meeting

The Ex came over last night and, unfortunately, brought PegLeg. After some small talk, we retired to the back porch to smoke and discuss the custody.

After they each bummed a cigarette from me, she explained about the house and about her plans. PegLeg occasionally inserted a comment about how good the schools were because that's where he went to school.

"As much as it'll likely make my life a living hell," I said when she'd come to a stop, "I'm going to have to say 'no.'"

"But why?" she implored, frustrated but not angry.

I handed her the list you all read yesterday, printed especially for the occasion.

"If you get a lawyer," I said casually as she read the single folded sheet, "show that to him. Or I will."

"This support thing is a low blow," she muttered, seeing that I'd put how much she'd owe me in back support if we went to court.

"I would have reimbursed you if you'd filed through the state, but you couldn't be bothered to do that simple thing, so now you have no receipts for support."

She silently perused the rest of the list. "It doesn't matter, Ric, there's no way the court will refuse the mother custody." "I tried it," PegLeg spoke up, "My ex-wife was caught red-handed on crank, had no job and move ten guys in and out of her house, and the court wouldn't give me custody. You'd have to prove Ex is an unfit mother and she's not. Anything you have to say about me is irrelevant because it's about her."

"You're married to her," You fucking idiot, "it's about the household in general."

PegLeg and Ex went on for a while about how it would be hopeless for me to try to keep custody.

"Look, it's just too soon, Ex. If you came to me totally sober a year from now, I'd probably have a different answer. If a judge says they belong with you, then so be it. I won't have any hard feelings. I just don't believe that will be the verdict right now."

"Well, it will be."

"Whatever."

"Plus," chimed the one-legged wonder, "we're married. And the court's going to see a married couple as a better home that a single father. Especially with girls."

Ex: "Yes, girls need their mom" I closed the conversation: "Well, I'll get a lawyer when I see paperwork from you."

We went inside.

I pulled her aside alone and asked her straight out if they could afford rent on the new house without my support. She assured me they could.

After PegLeg made casual mention to my girls about buying them go carts if they got the new house and I reprimanded EX for his bribery, they left.

Katie, my eldest, stopped by the couch where I was sulking shortly after they left. I let her know why mom was here. She's upset that she has to be in the situation this is putting her in.

Unbidden she said, "Mom told me a while back that she'd have more money if us girls came and lived with her, because she'd get your support." (The Ex, despite the number of times I explain it and she agrees, will never quite grasp the notion that the support is solely for the benefit of the children.)

And so I wait. And in the interim, I be the best Father I can be.

new link on left

wanna date me?

hoax

As Yndy so observantly discovered, the drunk driving death I mentioned a few days ago is a hoax.

Sorry for any inconvenient dismay.

sleeping cat

ZZZzz |\      _,,,--,,_  ,)
      /,`.-'`'   -,  ;-;;' 
     |,4-  ) )-,_ ) /\     
    '`--''(_/--' (_/-'     

holy hell

The Ex called me at work this afternoon.

This is Ric.

This is Ex!

Hey.

Hey, I have some good news, I think.

Really? We found a four-room house to rent [fifteen minutes father away from you].

Really?

Yeah, and if you can do it without a battle, I'd like custody.

Okay. Umm...

I talked to the girls and they were okay with moving.

Really? They came home and told me that you wanted to get custody and move them but they didn't want to move and they wanted to stay with me. I'm not saying they lied to you or they lied to me--what I am saying is that they seem to be out to please us both.

So, what do you think?

I think this is a conversation I don't really want to have on the phone. I don't care how jealous PegLeg gets, we need to talk about this face to face.

Well, you know there's no judge in this state that's going to keep the kids from their mother.

That's one way to see it.

That's the only way to see it. And it's not going to matter what the kids say, they are too young--I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

What's that?

Get this house and get custody.

This is why I don't want to have this conversation on the phone.

Okay. can we meet tonight? Are you coming straight home from work?

I'm busy.

How about tomorrow?

That's cool. I'll be there after work.

