Knowing How To Walk Outside

I was in a play in high school, and in one of my scenes I had to walk from indoors to outdoors. We didn’t really have any kind of set to speak of, so there was no definite marking or line where the inside stopped and the outside began. I just made it up. We all did. And at one point, the director said that she wanted the cast to watch me the next time we ran through the show. “It’s really easy to tell when he’s made the transition from inside to outside. He knows where he is, and so the audience will know where he is, too.” It was one of those notes from your director that you really like. So the next time we ran through the show, I thought about going from inside to outside, and I patted myself on the back as I did so. You’re so good at going from inside to outside, I told myself. You’re going to win an Oscar for Best Indoor To Outdoor Walker. The note that came after that run-through wasn’t as good as the first note. “Well,” said the director, “they tell you that part of your job as a director is knowing when to say something and when not to say something. And I watched for weeks before saying something, and he was doing it great. Then today, I could see that he was thinking about it, and it wasn’t quite right. So, don’t do what you saw him do today.” Ugh. I tried to get it back, whatever it was that made her say I walked from inside to outside. Something that she couldn’t even put into words, but I had been able to do it for weeks. But I never got it back. And the show opened. And the show closed. And I never got it back. And now, 22 years later, I still remember it.




I tell that story to tell this one. I was about to text my 16-year-old. Yesterday he told me that he had made contact with one of his old friends and they wanted to go shoot some movies sometime and would it be okay if they tried to edit their film using my computer and software. While I was a little hesitant about the whole prospect, I wasn’t turned off immediately, and more to the point, I was very happy to hear that he had reconnected with one of his friends. He doesn’t make friends easily, and shies away from social situations, so when a social situation comes up that he doesn’t shy away from, I want to let him know that I think it’s awesome.



But… when to say something and when not to say something.



Any concern I have about his social life is only because of court, knowing his lack of social interactions will be used against him. And I recently read a report from his therapist, where she talked about how he still was struggling with seeing the value in social interactions, and he was working to overcome social insecurities. So the timeline for me was: our 16-year-old talks about his friend, and then I read the letter from his therapist. But that’s not the way it actually happened for him. He talked with the therapist first, THEN he talked with the friend. He was making steps to engage socially without my encouragement. Without me saying anything. He did it on his own. So I didn’t text him to let him know I’m proud of him for that thing. I don’t want to make a thing about it so that he starts thinking about it and shies away from it. He knows how to walk from inside to outside. You don’t need to say anything.

SCENE: INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

(the cat meows outside our door as my wife and I are trying to go to sleep)


WIFE (under her breath): Goddam cat.

ME (being cutely playful, but trying to keep it straight): I’m so glad we got a cat.

WIFE (to me): Shut up.

ME: I’m so glad that we got a cat so that you could curse into my ear as we try to fall asleep.

WIFE (under her breath): Goddam cat.





This was hysterical to me last night. Brilliantly performed and written by my wife as I played her straight man. Just so funny!

Milk Does A Body Good

My 16-year-old was getting milk last night.


“I don’t understand why I have to sit through these talks with mom,” he very, very mildly complained to me. “We sit there, and she talks with me about school and tells me what to do, and I don’t really do anything except sit there and watch her shuffle through papers. And then she tells me what to do. And I do it the next day. Why do I have to sit there while she’s telling me what to do? All she’s doing is giving me a plan for the next day that I’m going to follow.”

I smiled, remembering feeling the same feelings.

“I’ll bet ya that if you came up with a plan yourself, you wouldn’t have to sit there and listen to her come up with a plan for you, and it might be easier for you.”

He continued being very, very mildly complainy.

“But I don’t want to come up with my own plan.”

“I’ll bet ya,” I smiled at him, “that’s why you continue to sit there and listen to your mom come up with a plan for you.”

He put the milk back, and by the small light touching his face from inside the fridge, I could see that he was smiling with complete understanding of the situation and what he was going through, as well as feeling loved by me and not judged in any way. He then, put his head down, and rammed my stomach several times with the top of his head. He was laughing and moaning at the same time, happy and frustrated simultaneously.



Those are the moments when you can see your children growing, realizing they are powerful individuals who haven’t quite figured out how to actualize their own power and knowledge. And I like remembering those moments. I felt important. And I liked seeing our boy get it. And, yeah, he’ll have to be reminded that he knows that he’s powerful and knowledgeable. Probably have to be reminded a lot. And that’s why I’m here, and that’s why his mother is here, and my mother, and my step-father.



