When I’m out running errands for work, I’ll write haikus in my head. Usually they’re silliness about the neighborhood or a shot of brilliant blue sky, but this week they’ve been mostly about singed nerves and knotted wires. Rust. Newsprint stained fingers. Cold feet. I’m feeling absolutely uncomfortable in most ways. I’ve been eating the strangest things too. A chicken nugget (big mistake. they are disgusting). Girl Scout Cookies. A burger and fries at 11am. Obviously trying to find some comfort outside my comfort zone.

This house I’m sitting in, perhaps for the last night, is the one my wife and I bought together, primarily for our daughter. We were so excited to find its adorable back patio for tricycle racing, cheerful three stories for her to bound down on weekends mornings in search of cheerios and cartoons, and proximity to the coffeeshop with great smoothies (she called them “smoodies”). We started as a family of three here and are now four. It’s not my perfect home by any means, and I never thought we’d grow old here, but I feel like I took an oath to it when we bought it, and have nurtured it along to greatness all these years. The promise of possibility in our lives- a new passion, friend, the decision to go back to school- was met happily by new art and color palettes for the walls, designs for a new kitchen and planting bright bougainvillea along the fences. I studied for my sommelier certification in this office- sticky notes of varietal types taped to the walls and maps of Germany tucked behind the cabinets. My mom came here to plan her retirement over brunch on the patio.. a press pot and filtered sun through the flowering vines along the back trellace. Lisa single-handedly pulled our vintage armoire up the steps one afternoon while I was at work, to have it in perfect position that night.

It’s got to be done now, for more interesting reasons than financial ones, and ultimately I’m going to just trust that an unmarked path can be okay, even for a family. Who knows. Maybe it will be awesome. But it’s sad, incredibly sad, to let my eyes wash over the living room with its perfect maple floors and original enamel doorknobs and know it will never be mine again.

I’m usually a wicked fountain of optimism. Really, one that realists go running from, scared and rolling their eyes. But right now I’m going to sit in the middle of this puddle of awfulness and soak it in. Tomorrow I’ve got to pack up and leave and that just kills me.

Suddenly I am obsessed with summer plans! I cannot get my mind to move on. I’m staring at the summer months on the calendar and assigning color coded mental categories.

“Swim in lake” is green. That’s for midsummer. “Ride large roller coaster” is pink. That’s in June. Overwhelmingly, July is all peach because that’s when we’re going to Atlanta for our very first Family Reunion. Which we are very excited about because we get to walk around the house for the next five months shouting “HOTlanta!” You have to say it with a little George Jefferson half neckroll. And sound kind of like you just took a shot of tequila or swallowed a clump of wasabi while you emphasize the HOT in HOTlanta.

Now, as a little background, I am not traditionally such a joiner. My own blood relatives don’t really get together outside funerals (hardly weddings), and those who do amount to a group so small, it can fit on a postage stamp. My wife, from whose family these t-shirt wearing, caravan-riding, hospitality suite-having hotel based events spring each year, moved to the other side of the country to get away from it in the first place.

I guess we’ve softened over the years. It’s hard to have every little moment of your (gay) family life be unbearably confusing to the world at large, so I guess you could say traditions are becoming more important. Also we’re noticing that though within our immediate family we have a smattering of every color of the rainbow, the representation of color in our daily lives is pretty abysmal, save a very Panthers-oriented summer camp* we send our daughter off to each year. In fact it’s pathetic. We want our kid to be able to claim any part of her identity she sees fit and having her yell out “That looks like Grammy!” every time she sees an older black woman on the sidewalk is a little eye opening as to which category of color is lacking. Which is foolish because the family in Hotlanta is just waiting with open arms to be our ambassadors of blackness.

*Note about Panther camp (it is not actually called that): You know what the best part is? She comes back understanding backbeat. That alone is worth schlepping downtown all summer. I swear to god, it’s like the counselors cure her from her “clap on the downbeat, smile and bounce up in the air to music like joyous white people with arms flailing around” influence of Berkeley throughout the school year and get her back home. And she learns about African leaders, goddesses and community heroes, so it’s all good even though she’s also doing questionable military drills while wearing commie-esque matching bandannas. But I digress.

