so. as previously mentioned, saturday night, i emailed my lawyer a list of six questions. today, i got the answers.
most of them, honestly, were better than i expected.
so below, i'm paraphrasing my email to the lawyer, and then his answers.
1. is the divorce contingent upon the marital settlement, or does the divorce get granted regardless of what happens when we go to court to settle the property matters?
if he won't sign the papers, then i have to wait for two years to get it without his signature. as a desperate measure, i can seek spousal support. i probably won't get it, but it might make him react faster and sign.
2. can you give me dates/timelines for each part of the process?
if he signed, it would take one to two months.
the expedited relief request will be in the mail in the next couple of days.
3. if i have to make the mortgage payment(s), am i able to move back into the home, or did i lose that ability because i left him and the house? and is there a way to have him removed from the house (like you would have someone evicted) for non-payment?
if i pay it, i can request exclusive property to the home and try to have him kicked out.
i can reenter anytime, because i still own the home. i can move back in if i want to.
if i were to threaten him, he can file this thing called a protection from abuse and he can have me blocked or removed from the home that way.
4. am i legally allowed to step inside the house at this point in time?
yes, but he recommends i warn him.
5. can i send a realtor in to see the house? basically, i have no idea what condition it is in, and what work will need to be done before it goes on the market, and if i could send her in to take pictures, i'd have a much better idea.
yep. again, with warning. i can do whatever i want.
6. is it a bad idea to contact him? we have until the 12th to pay the insurance before they cancel the policy. i closed the joint checking account yesterday, because he was using it and overdrawing it, but he isn't aware that i closed it. part of me wants to email and tell him these things, and ask if he is planning to pay the mortgage.
contact him via email for a paper trail. it might speed things along.
so this is what i'm sending to ever:
just wanted to let you know that the joint checking account is closed. you paid another bill from it, so i closed it on friday.
state farm is about to cancel the homeowners insurance policy because you haven't paid your portion of the bill.
your portion (the past due balance) is $210.16. if the payment is not made by the 12th, the house will not be insured by state farm any longer. at that point, gmac would have to cover it by default, and the rate will be 2-3 times what it is with state farm.
please use the log in you were using for the first six months and pay the bill in the next few days to keep that from happening.
gmac has been in touch with me because you are over 30 days delinquent on the mortgage. i don't know if you realize that, at 60 days delinquent, the bank forecloses on the house.
i'm not sure what is going on with you, but thought i would email you to let you know about the bank account, and the collections calls i've been receiving.
also, i asked jay to help me move the jazz & java stuff out of the basement, in case he mentions it to you. i'm going to try to get it out of there in the next couple weeks. if he can't help me, i'll be doing it myself. i'll do my best to give you a heads up before i show up as a courtesy, if that is what ends up happening.
so i should feel better. right? only i don't. i haven't sent it. but i wrote it. so i'm almost done with it.
because his reaction will probably take a few days, because that's what he likes to do. and then it could go one of a few ways. these are my best guesses:
mostly likely: absolutely nothing. no response. because he won't put things in writing.
or because he's not physically able (dead, braindead, etc. not very likely...)
also likely: a text back. yes i keep them.
which reminds me that i can get a pfa against him because he threatened that restraining order a while back.
next set of possibilities:
a. fuck you. (can be combined with other possibilities)
b. i'm not going to pay the bills. because you left me. (totally expect this)
c. everyone moved out and i have no money. (he'd never admit this to me)
d. i'm paying everything tomorrow. (a girl can dream, right?)
e. if you want them paid, then you pay them. (this is what i'm expecting to have to do in the next few days whether he says it or not)
so here i sit. with the same fucked up feeling of wanting to get shitfaced and forget about it.
i read this blog for most of the day at suck store today. it's called six spruce. the woman is brilliant and mouthy and says fuck a lot, which wins in my book.
after reading a post that was my favorite, the one immediately after it almost made me cry. so blunt. so moving.
i'm going to bed. i still am not well. i'm still not anywhere near well. i'm coughing like crazy and can't breathe.
and tonight? no nyquil. i hope i sleep.
acclimation. december 5th.
will i just get used to this?
i mean, today i was driving to lunch with lauren, and my heart was racing and my hands were shaking. i was a nervous wreck. for no reason at all.
i feel physically ill most of the time, and when it passes, i'm starving. i was alternating thinking about contacting ever and my surgery and i just couldn't calm myself down.
luckily, i didn't have the ativan on me, or i would have popped one. i didn't need it. i just needed to calm down.
and i hate that it took about a third of a beer at 3pm to feel normal, and able to eat.
all weekend, i just wanted to be drunk. i didn't achieve it. but i just had this feeling inside. because if i'm drinking, then i'm not upset. i just get angry, and that is an entirely different feeling than the nervous anxiety i feel before i drink.
how do people deal with this shit? how am i supposed to deal with ever calling all the shots out of my ear distance? when his method of calling is just to do nothing.
today, i worried about him not paying the homeowners policy that is now in his name. because now i have no way to know if it's handled. like my new fear developed today that he'll change the password on the mortgage account so i can't see it. i think he forgot that i have it, luckily.