Now if I could find this kind of success and fulfillment in training the goddam cat to quit sinking her tiny paws into the most tender areas of my gut and testicles. Goddam cat.

Lunch and Coming Out

I left my lunch in my car today when I got to work, so I started to go back out to my car to grab it.


“You don’t want to go out there,” I told myself. “You might run into your boss and you don’t want to talk to him and have him ask you what you forgot in your car, and then you’ll have to lie to him.”

Why would I lie to him? Why wouldn’t I just tell him that I forgot my lunch in the car?

“Because you don’t know what he’s gonna do with that. He’s gonna make fun of you. He’s gonna chastise you. You know he’s a jerk.”

Yeah, he’s a jerk. But I think I can take a little chastising in order to get my lunch.

And so the conversation with myself ended, and I headed to the car to get my lunch.



But on my way out there, I reflected on that conversation. Why would I even feel the need to lie about my lunch to my jerk boss? Who cares? Where did that impulse come from?



My first thought was that it came from my wife’s ex-husband, who is constantly attacking us and our family in court. He’s easy to blame. Let’s go ahead and blame him for this. Yes, the impulse to lie came from your feelings of being constantly attacked by this buttholster, and you don’t want to give anyone a reason to be able to attack you more. So don’t give any information about yourself. Close off, and you’ll be safer.



But that didn’t sit well with me. “Close off? That’s not good advice. Then I become just like the jerky ex-husband: hiding behind closed doors, peering out to see who might be trying to get me today. And I DON’T want to become like him. When you close yourself off, you’re either trying to hide something, or you’re not strong enough to protect something that others might judge.”



And as I thought about it more, I realized that nothing that we had ACTUALLY done had come under judgment from the jerky ex-husband or the lawyer.  You know, actual things we had done, like love the boys, care for them, and create a safe and secure environment for them to grow physically, mentally and spiritually.  In fact, EVERYTHING they had used against us was completely fabricated and made-up.  Like saying that we gave the boys no structure in their lives and we refused to co-parent.  So why was I so concerned with having them see me for who I am, when who I am isn't anything they can logically attack? I forgot my lunch. Does that mean I’m not a good stepfather? No, it doesn’t. It means I forgot my lunch. And yeah, he can bring up the fact that I forgot my lunch. And if that’s the worst he’s got, I’m going to bring up the fact that he’s trying to hurt me by bringing up the fact that I forgot my lunch, so who do you think the children are going to have healthier lives with? The man who forgot his lunch one day, or the man who wants to vilify and punish the man who forgot his lunch one day?  Because I can guarantee you, one day both of those boys will forget their lunch in the car, at which point they, too, will be villified and punished.



It really helps when you can trust your lawyer. Really a lot. I don’t know that this kind of thinking would have been possible with any of the other attorneys we have had before. None of them. Because we didn’t trust them.