* Note about this poster. This post is sorta 70’s, sorta Bay Area power feminist. And we’re talking about the Panthers.. oooooh I feel Angela Davis coming on! Yes. Hooray! There she is! I used to have two books in my bag at all times. One was Women, Race & Class. The other was Bell Hooks’ Ain’t I a Woman. Sigh.

So what I expect out of this reunion fiasco is the pretty classic interpretation. We show up and check in, spend the weekend wearing a lime green oversize tshirt that states our purpose there. We enjoy buffets, attend optional side activities like a trip to the local museum or waterpark. We do the electric slide with people we would never have otherwise met. I am told the “butt sisters” will be in attendance. Apparently their rear ends are legendary in a bad way, but then again my mother in law has a vengeance for anyone who has the perky butt she always wanted, so I’ll leave their status undetermined for now.

I have no idea how to do the electric slide. I’ve spent my life avoiding it. What can I say.

Here’s a clip of something I’m working on. Rough and new and recorded from my really fancy IPHONE MEMO RECORDER so, you know, don’t go “omg how beta”. The mix of vocals to piano is determined by how far away you’re sitting from the phone when you sing. Yeah.

I’ll need a drip
Swallow and a few good chords
Lamp light, late night
Of course I’ll need a big full moon

Fever Pitch

My wife’s mother had the same exact experience. Discussing it one day, we realized that part of the superglue bond must have had something to do with these dogs being the *one* all attention went to, once our dominant moms were out of their miserable marriages and done for good. We asked around among our friends for supporting evidence and consistently found the same situation: a newly divorced parent with a supreme and undying devotion to a new pet. We call them “divorce dogs”.

This weekend, I traded my old, terminally ill Volvo in for something new. It was my idea and I was feeling great, until it was time to clean it out and put the stroller into the new trunk. I got weepy and actually thought the car I was leaving looked physically sad all alone in that parking lot. Her frame suddenly seemed slumped and I felt like I was turning a child out into the cold night. How could I leave her after all we’d been through together?

“I love this car. This is a great car”, I affirmed to the family over and over, as we drove one last stretch from the test lot to the office for paperwork, as though sole repetition of the phrase would calm my anxiety and take the sadness away, or jolt my consciousness into remembering that change is good, cars are made of metal and molded plastic and there is no such thing as an emotional connection between a person and a Volvo, no matter how cute it is. But it didn’t.

My wife went upstairs to start signing papers while I swept through the compartments, gathering up my daughter’s stray hairclips, stashed parking tickets and pen caps. I felt overwhelmed, as though the car held some place in my life that I didn’t have permission to give away. It was then I realized- it was my divorce car.

Long ago, in what now seems like a different lifetime, I worked for a family for many years as their Personal Assistant. After a few years my employers decided to reward my hard work on all their remodels, events and goings-on with a car, and leased me a gorgeous car. It was LOVELY and came with all bells and whistles: leather, navigation, sexy hard-to-find dusky blue, beautiful detailing and even 6 JBL speakers to blast while doing my job running their lives. This car, which became known as Joan for the alert system voice’s uncanny resemblance to that of Joan Cusack, took us on fun roadtrips all over the West Coast, and we highlighted its expensive glamour to finally convince friends that my career in private homes, though strange sounding, was legitimate. I had never had a brand new (or free!) car in my life and was overjoyed to hop into it each day.

Sadly, what had begun as a support role for a totally amazing, overachieving couple turned sour. My principals, fully able to commit to their careers due to my long term presence, no longer were required to participate in their home lives. I was the one answering the door. Managing the nanny. Talking to the orthopedic specialist about grandma’s prognosis. One of my employers had not been in a primary role at home for years and thought this was fabulous development. Though I worked hard to ensure the decisions I made on their behalf were true to their family culture and priorities, the abdication of that responsibility proposed a real dilemma for the other: it enabled the kind of work time and concentration necessary to build a career but created an empty space at home where participation was once vital. Success and money-making can still leave you feeling unhappy and lonely. If your wardrobe management is staffed, your mealtimes are staffed and your dog is staffed, do you even need to show up? Between you and me, I sensed that they kind of didn’t want to show up.