it's too close to bedtime to think and write about this. it's 9 and i already took my nyquil because i'm up super early yet again, and i'm wide awake because i'm on my weekend up late schedule. luckily, i woke up before 9 both days this weekend and didn't go back to sleep.
in other news, chalk is now actively buttering me up for my trip home.
flirting heavily, telling me he'll take my mind off my problems if i just spend a couple hours with him.
at least i'll get laid when i get home.
that has to help, right?
i can't even say that i've been redlining. i've had no drive at all since he was here last. i still want to make out for days at a time, but it's different. that whole 'itch i can't scratch' feeling has completely abandoned my body.
at least i'll get a make out fix, too.
i want to make it my goal to make out with someone besides him before the new year, but i don't think it will happen. i don't have my sights set on anyone.
and lately, to make matters more complicated (simpler, actually), i've been wanting to unfriend both intern and coffee, because it's like some variation of a constant reminder of conquests gone badly to see things that they take time to mention. or other people's pictures they appear in.
most of the time, neither of them bother me. as far as thinking about them... but then, intern isn't joining for my birthday karaoke, and even though he would probably be the only guy there, which is probably why he said no, it's still a bummer.
and then coffee. well, let's just say that his new life with his love is a little much to see all the time. i hid her first, but he's been posting things that have just made it sink in. and completely ignoring the one comment i made.
so it just goes to show that neither of them are doing anything positive for me. so i hid coffee. and i'll see if i can muster the strength to delete them.
maybe it will be my birthday present to myself.
and in yet another completely unrelated newsline, nina was right about buffy. the first three seasons, meh. nothing really spectacular, save for two or three episodes that were pretty well done.
but season four is really funny, and the writing is improving, and i enjoyed all three episodes i watched tonight.
thanks, nina.
buffy has really helped me this last two weeks. that, and the middle. which has been a laugh fest.
i'm okay with distracting myself from all my real problems with fictional ones. i'm actually looking forward to suck store tomorrow, because i know i'll make tips and have an easy day. despite the bit about waking up so retardedly early.
i guess i can write tomorrow. and hopefully read a little of that book, too.
i can relax a little, knowing i handled some business this weekend, and tomorrow i can clean my apartment and maybe even do my laundry, and not feel so bad about just sitting around all weekend, and going out a little, too, and not getting anything done around the apartment.
i'm dreading this week. and i shouldn't be. i mean, there are legitimate reasons to dread it. but there's also a couple things to look forward to. like my birthday.
i just hope it's better than the last few.
i can't believe that last year, i was home now. and halfway through my trip. in fact, to think about it, tonight was probably the exact night that coffee showed up and knocked me on my ass.
i can't believe how much i cried when i had to fly back here to ever and a shitty life.
so this birthday has to be better than that. even if it isn't spent having wine with lindsey and mom's birthday cake that i was too nervous to eat.
one thing is for certain. i won't be wasting my wish this year on stupid coffee. all i wanted was a phone call.
and i never got that wish.
it's fine.
i've come a long way. and hopefully 2011 and 33 will be my year. things will have to get easier after they get worse.
i just keep wishing time away. and i know that's not right.
i just keep wishing for it to be summer. so i can reach some crazy goal i set for myself without buckling. and be home where things are slow and easy and ever-free.
i should do some writing exercises. but i'd rather watch the next buffy and drift off to sleep.
goodnight, blogger. goodnight, moon.
i mean, today i was driving to lunch with lauren, and my heart was racing and my hands were shaking. i was a nervous wreck. for no reason at all.
i feel physically ill most of the time, and when it passes, i'm starving. i was alternating thinking about contacting ever and my surgery and i just couldn't calm myself down.
luckily, i didn't have the ativan on me, or i would have popped one. i didn't need it. i just needed to calm down.
and i hate that it took about a third of a beer at 3pm to feel normal, and able to eat.
all weekend, i just wanted to be drunk. i didn't achieve it. but i just had this feeling inside. because if i'm drinking, then i'm not upset. i just get angry, and that is an entirely different feeling than the nervous anxiety i feel before i drink.
how do people deal with this shit? how am i supposed to deal with ever calling all the shots out of my ear distance? when his method of calling is just to do nothing.
today, i worried about him not paying the homeowners policy that is now in his name. because now i have no way to know if it's handled. like my new fear developed today that he'll change the password on the mortgage account so i can't see it. i think he forgot that i have it, luckily.
it's too close to bedtime to think and write about this. it's 9 and i already took my nyquil because i'm up super early yet again, and i'm wide awake because i'm on my weekend up late schedule. luckily, i woke up before 9 both days this weekend and didn't go back to sleep.
in other news, chalk is now actively buttering me up for my trip home.
flirting heavily, telling me he'll take my mind off my problems if i just spend a couple hours with him.
at least i'll get laid when i get home.
that has to help, right?
i can't even say that i've been redlining. i've had no drive at all since he was here last. i still want to make out for days at a time, but it's different. that whole 'itch i can't scratch' feeling has completely abandoned my body.
