I love coincidences

 Several months ago, pre-election, when I was on a book making binge, I made this.

It's a flip book in the style of the Exquisite Corpse game.

The pages are divided into thirds. Each whole page depicts a person, and when you flip a section of the page,  part of the person can be changed into someone else. Fun and games, and my mind saw a message just in the format. Walk in someone else's shoes. Get inside someone else's head. Feel what's going on in the heart of someone that isn't you. I thought the book needed a few words though so I excerpted several lines of a poem called, "In This Place." Turns out it's a poem by Amanda Gorman. I had no idea, back then, how appropriate that would be.

In other news, I am in this place--my new house in my new study where everything finally has a place and I no longer have to excavate a bin from beneath a bed to find a certain piece of paper.

Here are the other books I made during the book making binge.

And the sturdy deep shelves with room for books and my never ending collection of stuff.

The tiny closet is a wonder. There's room for my handmade paper, my hand-marbled paper, and all the stuff I use for collaging, plus the usual crap one keeps in a filing cabinet. Things like a final decree of divorce, mediation agreements, new divorce advice, tax forms, etc. 

A long while ago, there was this coincidence. Life is so mysterious and interesting. 

Divorce Resources

This is kind of a blast from the past.

I have no idea how many readers this blog has maintained from its original incarnation when it was called.......oh, you know. Go ahead, say it in your head if you know it, but I will abide by the restraining order that mandated that I change the name of this blog and refrain from mentioning its former name as well as you-know-who and you-know-who. Not that I ever mentioned them by name anyway. In fact, I wrote under an alias, Ex-in-the-City.

While my own divorce seems like ancient history most of the time, I still take an interest in the subject of divorce. My own divorce was personally devastating, a scorched earth of the soul that blackened my mental and physical health not to mention my finances. I had loads of support and love from friends and family, but the advice was mostly of the stuff-raw-shimp-into-the-curtain-rods variety (you can google that if you are so inclined.) BTW, I did some pretty weird and distressing stuff, but not that. Divorce advice of the more step-by-step practical variety was in short supply. I wandered all around the Internet, never quite finding what I needed.

All of which is to say, here's a LINK.
AND and ARTICLE.

And now back to our regular programming.

love

birds and the beach

Caring for my mom

.
And since a new caregiver greeted me at the door recently with,
"Are you Ethel?" (my 91-year-old mom)
Here' a picture of me.
I think I've survived pretty nicely.
I wish the same for anyone slogging through a divorce and hoping to make it through in one piece.

photo by my talented friend Nomi Wagner. Usually she takes pictures of babies, not babes. Ha.

It's Turdsday. Shit I've Learned about Divorce #5: A Gem from a Reader Comment

"When we mutually determined to divorce, we both agreed that we married in the best of intentions, so thus we also decided that if we must divorce, we must do so with the same spirit.."


That's humbling, this comment from one of my readers of a recent Thursday post.
It's all I have to say about divorce today.

I'd rather point out the way the morning light makes my dining room look like it's been dipped in gold after the man who loves me spends an evening here.


My heart has the same look, I'm pretty sure. 

It's Turdsday. Shit I've Learned about Divorce #4: Money, Taxes, Joint Accounts, Credit Cards and Other Horrors

Taxes:
When my marriage broke up, I had all the financial trappings of a big fat life: a CPA who prepared my taxes,a financial advisor, a team of divorce lawyers. Imagine my surprise when the end of 2008 rolled around and I filed my first individual tax return in thirty years. Not one of those professionals had any inkling of how naive I was. I had no idea of how naive I was--cuz that's what naive is. You don't know what you don't know.


You were supposed to being paying quarterly taxes all year, the CPA said.
Yes, alimony is taxable at the full rate, the divorce attorneys said.
You need to come up with how much money?!?! the financial planner said.
I don't have any control over the tax code, someone else said.
Holy shit, I said.


Paying my income tax and the penalties I accrued from failing to pay estimated quarterly tax wiped out every cent I had saved from my rather fat alimony that first year on my own.


I've recovered from the tax debacle of 2008. But I managed to get myself into the penalty box again in 2009 when I goofed up my quarterly payments to the State of California. Here on the left coast of the country, a quarterly payment is not really a quarter. You pay nothing in the third quarter. That's because you were supposed to pay 40% in the second quarter. And, just by the way, the first and fourth quarter, you pay 30%. Um. For all I know it's that way in every state in the union. But I didn't know what I needed to know when I should have known it.


Joint Accounts:
I didn't know what to do with the joint checking accounts. After my alimony began, I quit using them. But it seemed weird to take my name off them. Someone else's name was still on them, and the accounts were being used by him. Maybe there was some strategic smart attorney something I didn't know, and I should leave things alone.Hmmm, the banker said. He could overdraw this account and you could be liable. That didn't happen. Thank god. But it could have.


