Little Shambles Goes to College

I dropped my daughter off at college today - and spent a good part assembling IKEA furniture and manhandling the dorm pieces to arrange the room into her ideal configuration. It was a pretty heavy day for her and left me burned out, but she seems to be okay about it and I'm sure she'll be fine on her new adventure.

My first mind fuck was driving into town and realizing I was doing the same thing with my parents 19 years ago. 19 years ago? Damn. I saw all these "kids" checking in, wandering about, getting their bearings (hello ladies!), and floated back to my experience, specifically my experience on move-in day.

I was a suburban white kid rolling into a 4-person room with my punk/goth/indie CD collection. Focus on Biotech (ended: Eng/Psy degrees). I think I'd had one brief conversation with each of my roommates on the home phone. No one had cell phones. I ended up with a brilliant crew: A cool guy with similar music and geeky tastes, a skinny white kid who was in love with rap, and a HS jock who brought his iguana, Gimpy. And while there were some differences in opinion, we were all cordial and had a great and amazing year with each other.

And then the feelings of waste and want to go back. How I could've done things better. I spent my last year in drink and drugs and had lost almost all contact with those wonderful people. But, y'know, get over it; you can't go back; it was what it was.

I'd spent part of last night compiling a mix CD for Little and it was hard to keep the eyes dry.



I was very worried that all of today would be me weeping, but it didn't hit me until my second mind fuck: after driving 4 hours there, spending 7 hours in the move-in process and dinner, and 4 hours back, I didn't lose it. It was walking back into the apartment and realizing that bedroom was now just an extra room. She won't be back for months. Waterworks.

Mini will be fine. She's got most of her family about an hour away and with smartphones, she's just a text away.

Sleep and process. I'll be fine too.

And then Monday is the dissolutionment, but that's another post on the other blog.

Thanks for reading.

Imagine, An Emotional Dump

(This is an emotional dump and catch-up to the divorce posts, so feel free to skip.)

Imagine, for a moment, that you daughter has just turned seventeen. Imagine she took and passed her test and has been a licensed driver for about a week when you buy her a brand new used car the day before Easter. (It'd been planned for a while; she got a job at the local amusement park for the summer.) Best parent in the world. And the very next day, in a sudden bottleneck on the highway, in something you could not have possibly avoided, you crash into that new car of hers while she is driving, rendering both un-drive-able. (We are both okay.)

And the following day you get the sore throat intro to the worst cold you've had in years.

And the following day you find out two of your credit card numbers were stolen - probably in-person where you used it - and your personal and business accounts have been frozen.

Imagine also that your 11-year marriage (that has been decided it was moving towards dissolution of marriage about two years ago) was finally coming to a head and since you couldn't hold onto the house solo, you're going to be the one moving out. Oh, and your spouse started kinda dating some guy a couple weeks ago - and thinks that's an okay thing.

So right now, imagine you're looking at apartments because you're moving out of a 6-year home and 11-year marriage in less than 90 days, trying to consider all the pieces that go with moving, with filing with the court, with becoming alone (and learning how to love yourself) again (if you ever knew), how 11 years of marriage will split in bills and books and insurance and furniture and your daughter's time, stemming a rising tide of depression, holding a job, sorting out how you're going to pay for anything, pushing due diligence in research for the purchase of your new used car which NEEDS to happen in the next week - all while closing off the anger of your spouse dating and blowing lung cookies out your nose while attending rehearsals for the local play you're headlining in a month.

Sometimes we have black clouds. This has been my last two weeks.


Sorry, but I warned you it was a dump.

Dear Sophie - Chrome Commercial

Saw this on TV just now and kinda lost it. Jesus, man.



Told you.