at least i'll get a make out fix, too.
i want to make it my goal to make out with someone besides him before the new year, but i don't think it will happen. i don't have my sights set on anyone.
and lately, to make matters more complicated (simpler, actually), i've been wanting to unfriend both intern and coffee, because it's like some variation of a constant reminder of conquests gone badly to see things that they take time to mention. or other people's pictures they appear in.
most of the time, neither of them bother me. as far as thinking about them... but then, intern isn't joining for my birthday karaoke, and even though he would probably be the only guy there, which is probably why he said no, it's still a bummer.
and then coffee. well, let's just say that his new life with his love is a little much to see all the time. i hid her first, but he's been posting things that have just made it sink in. and completely ignoring the one comment i made.
so it just goes to show that neither of them are doing anything positive for me. so i hid coffee. and i'll see if i can muster the strength to delete them.
maybe it will be my birthday present to myself.
and in yet another completely unrelated newsline, nina was right about buffy. the first three seasons, meh. nothing really spectacular, save for two or three episodes that were pretty well done.
but season four is really funny, and the writing is improving, and i enjoyed all three episodes i watched tonight.
thanks, nina.
buffy has really helped me this last two weeks. that, and the middle. which has been a laugh fest.
i'm okay with distracting myself from all my real problems with fictional ones. i'm actually looking forward to suck store tomorrow, because i know i'll make tips and have an easy day. despite the bit about waking up so retardedly early.
i guess i can write tomorrow. and hopefully read a little of that book, too.
i can relax a little, knowing i handled some business this weekend, and tomorrow i can clean my apartment and maybe even do my laundry, and not feel so bad about just sitting around all weekend, and going out a little, too, and not getting anything done around the apartment.
i'm dreading this week. and i shouldn't be. i mean, there are legitimate reasons to dread it. but there's also a couple things to look forward to. like my birthday.
i just hope it's better than the last few.
i can't believe that last year, i was home now. and halfway through my trip. in fact, to think about it, tonight was probably the exact night that coffee showed up and knocked me on my ass.
i can't believe how much i cried when i had to fly back here to ever and a shitty life.
so this birthday has to be better than that. even if it isn't spent having wine with lindsey and mom's birthday cake that i was too nervous to eat.
one thing is for certain. i won't be wasting my wish this year on stupid coffee. all i wanted was a phone call.
and i never got that wish.
it's fine.
i've come a long way. and hopefully 2011 and 33 will be my year. things will have to get easier after they get worse.
i just keep wishing time away. and i know that's not right.
i just keep wishing for it to be summer. so i can reach some crazy goal i set for myself without buckling. and be home where things are slow and easy and ever-free.
i should do some writing exercises. but i'd rather watch the next buffy and drift off to sleep.
goodnight, blogger. goodnight, moon.
cold sweats. december 4th.
so somehow i forgot a story last night. it would have been update two, but i'm just going to lump it on with this one.
the last two nights, i've woken up from nightmares flat on my back, soaked in sweat.
the majority of the time, when i'm having nightmares, i'm paralyzed in my sleep, and i wake up flat on my back.
two night ago, it was almost two in the morning. i woke up because of a metal on metal crashing sound. and i guess that, because i was having a nightmare, the following thoughts made perfect half-awake logical sense to me.
i had taken my wall unit out of the window before i went to sleep. there's a draft in my room because of it, it was letting 20-30 degree air in. so i put it on the floor under the window.
and in my waking from the metal crash, i woke up. and thought that someone had thrown a gun or something into my window and the sound was it hitting the unit. there was no glass sound, so i can't really understand how scared i was, sure that i couldn't get up or sit up in bed to see what had made the noise because i either thought someone was throwing things in or was inside my place. for probably five minutes, my heart was racing and i was sweating even more. terrified to move.
it's leftover from that shootout on thanksgiving. but after those five minutes, i knew what the noise was and sat up and verified.
i had put a cake pan of water on the radiator because the dry heat from the radiator had been giving me a sore throat worse than the one from my cold. it had fallen off and behind the radiator while i was asleep. mystery solved.
so today was strange. i got a facebook message from someone i knew in high school, and even though we weren't really friends, we were classmates senior year. she was coming to phila for the day and i'd agreed to meet her for a drink sometime after lunch and before dinner.
i ran errands with kit, and she texted that they were having lunch instead of dinner at my favorite restaurant, and could i meet then. but i couldn't. they ended up leaving before dinner, so i didn't end up seeing her at all.
so kit and i went to lunch instead, and then we watched some episodes of 'the middle' and i came home. sat down, started to queue up a 'buffy' episode, and my dad called me.
i answered, wondering why he was calling. he's been calling me about once a week, which is pretty odd, but i've been going with it. he was calling to ask if it was snowing and if it was super cold.
but then he asked about ever and the divorce.
which became over a one hour conversation. toward the end, he said that he was probably stressing me out even more by making me talk to him about it.
and i had thought that more than once while i was talking to him. but he's really the only person (other than my shrink) that i've talk to about it for any length of time since things have become increasingly stressful for me.