I’m pretty much done, but I want to mention all the falseness he’s used to judge us as not good for the boys, none of which have any validity. I just want to have some kind of record, I guess. He said that the boys weren’t allowed to come into the house with their mother, as was the original divorce agreement, because it was his space and she wasn’t allowed to be in his space. That’s why he changed the locks, preventing her and the boys from getting into their house. Not even in question, that house being his space. Except it was also the boys’ space. That’s why my wife left it: so that the divorce would upset their living arrangements as little as possible. But now they were being prevented from going into their space, into their rooms, into their house. He said that she couldn’t see the boys at her apartment because it was too small, and the boys didn’t have enough space to be there comfortably. So she got a house. He then said he wasn’t going to let her see the boys. Just flat out. “I’m not going to let you see them any more than 4 nights a month.” He never gave a reason for that decision, just said that he wasn’t going to give any more than 4 nights a month. So we got a lawyer. And as our court date drew closer, he said that he would allow 8 nights a month. But he didn’t give a reason for this change either. It was just offered. So we went to court, were the judge said that this wasn’t acceptable, and the mother should have equal time with the boys. Jerky ex-husband fought back, saying that she picked them up from school every day, and so she was getting more time with them than jerky ex-husband, and he should be allowed to have an overnight in exchange for this “unequal” time. The judge agreed to this, giving him one extra overnight a week, saying that when (not if) circumstances were to change, the two parties would have to talk about it. So then my wife got a job, because that’s what you do when you’re an adult taking care of children. And she wasn’t able to care for the children after school anymore like she used to. And the jerky ex-husband took them after school, but refused to talk about the overnight. “If you want to get that overnight, you have to go back to court. This decision is too big for me to make alone. The court will have to decide.” So she went back to court, this time with a different attorney, who said that my job wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t funny, and I should change. She said that my wife should provide financial documentation to the jerky ex-husband and equally jerky lawyer because they asked for it. She had my wife sign blank pieces of paper, and then filed the wrong suit with the court. In the meantime, both the boys said they didn’t want to live with their father anymore, because everything they did was wrong and they didn’t like being interrogated about everything they did all the time. It was oppressive. They described mental and emotionally abusive situations, where the father obviously liked one boy more than the other, showed favoritism, but would routinely separate them and question them individually about their time with their mother. An actual interrogation. They weren’t told that they couldn’t speak with their mother, but they would get in trouble when they did. They weren’t allowed to talk about her or me. They weren’t allowed to bring their clothes or belongings over to her house. So we went back to court a second time (third time total), with our first lawyer, asking for ONE DAY more with the boys. The judge said that we were stupid for being there in the first place, and we needed to work things out. She didn’t make a ruling. So our attorneys worked out that the boys would stay with each parent for a week at a time. And both parents needed to go to counseling. In counseling, jerky ex-husband said that he couldn’t talk with my wife because she didn’t create a safe environment for him. When asked to give just one example of how she didn’t create a safe environment, he couldn’t. He said that she didn’t make enough money to support the boys, but then drew up child support documents that required her to pay him based on an amount of money that she wasn’t coming close to making. The week that court was over, he said that we didn’t understand the visitation schedule, and we weren’t doing it correctly. He then checked with his attorney and discovered that we were doing it correctly. So then he dropped off our eldest, never picked him up for visitation again, never told us why he was doing this. And then he took us to court because we refused to co-parent and demanded sole custody. Then, based largely on the stress caused by all of this, our eldest was struggling in school and needed a change. My wife asked the jerky ex-husband for his thoughts about changing the school situation, and suddenly there was another motion in the suit that my wife had acted unilaterally in making decisions about the boy’s school schedule without including him. He involved the public school legal team, saying that they should never have allowed it to get this far. Meanwhile, we have our boy’s therapist and school counselor saying that he needs to be in this program, our boy is saying that he needs to be in this program, and even our attorney and the guardian ad litem got involved saying that the boy needed a change, and nobody was excluding anyone.

Every. Single. Reason. Is made up. One Giant Fiction.



I really wish he would just come out and say that he’s gay and let it all of this go.

Love And Violence

My 16-year-old looks away from the movie screen when two people kiss.

There are rules in his high school against Public Displays of Affection.
My 12-year-old was disturbed by seeing two men kiss.
When two people are loving each other publicly, society wants them to “get a room”.
Let’s put that someplace we can’t see it.



Images of bombs hitting their targets are standard in today’s news.
We all heard of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.
And the World Trade Center.
And the Oklahoma City bombing.
And Columbine.
And Aurora.
And Gabby Giffords being shot in the head.
And Osama bin Laden’s assassination.
And the hanging of Saddam Hussein.
And Hiroshima.
And Nagasaki.
A common motto in the newspaper industry is, “If it bleeds, it leads.”



Today the Supreme Court will start debating Proposition 8.
Propostition 8 bans same-sex marriage in California.
It was voted into existence after the Defense Of Marriage Act was voted into existence, which states that marriage only happens between a man and a woman.
California needed two measures to prevent people in love from committing their love to each other.



We can’t even get a good debate started on gun control.
Meanwhile, California voters successfully voted twice that people who love each other can’t get married to each other if they have the same private parts.



Why are we so comfortable with violence?
Why are we so uncomfortable with love?

Guess I'm Missing It

Feeling kinda stupid about all the time and energy I put into acting and performing. For thirty five years it was my life. And then I dropped all of it. Seems like such a waste. Like renting a house and fixing it up a lot, and then leaving. We did that with our last house. We thought we would buy it. We didn't, and I'm glad we didn't. But it seemed like a really big waste to fix all that plumbing and then leave. I get it-- it needed to be done. And I get it-- we can't take it with us. And I get it-- I wouldn't have done it differently. I get it. Just feels like a waste. Like my first 35 years. 

