Quotes from Suzanne Finnamore

Divorce is a snakebite. One´s next thought should not be, Where am I going to find another snake ?

I saw my reflection in their eyes, but not the men themselves, not clearly. This preserved the idea that all intelligent and even vaguely attractive men were essentially good. Delusion detest focus and romance provides the veil.

Irrationally, I think, Will You Marry Me? Four words. I Want a Divorce. Four words. I would like time to count the letters as well, but there is not time.

I´m just not sending out the right vibe lately. Perhaps the fact that I wear stained sweatpants and free T-shirts is holding me back. I just can´t seem to get back into the intelligent-slut-for-hire outfits that lure men; even shoes with laces evade me. Plus my hair is Fran Lebowitz-esque. I think my eyes are getting closer together. I don´t know.

Flannel shirts should be outlawed for ex husbands; I realize this now. Flannel shirts are to women what crotchless panties are to men.

This people know where their husbands are. I would like to vomit. I would like to vomit my soul out.

I know my vision is impaired and cannot be trusted with even the simplest tasks, much less dating. Not that I´ve come within talon distance of a man.

My mother is a firm believer in the long pause, useful in interrogations, proclamations of truth, and the occasional cutting dead of someone without their knowing it.

The marriage is over; counseling is the eulogy. The relationship autopsy is the wake.

Nothing´s permanent. Nothing .

This does not escape my notice, it is a context. I resent the fact of a context; my social status has shifted and no one is going to acknowldege it, that´s certain. I´m expected to be Brave and Rise Above. I dress for the role; I must look far better now that I did when I was married. I must look pulled together into a nice tight Hermès knot of self-containment. I don´t make the rules; I just do my best to follow them.

The abandonment came, and now this shabby bacchanal.

Together we agree that there are few tableaus more pathetic than a woman poring over a plethora of self-help books, while in a small café across town her husband is sharing a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé and fettucini Alfredo with a beautiful woman, fondling her fishnet knee and making careful plans to escape his life.

Much like trains in India, grief is a circular, irrational process with no discernible rhythm or timetable. Here it comes, there it goes.

In so many senseless deaths, beauty is to blame.

The real genesis is forbidden to me, vis-à-vis N´s inability to confess even the mildest transgressions.

This is much easier than when N left. Our son is unable to grasp and simultaneously turn doorknobs yet. If only this trick could be unlearned by men over thirty, many more families would celebrate Christmas together.

Conversely, I though humiliation would be everything, but it´s such a nothing.

I think, This will be the last horrible thing I have to go through, until I meet someone else and the whole travesty begins again . I myself bear a sign that reads DON´T DATE ME, I CHAIN-SMOKE, I´M BITTER, AND I INCLUDE GRABBY TODDLER, and this has dramatically decreased my social life. I have resigned myself to a lifetime of jalapeño poppers and cheap wine and Frasier reruns.

It would be sad and wrong in so many ways to self-combust at this time.

This is much worse than losing a cat. You do not wish the cat dead, for example, after the first two days. You still love the cat and presumably the cat still loves you, or some variation of love that may in fact be dependence and even indifference.

I´ve blown it, the whole grisly charade.

The Betty Lady explains love and splitting up: "It´s like playing the shell game with Jesus. You can´t figure anything out; it´s best not to try. You´ll just humiliate yourself.

The swans are unnaturally beautiful. They mate for life. I wish they could talk. I have questions.