part of the errands i ran today were for mailing the paperwork and second half of my retainer to the lawyer.
i felt sick on the way, and shaking when i left the post office after having sent it off. back and forth between starving (i hadn't eaten yet, and it was about 3pm) and nauseous.
i managed to put it aside thanks to kit. and then came home to dad asking a million questions. most of which i can't answer at all.
and it got me all worked up again.
it's just so stressful right now.
and i know that i could just email ever and say three things and feel differently about it. but i'm afraid to. one, because i have a feeling i know the answers. two, because i don't want him to know that he is succeeding at stressing me out and pissing me off.
i'd tell him i closed the joint account. tell him to pay state farm the $210 he owes them so i don't have to. and ask if he intends to pay the mortgage for last month or this month.
so i emailed my lawyer instead and asked if that was a bad idea.
along with other questions i have with the divorce in general.
i never should have left the house. i know that. and all of this now is because i have no control over him and his choices.
speeding this thing up is going to be expensive. i thought it would be done two months ago. and i can't believe that i'm no closer to it being over, ultimately, now than i was six months ago when i filed it.
kit keeps telling me to make a list, but that chore seems so scary. it's like, if i don't write it down, maybe i won't have to deal with it. or something. avoider tendencies at their best, i supposed.
landlord just came out and apologized for the tone i thought he was taking. but that no one has been paying rent on time and that his bills are piling up.
i told him i'm under stess too and that i don't take it lightly. and said nothing else, so he walked away after saying that he wasn't trying to say i'm irresponsible.
whatever. got that out of the way. without telling him to fuck off. a plus? debatable...
i guess there should be two lists. here i go...
one is what i'm afraid of. what i worry about.
this one is harder than the list of things to do. i wrote that one out first, proving my own point.
i'm afraid of having to pay the mortgage and not getting it back.
i'm afraid that he'll sue me for alimony.
i'm afraid that i can't kick him out of the house, and that i can't move back in even if i have to pay the mortgage.
i'm afraid that he threw the things for my coffee work away.
i'm afraid that, if he didn't, that i'll have to go and get them myself.
i'm afraid that he changed the locks. which doesn't really matter, because honestly, i don't know where my house keys are anyway.
i'm afraid that i'm going to get fucked over in court.
i'm afraid that he's going to drag this out for the maximum amount of allowable time.
i'm afraid that i'll never be granted my divorce.
i'm afraid that the house is destroyed.
i'm afraid that i'll have to go there to paint and do other things to get it ready for sale.
i'm afraid that i'll have to see him in court.
i'm afraid that i'll have to see him at all.
i'm afraid that i'll have to arrange things related to the house with him.
i'm afraid that he'll find a way to stay in the house and make me pay for it.
i'm afraid to email him.
i'm afraid not to. that all he is waiting for is contact from me.
i'm afraid that my lawyer is an idiot.
i'm afraid that i'm confused because my lawyer is confused, not because i'm overwhelmed and stressed and panicky.
i'm afraid that the judge won't file an order to make him keep up with the payments.
i'm afraid that the judge will see this as my fault and award him accordingly.
i'm afraid that my dog is dead or dying, and that he wouldn't tell me.
i'm afraid that i'll never see her again.
or that, if i do, she won't know who i am anymore. or care.
i'm afraid that i'll have to move out of my apartment and lose my deposit.
i'm afraid that i'll have to move home ahead of schedule.
i'm afraid that my parents won't be able to help me financially.
i'm afraid that the roommates moved out.
i'm afraid that i'll have to see them if i have to go there.
there are so many things that i am afraid of. but this is what i'm fixated on, and have been for the last few months.
part of me wants to pay the bills from his account and play dumb.
part of me wants to drive past the house and see what i can see.
part of me wants to find a person who can go there and spy for me and tell me everything.
i'm afraid that he would see me drive past.
i'm afraid that i'll lose a friend just for asking them to tell me things.
i'm afraid that i'll be in florida at some critical point in the court related stuff that i have no way of knowing until i'm already down there.
i'm afraid that i won't be able to get things fixed at the house before it goes on the market. and that i don't have to money to fix things anyway.
i'm afraid that i'll have to get a restraining order against him.
the other is what i have to do.
get tax paperwork together to show his income.
get the mortgage paperwork together to show what was qualified from his income vs mine.
get credit card statements together, in case he denies that the majority of our debt was from his business.
make a list of everything i left at the house when i moved.
make a list of his business equipment and inventory.
find the car paperwork to show what was financed and when.
find the house invoices for everything my parents paid for.
house related to do list (an afterthought)
paint the walls.
repair the bathroom ceiling.
make ever replace the shower in his shop that he singlehandedly destroyed.
carpet the hallway on the second floor.
paint over the chalkboard wall.
shellac the exposed brick.
it's not that it's so much to do. everything for the most part is all in one place. i just have to look through it all and have it in a divorce box.
on the plus side, i rearranged my most recent mix, and took off the songs i tend to skip when i listen to it, and added in some songs that i wanted to add. and it's solid now.