I guess I'm missing it today. After being denied a promotion twice now, it's tough not to think about a time when I felt good at my profession. Without therapy or medication. 

Guntard

The security guard at my work likes to talk on the phone. Loudly.




He likes to talk about the horrible “nit-wits”, like Joe Biden, who want gun control. He reads entire Fox News articles over the phone. And then says that a 10-year-old boy was killed with a BB gun, so now, he scoffs scarcastically, we have to ban BB guns. He says that a boy was blinded when he was hit in the face with a discus. Again, he scoffs and says that we now have to ban discus.



Wouldn’t it be nice if this Tard-o-stick understood the difference between a sporting goods discus, a toy BB gun, and a weapon, and how only one of those things was made to hurt people while the others were not? Wouldn’t it be nice if he showed even a little bit of compassion for anyone who was injured in Aurora, Sandy Hook, or either of the fake boys he conjured who were injured or killed to make his stupid point about banning toys and throwing discs? Wouldn’t it be nice if I could go to work without being confronted with his stupidity and insensitivity? Apparently, according to this Mental Giant, Chicago police don’t respond to reports of violence unless there’s a dead body, and the city can’t seem to keep people in it because they’re all leaving.



I really wish all these gun nuts weren’t such pussies. You’ve got the guns. Go use ‘em. Go shoot your guns rather than your mouth. For the love of all that’s holy, please, go shoot somebody. I don’t care who it is. Just shoot somebody and prove just how safe guns are. You’re the good guy, right?? Go do some good!

Sunscreen

There's a song I really enjoy, "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" by Baz Luhrman.  I've had a lyric that has been stuck in my mind for a few days now.  It gets stuck quite regularly:

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll divorce at 40.
Maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary.
Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either.
Your choices are half chance,
so are everybody else's.

It was hard for me to completely understand this last couplet, but it runs through my head often.
And some days I like the meaning more than others.

I didn't choose my parents, or what city or state we lived in, or what house we lived in.  I didn't choose what clothes I would wear before I starting buying my own clothes.  I didn't choose what I ate most of the time, it was just laid out for me by my parents.  I didn't choose which room in the house was going to be my room.  I didn't choose the way my parents loved me.  I didn't choose who went to school with me.  But I made choices based on all those things that were forced on me.  If I could alter things from being the way that they are, I would make different choices.  But I cannot.

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.

I guess we all do the best with what we're given.  And we strive to make it as equal for everybody as possible in a world that is designed to be unequal.  Is it fair that the mountains are taller than the sea?  It's almost a meaningless question, but it has as much meaning as asking questions we ask all the time-- if it's fair that some people are taller than others, that some people are born into affluence, that some people have better skin or more hair or a nicer quality speaking voice or bigger boobs or can eat more candy without getting fat or find it more difficult to walk?  It's just the way things are.  We were born into a set of randomly selected circumstances that we are allowed to make choices about.  It was chance that my future wife and I went to the same high school.  And there's no way of knowing for certain that we wouldn't have met elsewhere if we hadn't gone to the same high school because that's not how it happened.  We met in high school, we fell in love in high school, and that was half chance.

I still don't really know what that means to me.  It feels simultaneously deep and meaningless.  It feels like it should help me live life better, but I'm not sure that it does.  It feels like it should help me relax when I find myself in situations that are uncomfortable, but I don't think it does.  I'm still in that uncomfortable situation.  And then, as I'm about to throw it away as meaningless crap that some author wrote in order to sell magazines, I hold on to it because I'm not ready to discount it as worthless.  There's something in it that is useful.

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.


Wish I knew what that use was.

No Matter Where The Shopping Cart Takes Me...

I called her home in December of 1992. The last time I actually had seen her was in the summer of 1990. Her mother answered. I asked if she was there, and her mother said she was there. She was taking a shower.


“She’s there?!” I said, as a desperate kind of panic hit me. “Could I leave her a message??” Her mother said that I could. I gave my phone number. “And please, tell her I called. I’ve been trying to contact her for two years now, and I haven’t been able to get in touch with her. Please tell her I called.” I begged. I was desperate to talk with the girl that I loved. The girl I was in love with. The girl I had always been in love with. The one who made me believe in Soul Mates.



