evidently the divorce was finalized last friday. tamara called jack about coming over tomorrow (monday) to pick up the two sentimental things she wanted. never mind that she’s got a small u-haul worth of stuff, including a lot of stuff that is completely hers (not “ours” in any way, shape, or form) like photo albums, guitars, books, camera, etc. and if she doesn’t take it i have to deal with it. i shouldn’t have to deal with it. it should be her problem to deal with. but this is pretty much par for the course — she takes whatever she wants and i get to clean up all of the sh!t left behind. i can’t believe how painful things continue to be, especially after all the stuff she’s done to me over the last couple of years. d4mn if i don’t still have a problem accepting that this is reality, at least at times. i’m seriously at a loss for words to describe how broken and hurt i am by all of it.
on a related note, what kind of law firm am i working with, where they didn’t even bother to call me to let me know what did or didn’t happen on the court date? for over a week? and i’m paying how much for this? geez, being naive about lawyers and the legal process got me screwed on this one.
Month: August 2005
st00pid companies and the lawyers who work for them
so…this guy is low on funds, so he uses some fedex boxes to make some furniture. some friends think it’s cool, so he puts up a website with some pictures (www.fedexfurniture.com).
what happens next? the fedex lawyers send a bully letter telling him he’d better stop doing his nastiness to their beautiful logo and reputation, because the idiot public (i.e., their customers) might get confused and he’s going to hurt poor little fedex by this heinous act. they even invoke the legal swiss army knife of fuzzy reason, the dmca. it catches the attention of a stanford attorney (one of the few who appear to have a heart or soul) who decides to stand up to them for him.
how is it in these days and times that some corporate entities have their heads stuck so far up their…anyway…that they don’t understand the value of this kind of marketing? i mean, seriously, ad companies would probably pitch this as a hip new ad series and charge them a lot to make commericals, but some guy does it for free and they bully him. maybe the fedex lawyers were bored and needed something to entertain themselves.
on the guy’s blog he mentioned he got an email from a dhl.com address suggesting their materials would add a modern flair to his apartment. personally, i think it’d be nice if dhl jumped in and realized what kind of marketing opportunity they have, gave him free packaging materials, played it up, and turned fedexfurniture.com into a black eye for fedex. not that i’m a fan of any large corporate entities really, but marketing and large corporations are a fact of american life and it’s nice to see them fight each other and have one use the social stupidity of another against them. plus maybe it’d pit fedex and dhl lawyers against each other. (i’m going to stop now instead of going on and on about the concepts of marketing and public relations and so on and so forth. maybe some other time.)
who’s your daddy?
on sunday i went up north for a motorcycle ride at the request of a lady friend (the one i met a couple of weeks ago at the dale watson show). i picked her up and we rode around, ate lunch, talked, and rode around some more. it was enjoyable. when i went to drop her off at her house, i went in for some water.
turned out her two older kids were back home. a bit awkward, but i met them. then a few minutes later her mom showed up to see her grand-daughter’s new school clothes. a bit awkward again, but i met her too. a few minutes later, the sister showed up bringing back the youngest kid who’d spent the night at her place. still awkward, but i met her. then a few minutes later the dad showed up, coming to get the lawnmower. still more awkward, but i met him too. he seemed somewhat irritated and before going into another room told his daughter that he needed to talk to her later. i decided this might be a good time for me to leave, so she and i walked outside.
as we were standing at my motorcycle, her dad came out and walked straight up to me and looking somewhat upset said: “i need to ask you…just what are your intentions with my daughter?” *boggle*
walking papers?
well, friday was the court date for my divorce. it was supposed to be at 10am. so i may already be a “free man” and not even know it. how’s that? i never heard from my attorney, the worthless (yet highly paid) goober. so i have no idea if i’m legally divorced or not.
i had to get a cashier’s check for $450 and deliver it to tamara’s attorney’s office on friday, so i did it in the morning before going into work. i couldn’t help myself, and on it wrote “first we loose the shackles, then we wear the chains”. that’s a paraphrase from lsu’s song “shaded pain” (full lyrics below).
the whole day i also wore the t-shirt i got married in, under a long sleeve black dress shirt (like the one i got married in, but not the actual one). symbolism is important to me.
i still get angry every time i think of how much tamara and her attorney have taken advantage of me financially. it’s completely unfair, but the legal system isn’t set up to be fair to me in my situation. so i’m just screwed. and unfortunately, at some point tamara decided she should take me for what she could get instead of trying to be anywhere near fair. and of course this is beyond all of the emotional pain i’ve gone through because of her choices, which is still sometimes rather excruciating.
in yet another amazing cosmic coincidence (or higher intelligence, if you’re open to that sort of thing), river oaks is showing eternal sunshine of the spotless mind as their midnight movie this weekend. i was going to go last (friday) night because how perfect is it that the day i’m getting legally divorced river oaks just happens to be showing that particular movie, but i ended up staying out drinking after the technology bytes geek gathering. which seems just about as appropriate, i guess. but i’m going to go watch the movie tonight.
i think here in the not-too-distance future (since everything will be final) i’m going to post some of the details of the affair, along with links to stuff. maybe this truth will get out and be tied to the people involved. or at least be available on the internet for anyone to see, if they happen to find it.
the secret life of a gang cd
this morning when i was backing my motorcycle out of the garage, i noticed a cd laying beside my driveway. there was stuff written and drawn on it with a red sharpie. i picked it up and looked at it. it was the typical graffiti font that all the cool taggers and yo-mtv-raps gangstas use. there was also a crude, poorly executed pic of a spray paint can spraying as if it had tagged some letters. “hhmmm…”, i said to myself, “i wonder what kind of music the local ganstas burn to cd to listen to?” i flipped the cd over and realized i’d actually been looking at the data side of the cd. on the side that had been facedown was a full-color, silkscreened “scooby-doo & the toons discover the alphabet” label (or some similar learning title) with scooby-doo and some cartoon network characters. now i know. (and knowing is half the battle.)