I am not one to hold a grudge. Okay, I am one to hold a grudge (see Jeffrey, see Jeffrey fucks Super Fan in my very own living room) but in honor of the Jewish Holidays, I had made a plan to get over that. Not to get over the Super Fan fucking, necessarily, but the holding a grudge part. Holding a grudge is not good for the mind or the body or the spirit (I read this somewhere, or perhaps I heard it on Oprah) but with that in mind I set out to embrace the New Year.

Now, as I may have mentioned, I am half Jewish. The Jewish half is actually my father, which technically doesn’t make me Jewish I suppose, but I was raised a nominal Jew (going to temple twice a year, eating borscht) and that was enough for me to pass it on to my children. Jeffrey is Jewish too, and despite my misgivings we joined one of those temples that have too many agents and managers and lawyers who go there to do business (kind of like choosing the right pre-school, choosing the right temple in Los Angeles is serious work) and we would go there pretty much never except for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I’m not saying I’m proud of how we did things, but I’m not un-proud of it either, it’s just the way it was.

As I may have implied, it’s been a long, not so hot summer. And though I won’t get into it now, I needed a bit of cheering up recently which had less to do with Jeffrey and his exploits (more on that later) than it did with me and my not so sordid past. Taking this into consideration, Annabelle, she of the George Hamilton tan and the Eres bikini (thank you rich boyfriend with a house on St. Barts) came by on Saturday night, scooped me out of my Waterworks bathrobe (a fine investment if you want to spend the day in bed with a supersize bag of Fritos) and insisted I accompany her to a party.

Now I may or may not have mentioned that in my tender youth I aspired to be a groupie. I sucked at it actually, because aside from sticking out my thumb to hitchhike now and again, and taking an occasional puff off someone else’s joint, I was pretty tame in my approach to living. I aspired to be the girl who followed the band, and I once did sleep outside the New Haven Coliseum to get tickets to see Bruce Springsteen, but my first concert ever was John Denver and for a hideously long time that set the tone for my entire way of being. By the way, who is “Annie” and why did she get her own song? My guess is she gave Mr. Denver his first Rocky Mountain high.

Still, Annabelle was well aware that for many years I was madly in love with this musician/guitar player who did session work with Dan Fogelberg (yes, I was that predictable) and when I met Jeffrey I have to admit that the fact that he played the drums totally turned me on. (In retrospect, all that incessant banging should have been a clue.) Regardless, I still really dig musicians. Which for anyone under the age of eighteen who is reading right now, is not necessarily to be recommended.

Helloooo!! I’m back! Miss me?

Well, I sure have missed you and from what I’ve heard (yes, yes, I do read email, I just have an eency problemo answering it) some of you have noticed my summertime hiatus and wondered about my imminent return. Well summer is over and I am here to tell you many things have transpired (including the fact that yet again I managed to get a nasty rash from self tanner instead of a sexy, man-luring tan) but most importantly, I AM HOME.

Now, the definition of home is a complicated one for some people, but not for me. Home is where Mr. Handsome and Roo go to bed before midnight. Home is where the bed sheets aren’t always crunchy with sand (well, not usually.) Home is where I don’t wear the same white T-shirt seven days in a row. (In fact, home is where I don’t ever wear white if I can help it.) Home is where I go back on my diet, where gelato isn’t on the top of the food pyramid and where bathing suits (especially anything ending in “ini”) STAY IN A DRAWER. But mostly, home is where right now the suitcases and their sweaty, dirt-encrusted contents are splayed all over the living room floor. (Home is also where I need to clean the house with that new, eco-friendly green stuff that I have been threatening to use. Because at this very moment, home has been boarded up for weeks and well, you know how it is— home kind of smells.)

But smells are fine. Smells are cool when they are your own smells and not necessarily the smells of people who believe deodorant is a luxury item. So when we walk in the front door for the first time in weeks and Roo sticks his little nose in the air and sniffing says, “This place smells bene!” (That’s “good,” in Italian) I totally understand. (Mr. Handsome could care less about the smell. He goes straight for the television to see if the Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie was TIVO recorded. He has his priorities.)

Dear Hot Flashes Fans,

Have you been asking, "Where in the world is Esme"?

We were wondering the same thing until we received a postcard last week — or what was once a postcard. Under a fine schmear of sticky goo (tastes like margarita mix), tiny bits of ground rock (sand and crystallized salt), and chocolatey fingerprints (which forensics matched up to Roo), we were able to surmise that Esme and her boys are enjoying the last days of summer somewhere warm and quite possibly tropical.

Not to worry, Esme assures us she will come back in time to share those back-to-school daze and to relay all her summer adventures. For now, they are just enjoying each other's company.

We look forward to hearing from them soon.

The First Wives World Team

Every so often something happens to remind you time is passing. The bagels that you bought two weeks ago turn moldy; the cable company sends a bill marked, “urgent”; the cute teenage boy at the supermarket check-out calls you “Ma’am.” (For any woman over the age of thirty-five, an especially rough one.) And then, to add insult to injury, if you’re a parent, particularly in touchy feely Southern California, there’s “Move Over Day” at school.

A few weeks ago I read this article about a pair of Buddhist teachers who live as a couple and have taken a vow never to be more than fifteen feet apart. This is apparently more than a little controversial in the world of Buddhist scholarship because among other things, the relationship is being presented as a celibate but intimate partnership between an older man and a young woman who some in the community refer to as a “blonde bombshell.” Now, though your definition of a “bombshell” might differ from someone who has spent twenty years in a monastery, the point is, no one thinks this set up can actually work. The vow applies to their hearts and minds but in particular to their bodies, which means they are literally together all the time.