Our interactions became strained. Our tepid and courteous conversations, once familial and chatty, became less frequent until they were nonexistent. I tried to redefine my role and be less obtrusive, but they were nowhere to be found and the decisions I had been hired to make still needed to be made. Dinner parties for 100 don’t plan themselves! Easter dresses for the twins don’t magically appear in your closet! My office was suddenly and awkwardly remodeled and I tried working from the kitchen table. My tasklist grew thin and those lingering obligations were impossible to achieve with an absent party on the other end of the phone. The tone of my incoming emails became more threatening and manic, voicemails panicked and aggressive, though I continually responded with evenness and compassion. I stuck to my workload and focused on successes, but nervously scanned the sidewalk for headlights at night, worried that any interaction was going to be traumatic. I cried. I got migraines.

Driving around in this amazing car, trying so hard to manage an impossible situation, my eyes would well up every time my blackberry light went off. I was devastated after years of prioritizing their family’s needs over my own, to have it all fail. I had done so much. I worked though every vacation and weekend; I worked daily for six years. I would respond to emails at 3am, rebook itineraries for changed minds in the middle of the night before travel. Respond with enthusiasm to impossible and ridiculous requests, like making extra welcome baskets for Bar Mitzvah guests in the middle of the hotel parking lot at 1am for relatives invited at the last minute. Or fishing a dead rat out of the basement toilet because the nanny was having trouble breathing, just knowing it was in there. I had truly once believed in the family and wanted to see it succeed but things had become unbearable. Leaving my job meant real complications, as the industry was changing and opportunities for positions like mine were growing thin. Eventually even the fact that my wife was newly pregnant didn’t matter. I had to leave.

I gave ample notice, and a good exit plan, and on my last day I handed over the car. I think I left respectfully and honorably, considering the situation. At home and unemployed, I slowly nursed my ego back to health. I packed my corporate clothes up in boxes, cut my hair and re-imagined the next phase of my life. When I landed a fabulous new job, I took over my wife’s Volvo, made it my work car, and started over from scratch, getting to know the intricacies, priorities and needs of an entirely new family (with, thankfully, much better communication skills). And with night falling all around me in the car lot last weekend, so many years later, all that came rushing back. It was not the car itself, but what the transition represented. I was in agony like nothing I’ve ever known, and I figured a way out. I was lost but now I’m found. The car and I survived, and we’ll never have to do that again. Goodbye, sweet divorce car.

Then I spent the rest of the day on a crazy fix-it rampage. The photo wall on the stairs has been bothering me for six months. The housekeeper has been taking the replacement frames out from under our bed sweeping and mopping, and then putting them back every week like a torture cycle. I’ve done one of those montage hangings where everything is haphazard in a “I just threw this up” way that actually requires a design degree to pull off.  So of course, once I printed out all the replacement photos and got everything in order, it took forever to get them all back up.

Also now no longer stored under our bed are the reading sconces we bought last winter. I installed those babies and rehung the art to accommodate. Then I got all jazzed about rehanging art and continued my rampage throughout the rest of the house. In between tapping tiny nails into the stucco walls, I also wrapped all the presents my mother in law mailed (why doesn’t she wrap things first. I really don’t know), installed a new sound system downstairs and set up the old one in the kids’ room. Oh, and bought and prepped the dog treats for Xmas so they don’t wail when I crate them for dinner.

Then I spent all evening freaking out about how little I accomplished from my actual to-do list, which contained an entirely different set of tasks. Mostly holiday stuff. Which (as you may have noted) I am not so super jazzed about.. until we start talking about the

CRAB WITH CHIPOTLE BUTTER and TURKEY TAMALES that we’re going to have on Sunday. If you want to talk about THAT, I’ll sing “Oh Little Star of Bethlehem” wearing only my stripey socks, or whatever you need.