17 years passed.



We ran into each other again, and quickly picked up almost where we had left off. I had never been married, but she had, and she told me that her mother had said something to her on the day of her first marriage. “She told me that one of my old boyfriends had called for me, and she was glad that she had never given me that message.” At the time, she had believed it was me. She said that I was the only person she had dated who would have tried to get in touch with her. And she wasn’t certain why her mother had told her about my message, except maybe as a way of saying she was glad that she was getting married today, and she wouldn’t be getting married today if her mother had mentioned my message. But even as I write those words, it begs this question: if she wouldn’t be getting married today simply because of a phone message… isn’t that phone message more important than this wedding? I told her that her mother had said she was in the shower and would give her the message when she got out of the shower. “I never took a shower there,” she told me. “I wasn’t in that house.” So the way it played out, she never got my message at all. Her mother never delivered it. And her mother led me to believe that the message would be delivered as soon as a shower was over. Except that there was no shower. And there was no girl there taking a shower. So I never got the return phone call. And I was left with the enormous question of what had happened. So many people had told me that I would just have to let it go, because I wasn’t ever going to get an answer. And I tried. I tried so hard to let it go. To let her go. But I simply couldn’t. You can’t let go of your Soul Mate, I guess. No matter how many mothers lie and say that showers are happening when they aren’t, that say they will deliver messages when they don’t, who say that they are glad that they didn’t deliver messages.



I don’t know why the mother never gave the message to the woman who would become my wife. I sometimes find myself getting angry about it all over again. I was hurting for my friend, and I had tried to get in touch with her. And I had begged her mother to help us, and her mother had not only refused to help, but had lied. And that lie lingered for 17 years. I am angry with her. I continue to be angry with her some days, although now it’s mostly wonder and fascination. Why would somebody act like that? What would possess somebody to prevent two people from getting together when they obviously enjoy each other? When they obviously love each other? Why did you act that way? Why do you still act that way?



I don’t know. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s mean. And it’s the way it is.



My wife and I have been married for over 4 years now, and people still tell us that it’s obvious that we like each other. You can see our attraction to each other from across the room. We like hearing that, because we like each other more than we let other people see, and other people see us liking each other from across the room.



I know it’s better to focus on our like, our love, our success story. We were able to follow through on the plans we made when we were kids. We got married. We are married. We are in love. And we’re happy. And yeah, life gets messy. And in spite of the mess that was created around us, we found each other. I’ll focus on that when I feel the shopping cart.  My mind has a shopping cart that has a broken wheel, and it pulls my mind to where the past pains live.  Even if the shopping cart gets pulled into the gutter where past pains live and gets stuck there…

We. Will. Still. Be. Married.
Best Friends.
Soul Mates.
No matter where the shopping cart takes me.

Should be used for something...

bm planet is not a world of shit

Yeah, that phrase just ran through my head.  Made me smile oddly.  Something about it was mildly funny and mildly catchy.

BM Planet is not a world of shit.

I don't think in punctuation normally.  This time was no exception.  But the punctuation helps to explain why it was mildly funny to me.  Why it continues to linger in my head and in my fingers now... mystery.

"BM Planet" is not "A World Of Shit".

Maybe it's the name of my first rock record.  Or my band.  Or maybe my band would just be called BM Planet.  And then when we took the stage, I could yell out to the audience, "You're in a world of shit with BM Planet!"  And then we'd bust out the monster jams!

Thoughts in my head as I mindlessly work 10 overtime hours on Saturday.