also, i paid all my bills and have a nice chunk of money left over. despite sending the lawyer $500, i still have $1000 that is extra. granted, that might go to the mortgage. but i'm proud of myself for actually saving up that much money. i've never saved up that much before, so i'm making progress as a human.
to the pile of worries, i have all the surgery worries freaking me out.
and now, because it's getting closer to the time of night when i need to go to bed, i have to stop this.
when i told dad that he wasn't stressing me out, and that it's probably healthy to talk about it as much as i think about it, i said that it's okay to deal with it as long as i don't do it right before bed. because then i can't sleep and have nightmares, and get all worked up.
so i'll sign off and watch some buffy and think back to my days at college that first year. how different and great things felt back then. how i ran around carefree and boycrazy.
and not think about how off-track my life got right after that.
the last two nights, i've woken up from nightmares flat on my back, soaked in sweat.
the majority of the time, when i'm having nightmares, i'm paralyzed in my sleep, and i wake up flat on my back.
two night ago, it was almost two in the morning. i woke up because of a metal on metal crashing sound. and i guess that, because i was having a nightmare, the following thoughts made perfect half-awake logical sense to me.
i had taken my wall unit out of the window before i went to sleep. there's a draft in my room because of it, it was letting 20-30 degree air in. so i put it on the floor under the window.
and in my waking from the metal crash, i woke up. and thought that someone had thrown a gun or something into my window and the sound was it hitting the unit. there was no glass sound, so i can't really understand how scared i was, sure that i couldn't get up or sit up in bed to see what had made the noise because i either thought someone was throwing things in or was inside my place. for probably five minutes, my heart was racing and i was sweating even more. terrified to move.
it's leftover from that shootout on thanksgiving. but after those five minutes, i knew what the noise was and sat up and verified.
i had put a cake pan of water on the radiator because the dry heat from the radiator had been giving me a sore throat worse than the one from my cold. it had fallen off and behind the radiator while i was asleep. mystery solved.
so today was strange. i got a facebook message from someone i knew in high school, and even though we weren't really friends, we were classmates senior year. she was coming to phila for the day and i'd agreed to meet her for a drink sometime after lunch and before dinner.
i ran errands with kit, and she texted that they were having lunch instead of dinner at my favorite restaurant, and could i meet then. but i couldn't. they ended up leaving before dinner, so i didn't end up seeing her at all.
so kit and i went to lunch instead, and then we watched some episodes of 'the middle' and i came home. sat down, started to queue up a 'buffy' episode, and my dad called me.
i answered, wondering why he was calling. he's been calling me about once a week, which is pretty odd, but i've been going with it. he was calling to ask if it was snowing and if it was super cold.
but then he asked about ever and the divorce.
which became over a one hour conversation. toward the end, he said that he was probably stressing me out even more by making me talk to him about it.
and i had thought that more than once while i was talking to him. but he's really the only person (other than my shrink) that i've talk to about it for any length of time since things have become increasingly stressful for me.
part of the errands i ran today were for mailing the paperwork and second half of my retainer to the lawyer.
i felt sick on the way, and shaking when i left the post office after having sent it off. back and forth between starving (i hadn't eaten yet, and it was about 3pm) and nauseous.
i managed to put it aside thanks to kit. and then came home to dad asking a million questions. most of which i can't answer at all.
and it got me all worked up again.
it's just so stressful right now.
and i know that i could just email ever and say three things and feel differently about it. but i'm afraid to. one, because i have a feeling i know the answers. two, because i don't want him to know that he is succeeding at stressing me out and pissing me off.
i'd tell him i closed the joint account. tell him to pay state farm the $210 he owes them so i don't have to. and ask if he intends to pay the mortgage for last month or this month.
so i emailed my lawyer instead and asked if that was a bad idea.
along with other questions i have with the divorce in general.
i never should have left the house. i know that. and all of this now is because i have no control over him and his choices.
speeding this thing up is going to be expensive. i thought it would be done two months ago. and i can't believe that i'm no closer to it being over, ultimately, now than i was six months ago when i filed it.
kit keeps telling me to make a list, but that chore seems so scary. it's like, if i don't write it down, maybe i won't have to deal with it. or something. avoider tendencies at their best, i supposed.
landlord just came out and apologized for the tone i thought he was taking. but that no one has been paying rent on time and that his bills are piling up.
i told him i'm under stess too and that i don't take it lightly. and said nothing else, so he walked away after saying that he wasn't trying to say i'm irresponsible.
whatever. got that out of the way. without telling him to fuck off. a plus? debatable...
i guess there should be two lists. here i go...
one is what i'm afraid of. what i worry about.
this one is harder than the list of things to do. i wrote that one out first, proving my own point.
i'm afraid of having to pay the mortgage and not getting it back.
i'm afraid that he'll sue me for alimony.
i'm afraid that i can't kick him out of the house, and that i can't move back in even if i have to pay the mortgage.
i'm afraid that he threw the things for my coffee work away.
i'm afraid that, if he didn't, that i'll have to go and get them myself.
i'm afraid that he changed the locks. which doesn't really matter, because honestly, i don't know where my house keys are anyway.
