Entries tagged "Everything Is Subject to Change"

So, You’re Getting Divorced?

poppingchampagne

I’m so sorry. Congratulations. It likely doesn’t feel like congratulations time if you’ve only just discovered your marriage is not going to work. But at some point, however far in the future it may be, it will. This might be hard to believe, but it’s true. This is just one of the things I’ve learned going through my own divorce. Here are some other things I learned or wish I’d known at the start.

1. Welcome to Divorce Club. It’s a little like getting a motorcycle. You’re going to find out there’s a little wave and an understanding people flash at each other. We find each other via uncanny emotional cruising we might not realize we’re doing. You’re entering or have been through the shit. We know. We’re there too. People who haven’t been there have no idea. Those civilians probably aren’t going to be very cathartic to talk with.

2. You will need a new emergency contact for your doctor’s office. This will hurt.

3. There is no reason the person you’re divorcing is going to make more sense to you or behave in a way you think makes more sense during divorce than they did during the marriage. If they did, you wouldn’t be getting divorced.

4. Holding onto anger and resentment about your spouse’s behavior is only going to make you, your friends and definitely your kids miserable. Of course, it’s a good idea to feel however you do feel about things. Be as angry as you need to be when you feel angry. But nurturing anger long term is just going to make the divorce process harder. You have practical shit to deal with now.

5. You are going to be a teenager for a little while. This part can be fun, especially if you’ve never been one before.

7. You get a sex life! Only have sex with people who are unavailable for a relationship for a good while.

8. Make a friend under the age of 25 who can talk sense to you about texting and social media as they relate to online dating, pick ups and their aftermath. If you haven’t dated in a while this shit might be new to you. If it’s been a really long time, learn how to have safe sex.

8. Have some friends you can fall apart with. Divorce Club members are good candidates. Unless someone has been through hell, they won’t be very good at being with you while you’re in it. Walk away from advice givers (this included if it bothers you).

9. Divorce is like a death. It’s the end of your idea or dream of a future you made decisions and compromises for. And like any death grieving isn’t linear. Be very gentle with yourself. A friend told me “when someone dies you get a year.” Your life relationship died. You deserve to be forgiven for whatever weird stuff you may do this year. See number 4.

10. You thought planning your wedding was time-consuming and expensive?

11. If you can avoid hiring divorce lawyers, do it. It’s a cliche because it’s true: the lawyers will do better than either of you will financially in the split. You will often end up having to manage and fight with the lawyer as much or more than your ex.

12. Don’t hire a lawyer without an endorsement from someone who’s been in Divorce Club a lot longer than you.

12. Nothing emotional is accomplished or gained in a lawsuit. You will never feel better because you sued someone. You should take care of yourself and if this is necessary to do financially, then it’s necessary. Just know that it is often a second emotionally painful thing to deal with in an ongoing way. And it makes closure take much longer.

13. If you die while you are still married, your ex is your next of kin. At some point you will be motivated to do whatever you have to do to end it.

14. You will want to be divorced more that you ever wanted to be married.

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Look here for more on this show in development, Everything Is Subject To Change, Email if you’d like to bring it to your living room.

Burying Uncle Ed’s Leg: My latest story on CBC

My Uncle Ed buried his leg. For real. It turns out that it’s an Orthodox Jewish practice. My story and about it aired on the CBC show How to Do It today. It’s a funny one. You can read more on the show in development I mention in the piece, Everything Is Subject to Change, here.

Removing Dropbox, Wifi, Spotlight + Notification Center From Your Menu Bar


My mind often follows what I see. I’m a visual-spatial thinker.

So I wanted to get rid of as much of the stuff in my Mac’s menu bar as possible so I can focus on what I’m writing right now. This may be the nerdiest post I’ve ever written, but it’s part of my new commitment to myself to return my expression to my own blog first (thanks for the inspiration Scott Rosenberg) before social media or elsewhere, and to write more often.

Continue reading…

Saying what you can’t do can help you do it.