Are we going to talk to the kids or what?

We'll talk alone first and then to the kids maybe.

Okay, I'll see you tomorrow.


Okay let me translate: "I found a house to rent, but since I just lost my job and PegLeg is only on disability, I need your support to be able to afford it. And so I need custody so you'll have to pay support."


Here's a short list of things I'll give her in written form tomorrow that she will need to show her lawyer. She'll be tempted to hide them from him, but I'll assure her I'll bring them up in court:

In the last twelve months:

1. You married a man eight weeks after our divorce that you met in rehab eight weeks before the divorce.
2. You were in rehab twice, the first time dismissing yourself out of denial of your problem.
3. You moved Tattooine in with my kids the day before I moved out.
4. You were drunk the entire last week of June because you were upset about your job.
5. You haven't had a phone three out of the last six months.
6. You lost your job last week.
7. You haven't paid dime one in support.
8. Your husband passed out from taking too big of an IV dose of Oxycontin an overdose of Adavan at the dinner table where my kids were eating.
9. You have taken advantage of hardly any mid-week visitation times.
10. The kids are in school near my house.
11. The kids are living in the house that we bought for them to grow up in.

Hopefully that will give her pause.

missouri anecdote

I was about an hour and a half from my initial destination in Olathe, Kansas when I stopped at a gas station in western Missouri.

I performed my usual ritual of checking fluids, refilling my Mountain Dew, urinating and walking the kinks out. As I climbed into my car, I saw a man across the auxiliary parking lot kneeling beside his car. As I am a helpful guy with every tool I owned in the trunk of my car I was tempted to help. I watch him for a few more minutes to see if I could determine if he had bad enough car trouble to warrant assistance.

I noticed that he was kneeling on a towel. I didn't find that strange as he was nicely dressed in charcoal dress pants and warm-colored short-sleeve broadcloth shirt. I saw him lean down as to look in his left-front wheel well and sit upright as if he couldn't see what the matter was.

I hadn't closed my door and I was about to stand up to walk over and ask him if I could be of service when he bent down again. And again.

At that point, I noticed the edge of the towel wasn't aligned with the car (as I would have placed it) but at an arbitrarily skewed angle to the car. In fact it was pointing East.

I climbed back in my car and let the man say his evening prayers in peace.

blogging pays off

One of the half-dozen women who failed to call me over the weekend just sent a stuffed bear and balloons to my office in apology.

I'm speechless.

shit for brians brains

Let me start by apologizing for my lack of bloggage and failure to blog the happenings of my trip. I inadvertatnly ran out of Celexa last weekend (a week ago) and the over-tired and overwhelmedness has overtaken me. Compounding that was the entire last week spent expecting emails or phone calls from no less than a half-dozen members of the fairer sex for one reason or another that--for one reason or another--never came. Women from my past, present and potential future all failed miserably in fulfilling their promises to communicate. Some of those promises were inferred by me and some of those women were inexplicably vexed in their efforts by Verizon wireless, but all-in-all it felt a lot like rejection.

At this point, I've decided never to expect women to call or email even if they promise to. This will save a great deal of grief on my part. If I don't initiate communication, then I'll assume it isn't going to happen. Unfortunate, but I have no other recourse.

Adding to the load, I followed a blogsnob link from FurHouse to this site only to find out he'd been killed a week ago by a drunk driver in Grand Haven, MI who was pissed that the IRS wanted to reposess his transcamero and led police on a three-state chase and appears to be still at large.

Miss Jones, in a disturbing chain of events, publicly informed her new boyfriend that he'd fucked up by obsessing over his old girlfriend and he went and did it again. Some guys never learn.

Maybe I'll post more about vacation, maybe I won't. There's a few nice anecdotes, but a chronological account won't be happening.

A public note to all the women in my life: Call me, okay? Or drop me an email. I need something to bolster me till I get the Celexa coursing throught the veins again...

tide u

I'm working on the rest of the trip for you. I didn't blog it as the week went on as I'd hoped. I just wasn't in the mood.