i'm afraid that i'm going to get fucked over in court.
i'm afraid that he's going to drag this out for the maximum amount of allowable time.
i'm afraid that i'll never be granted my divorce.
i'm afraid that the house is destroyed.
i'm afraid that i'll have to go there to paint and do other things to get it ready for sale.
i'm afraid that i'll have to see him in court.
i'm afraid that i'll have to see him at all.
i'm afraid that i'll have to arrange things related to the house with him.
i'm afraid that he'll find a way to stay in the house and make me pay for it.
i'm afraid to email him.
i'm afraid not to. that all he is waiting for is contact from me.
i'm afraid that my lawyer is an idiot.
i'm afraid that i'm confused because my lawyer is confused, not because i'm overwhelmed and stressed and panicky.
i'm afraid that the judge won't file an order to make him keep up with the payments.
i'm afraid that the judge will see this as my fault and award him accordingly.
i'm afraid that my dog is dead or dying, and that he wouldn't tell me.
i'm afraid that i'll never see her again.
or that, if i do, she won't know who i am anymore. or care.
i'm afraid that i'll have to move out of my apartment and lose my deposit.
i'm afraid that i'll have to move home ahead of schedule.
i'm afraid that my parents won't be able to help me financially.
i'm afraid that the roommates moved out.
i'm afraid that i'll have to see them if i have to go there.
there are so many things that i am afraid of. but this is what i'm fixated on, and have been for the last few months.
part of me wants to pay the bills from his account and play dumb.
part of me wants to drive past the house and see what i can see.
part of me wants to find a person who can go there and spy for me and tell me everything.
i'm afraid that he would see me drive past.
i'm afraid that i'll lose a friend just for asking them to tell me things.
i'm afraid that i'll be in florida at some critical point in the court related stuff that i have no way of knowing until i'm already down there.
i'm afraid that i won't be able to get things fixed at the house before it goes on the market. and that i don't have to money to fix things anyway.
i'm afraid that i'll have to get a restraining order against him.
the other is what i have to do.
get tax paperwork together to show his income.
get the mortgage paperwork together to show what was qualified from his income vs mine.
get credit card statements together, in case he denies that the majority of our debt was from his business.
make a list of everything i left at the house when i moved.
make a list of his business equipment and inventory.
find the car paperwork to show what was financed and when.
find the house invoices for everything my parents paid for.
house related to do list (an afterthought)
paint the walls.
repair the bathroom ceiling.
make ever replace the shower in his shop that he singlehandedly destroyed.
carpet the hallway on the second floor.
paint over the chalkboard wall.
shellac the exposed brick.
it's not that it's so much to do. everything for the most part is all in one place. i just have to look through it all and have it in a divorce box.
on the plus side, i rearranged my most recent mix, and took off the songs i tend to skip when i listen to it, and added in some songs that i wanted to add. and it's solid now.
also, i paid all my bills and have a nice chunk of money left over. despite sending the lawyer $500, i still have $1000 that is extra. granted, that might go to the mortgage. but i'm proud of myself for actually saving up that much money. i've never saved up that much before, so i'm making progress as a human.
to the pile of worries, i have all the surgery worries freaking me out.
and now, because it's getting closer to the time of night when i need to go to bed, i have to stop this.
when i told dad that he wasn't stressing me out, and that it's probably healthy to talk about it as much as i think about it, i said that it's okay to deal with it as long as i don't do it right before bed. because then i can't sleep and have nightmares, and get all worked up.
so i'll sign off and watch some buffy and think back to my days at college that first year. how different and great things felt back then. how i ran around carefree and boycrazy.
and not think about how off-track my life got right after that.
leftovers. december 3rd.
so these were things i didn't get to talk about yesterday...
first thing in the morning, robbie came for a visit. which was awesome. we both had a lot to talk about. he hung around for a while.
(i wasn't even busy this morning at all. i've been hanging out mostly alone all day long. goofing off on fb as per the usual.)
marital inventory.
so, the divorce is going to court. already knew this. when this happens, a judge splits up all the stuff for you. it sucks.
the car will be dragged into it, the business, everything we own.
it really sucks, because i didn't want it to come to this.
but ever is being a jackass, so now it is.
i'm actually pretty scared.
i gave everything going in, and now he is going to get half again coming out. why does it have to be this way?
just keep your eyes on the prize, tea. the house will sell. and you can buy anything that you want.
mortgage people.
after checking online to make sure that ever still hadn't paid the bill, i called them to get info.
of course, it went to the collections department. of course they tried to get a payment from me, more than once.
of course, they have been unable to reach ever, despite calling him every day.
of course, my credit is already being negatively affected as far as they are concerned. we're now 32 days delinquent. by we i mean he, but my credit score.
i thought it was delightful when the nice man on the phone offered to take my name off of the account if i was concerned with my credit, since i'm in the divorce process.
i said, 'doesn't that mean that i wouldn't own the house anymore?'
and he said, 'yes.'
is he serious????? what a fucking dolt.
there should really be a way to have rights in this situation. i can't believe that i am dealing with this.