I was just reading Austin Kleon’s lovely lovely blog, once again and so enjoying how he shares the process of how he works (not to mention the clean design which I always covet). And I am also loving the way Austin has stayed with it. I can see how it feeds him and anchors some of his process. He seems to have a few creative anchors (his notebooks for one). I do too and I’d like to begin sharing them.

I am resolved to blog more often. So I’m jumping right back in. But I’ll be honest: one of the the things that’s kept me from blogging more in the past is that I really want to make changes to this site. And I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.

Sample of questions that have gone through my head on a regular basis:

  • how do I make the site more spacious?
  • how do I get to see a different font that I actually *like* when I write, on the back end?
  • how can I get a calendar up in the navigation so people can actually see my upcoming shows more easily
  • shouldn’t I want to spend more time on my site if I want others to join me here?
  • should I use Squarespace instead of WordPress?
  • Don’t I need to set up some kind of automatic back up process?
  • Do I need a separate site or just a page here to share the process of making my new show Everything Is Subject to Change

Ok. That’s a sampling. But I realize none of these questions (all of which remain unanswered) is helping me do the most important thing blogging can: regularly write in the open and stay connected to my own explorations. So, I’m just going to write posts. Perhaps they will be small ones. They probably should be small ones. But something regular to get my regular thoughts more shapely and more a part of the public conversation. I write and speak a great deal, but I’d like to have a more regular practice here. I’d also like to stay with myself a little more. I find that too much time on social media pages, while a wonderful way to be social, converse quickly and see new things, is also a way to not let my brain and body practice going much deeper into something. I do that for longer stories I’m telling on stage more and more often but then all my work can be ephemeral or on tape which remains unshared until it’s gone through and edited.

I’ve been running pretty regularly since 2010. With tiny, regular practice it’s become something I really look forward to. While I’ve written online in some form since before blogging software back in 1997, I haven’t been so regular at it since twitter and facebook have gotten much of my writing time.

And I’ve found that when I’m really really stuck. Just saying exactly what’s occurring to me out loud is a start. It’s also being with exactly what’s going on so it sort of tricks me into being in the present. And then, of course, I feel more relaxed and just fine, even if what I had to say isn’t the best work I’ve ever done. It’s a start. Now that I think back, it’s what I did with my very very first blog post a long time ago after talking with Jason Kottke about it.

 

 

 

 

 

I peed in a small container this morning…

I peed in a small container first thing this morning.

That’s what the woman from the electronic box company help line told me to do.

“The first urine of the morning is the most concentrated.”

Ordinarily these days I’d just pee on the stick directly and then put it into the electronic box that monitors my surge in LH or lutenizing hormone. But my trip to the west coast got extended last week and I started my cycle there. So until noon, the little box still thinks it’s yesterday when I wake up. Thus the pee saving.

It’s the latest of many self-conscious moves I’ve had to make in an effort to get pregnant. I’ve had to check in so much during this insemination process, I’m totally the Mayor of my uterus.

Because we have limited funds, time (I turned 42 on Wednesday) and only as much sperm as we can afford, we have to be precise. We need to make each month’s insemination as high yield an attempt as possible. If next week’s doesn’t work I’ll get maybe 4 more tries. I feel like Luke trying to hit the Life Star.

When the nurse practicioner told me today that she recommended more monitoring every month I had to fight back tears as I explained that we weren’t doing monthly sonograms or more testing because we couldn’t afford it. If I can get pregnant, we’ll need 5k just for the 2nd parent adoption in NY.

It’s running us $560 for a .5cc vial per month. But this is top shelf stuff. Identity release, Grey Goose sperm. Over 66 million per cc. Sperm is ubiquitous. Sperm that can get you pregnant that is from someone who can be known to your kids but not challenge your legal custody is not.

But maybe the pain of all these details are going to pale in comparision to the joy of parenting. Just like coming out in the abstract makes all the hardships crystal clear. But all of those laws and prejudices are simply dwarfed by real love and the truth of who you are.

So tomorrow morning, again, I will pee in a small container.

This post is up here part of @3six5, a fun group project that told 365 stories for a year from 365 points of view curated by @Len Kendall and @DanielHonigman.

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