Here is some travelling trivia to tide you over:

• Electric-eye sink faucets in Missouri dispense exactly two cups of water before shutting off.
• Kansas and Missori are Quite Proud that thier interstate highway is part of the Eisenhower Interstate System.
• You can sleep at a rest area over night even if you're in a car--contratry to all the advice I got before I went.
• If you have a dark blu car and no air condidtioning and it's summer, travel at night.
• 7-Eleven 64 oz Double Big Gulps are the best fountain Mt. Dew value in the country.
• Most non 7-Elevens will let you refill a 64 oz cup even though they don't sell them.
• Always look for "services" before taking an emergency exit to get gas or you might have to drive twenty miles to find a gas station. Even in Indiana.
• The people who tell you Kansas is flat and boring to drive through have never driven the Ohio Turnpike, let alone driven through eastern Iowa.
• The majority of the interstate paths in Kansas City and Denver are perpetually under construction.
• When travelling through Kansas, stop at Hayes. It's your last chance to see cute girls working at a 24-hour Wal-Mart till you get to Denver or Kansas City.
• Don't attempt to drive more than 3000 miles alone without audiobooks.
• ...or cigarettes.
• If you're not used to driving in the Rocky Mountains, it is ill-advised to take any road that has a "pass" along it if you are in a hurry.

Soon, my pretties.

starbucks - golden, colorado 6:38 a.m.

I just arrived after a quaint ten-hour trip from Kansas City. It went as planned. Except I planned for twelve hours instead of ten. Thank God for that sign on the eastern border of Colorado that said "SPEED LIMIT : 75 MPH : STRICTLY ENFORCED"

I'm not sure my '92 Saturn with 196,000 miles on it would survive prolonged speeds above 75 mph.

On Friday, I packed every tool I've ever fixed a car with (including hydraulic floor jack) into the trunk of my car, got the oil changed, changed the air filter and headed off to stay the night with my friend Greg in Urbana, Illinois. He is a graduate student at the UIUC--the birthplace of the World Wide Web, but I'm ahead of myself.

North of Indianapolis (about an hour and a half into my trip, I got stuck in a traffic jam and my car began to overheat. I took the nearest exit and drained the pure water out of my cooling system and refilled it with the proper mix of coolant and water, and I was back on the road.

Finally I made it to Greg's apartment. I've known Greg since college. He is one of the only people in the world that gets almost every obscure joke I make. It's really scary. He took me to supper and then on a tour of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) campus. I had no idea what kind of a place that is. It's like a Harvard of the midwest.

There is so much history (especially when it comes to computer technology) there that it's truly awe-inspiring. He showed me buildings that were donated by alumni that have made real differences in how we compute. He showed me the building that housed the ILNIAC (the third large-scale computer following UNIVAC and ENIAC). The build has since had a facade built around it, but the original outer walls still stand as interior walls. These walls still house emergency steel riot shutters that would close in case mobs protesting the war-oriented ballistic calculations being done in that building got out of hand.

He showed me the cluster of Sony PS2's intended to connect the inexpensive machines together to make a super-fast graphics rendering computer. He also pointed out the building that house clusters of 1500 PC's being connected together to make massively parallel supercomputers.

Finally he showed me the building where Mark Andreeson developed the Mosaic application--the world's first Web browser. It was from this development that a system evolved by which you are reading this right now.

After watching Animatrix back at his place I slept and took off Saturday morning for Kansas City...

notes on my last workday before vacation

I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow. The 2003 bitchen.com midwest tour. It will be Champaign, IL, St Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Colorado Springs, Denver, Kansas City, St Louis, Home.

I'm gonna try to blog as often as I do now. I'll at least blog them offline on my laptop and post them all later.

Here's a well-written new blog for your reading enjoyment if I happen not to blog for a while. If you like "Trading Spaces" or "This Old House" or "Get Fuzzy" this one's for you.

