Cheering for her ex-husband Hanoi John and his richer wife?


espite the titles of her two books, A Change of Heart: Words of Experience and Hope for the Journey Through Divorce and You Are Not Alone: Words of Experience and Hope for the Journey Through Depression, al-Qerry's dumpee is normally a very happy person. At least she is now. Back when she was married to a certain longface losing liberal from Massoqueeretts, however, her life was a complete and utter hell.

It's all in her books. You don't need to get Senator Scratch-n-Scoot to release their divorce records the way Jeri Ryan and her senate-candidate husband's were against their mutual wishes. These excerpts sum up the whole sad, sordid truth of that living hell known as Wedded to the Waffler:

Effin Face (my pet name for him when we were married) told me he didn't like the color of our new limousine. I said it shouldn't matter what something looks like on the outside. It's what's inside that matters.

Of course, he wasn't going to listen to what I had to say. He never did. He blamed me for choosing the "wrong" color, for not finding a limousine that was "right for him." I tried to remind him that it was the exact same color he picked out for it just a few weeks before. But he said he wanted a new color before he didn't want it. Such was our life together.

If I had a nickel for every flip-flop he had like this one, I'd probably be rich enough that he'd still want to be married to me.

—A Change of Heart, p. 127.

It does rip your heart out to know that the man you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with decides one day that your bank account isn't as green as someone else's. There were times when I wanted to go into every grocery store I could, buy up its entire stock of ketchup, and empty each bottle into my swimming pool until it was filled up. Then I'd jump in, drowning myself in a liquid that matched the shade and consistency, if not the amount, of all the despair my heart was bleeding after he told me on that cold Winter's day, "Julia, dear, I've changed my mind" (again). That would show him and his new "queen."

But then I asked why give them the satisfaction? (Or the insurance payout?) He's not worth it. So I simply buy Del Monte ketchup now instead, and relish every bite of each squirming french fry I dunk into it.

—You Are Not Alone, p. 460.

I've learned from bitter experience that the best way to relieve frustration and stress over the two-faced, vow-breaking, double-talking connivings of some people is to take an object that closely resembles that person and to either smash it to bits or repeatedly throw darts into it. My friends are always complementing me on my forbearance, as I keep around my house several ceramic busts of my former husband. They believe it's a healthy sign that I have not only accepted what he did to me but have moved on to a feeling of generosity, well-wishing, and respect. They also ask me why those busts aren't the same ones they saw the last time they visited me. Now you (and they) know the answer. If they want to view what's left of the previous ones, they'll have to go digging through the local landfill.

Along those same lines, my friends believe I have a modern-art poster of my former husband in my game room. They ask who painted the original full-length portrait, and could they get a framed print of this artwork too? The most interesting aspect of that portrait, so my friends comment, is the artist's extensive use of the technique known as "pointillism." Until now, I haven't told them that the poster is simply a blown-up photograph and that the pointillist is yours truly (via my "dart brushes"). What puzzles them, however, is the overuse of that pointillism effect in the subject's crotch area.

—You Are Not Alone, p. 109.

I asked him not to throw his medals over that fence in front of the Capitol. He looked at me as if I were some kind of space alien.

Here was a man who was my own brother's best friend. A man I admired for all those scratches he got on the killing fields of Vietnam. Who had the courage to tell the Congress and the whole world that our troops were a bunch of ruthless, heartless baby killers.

Now, as I looked into those cold, calculating eyes, I saw things there I'd never seen before: disgust, anger, contempt, and more than a hint of madness. I shrunk back—almost as if he'd struck me with his closed fist. He turned his back on me before tossing every single medal and ribbon he had in his hand over that fence. But there was one additional heart, besides those on the three medals he was renouncing, that he also threw over it. That heart was mine.

—A Change of Heart, p. 382.

Judging by these excerpts, I doubt their divorce records could give a more thorough account of life with this Hanoi Hubby.




Sunday, October 3, 2004, 11:59 PM. The preceding has been an unpaid noncommercial parody brought to you by John Farce Qerry, d'Inc. Any similarity to actual events and persons, married or divorced, is purely intentional.

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