This bagel was made in New York City!

Posting from NYC. Currently waiting for Jennifer & Paul to get here from Rhode Island to hang out for the day, so I'm sitting in a bagel shop on Broadway killing time while Hailey is out at brunch with an old friend.

Once again this blog has been neglected in favor of things that involve not being at the computer as much. I'm reminded of what Lewis Black said: "If you're twittering about it, you're not actually doing it." The Doing of Things continues to fill my life. 

So I'm in NYC, saw the Gorillaz show (amazing), did lunch in Google HQ with Hailey's friend Suzanne (neat!), Brooklyn brunch and Botanical Gardens with my sister and Matthew yesterday (quite nice), and wandered the city with Hailey (adjectival modification would seem inadequate). We're staying in a hostel (Hostel Fresh) which requires a post all its own. Hope I don't forget to do that.

Off to explore more now. Jennifer & Paul will be here in 30 min, then meeting up with Hailey again in a couple hours. Life is good :-D

Goings on

Wow, I've skipped 2 entire months this year. Is the blog dying? I don't know. It's odd that just a few posts ago I was still (legally) married. Craziness.

Now there's Hailey. The crypticness from the last update has a name and she is...we'll say awesome and leave it at that. We'll see where this goes, but we've already made plans for the holidays...I'm meeting her parents over Thanksgiving. In related news I am no longer looking for a house. See, that's what happens when I never update. Of course to update I need to be in front of a computer that's not at work and that hasn't happened much lately either.

Obi lives with me at my parents' house pretty much permanently now. He's getting walked daily, something Steph and the kids didn't have time for, and pretty happy about it. He's still sitting at 110 lbs, but hopefully getting in shape. He still looks big next to Hailey's 80 lb doggy Roxy. Almost 200 lbs of dog (plus 2 cats) is a lot for one house, but we manage when Obi's over there! Obi is learning about cats and so far he's really just curious. His body awareness is an issue when he steps on a cat tail, but we'll work on that. In the meantime he is serving as a goodwill ambassador for dogginess and I think he's convinced my parents that they need one when we move out.

Additional fun stuff in the future...The Smashing Pumpkins Sept 18, Muse Oct 2, then Gorillaz at Madison Square Garden Oct 8. Oh hell yeah.

Got my A machines on the table, got my B machines in the drawer

^^I have no idea what those lyrics mean, but "A/B machines" by Sleigh Bells is a catchy, ear-wormy song.

So BONNAROO!!! I went. I saw. It rawked. I returned. I can't possibly blog the entire experience, but I'll say it was just what I needed at this point in my life. I basically disappeared in a crowd of 80,000 and wandered anonymously for 4 days with no cares in the world. There was excellent music everywhere, thousands of super friendly people to chat with when I felt like it, and yummy food (I satisfied a falafel craving and tried fried alligator tail, cuz why not?) The Lips were great of course, Jay-Z was better than any rapper I've seen live *and* I got into the pit for his performance. I was about 30 feet away and loved every minute of it. I ran across a lot of other bands I'll need to check out on Pandora too.

The vacation was awesome, marred only by my car being driven into another car on the interstate outside of St. Louis while I was sleeping in the backseat. It will get fixed though and nobody was hurt.

In home-front news, I went house hunting yesterday with my realtor and may have found a house to buy. I need to crunch some numbers, but I think I'll make an offer and see what the universe has in mind for me. It's a nice, newly updated place off I-70 & Chambers...nice and close to work and perfect for what I need at the moment. Yesterday was great for other reasons as well, but it would be premature to get into it here. Cryptic, eh?

Off to budget now. What can I afford? Hmmmmm

30's the new 20

Jay-Z says so and I'm going to believe him.

The fun parts of my birthday-
-Went to Dave & Buster's last Saturday with some fun folks and had a good time with pool, skee ball, air hockey, and assorted gaming.
-Now have more gray hairs than I care to count on the sides of my head.
-Spent the evening at an Urgent Care to be told that yes, the aching of my foot for the last 10 days does in fact indicate a hairline fracture in my left 5th proximal metatarsal. Then they didn't have a post-op shoe at the clinic I went to, so I got to drive 90 min to Longmont and back to get the right thing to keep my foot from flexing too much. Recovery shouldn't be too bad, but this does set back training for the half-marathon I was planning to run in August. Drat.

