Diary of an Ugly, Recently Divorced Man Read online

  Diary of an Ugly, Recently Divorced Man

  Félix Amador Gálvez

  Translated by L. Finch

  “Diary of an Ugly, Recently Divorced Man”

  Written By Félix Amador Gálvez

  Copyright © 2017 Félix Amador

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by L. Finch

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Diary of an Ugly, Recently Divorced Man

  Dear blog

  With a little help from my friends

  Women can smell it

  Out of sight, out of mind

  Back to my roots

  Close encounters of the third kind

  The strategy of the snail

  Day two

  Day three

  Little shop of horrors

  The Rosetta Stone of the twenty-first century

  One hundred years of solitude

  Paco

  P day (P for party)

  Hitting rock bottom

  Women can smell it part 2: I've lost my charm

  Trial and error

  The man from Chinatown

  Like that chef on TV

  After digestion

  Blog for sale

  Climate change

  Episode IV: A new hope

  Prelude to a kiss

  M, the curtain of smoke

  A time of love and hope

  In Lolo's shadow

  In Lolo's shadow (part two)

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

  In Lolo's shadow III: The return of the king

  Spiritual exercises

  Psychologists and Argentinian psychologists

  Living la vida loca

  Black Monday

  The bald man

  The dark side

  The other

  This isn't goodbye

  Starting line

  The Internet café at the end of the world

  A small-town Robinson Crusoe

  A month-long prison sentence

  An old love

  A hotel in Almeria

  Back to childhood

  Back to maturity

  The return

  A bit-city Robinson Crusoe

  Flied lice

  Girl stuff

  Long hot summer

  Happiness

  I'm leaving

  The Mexican Caribbean or the Riviera Maya

  All-inclusive

  Hangover

  The other side of the bed

  Of endings and stories without an end

  New girl at work

  Among friends

  Maid of the right stuff

  Another kind of spider web

  The most magnificent maid

  Miss Colombia

  Conspirators among us

  The age of experience

  The man of the year

  Of insecurities and uncertainties

  Hellish wait

  The day has come

  The lost weekend

  In ruins

  Felix reloaded

  Felix revolutions

  In the arms of Bacchus

  Hangover Monday

  The second chance

  That thing called love

  Warning for sailors

  Nine weeks or only a half

  Jealousy and elephant seals

  Squeaky clean

  The memory of elephants

  Emergency bonbons

  Jealousy

  I need a vacation

  Two tickets to paradise

  Smooth as silk

  The Caribbean, again

  Vacation in paradise

  Modern jazz

  Luck

  But seriously

  Twice over the same stone

  Between drinks

  Among friends

  Bitter forgiveness

  Passenger to Frankfurt

  Why can’t we live together

  Frankfurter

  Murphy's Law

  Third day in Frankfurt

  Suspicious minds

  Letting loose...in Frankfurt

  Of spies, surprises and betrayals

  Plans for revenge

  Dinner of fools

  Inconsolable

  Drinking to forget

  Two is better than one

  Tempted by the fruit of another

  On leave

  I'm bored.

  Yes, I'm bored.

  I'm really bored

  I need a drink

  Djellabah and hookah

  A Renault 12 and five stars

  In the desert

  Tea in the Sahara

  Djellabah

  And hookah

  Goodnight, Spain

  Sign, period

  Life comes and goes

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Diary of an Ugly, Recently Divorced Man

  Félix Amador Gálvez

  Translated by L. Finch

  “Diary of an Ugly, Recently Divorced Man”

  Written By Félix Amador Gálvez

  Copyright © 2016 Félix Amador

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by L. Finch

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Félix Amador Gálvez

  Diary of an Ugly, Recently Divorced Man

  To my friends,

  they know who they are

  Friday, April 27

  Dear blog

  Dear diary,

  My wife just left me. Say it like that, and it sounds like I'm just one more among millions. I don't know how to introduce myself. I'm a normal guy. I'm a thirty-something... Well, let's say that I'll soon be leaving my thirties behind. I'm an executive at a multinational hardware and software company. Maybe I'm not like the rest of you mortals in that I don't have to worry about a mortgage. With everything else, though, I'm the most normal guy.

  I didn't want to separate. Actually, I don't know if I wanted to stay married. I'd never thought about it. If anyone asks, I'll say that I love I loved I love her. Some people treat love and marriage frivolously. Everyone jokes about marriage. (Actually, it seems no one jokes around with their friends anymore; when my friends gather around the coffeemaker, at most what they do is talk about the emails they've received). Jokes about the downsides of marriage. I've never done it. Once, while we were trying to waste time knocking back coffee after coffee, Juan Carlos referred to all of us married people as The Fellowship of the Ring, and he, of course, wasn't talking about the hobbits and elves of Tolkien's book. It was a kind of misogynist metaphor based on a fairly basic philosophy:

  a) Lots of rings exist, but only one was created (the Wedding Ring) to rule them all.

  b) If you put the Ring on, you become invisible to the rest of womankind, except your wife.

  c) As long as you wear the Ring, She will see you no matter where you are.

