This came in email from my friend Jan: "My husband, being unhappy with my mood swings, bought me a mood ring the other day. We've discovered that, when I'm in a good mood, it turns green. When I'm in a bad mood, it leaves a damn big red mark on his forehead.

"Maybe next time he'll buy me a diamond."

"That's what you get for having a husband," I replied, once I stopped laughing.

But then, since I'm so smart, what do I get out of not having one, or trying not to, anyway?

I remember a conversation I had with a colleague before I married Ed. My colleague had split from his wife of many years after learning of her affair. (Ouch!)

He asked me, "Sondra, you've been single for a long time. How do you stand it?"

How did I stand it?

First off, I told him, it's incumbent on us to capitalize on whatever state we're in.

The good thing about being single, I told him, is that I owed no one any explanations, or even any thought, about how I lived my life: when and where I worked, how to spend or save my money.

I could stay up all night watching old movies while eating crackers in bed, then hop on a flight to wherever suited my mood, and my finances.

I made it sound good, and you know what? It is good.

Now here I am on the other side. I'm pretty sure I'd feel different if I had kids instead of pets. And money is definitely tight in this early-post-Ed era: no more cable TV, which means I have a lot fewer movie all-nighters. Or crackers.

Right now, a spur-of-the-moment jaunt is likely to end in a local park.

But it is my life again, to do with as I please, and as best I can. I neither blame nor am beholden to anybody else for the way it works out.

You know, I'm not into diamonds. But if I want a ring, I can save up and buy the one I choose, rather than hope I like what somebody else picks out for me.

And that's good, too.