In other news, I leave for a trip to Boston early (6:30 a.m. flight) tomorrow, get back Friday, then leave for Bonnaroo on the 8th. I need the break, and it's going to be amazing.

Chutes & Ladders

At some point everybody has played Chutes & Ladders, right?

3 years ago I ran up a really big ladder and went straight to the end of the board. In a year I jumped from single young guy living with my brother to married home-owning step-father of 2. I got close to the end of the game, close to where I wanted to spend the rest of my life...as a husband and father, living out my days with my family. I had everything I wanted, and somehow I'd skipped most of the journey most people have to go through to get there. I watched other people come up the board behind me. While I was sitting near the coast-to-the-finish line, friends were getting married, getting pregnant, having their own kids, and coming ever closer to where I had found myself. While I was getting comfortable, Steph was apparently deciding that marriage wasn't the right thing for her. She says now that she's just not meant to be married, so I found myself sliding down a chute I had hoped to avoid.

The interesting thing is that I'm back at the start, but now I've had a taste of what I've always felt I wanted in my life. I've been a dad and a husband and I did a damn good job at both, thank you very much. (Most days Steph would agree that I was a good husband, if she's not mad at me for something else. She's never blamed me for the marriage falling apart.) I'm behind where my friends are now. They're married with kids and houses and I'm living with my parents, trying to pay off debt from the marriage/divorce before I set out on my own again. I know I can get back to where I was. Obviously there are casting changes that needed to be made in the Saga of My Life, but I'll end up where I want to be. It's just going to take more rolls of the dice to get there.

Moving truck, WTF*?

Moving Saturday was successful, as most moves are. My things are no longer in my former home and are now split between self-storage and my temporary digs at my parents' place. I'm a bit more established here now- I have my TV and PS3 in my room, and an actual dresser! It's the little things, but seeing as I need to pay off some things before moving on it's good to have some stuff here that makes it more comfortable.

So Saturday started out entertaining. I had reserved a Budget truck from a location right next to a Public Storage facility (which has a big sign on the side advertising TRUCK RENTAL). It seemed convenient and Tim and I got there right at 9, as scheduled. The place didn't open until 10. Weird. Checked my phone and the address listed was not that of the storage facility. Hmmmmm. Remapped and drove towards the correct address...a block away. That's when we spotted the Budget Truck Rental sign up on a pole. Aha! 45 seconds later we're sitting in the parking lot of an obviously closed shop. Huh. Checked the email confirmation again and called the listed number. The girl helpfully told me they were located "at I-70 and Harlan." OK, we're there. More specific? "Oh, we're in the Phillips 66." That's the gas station across the street, directly in between the Budget Truck Rental-labeled place and the "TRUCK RENTAL"-advertising place. Crack much? Turns out they'd picked up the franchise when the other places had quit doing it and the other signs just hadn't come down yet. The truck was rented with one last snag- no ramp on 10' budget trucks. Grrrr. But we made it work.

The rest of the move went about as expected. Steph and the kids helped haul stuff up from the basement and I'm almost completely out, except for the dining room table Steph's "storing" until I get my new place and a bookshelf we ran out of room for. Sunday on my 1st day officially out of the house Mr. K asked me to come over and play Risk with him. So I spent all day in the old house anyway, playing with the kids and taking Obi for a walk. Funny how these things work.

*WTF was defined in a video game I played recently as "Where To Find," meaning you clicked the WTF link to get to the help section. I'm going with that. The title of the post certainly does not rhyme.

Time to move

A long time ago, I wrote this. Tomorrow I officially move all of my stuff out of that house. Yuck.