lawyer.
so after that awesomeness, i called my lawyer to pay the retainer over the phone.
and he sent me the emergency hearing petition to look over. it's pretty interesting. what it means is that we're asking a judge to force ever to make the house payments and insurance payments on time.
i hope it works.
i am still insanely confused about how this whole legal process works, and i really do hope that my lawyer isn't the one confusing me. now that we're on this whole hourly basis thing, i know all about rounding up billable hours, and i hope he doesn't fuck me over royally.
i think that the emergency petition is separate from the equitable distribution of marital property hearing. i think this is just to get a court order against him, and that the divorce hearing will be later down the road.
can't this shit be over with already? he's going to take me to the cleaners. fml. let's just get it over with...
onto some things that are a little brighter.
mono lake.
so a while back, i made a list of all the little places from southern california to portland that i wanted to go to on my stargazing road trip.
while i was looking at each place, in an effort to see how far apart the places were, and how many days of driving it would take to really get to each one, i was goofing off on google maps.
and while i was on yosemite, exploring to see where there were roads, and how scary it would be to drive there because it is so far removed from civilization, i stumbled upon this little lake that was nearby, called mono lake.
the water looked cool on the map, so i zoomed in as far as it would let me. and there was this little island in the middle. i don't know. i started daydreaming. is there a house on the island? is there a boat on the map because one happened to be there when they took the images? could i explore the lake?
what i didn't know then was what was going on at mono lake.
yesterday, when i read the first post about the discovery at mono lake, i was trying to figure out why the strange name sounded so familiar to me. about two seconds later, i realized what i was thinking of. i went back to google maps. sure enough.
alien (in the strictest sense of the word) dna was discovered there. at the little lake i stared at maybe a month ago.
what are the chances? the only other lake i've ever done that with is tahoe, and that's only because i'm so familiar with driving around it that i wanted to see what it looked like from above.
all this only a day after another similar incident.
i went to the bar alone on monday night to have dinner. so i took the book i've been trying to read for the last couple months. i don't know why i'm so non-committal about it, but i have had the hardest time making myself read it, even though it's pretty interesting.
so i was at the bar, reading 'awakening intuition'. and i was only reading for maybe 20 minutes. not a lot.
but the chapter was about how our brains store memories. how some people think that every single thing we see/hear/feel/smell/taste is stored in our brains somewhere forever. how some people think that it's all stored, but if it's not accessed immediately, the connection to it is lost. and the role sleep plays, with dreams, to process all of this information. to try out possible future scenarios/outcomes while we sleep. and how it might be a process of discarding things as well. how we'd never remember something that we saw laying on the ground when we walked past it, unless we had an experience that made us remember it (like slipping on a bottlecap).
so the next night, i was talking to kit about dreams. and then i went home. and saw a post about new research talking about sleep and memories. research supporting the very thing i was reading about at the bar the night before.
in my book called 'awakening intuition'. after the dream about snow on thanksgiving morning, to wake up and see snow falling. i still can't believe it.
it's all pretty strange. and i always love those collective consciousness things. they happen in threes, so maybe it's over now.
in any case, it was eerie while it lasted.
and now? i need to locate some food. i'm hungry. and really overly ready to go home. it is so super dead here today. i forgot that fridays tend to suck. and i'm back on monday. woo hoo.
can't hardly wait.
* * *
update:
cleaning up the shop and remembering something that i started to realize yesterday, and came to fully realize today.
okay. so this goes back to the thing with the elevens.
alright. obsessed, right?
so it all started the year i was born. 1977. 77 is a multiple of 11.
my 11th birthday was spent welcoming my sister to the world in our brand new house in a brand new neighborhood. we didn't have carpet yet when i had my party. crazy stuff.
i just realized that i was telling my shrink on monday that i haven't enjoyed a birthday since my 22nd.
my 22nd birthday was spent moping because the excitement of 21 had worn off. i had just moved home a few weeks before from tahoe. i was depressed, and had just retreated to my parents' house after being on my own for a year.
and now here i am, about to celebrate my 33rd birthday. and i'm retreating home again, after being on my own for almost eight years.
it's interesting that this is my 11 year cycle as an adult. move home every eleven years? wow.
i realized this because i was thinking about how 2011 is right around the corner. i'll be 33 for most of '11. and then thinking back, realized i was 22 in '99 and 11 in '88.
i just thought it was funny. and that i should add it to this post.
first thing in the morning, robbie came for a visit. which was awesome. we both had a lot to talk about. he hung around for a while.
