Part One here.

So we continued to neck in the wings, or in the empty scene shop, and especially in the back of the house. The director didn’t notice we were gone, because she was tied up with coaxing the best possible performance out of the lead actress, a blonde senior girl who played the part of a woman institutionalized by her grown children not because she was crazy, but so they could get at her money.

But we were missed by Brandon Walsh’s friends, who were used to gabbing with him between their scenes. He was especially close to another junior named Jerry who played one of the lead character’s grown sons. Once day as Brandon and I were in the back, engaged in our ongoing DNA-exchange project, Jerry burst in.

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Like many kids, I made a concerted effort to reinvent myself for the asinine character-builder/holding pen known as public high school. This wasn’t hard to do, as my mother had just left my stepfather for the third time and I was feeling naturally depressed and broody after a summer of being cooped up in a tiny urban apartment reading science fiction, with a bedroom I was made to share with my toddler sister, who did not share my love of Depeche Mode. So conveying myself as a moody outsider wasn’t a stretch.

In our other house, our “real” house that I assumed we were doomed to return to like the other two times my mother fled, I had my own room and our property adjoined a forest preserve. I felt suffocated living on the busy street and in the rundown apartment that my mother could afford on her secretary’s salary. I knew in my gut that this was another one of my mother’s crappy, half-baked holidays from her husband, and it irritated me that it was both restrictive and likely temporary.

After a summer in the apartment, growing pale and thin under the blue tint of constant Moonlighting reruns and Elvis movies, the beginning of high school seemed like an escape. I decided there would be people there who were more like me and would recognize what I had to offer as a budding intellectual who had spent the summer interspersing sci -fi with Serious Literature (Kafka: check; Hesse: check; Vonnegut: check) and a snappy fashion sense that was 1980s Robert Smithian. How could I fail to surround myself with other sensitive souls who were like me?

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So, regular readers may have noticed I haven’t been writing as much. I was talking with a friend about this the other day, and I finally admitted to myself (while telling her) that I have absolutely no juice right now. Life seems kind of dulled. It’s like a bad prescription drug commercial: has the luster gone out of your life? People talk to me and I don’t totally hear what they’re saying. I am thinking in circles. Did I turn the stove off? Where are my keys? Are they on the stove? Maybe the stove is my keys? I feel like I’m slipping out of my normal life like when Alice falls down the hole to Wonderland. I can see it up there, my real life, but it’s getting smaller. The good news is when I reach the bottom of this hole, it will actually be the top again. And I don’t think I will fall much longer. It’s almost over.

And I made one of those emo announcements at the beginning of this that I would keep writing, and I am failing at that. Something happened today, and I am forcing myself to get back to it. Sack up, Asshole. I guess I have to write when I feel like crap, too. My conscience is nagging me. I feel like I owe someone, somehow.

It is bothering me to the extreme that trying to rework Franny’s custody schedule is taking so much out of me. I go back and forth in my head on this one. I hear a lot of jibjab about “taking control of your life” and “not letting people have power over you” blah, blah, here’s some crystals, etc. But I think it’s less about him and more about the situation. I don’t think about him, much. It’s more like I’m at war with the situation.

I am going to be brave and climb out of my hole and catch you up. Here’s a glimpse into one portal of Hell. Ho ho.

SO. The first letter I got announced the move, ninety minutes away to an island here. I told you this. The format was wrong, as if he hadn’t done all his research. I sent back a response asking for proper notice, less to be a pain in the ass, and more because I have discovered that in any dealings with the court it is better to have all i’s dotted, and so forth. Then I got proper notice including a proposed parenting plan that was written up in letter format.

He was asking for three weekends a month and half of summer break. He was wanting to keep the parenting split 50/50 on paper, even though she’d be spending more time here. This doesn’t work. After I said something about filing this with the court and getting the commissioner to sign off on it, he sent me an email with the phrase (I paraphrase): “We can just settle this with a handshake” and said we didn’t have to go through the courts, even. Can I tell you that when I read this it absolutely struck terror into my heart?

I am not keen on the three weekends a month thing. You know that that’s family time around here, when shit gets crafted, baked, and sewn, and there are family field trips and elaborate meals. The rest of the week is rather hustley and exhausting. So I batted back something that is recommended by the state, which is a midweeknight visit and two weekends a month. I figured he could take her to dinner at his parents’ house or something. Lots of time in the summer. Him asking me to do all the hard work and then having the bone of one weekend a month thrown at me…shit, man, I feel like he’s spitting in my face. This is my FIRST BABY. I have two weekends a month now. Why would I want to give that up because you’re moving away?

And he replied again. I am so sad and I want to cry, because it doesn’t even make sense. The words, the way it’s written. And I can tell he tried. He retained some of my wording (I think?), and then changed things below it so they completely contradict other parts. Confession: sometimes I worry that he is doing this on purpose to wear me down. Could that be it?

It is basically the same plan as the first one in the letter (maybe? sort of?). He is still pushing the 50/50 custody thing, even though with his plan as near as I can tell, I will still have her for more time. We have joint decision making for major decisions, and custodial designation is just for laws that require that there be a custodian. As it has been explained to me, it doesn’t mean I trump anything in any way. We still have an agreement not to leave these three counties.

This isn’t about me being piggy or trying to stage a coup. I just…don’t think a commissioner would even sign his proposed plan.

I am a little shocked with all of this. I mean, surprised, but yet not at the same time, you know? So I am recommending mediation at this point. Due to the fact that I am not dealing with my equal, this is going to get expensive. But I think it will be worth it to have another adult involved.

I think I dreamt I wrote this post, but then my sleep was interrupted by yelling. HA!

Joint Custody=Phail? 1 2 3