This Buddhist couple got me to thinking. I mean, the premise sounded horrible and interesting at the same time. The idea of never being able to be more than fifteen feet away from your partner sounds intriguingly atrocious. They even go to the bathroom together (apparently if they’re in an airport one will stand outside the bathroom door to spare the general public) but I stopped peeing in front of guys when Mr. Handsome was three years old and he asked me why I had “wire hair.” (Raoul — the handyman — was in the house when he said this. I was mortified and my handyman couldn’t stop laughing.)

It all starts when I make up with La Annabelle. It's Friday night and the "Sex and the City" movie has just opened and my doorbell rings. Jeffrey has the boys for three days, because, I kid you not, he's supposed to spend a week at some ashram in the Blue Ridge Mountains and he wants some "quality time" with his offspring before he goes. This ashram nonsense is his Father's Day gift from the Concubine, who God bless her stupid little heart, insists on staying with him, at least through the summer. (This may have something to do with the tacky mansion he always rents on the beach in Santa Barbara every August, or it might just be his money.)

Anyhoo, I open the door and there's La Annabelle, with Cody the vegan teetering next to her. They're all glammed up, wearing Manolos, and oddly (or not so oddly) there are Cosmos in their hands. (Actually, Cody's shoes are that cruelty free brand that Natalie Portman, also a vegan, has designed. Even for the most anticipated chick flick of the century, Cody won't cross to the dark side.) "Are you my Miranda or my Charlotte?" Annabelle says, then reaches into her Balenciaga (the same one she flounced out of my house with when we had that nasty fight) and pulls out a bedazzled thermos. "I'm your fucking Samantha," I tell her, and kind of thrust out my boobs. Then Annabelle tells me to get the hell out of my ratty jeans and t-shirt because we're going to the movies. "Move your cute ass," she adds, "We have to stop somewhere first." "Stop where?" I ask her and she just shakes her head mysteriously while Cody wobbles in her meatless shoes and does her best not to give anything away. "What's the J-ster doing for Father's Day?" Annabelle asks me and when I tell her he's having dinner at home with the C-word and the kids she says something that sounds like, "Last Supper," which in the moment, I don't really understand.

When I first got separated (such a ladylike term — it should be "wrenched," or "torn," or "severed," that's more like it) all I did was eat. Cheesecake, Pop Tarts, Cap'N Crunch, all the stuff that Jeffrey hated and that I knew was bad for me went straight into my "separated" body. I guess the idea was that the bad stuff would fill me up — you know, the separated parts would theoretically all come back together because all that fat and sugar would round me out, as it were. I'm sure you can understand what I was thinking. It made a lot of sense at the time, plus I was always hungry and common sense told me food was the way to go.

That lasted for a little while, and then, for lack of a better option, and with the encouragement of Annabelle (no, we haven't totally mended the fence yet, but we're working on it) I joined a gym. I've always hated gyms. The idea of sweating in front of strangers never appealed to me (I can't imagine why) and the thought of seeing all those nubile twenty-something actress wannabes (this is Los Angeles after all) flaunting their belly rings made my own Buddha belly turn. But I went anyway, out of boredom, more than anything else, and the belief that even though I was eating everything that was put in front of me, (a little shout out to Fritos here), the working out would literally, make me a stronger person. That somehow, a treadmill was going to propel me in the direction that I needed to go.

Well, as we all know, Memorial Day was just upon us. Memorial Day signifies many things to many people. It is the near end of another school year. It is the unofficial start of summer. It is the signal that tennis camp and endless barbecues (how much sausage can one woman eat?) and god help us bikini season is right around the corner. (A few months ago I actually had the audacity to purchase a bikini, in a racy leopard print, thinking that in honor of dumping Jeffrey I would also dump the ten pounds that he left behind on my hips and ass. What a surprise, that didn't happen.) Memorial Day is also obviously the holiday where we are meant to remember the people who have fought and died for our country, and while I won't go into a long diatribe about that, I can say that I, who am not sure I would know how to die for any cause, truly appreciate what they have done. That said, and with no disrespect, I would like to take this opportunity to do a shout out to some of the things in my life that despite my best intentions I may have lost, or am losing, or may never lose, but that I still want to remember.

So, here again, in no particular order (order clearly not being my strong point):

1. I want to remember my name. (I'm not kidding. Seriously, I'm starting to forget things.)

2. I want to remember my marriage before it got fucked up. (Hmm...not really.)

3. I want to remember how I texted Jeffrey after the Mother's Day brunch from hell and tore him a new one for sticking me with the three hundred and forty three dollar bill.

4. I want to remember how I then realized I still have our joint savings account number so just for fun I called the bank and drained it.

5. I want to remember that I was not a loser for picking Jeffrey in the first place, and that picking losers doesn't make you one.

So here's the thing about being "peri-menopausal," (or as I like to call it, "PM.") It makes you cranky. (*Note: I was told by my ob-gyn that since I still occasionally get my period, I am not actually in full blown menopause. I ask her what constitutes "full blown" and she tells me that I will know it when I feel it which frankly, makes me even crankier than I am.) Apparently, PM can make you a lot of things (hungry, tired, bored by sex, totally horny) but it can also turn you into a monster. I have seen this in myself and I have seen it in my girlfriends and I have seen it in my neighbor whose husband comes home from work, finds her bawling and screams, "Why can't you just be happy?!" Some of us snap at our children. Many of us rail at our significant others. A few of us yell at our boob-enhanced friends who stood by us when our husbands brought home hookers. That's where I come in.