In other news...I'm going to Boston in a few weeks for a meeting. I've been there exactly once before, when I took a train from Denver to Boston w/ my family (mom, dad, and Tim) then drove to my sister's graduation from the College of the Atlantic in Maine. The train ride was long and exhausting. It also happened to be on my 19th birthday and my brother brought my present along, giving me Garbage Version 2.0 somewhere between here and there. It was my 1st non-radio exposure to Garbage and Tim was right...it's an excellent CD. (This was a year after I failed to be given The Smashing Pumpkins' Adore for my 18th bday *ahem* but that's another story.) My only memory of Boston itself is getting there after a hellaciously long train ride, getting in a rental car, and driving out of the city with no food. I remember thinking I had never felt so hungry in my life, being exhausted from the train ride, and desperately, frantically wanting something to eat. Funny the things that stick.

This time is a meeting though, and it couldn't come at a better time. Jennifer and Paul are in Rhode Island just an hour away, so I'm going to spend the weekend with them after the meeting is over on Friday. The divorce will be final on April 22 and I'll get to spend the weekend before that with friends I haven't seen in awhile. That'll be good.

In other other news...awhile back I created a hotmail account for the sole purpose of craigslisting. (I bought my PS3 on craigslist, not a prostitute, for those keeping score at home...) My gmail uses my actual name, so I made up a throwaway hotmail account that I programmed into my iPhone as an alternate means of anonymous communication. In the last few weeks the spambots have discovered me. How the hell does that happen? I've sent maybe 4 emails from that address, all to actual people, and I'm getting spam. Grrrr. I'd forgotten how much I love the gmail spam filters.

Perspective

I've been a responsible adult way too long...my ebay account is 11 years old.

Funeral time

Just over a week ago my great-grandma passed away. Mom-mo Lynn, as we called her, was 96 and had what Eddie Izzard refers to as the Life Force: "I'm a Gran, I live forever!" It was a bit sudden, since we hadn't known she was sick at all, and we weren't really prepared for it.

Once details emerged, we found out she *had* been sick, but my Aunt hadn't deemed it necessary to tell anyone else. She'd been in the hospital, had apparently been diagnosed with esophageal cancer days earlier, and didn't have much chance of making it. At the end though she died at home, in her own bed, and never stopped selling Avon. She had a good run and was an awesome little old lady. She'll be missed.

Of course with death comes a funeral and we got back last night from attending. My mom's whole family was together for the 1st time in ages...we figured 10 years or so. Tod, Alex, and Amber (Tod's fiance) flew to Denver from Seattle, and my sister flew in from NY so we could all caravan from Denver to Hutchinson. Terri's family all made the trip down from KC too so I saw all of my cousins. They've all grown up over the last 10 years! Weird.

The drive across Kansas hasn't changed a bit in all the years I've been doing it. Hays is still there in the middle of it, and visiting is always a tad surreal. I've definitely made the transition to city dweller and the small towns just seem so...small I guess is the word for it :-P

Laundry now. Work has been insane lately and I guess I have to be ready for it tomorrow. Bah.

Bonnaroo 2010- an early post

I'm going to Bonnaroo June 10-14. My time off was approved today and I should be able to buy my ticket this weekend.

I'm really going for one reason: The Flaming Lips are going to be there, performing Dark Side of the Moon with Stardeath and White Dwarf. It's going to be just like after my last major breakup...when Sarah ended it in August of 2006 I went to Las Angeles to spend New Year's Eve with the Lips and Gnarles Barkley. That was an excellent experience and I think another such trip is in order. The divorce will be final by then and I'll be turning 30 just before Bonnaroo...it seems like a perfect opportunity for a getaway. Also Jay-Z, Norah Jones, and a whole bunch of other fun people are playing. So if anyone reading this wants to head to Tennessee in June, let me know! I'm going, even if I'm alone out there, but it would be fun to travel with others. :-)

OK, back to Fallout 3. Where's vault 112 anyway?

Mitch

Ancient history in Anthognaland...