Credit Cards:
When you get a credit card with someone, you might be just a simple little authorized user. It's a pain, because if you call the credit card company for any reason, you're just a big fat nothing. I'm sorry, they'll tell you. We have to speak to the owner of the account. But I'm his wife, you'll say. Who? Oh, that doesn't matter, they'll say. But if you get divorced, there's still a lot of fancy dancing to get yourself off the account. And what goes on with that account can affect your credit rating.


If you're not just an authorized user,you're probably a co-owner of the account. You can't get your name taken off. Period. We don't recognize divorce, the credit card company will say. They'll go on to say that the agreement you entered into with the credit card company supersedes divorce. You are liable even if you shredded the card long ago. Now you have to pay your divorce lawyers to help you settle this one.


Other Horrors:
Health insurance is at the top of my list of "other horrors." I won't even go into it. But think about your situation. Your health and how you insure it, and how all of that will change when you are divorced.


I wish you the best of luck.
Just telling you some shit you might want to know.




My divorce advice disclaimer: I am not an attorney, a paralegal, or a legal secretary. Nor do I possess any legal education or credentials of any kind other than having been married to an attorney for three decades and immediately thereafter involved in divorcing him for the next four years. My advice is based solely on my own experience and falls under the broader life heading of Damn It,  If Only I'd Known Then What I Know Now.

It's Turdsday. Shit I've Learned about Divorce #3: The Retainer

Last Thursday I didn't dispense any divorce advice because my washing machine overflowed and leaked into my kitchen ceiling.

Think of divorce proceedings as a leak. Not water (oh, there will be tears, sure) but money. At the very beginning of the end of your world you will sign a retainer agreement or a retainer letter from your attorney. Mine is two and a half pages long--single spaced. I don't think I read it, and if I did, I don't remember reading it. This was my brain on grief. All circuits flooded.

My advice today is: READ YOUR RETAINER AGREEMENT. There are different types of retainer agreements, and you should know what type exactly yours is. I would suggest having a friend over for a cup of coffee or something not in the stimulant category--and having that good friend sit next to you on the couch, read the agreement, look you in the eye, and tell you what it says. Maybe even write in big block letters at the top of each page some key points. One very important thing your retainer letter will disclose is your attorney's hourly rates. The attorney's hourly rates might perhaps even  figure into the choice of your attorney.

Here's what I've learned about hourly rates this week:
Appliance repair: $119.00
Electrician: $70.00
Painter: $30.00 Paint crew head guy: $32.00
Cabinet refinishers: (the special rate): $18.00
My divorce attorneys: $500.00 for the senior partner; $415.00 for the other partner

Read it and weep. Denial is a river in Egypt as they say. Step out onto dry land and realize that every conversation, every email, every phone call with your attorney will cost you money. You probably have homeowner's insurance, but I'll bet you don't have divorce insurance.

Oh, and another thing about retainers. The retainer might not even come close to what the final tab will be. The final cost to you may be--oh, ten or twelve times more. So, my dear potential dwellers of Divorceville, I hope you retain this advice. That's my toaster in the photo above. On the floor of my living room. I made breakfast there this morning. No big deal--compared to a divorce.

Just tryin' to give ya some tools.

Cuz it can be a mess.

My divorce advice disclaimer: I am not an attorney, a paralegal, or a legal secretary. Nor do I possess any legal education or credentials of any kind other than having been married to an attorney for three decades and immediately thereafter involved in divorcing him for the next four years. My advice is based solely on my own experience and falls under the broader life heading of Damn It,  If Only I'd Known Then What I Know Now. 

Divorce Advice:#2

This is the 2nd in a series of divorce advice posts that I plan to do every Thursday until I run out of useful things to say on the subject....could go on for a month or two....or not.

Bifurcation sounds a little like amputation. Consider it just as carefully. Maybe there are other options.

California Divorce.com defines bifurcation like this:

It can take many months, even several years, for a dissolution to wind its way through the courts. Faced with this fact, many spouses want to terminate the marriage quickly, even if the other issues in the case have not been settled. There might also be situations in which it makes sense to have a separate trial of a particular issue. In both of those situations, the court will order that the trial is to be “bifurcated.” This means either that the marital status is terminated and the parties are restored to their single status or a separate trial is to be held concerning a specific issue.