I dreamt that an animatronic Marilyn Monroe in a picture frame was signing "Theme from my Alarm Clock" this morning. It sounded like "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

Finally, why do people always call it a "little soiree?" Is this an attempt by pretentious people to sound modest, yet still be pretentious? Why are "soiree"s always accompanied by "little?" Would un petite soiree sound more French? And aren't there ever large soirees? And what's the matter with the dozen or so English words we have for "party?" Hmmmm?

aw, crap!

I leave Friday on my trip out west and I forgot something:

I have no idea what I'm going to do with the dog!

Kenneling her is about $100 I don't have. She isn't fully housebroken, so nobody wants her in the house. I'm tempted to get a neighborhood kid to housesit or, at least, look in on the dog.

Any volunteers?


good news

I have officially added Denver back on my itinerary for the trip! I happened upon a legitimate business meeting in Denver (I wasn't even looking for it) so the whole Denver leg will be financed by my employer! You people in Denver, email me, and let's set something up, (You know who you are!)

anti-smoking entry #1a

I still need a cigarette.

anti-smoking entry #1

I told you I was gonna blog instead of reaching for a cigarette and here I go.

Since it's stress that always vexes me when I try to quit smoking, I'll blog. Blogging relieves stress for me. Knowing that, within 24 hours of posting this, about fifty people will read it and go (by and large) "yeah, I know what you mean," is really a good feeling.

I also snitch, thinking one here and there to relieve stress (usually over my ex) is not going to set me back. It always does. This time I'm not going to say (which I inevitably do) "fuck it" and buy a pack of smokes.

The Ex left me a note when she picked up the kids today. She picked up the kids so she can have them for the next two weeks, which is her "half" of the summer. And it's only because I'm going out of town that she's taking them. If the Brickyard 400 had been next weekend, she would have had a conflict.

Ponder that.

So I'm sitting here at Hardee's eating six slammers with mustard and extra onions because it's the closest I can get to Power's with driving the half-hour into Fort Wayne to get some. I'm sitting here pissed that she had the gall to write me a note that said she was "disappointed in me" for forgetting what night the kids' open houses were at school.

Disappointed?

How about disappointed that you could only manage two weeks of the summer with the kids? How about disappointed that NASCAR is more important than the girls? How about disappointed that you weren't clean and sober enough to take custody to begin with? How about the fact that it was the STRESS OF BEING A RESPONSIBLE PARENT that sent you into depression to begin with?

I just had to get that out. I can't say it to her. I can't jeopardize my kids' sanity.

God, I'm not gonna be able to finish all six slammers. I'll be lucky to eat four. You may have noticed that I'm short-tempered when I quit smoking. That's why this is a great time to be away from the kids and on vacation.

I'm also stressed about the trip. I've got too much to do before I go. I need to prioritize. I've got a handle on that. That's why I keep a yellow Jr. Legal Pad on a Half-Sized Clipboard stuck between my seat and the console in my car at all times. For writing this shit down. When I turn off the audiobook and just think, that's when it comes. Sometimes, like earlier today, I was terrified to shut off the book.

Slammer number five.

It's like I'm afraid to think about all the shit that's overwhelming me.

I'm a little over a week into the Celexa. That will help.

smoke-free

This is my second cigarette-free day on Zyban. I'm going to make it for good this time. This time instead of buckling under pressure and smoking, I'll blog. Even if it's on the back of a napkin and I type it in later--I'll blog.

Watch this space.

tetherball tourney

Yesterday, the rain held out long enough for me to have my brother, his wife and some friends and a bunch of kids over to have a cookout/volleyball tournament in my back yard.

When I moved into the house three years ago this month, there was a tetherball pole--with the cement anchor still moulded around the base--lying beside my house. This spring I decided to put it back up. A little digging and a new tetherball from Dick's Sporting Goods and I was good to go.

We had an adult and child's double-elimination tournament with the winners of both playing each other. My brother, Robin, won both the adult and the (yay rah) overall championships.

Wish you'd been there.

ah, sweet limerence

Here's an excellent explanation of "limerence."