Growing up back in Kansas, my best friend in the world was Mitch. From kindergarten to 8th grade we were best friends. Our moms were friends, our brothers were friends, and Mitch and I were inseparable. Then one day in 8th Grade it ended. Mitch turned against me. It wasn't just that we stopped hanging out or talking...he turned all of our mutual friends against me. Unfortunately that was almost everybody I knew, so for the 2nd half of 8th grade I had almost no friends. After that I hung out mostly with my sister and her friends until we moved to Colorado between Freshman and Sophomore years of high school.

My mom asked Mitch's mom once what had happened. The response? "He knows what he did." Except that I didn't. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what I'd done that was so egregious that my best friend would turn on me like that. I could never figure it out and it was one of the big unanswered questions of my life...until recently.

When things with Steph started sliding I thought I'd see if I could figure out where I'd gone wrong in prior relationships. I know what happened with Sarah and almost every significant romantic relationship, but Mitch had always been a mystery. I've had very few meaningful friendships with guys in my life, and I think a lot of that had to do with Mitch. I figured 16 years was long enough to wonder what happened, and thanks to Facebook I was able to ask. The response was amazing: HE DOESN'T KNOW.

He doesn't remember anything specific that killed our friendship, just that we grew apart. All these years I've been sure that it was some action on my part that messed things up. Granted Mitch's mom pretty much came out and said that, so of course that's what I thought. Turns out it was just a natural progression of life. Some relationships last, others reach a natural conclusion. The trick is all in how you handle it. Do you wage a scorched-earth campaign to convince others that the person is somehow flawed? Or do you just accept that it's over and move on as gracefully as possible so that the other person can do that same? Mitch chose badly in my opinion. I hope to do better.

San Francisco!

Yep, another work trip. This time to California, where I got to stay at The Palace Hotel. Nice place, but my room smelled like decades of cigarette smoke that will never quite dissapate. I can't complain too much though.

Travel was amusing again, watching people in the airport and such. There was a page for "Mrs. Osama," who must have a hard time flying, the group of blondes headed to a wedding in San Francisco (overheard: "You two are like, Barack Obama and, like, his vice president"...because we don't know his name?), and my favorite, the increasingly urgent overhead paging for people who aren't where they're supposed to be. You can tell the people doing the paging get annoyed when they're holding a plane for 1 straggler who wandered into a gift shop or the bathroom and forgot that they were supposed to be on a plane. I can't say I blame them. Just once though I'd like them to get on the intercom and say what's really going through their heads:

"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, please report to gate A28 for boarding."
"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, your flight is ready to leave and we're all wondering what's keeping you. Please get to gate A28 if you would like to come along."
"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, your wife told you not to eat burritos the night before a flight. Don't you wish you'd taken the pepto she offered you on the way out the door?"
"Hey, Mr. John Doe, screw this, we're out of here. And when you come up here all pissed that we didn't wait for you, I'm going to laugh in your face and revoke your frequent flier status. Neener neener."

But that won't happen.

Divorce

It's over. The marriage I fought hard for, the family I poured my heart into, the kids I loved as by own, the wife I adored and loved with every ounce of my existence...they're leaving my life.

I wish I could say what happened, but I'm still not sure where this went wrong. The bottom line is that at some point Stephanie decided she wasn't happy. She's not willing to work on figuring out why or making it better, so after 6 months of a downhill slide we're getting a divorce. I've already moved out of the house and tonight started the paperwork to make it official.

I felt I should say something here, since this blog was started in response to the wonderful new relationship I'd discovered. Now that it's ending the blog will continue. This space will not become negative and I will not stoop to attacks on Stephanie. Yes, there is anger, sadness, heartbreak, confusion, and everything else you would expect in a divorce, but I will not speak of it beyond this post. This is not the place for that. This is my blog, and I choose happiness. For the members of Steph's family who read this, thank you for including me in your family for a brief just-over-2-years. Feel free to visit the blog if you feel like it. I'll be moving on with my life the best that I can. I tried, I did my best, and in the end it just didn't work out. What more can I ask of myself?

Why does nothing ever turn out like it should?
Well, what the heck, I went and did my best
And, by God, I really tasted something swell
And for a moment, why, I even touched the sky
And at least I left some stories they can tell, I did