Let me clarify. It means that the marriage is dissolved and the final decree of divorce is issued, but the financial settlement can go on and on and on. In other words, the dissolution of the marriage and the financial settlement are cleaved into two separate processes. This could be the greatest thing since the Ginsu knife if you're the one who wants to rush off and get married to your new true love. If that's not you, then by agreeing to bifurcation, you may be giving the go-ahead for your ex to remarry while  you stand at the altar of financial uncertainty. While you are waiting for the joint assets to be divided, a couple of things are likely to happen:

1) You will be paying attorney bills every month

2) Your  ex will be in a honeymoon state of mind, perhaps starting a new family, moving, trying to pay off the charge card for the wedding expenses, and he will have zero motivation to settle his finances with you.

So if  you have not been able to initiate the IDEAL DIVORCE, and your attorney is now doing what you've hired him or her to do, have a discussion about bifurcation. Imagine that the ex and and the new true love have set a date, put a deposit on the venue and the caterer, hired the photographer, and are discussing the pros and cons of a cupcake bar.  If there's no bifurcation, that's some pretty serious motivation to complete all aspects of the divorce unless polygamy is legal where you live.

Bifurcation is commonly favored and approved by the courts in California. Some states do not allow bifurcation. There's a lot of free information on the Internet appropriate to each state. Educate yourself. Bifurcation might be a "state" you don't want to find yourself in because you could be there for years waiting to cross the border. A discussion of bifurcation and its implications might be an appropriate topic as you choose an attorney to represent you.

My divorce advice disclaimer: I am not an attorney, a paralegal, or a legal secretary. Nor do I possess any legal education or credentials of any kind other than having been married to an attorney for three decades and immediately thereafter involved in divorcing him for the next four years. My advice is based solely on my own experience and falls under the broader life heading of Damn It,  If Only I'd Known Then What I Know Now.


Title for this Thursday venture, anyone?  "It's Turdsday: Shit I've Learned About Divorce?" Surely there's someone more refined than I out there with a catchy phrase waiting to be put to good use.

Divorce Advice: #1

This is from an interview in last Saturday's Los Angeles Times with Laura Wasser, Maria Shriver's attorney:

Is there any such thing as an ideal divorce?


Ideal? There are plenty of divorces where people come in and say, "We love each other and care about each other but we're not happy together anymore. There's no mystery to this; it's not rocket science. "We've got X amount of money and these properties and here are our kids and here's what we've worked out. Can you write this up for us?" Absolutely. That's the way to do it.  You spend far less money, your children understand that you each love them and it's totally doable.


Well.
That would have smelled like roses, or a field of lavender, or  bread baking, or a snifter of something smooth and old and tasty.

Ms. Wasser's advice is shatteringly good. I hope she walks her talk. If you are at the beginning of a divorce (even if the love part mentioned above is not exactly true for you,) aim for working it out while the situation is fresh. Tell your soon-to-be-ex that the money you both save can buy you new cars, or a little vacation place somewhere.

Divorce Advice: My Half-Dozen Rules

No one's asked, but I think I've learned a few things as my divorce has dragged on through these past three years.

Even if you think you were married to the most upstanding, moral, wise, and essentially kind human being, he has probably changed. At the very least, he's in a crisis and not thinking with the "big head." The head he is thinking with is no longer the least bit concerned with you or your well-being.

1) As you prepare to move out--or as he moves out, be absolutely certain you have made copies of everything--or just take the originals. You can make copies later and see that he has whatever paperwork he needs at some later point if you are feeling generous. You need everything. Bank statements (or access to on line banking--and if you do have online access change those user names and passwords before he does), credit card statements, insurance documents, absolutely everything financial. You need to continue to keep tabs on all financial transactions from the date of  separation until everything is settled. I wish I had taken the entire filing cabinet. Don't forget to take his cell phone records.

2) If separating your finances is going to take some time, consider canceling  all credit cards. If you need the credit until your spousal support kicks in, think about adjusting the credit limit. I now could be liable for  tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt racked up by  my ex because I didn't take any action. You have to think clearly about what you need and what could happen as an outcome of any choice you might make. I wish I had simply taken half of every liquid asset immediately. It would have been appropriate to my circumstances--30 years of marriage, 20-some years of raising children while not working outside the home, community property state.

3) Don't be overly patient. A reasonable amount of time for Mr. Ex and me to settle our financial affairs might have been 6 months or so. I've now spent so much on attorney fees that I could have gone to trial at the 6 month mark and ended all of this. Go to trial if there's a possibility of things dragging on  and on.

4) If your ex is planning to remarry, use the time pressure inherent in this situation. DO NOT BIFURCATE.  Bifurcation means that the dissolution of the marriage is on a separate timetable from the settlement of financial affairs. Don't let your marriage be dissolved until he has paid up by dividing all joint assets and agreeing to alimony. My attorney suggested bifurcation. It's common. It's what people do. Don't do it.

5) Don't be so damn nice.

6) Don't be nice at all.