Aren't you glad some days only last 24 hours?  Even when nothing bad happens, it's nice to move on.  A new day is a good start on a new life.  I'll stop before I sound like a self-help book.

Speaking of moving on, my X stopped by a few minutes ago.  “Jill! Have you seen this?” He couldn’t have been more excited had he won the lottery. “Look!” There in his thank-God-I-divorced-him wrinkled and bony hands is a little town newspaper with a big article. “Remember him?” my X says, pointing to a big picture. How could I forget? I used to work for the guy.

I’ve paid dearly for the privilege of making fun of my X, and Lord knows, it’s easy to do. My X, however, was a normal guy compared to the guy in this big picture. I have to turn my head, before my stomach turns first.

“That’s okay,” I tell my X. “I don’t need to see it.”

“You sure?”

“Very sure.”

My X leaves disappointed. Doesn’t my X remember? I was dating him when I worked for the guy. I know I vented on him more than once. Fame does something to the X. If it’s in print and it’s about someone you’ve seen in person, you need to get the word out. You’ve touched fame. Tell everyone, “I know this guy!”

The weird thing is this guy was famous when I worked for him. Maybe my X didn‘t remember. Even so, my X and I met while publishing a magazine. We got to know each other while interviewing dumb but famous musicians. I learned famous people aren’t very interesting. He apparently learned a different lesson.

Why does my X have a copy of this little town newspaper anyway? He lived in this little town growing up. Even his parents moved away several years back. I wouldn’t read it if I lived there right now. If I lived there right now, chances are I’d bump into this guy shopping or something. I feel instantly grateful I’ve moved on.

My big problem with this guy was he seemed to think if his wife wasn’t around, it was okay to try to sleep with me. “My wife and I haven’t had sex in three weeks, so it’s only fair,” he’d say. “Eww,” I replied. I liked his wife better than I liked him.

Often I’d answer the phone and it’d be one of my fellow female College classmates. “He told me to give him a call when the term ended,” they’d all say. “He wants to do some sort of performance piece with me.”

“Eww,” I thought.

To be fair, it was a particularly rough time in the guy‘s life. It obviously was in mine, too. I was dating my future X.

All he did when I worked for him was construction. He was a University professor. He hired me to help with his professional business. He had lots of professor-type projects. The whole time I worked for him, he wore a tool belt and remodeled big chunks of his house. I used to climb up on the roof when I had correspondence questions.

He got a lot done on his house, but his professional life suffered during his obsession with construction phase. He didn’t complete projects even though he had a bunch of students around ready to do the work. They were too busy hanging drywall.

The guy’s wife enjoyed the outdoors much more than whatever he was fixing up inside. She said, “This is nice,” a few times but that was it. Eventually she moved out. The marriage wasn’t worth staying for a newly remodeled house.

Apparently that’s not the case for everyone. I finally checked the mail after three days today. One of my relatives wrote me, which is unusual. Who writes letters anymore?

She enclosed a couple of pictures so I look at them first. Reading words takes a lot more time. Especially tiny, handwritten ones.

The pictures are of a modest new home, fairly plain and clean. Nothing special. I try to guess why she’s sending these pictures. A while ago I told her in my typical blunt Jill way, “Why are you waiting for a man before you buy a house? Save up and buy one yourself.“ She was waiting around for some jerk to ask her to marry him. His only good quality was that of dump-ownership.

I feel kind of full of myself. Good for her, she bought this house. See what happens when you take my advice?

I read her letter. The photos are of her jerk of an ex-boyfriend‘s house. She left him when he made her pay for everything, even fixing up his own house, which she did as much as she could before giving up. It was past fixing up, she said.

He scraped off the old dump and had this new one built. He says he‘ll marry her.

All she wanted was a house. Now she’s getting one. Too bad she has to put up with the jerk of an ex-boyfriend as part of the deal. The other part of the deal is taking care of the jerk’s mother, whom he plans to move in since she paid for everything. I’m glad I don’t live near. I’d be over there in a minute, telling her to move on.

The wild child, my fifteen year-old daughter, says, “It’s Friday night, you’re working for me. What else are you going to do? You’re old.”

“I’ll give you a ride,” I tell her, “but you’ll have to find your own way home.” Maybe we can get a quiet night if she has to stay over at a friend‘s. There’s a good reason we call her the General.

“So, yeah,” she tells her friends in the back seat. “That guy who had a crush on me all last year, we were supposedly dating: gay. Now he’s gay. Can you believe it?”

“What does that have to do with you?” I ask. I should have kept my mouth shut. I’m the Mom, after all.

The girls in the back start laughing. I think they’re too scared to say anything sarcastic about the General.

“You’ve had other boyfriends. Are they all gay now?”

The girls in the back laugh harder.

“Yeah,” one of them says.

The General gets quiet. “No,” she says.

"Right," another one says.  "What about . . . you know?"

“His friends say he’s gay," she says, "He doesn’t say he is.”

“Yet,” I hear from the back, amid giggles.

Apparently it takes a lot to move on after being with the General.