During my late night run to Whole Foods and had to actually tell myself OUT LOUD that I needed to relax about bypassing my to-do list and most of what I was expecting to accomplish. The thing is, these last few months have sucked. The baby hasn’t been sleeping, I’ve been all distraught over what I’m doing with my life, I’m pretty sure the nanny share thinks I have an undiagnosed mental illness because I constantly show up late, unshowered and wild-eyed. Despite having all this help, I work constantly and just can’t get to big projects or even reframing photos with any reliability. Christ. I can hardly return personal emails within a month of receiving them.

I only realize I need a vacation when I’m actually ON vacation and then I feel bad saying “hey work, I know you’re being all cool about the holidays but when can I go to Buenos Aires for three weeks and totally screw you?”  It’s absurd that it took six months to install those freaking sconces.. but then again everything babies do is totally insane and we just take it. Like punks.

Oh and did I mention the 10lbs of gingerbread I just made? Chilling for tomorrow’s homemade gingerbread house decorating extravaganza? Clearly there is something wrong with me. Like a chipotle pepper with no butter and crab to belong to.

Then suddenly, I’ve got all this new stuff to listen to, the furniture has been rearranged and I’m feeling totally blessed, brave and fluid for the first time in years. Here’s what’s going on in my head and warming my toes; a soundtrack for an early thaw.

*can we talk about Foals? I am absolutely in love with them. I saw them at the GAMC last year and they were AMAZING. Total bliss.

* Feist has a new record out. It’s good. You should get it.

“Back off! It’s my holiday,” you retort. “The sleigh bells are jingling! It’s going to snow! Why can’t you just have fun?”

Maybe it’s an odd perspective that comes from having supported non-Christian families for my nearly two decade career, but I just can’t get past that while you’re up to stocking stuffing, the Jews are going about ramping up Hanukkah nine times beyond its original importance, the African American community is working hard to instill in its youth a sense of heritage and singular culture, and Ramadan, the holiday of approximately 1.8 billion on the planet is a freaking WHOLE MONTH LONG. And of course the trees and the North Star and all, well, that’s all co-opted pagan ritual. But that all goes along invisibly as the public streets are decked in sparkly lights and wreaths with red and green ribbons. Christmas time doesn’t feel like a spectacular winter melting pot to me. It feels like an undiagnosed global episode of Stockholm syndrome.

It’s the worst voice to have this time of year, I know. Cloyingly grinchy. But don’t worry. No one listens to me.

Last year I tried to celebrate Solstice. It feels the truest winter event to mark for me, a humanist with little tolerance for the Catholic goings-on of my childhood, and since turning back toward the sun is universally appreciated, the little grass shoots and tulips and bunnies all agreeing that change and newness and more daylight in the northern hemisphere is a good time, I thought I had a chance of getting everyone excited about it. I even dressed the holiday up, got everyone liquored, invited some favorite people and plied their emotions with a table full of Dungeness crab.

My sense memory comes into full action this time of year and my childhood is more vivid than ever. Early fall rains remind me of slow roasting persimmons on our wood stove aside the teakettle. Fields of thick, dew-heavy grasses surrounding my quiet house atop a small hill overlooking the American River canyon. Fawns poking around below the apple tree with quiet expectation in the front yard. Watching the stars develop in a dusky sky from the roof in a guttural, body-filling, forever and everything quiet. The kind your senses will remember, no matter how old you are, or how much you turn your back on your origins. Pervasive, graceful silence, punctuated only by stray geese and a lawn sprinkler somewhere, clicking and hissing in rhythm.

Lately I keep catching myself trying to find that slowness and to feel actually in the moment of fall calm while still in my buzzing and urban surroundings. While a coworker curses the rain falling outside my office window, I’m secretly longing to run outside and to hold on to it somehow. To find the scent of crushed pine needles and dried blackberry leaves amid the exhaust and whirlwind of a workday and to-do lists. Maybe to just stop and be silent as things change, and have the luxury of not needing to nurture anything at all.