quotes. He seemed totally disinterested in the break up of my marriage and my opinions of the Penn State situation. Go figure.

He did ask for my phone number in case he had any “follow up questions” wink wink.

I guess I still got it.

Liz said in an email to my family

“She should thank her publicist, who is with her at ALL times and had to make all sorts of deals and promises to keep her dirt out of the paper.”

Rupert’s vet bill was a little over $500.

It was the best money I ever spent.

I almost killed Rupert today.

Liz has been working later and later. It was 8 a.m. and she still wasn’t home. Although I almost always give Rupert dinner, I never give him breakfast.

Since I know Liz sprinkles his arthritis medicine on his morning food, I called her at her office to ask where his pills were.

She said “I’ll be home soon so you don’t have to bother” but I insisted so she told me the pills were on the shelf above the toaster.

I found the bottle and was a little surprised that there was only one bottle because I knew he usually took 2 different pills.

Do I have to go any further.

Liz came home an hour later and she wasn’t there for more than 10 minutes when Rupert started shaking and shaking.

It came on so suddenly that Liz said “Let me see the pill you put in his food.”

When I saw her face after showing her the bottle I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I had given him a diet pill.

We decided to take him to the Animal Medical Center immediately.  She put him in her backpack and went on her scooter and I ran there with his carriage.

I don’t really believe in God but I prayed all the way over. “Please don’t let him die”

I was praying and crying when I finally got there. Liz was already in a room with a vet.

She called to me. “He’s going to be fine. He already threw up most of his breakfast and they’re just going to watch him for a few hours.”

Another vet came in and asked permission to call poison control.

I felt faint.

They said the bill might be about $800 and before they would begin treatment we would have to approve that amount.

Although Liz objected I insisted on giving my credit card.

There is truly no amount of money I wouldn’t have paid for him to be okay.

We went home after being told that they would call us when his heart rate and blood pressure returned to normal.

I was supposed to pick up my nephew at the airport but I texted him that I couldn’t come. It was already too late to get there in time.

The end of this story is anticlimactic. We picked up Rupe at 1 p.m.and wheeled him home in his carriage. He was a little weak but he seemed okay.

Liz, dead on her feet, took her pup and they both went to bed.

When I think I”m beginning to miss dave I try to remember why he isn’t here.

I reread my blog today and as I did , many of those moments came back to me.

One thing I didn’t mention was that when we started talking about dividing our assets and giving me money to live on after he leaves, dave said

“You should be grateful that I don’t just move to Japan and not tell you where I am. You’d never find me.”

he added, “of course I’d never do that”

I’m missing him less already.

Thanks, blog.

I was having coffee with Liz this morning and  I noticed Julie’s book  “Please Excuse My Daughter” on her coffee table.

I’ve read it more than once but not for years. It’s particularly dear to me because it’s all about my family. I picked it up and started to read it again.

Early in the book Julie is on her way to visit my father. She talks about the fact that my mother had died recently and his 4 daughters and 11 grandchildren were taking turns visiting him.

I am my father. dave didn’t die but he might as well have and the family has kicked in to comfort mode.

All this time I thought I was so unique. I really did. The fact that I thought I had a happy trustworthy spouse and got blind sided made me think that this was a first.

Didn’t most divorces happen when the couple were fighting and angry at each other?  Weren’t there a million signs before the break up? Didn’t couples go to therapy and try to work it out before moving on?

When dave said at 5 a.m. while I was making him poached eggs “I’m in love with a japanese woman”, I knew it was too late to fix anything.

dave wasn’t a talker. I used to joke that if I said I want a divorce it meant that that was the first time I thought of it since I usually said whatever came to mind. Therefore it could be fixed.

If dave said it there would be no turning back since he did all his thinking in his head so by the time he finally voiced it it would be his final decision. I’m laughing at my smug self now.

I know I was just flapping my lips and coming from a place of complete confidence  but I wonder what he was thinking when I said this.

I felt like dave and I were one. That’s pretty much how I loved.

I remember when I was in college I was so in love with my boyfriend, Jerry, that I didn’t know where he left off and I began. I even felt like it was strange that he had a penis and I didn’t because it suggested that we were different.  Now that I think of it it didn’t ‘suggest’,  it screamed it.

Another chink in my unique armor comes from the comments to my blog. People are identifying with it because it’s similar to what they are experiencing.

All I can say is that I hope I behave as bravely as my Dad did. I know he had setbacks. He told me that he could actually hear my mother’s voice calling him from the kitchen months after she died.

But he worked to keep busy and make a life for himself without her. He wasn’t always successful but he did pretty well.

I’m my father’s daughter.

In the past when dave went on tour I never left the house until after I spoke to him in the morning and made sure I’d be home in time to get his evening call.

Since the time change with Japan was day for night, I’d sometimes have to stay home at least until 1 p.m. and be sure and be back by 8.  He always called me twice a day.

I can’t tell you what a sinking feeling I had if I went down to get the mail or something and returned to a sleepy message saying “I guess you went out. I’m going to sleep now. I’ll call you in the  morning”

He never ended any call without saying “I love you” but I can’t even write it now because I’m remembering it from a different place.

When cell phones came into being and he could reach me wherever I was or I was able to call him back if I missed him it gave me amazing freedom.

When I finally got an iphone, don’t ask. I could check my email too although he rarely used email.

The other night I went to a movie and I had to turn my phone off. I automatically hesitated for a moment until it hit me.

No one HAD to reach me any more.

My life was so entwined with dave’s before that he was the one whose call I was always waiting for. A call that no longer was going to come. (Although I did get an email from him during the movie telling me he’d let me know if one of his musicians would be able to depart from a european destination rather than returning to New York before leaving for Japan).

The truth is I could turn off my phone for weeks at a time now.

I’m not saying that there aren’t lots of people who love me and call me and I’m happy to hear from all of them. But it’s not the same.

From now on there will probably be loads of these little moments where changes pop up that I never thought of.

Now it’s not like I didn’t foresee some of them. For example, (see title)