BM Planet is not A World Of Shit.

stretch

i was sitting down, and i just stretched so hard it made me dizzy, but in a good way.
that was nice.

blood from your stone

you want your kids to be happy and whole
i want power and cash and control
if i can lie to everyone alone
i'll bet i can crazy some blood from your stone

troubling behavior

in february, he told the court he was dating one person.
six month later he got married to somebody else.  the boys didn't really know her.
she doesn't live with him.
she doesn't live in the same city.
she lives about 2 hours away.
and has since they got married, which was 6 months ago now.
the only time they stay together overnight is when our youngest is with his father.  and even then, it's only on the weekends.

our youngest used to talk about how they talked about how they were going to sell her home, and then they would sell their home, and then they would move into another home together.  i didn't believe this at the time.  but our youngest says that he's seen the "for sale" sign in her yard.  and why would they need to sell her house before they moved in together?  i could understand how they might need to sell her house before they bought another house, especially with Father being obsessed with money (neither of our boys are allowed to take their money anywhere they go.  they don't even get their money.  he tells them how much they have, and then they can spend it with him, or not at all.  they are not allowed to have their money at their mother's house.  our eldest cannot get his personal belongings out of his father's house because Father refuses to let go of them.  these behaviors lead me to believe he's obsessed with money, and he certainly wouldn't buy a house on his own when somebody else could buy it for him).

she has a large house now. 

does she have money?  who bought her house?  why did they get married so quickly, but they seem to refuse to live together?  did he marry her for her money?  what does she get out of their marriage?  is it a business arrangement?  is there something shady going on?  and if there wasn't something shady going on, what are any possible answers for these questions?

and since they have been married, she has gotten involved in the court case.
she has tried to involve herself in boys that she barely sees.
in experiences she never sees and only gets reports on from a known liar.
she exacerbates situations.

and i believe she is funding this attack on us and the boys.  if not completely, then to some degree.
and i find myself continually shocked at the degree to which he will go to continue attacking all of us.

last night, all four of us were enjoying a movie together.  in the middle of it, my wife gets a text.  it's Him.  the text tells her that he wants our youngest to call him.  when the movie is done, our youngest goes to get his phone, and is overwhelmed with the amount of texts and calls from Him.  he verbalizes discomfort and frustration about this.  but he calls Him, at which point our youngest is audibly berated for not having responded to texts and phone calls.  "I'm not the one acting weird," says our youngest.  but this just makes the berating continue harder.  our youngest then leaves the room, goes into his room and shuts the door, because he's been instructed to do so by Him.  at which point, He continues to berate our youngest.

this is not normal behavior.  this is not acceptable behavior.  this is not okay.
but what can we do about it?

i understand a little better why he would keep her at a distance: if she saw this behavior, there is a great possibility that she would understand how mentally unbalanced he is and she would no longer support his attack on us, probably leave him.  he would not have control if someone were to see his actual world.  as long has he can tell stories and lies, he is able to control his world.  he can tell her whatever he wants, and she will believe him.  he can take his youngest out of the room with us and put him in a separate room where he can berate him, which gives him control over the stories he tells everyone.  he can tell our youngest one thing.  he can tell us something else.  he can tell his lawyer something different.  it's pathological.  and, in my opinion, dangerous.

all we have to do is make it until we actually get to court.  right?

we stayed out of court on purpose when he abandoned our eldest.  we did it because, although it was terribly unfortunate and abusive and we were giving up moneys that would be legally due to us, it was not worth the stress of going back to court and fighting his crazy again.  but he pulled us back in.  and he did it with a flourish of crazy.

my wife and i were talking about friends recently, and how friends seem to leave us.  and we don't really blame them.  nobody really wants to be caught up in this drama.  WE don't want to be caught up in the drama.  why would we expect anyone else to voluntarily submit to this?  the friends she thought she had left her, which was really hurtful and sad.  and we still don't really know why.  i had just moved away from my friends, so i was starting over at the beginning, too.  my wife said that times like what we've been going through for the last 5 years are times when you need your friends to stand by you.  it's not a time for creating friends.  and we've tried to create friends.  with no success. 

at the end of last year, my eldest said that it would help him if i was home more.  after talking with my wife about our money situation, i decided i would stop teaching then, because i would be getting a promotion at the beginning of the year.  my supervisor had all but told me i was getting the promotion.
then the fiscal cliff negotiations raised FICA tax rates 2% on wage earners.
then i didn't get my promotion.
and i wasn't allowed to work overtime.
and i could see that my presence at home was helping both my boys and my wife.  and me.
and then court happens.
and our youngest gets sick.
and we pay for it.
and our eldest goes to the dentist.
and we pay for it.
and it seems like the best way to attack us is through our very limited financial rescources.
and tax time is coming up.

oh boy.

...trust your lawyer...
...trust yourself...
it's difficult.
it's really difficult.


it's all just troubling. 
and it would be nice to get out of trouble.