  Well, it seems I'm free of all that now because my wife—I meant to say my ex—decided that at thirty-something years old, she needed to see the world. Midlife crisis? It took me a few weeks to find out, but now I know that the world she was referring to works with her from eight to three, is a few years older than me and is handsome. Or so she said. Handsome! But she had never told me I was ugly!

  I could have killed myself, could have tried to hurt myself (that unfortun
ately is also all the rage), I could have given her an ultimatum or declared war (pretend that I wanted to keep everything or ask for impossible settlements) or I could have tried to make the guy's life miserable, but I gave up, straightaway, just like that.

  And to deal with it, I've taken up writing. Me, who hasn't read anything for ages. But I need to get rid of the loneliness that's eating me up inside and exercise my fingers a little bit, so I've taken it up and created this blog to serve as a diary. This might do nothing more than banish a few personal demons, but even then it's better than sitting down to cry.

  The fact that I've decided to try keeping a diary isn't surprising. I began writing poetry at twelve years old (like every other hormonal pre-teen brimming with sensitivity, though this earned me more than a few knocks from my classmates), but writing is one of those things that people give up on because it leads nowhere.

  Today, however, I found myself messing around on the Internet, trying not to think about the disastrous meeting I had just suffered through with the director of marketing or about my ex (something I can't help), looking up photos of Jennifer Connelly or Elsa Pataky online, and I came across hundreds of personal blogs, an invention anyone can use to air their grievances. Starting today, I'm going to do just that. I'm going to publish my grievances as an ugly, recently divorced man on the Web of Webs, scatter them to the wind like you would with a loved one's ashes.

  Take from it what you will.

  Published by Felix at 12:25 a.m. * Post a comment

  Wednesday, May 2

  With a little help from my friends

  With good friends, you never know if they're helping you out or jerking you around.

  Today, I finally told everyone at work that what's been driving me crazy, what's made me invisible in meetings and what's shrunk my client list by half are all the same thing. You're having an affair, Joaquin, the bastard, shouted, trying to guess. I cut straight to the point, losing my cool. My wife left me. It was like an Incantation of Friendship Eternal because everyone circled around me and began saying what a good guy I was and how I didn't deserve this. Why the past tense? Then, they put a coffee in my hand and (let's say) tried to lift my spirits.

  Phrases like you'll find someone else or she wasn't your type, as Juan Carlos told me: Really attractive and a babe, but she wasn't your type. Phrases that I suppose were meant to be encouraging. Others simply wanted to strip me of the urge to think about her again: She's no good. Always arguing with you, and what's more, her tits are really small, and didn't you say that she never separated out the recycling from the trash? Lolo, with his usual sensitivity, was much more explicit: You got your rocks off with her for how long? Four years? Well, now you'll find someone else and have a good time, it'll take you two days.

  I tried to ignore them, but they kept "boosting my morale" for a while: There's more women than stupid people in this world. What a relief. Forget about her...um...Would you mind if I called her?

  When we left, Joaquin stayed behind and gave me a hug (he's a good guy, the kind who worries) and told me that he has a friend who has a friend who would be a done deal, in case at some point I was feeling desperate, and that he knows another woman who is married but who's crazy about letting loose and if I ever wanted to... But I'm in such a state that if I see a woman, I begin to shake. It'll pass, I hope.

  And, I don't know how it happened, but when we went back to our desks, I began to notice these sidelong glances, that kind of look that says, I know your secret, or a wink that conveys, You don't know how sorry I feel for you.

  The funny thing is that coming from some female coworkers in research and development, including their secretaries, those ocular messages suggested something more than just a simple attempt at visual consolation.

  Published by Felix at 12:37 a.m. * Post a comment

  Thursday, May 3

  Women can smell it

  You can play dumb, try to act like nothing's happened, but word gets out and then everyone in the office, from the director, with his easy, demagogic way of speaking, to the very last secretary knows that your wife has left you. My boss, in his paternal role, came up to me this morning as soon as he saw me and stretched out his hand. As if wanting to downplay the situation, he told me something along the lines of I was a victim of a passing fad. It's a trend. Everyone's getting divorced. Twenty years ago, everyone smoked. It was a trend. Now everyone’s getting divorced. Really? Several of Laura's friends were divorced. Had she left me to fit in with her friends? Despite everything, you keep pretending like nothing's happened.

  Then the worst hits.

  There's always someone who knows more than you, who can tell that you're down in the dumps even before your own defeatist self admits it. Women especially. It seems that like sharks on the hunt, they can smell defenseless men from far away.