(i wasn't even busy this morning at all. i've been hanging out mostly alone all day long. goofing off on fb as per the usual.)
marital inventory.
so, the divorce is going to court. already knew this. when this happens, a judge splits up all the stuff for you. it sucks.
the car will be dragged into it, the business, everything we own.
it really sucks, because i didn't want it to come to this.
but ever is being a jackass, so now it is.
i'm actually pretty scared.
i gave everything going in, and now he is going to get half again coming out. why does it have to be this way?
just keep your eyes on the prize, tea. the house will sell. and you can buy anything that you want.
mortgage people.
after checking online to make sure that ever still hadn't paid the bill, i called them to get info.
of course, it went to the collections department. of course they tried to get a payment from me, more than once.
of course, they have been unable to reach ever, despite calling him every day.
of course, my credit is already being negatively affected as far as they are concerned. we're now 32 days delinquent. by we i mean he, but my credit score.
i thought it was delightful when the nice man on the phone offered to take my name off of the account if i was concerned with my credit, since i'm in the divorce process.
i said, 'doesn't that mean that i wouldn't own the house anymore?'
and he said, 'yes.'
is he serious????? what a fucking dolt.
there should really be a way to have rights in this situation. i can't believe that i am dealing with this.
lawyer.
so after that awesomeness, i called my lawyer to pay the retainer over the phone.
and he sent me the emergency hearing petition to look over. it's pretty interesting. what it means is that we're asking a judge to force ever to make the house payments and insurance payments on time.
i hope it works.
i am still insanely confused about how this whole legal process works, and i really do hope that my lawyer isn't the one confusing me. now that we're on this whole hourly basis thing, i know all about rounding up billable hours, and i hope he doesn't fuck me over royally.
i think that the emergency petition is separate from the equitable distribution of marital property hearing. i think this is just to get a court order against him, and that the divorce hearing will be later down the road.
can't this shit be over with already? he's going to take me to the cleaners. fml. let's just get it over with...
onto some things that are a little brighter.
mono lake.
so a while back, i made a list of all the little places from southern california to portland that i wanted to go to on my stargazing road trip.
while i was looking at each place, in an effort to see how far apart the places were, and how many days of driving it would take to really get to each one, i was goofing off on google maps.
and while i was on yosemite, exploring to see where there were roads, and how scary it would be to drive there because it is so far removed from civilization, i stumbled upon this little lake that was nearby, called mono lake.
the water looked cool on the map, so i zoomed in as far as it would let me. and there was this little island in the middle. i don't know. i started daydreaming. is there a house on the island? is there a boat on the map because one happened to be there when they took the images? could i explore the lake?
what i didn't know then was what was going on at mono lake.
yesterday, when i read the first post about the discovery at mono lake, i was trying to figure out why the strange name sounded so familiar to me. about two seconds later, i realized what i was thinking of. i went back to google maps. sure enough.
alien (in the strictest sense of the word) dna was discovered there. at the little lake i stared at maybe a month ago.
what are the chances? the only other lake i've ever done that with is tahoe, and that's only because i'm so familiar with driving around it that i wanted to see what it looked like from above.
all this only a day after another similar incident.
i went to the bar alone on monday night to have dinner. so i took the book i've been trying to read for the last couple months. i don't know why i'm so non-committal about it, but i have had the hardest time making myself read it, even though it's pretty interesting.
so i was at the bar, reading 'awakening intuition'. and i was only reading for maybe 20 minutes. not a lot.
but the chapter was about how our brains store memories. how some people think that every single thing we see/hear/feel/smell/taste is stored in our brains somewhere forever. how some people think that it's all stored, but if it's not accessed immediately, the connection to it is lost. and the role sleep plays, with dreams, to process all of this information. to try out possible future scenarios/outcomes while we sleep. and how it might be a process of discarding things as well. how we'd never remember something that we saw laying on the ground when we walked past it, unless we had an experience that made us remember it (like slipping on a bottlecap).
so the next night, i was talking to kit about dreams. and then i went home. and saw a post about new research talking about sleep and memories. research supporting the very thing i was reading about at the bar the night before.
in my book called 'awakening intuition'. after the dream about snow on thanksgiving morning, to wake up and see snow falling. i still can't believe it.
it's all pretty strange. and i always love those collective consciousness things. they happen in threes, so maybe it's over now.
in any case, it was eerie while it lasted.
and now? i need to locate some food. i'm hungry. and really overly ready to go home. it is so super dead here today. i forgot that fridays tend to suck. and i'm back on monday. woo hoo.
can't hardly wait.
* * *
update:
cleaning up the shop and remembering something that i started to realize yesterday, and came to fully realize today.
okay. so this goes back to the thing with the elevens.
alright. obsessed, right?
so it all started the year i was born. 1977. 77 is a multiple of 11.
my 11th birthday was spent welcoming my sister to the world in our brand new house in a brand new neighborhood. we didn't have carpet yet when i had my party. crazy stuff.
i just realized that i was telling my shrink on monday that i haven't enjoyed a birthday since my 22nd.
my 22nd birthday was spent moping because the excitement of 21 had worn off. i had just moved home a few weeks before from tahoe. i was depressed, and had just retreated to my parents' house after being on my own for a year.
and now here i am, about to celebrate my 33rd birthday. and i'm retreating home again, after being on my own for almost eight years.
it's interesting that this is my 11 year cycle as an adult. move home every eleven years? wow.
i realized this because i was thinking about how 2011 is right around the corner. i'll be 33 for most of '11. and then thinking back, realized i was 22 in '99 and 11 in '88.
i just thought it was funny. and that i should add it to this post.
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