  It happens without warning, in the middle of a conversation that you thought was flowing normally. You're talking about numbers and ratios, but your coworker, boss or secretary isn't listening. You keep talking (working) and she isn't listening (she's working you). Suddenly, she lets it fly. Stop, she says, I know how hard it must be for you. You jump back, startled. It's not hard, the numbers are what they are. We'll sell more next year... But she pretends not to hear you. She has other "projects." You can count on me for anything. And she begins to fawn over you in a way that you never would have imagined a woman ever would. You've always struck me as a really sensitive guy, but I had no idea you were suffering like this. This runs counter to what she intends and makes you picture her playing the role of mother, hugging you and... No, God, no!

  Then there's the one who has gone through it already. I know what you're feeling because I've been there. Sure, they say experience is the best teacher, but did the consolation you received help at all? And she says, You and I have so much in common. Or the one who worries about you. How are you? Good, but it's the first time in five years that we've talked. It must be so tough for you. How are you passing the time? Well, last night I was watching the game, but I was exhausted and ended up falling asleep on the sofa, and I didn't wake up until the early hours of the morning. Oh, and nobody was there to complain? And then I'm out of answers. Morbid curiosity or is this about to get interesting?

  Only two women abstained from trying to bait me with their comments: one was the director's secretary, who was probably thinking more about her approaching retirement than anything else, and the other was the girl from the mailroom, who you can rely on for a good morning and a smile, but isn’t one for conversation.

  Theoretically, the girl from the mailroom could be a possibility. She's in her early twenties and is the type of woman who doesn't draw people's attention. She's not blonde, not anything special and she's always hidden behind a modest sweater and thick-rimmed glasses; she always comes to work wearing jeans, her hair piled carelessly on top of her head; it doesn't look like she wears makeup, or at least she uses less of it than that discreet, but flirty amount women wear when they want to please; all in all, she's not my ideal girl, not even close, and now she's on my blacklist for not trying like the rest!

  The worst is that all these episodes happened at once, over the course of one morning, and it's now two in the morning and I haven't been able to sleep a wink because I'm worried I'll have nightmares.

  Published by Felix at 2:22 a.m. * Post a comment

  Friday, May 4

  Out of sight, out of mind

  Joaquin is wrong. He says that everyone who's "left behind" spends all day talking about their exes. Everyone, except me.

  He's wrong because I don't need to talk about Laura. It barely just happened and I'm already getting over it. She's far away, and I almost almost almost don't even miss her. I don't even feel lonely because I have too many things to things to think about.

  How am I going to miss that bad mood she woke up in every morning, with that inability of hers to talk until she had her first cup of coffee? Sure, it's true that her grumbling was in its own wa
y like a sweet, seductive purr, that her footsteps as she padded to the kitchen were soft and rhythmic, as if she didn't want to wake up her still-sleeping body. No, I don't even miss that way of walking, which was so sexy to me.

  I could long for how her voice screeched like a broken bell when she gave me a hard time about something she didn't like because I had left something in the wrong place or simply because she was itching to fight. Or the amount of time I lost in my life waiting for her because she was always late or took too long to get ready, as if she needed all that primping. She was delightfully lazy on Sundays, she was demanding in bed, she was lousy at trying to convince me of anything.

  I could miss those days when I felt like going out and she insisted on staying home and watching movies that we'd already seen, she was so bent on doing it, and then she would fall asleep on me or curl up on my arm, and I would lower the volume on the TV and for a while listen to the rhythm of her breathing without wanting to move my arm, and it would invariably fall asleep because I wouldn't wake her up.

  How was I supposed to know that's what it's about, about choosing a person who is perfect, tenacious, automatically loyal and emotionally stable who would never think about changing their plans for the future? How could I have suspected that it's about choosing well, only about the choice, and that's where I went wrong? I messed up, I chose a fun, sexy, intelligent woman, I chose with my heart, staring into her dark eyes, without thinking about the future. How stupid I was.

  I think Joaquin is wrong. I talk too much, but not about her. I talk about me, and how stupid I was.

  Published by Felix at 12:25 a.m. * Post a comment

  Monday, May 7

  Back to my roots

  When you've spent years working in the city, when you studied hundreds of miles away and you earned your degree abroad, visiting the town of your birth becomes quite the event.

  I'm not talking deep down, of course. The event is the crowd that gathers around me when they see me arrive. My hometown is no longer that village stuck in the past where a coffee cost less than a package of sunflower seeds in the rest of the world, but even today you'll still see whitewashed facades and old people sitting in the sun outside their front door. It's not that the country folk haven't modernized (we are in the twenty-first century, and they've swapped their mules for tows and turned their potato fields into residential areas), but even still, you turn onto Main Street and someone will stare at your BMW 7 Series like it's a UFO.