I spoke with my lawyer. Zelda could, in fact, hit me for about 26% of my net income. She would have to file suit and prove that my custody suit was frivolous to get me to pay her lawyer bills. She cannot get back-dated child support for the past years. She can get me to pay that 26% for the next five years.

Okay. Rather a large hit, but okay.

Oregon has mandatory mediation; we will start with a mediator and, if we cannot find middle ground, will go to court. The only issue on the table (officially) will be: Will Othello go live in Eagle Point?

Subtextually, the main issue will be: Is Peter gone, and, if so, will Zelda refrain from punitive levels of child support?

I have spoken with both kids, asking them, if possible, to rein in their mother. This will not happen. No one can rein in Zelda when she wishes revenge, and she’s been looking for an excuse to have a dirty, painful, punishing fight with me for more than a decade. I have finally given her that excuse, so I expect this will go to the unpleasant extreme that she can push things to.

And, in the end, I will be paying 26% of my take home to Zelda for five years. Okay. More than unpleasant; it will result in subsistance-level living for five years, barring pay increases, but it will not have me living in a refrigerator box under a bridge.

Bridgette has been a rock in this, but still believes that we have a chance of not being financially tumbled. I disagree, but will continue to act as if there’s a chance of coming out on our feet. I will play every lottery-ticket chance as if it were a good one, and we’ll see.

I expect that, within a year, we will be living in a small apartment, will have found other homes for the dogs, perhaps for the birds and cats, and that we will likely have given up our garden. We’re still paying off the taxes Zelda dumped on me when I was broken, two years ago.

Bleah.

Well. Everyone should start over again ever couple of years, just to keep things fresh. At least this time I’ve got a job with prospects, and a likelihood that it will lead to other productive jobs. Better than I had last time.

Methhead is still in residence at Zelda’s house, but the children are convinced he will be out within a few days. If he isn’t, then these worries will be moot.

We’ll see. Thank you, all, for helping me not spin wildly out of control yesterday. I had a deep-seated need to have hysterics, pretty much brought on by the realization that I had just opened up my life for Zelda to stomp through — again. Knowing that intellectually was not the same as hearing her tell me that she was going to punish me for filing the papers.

Oh, yes — there was a message on my answering machine last night, in even, reasonable tones: “This is Zelda. I have retained a lawyer, so you can get ready for a fight. I have some questions about your sworn statement and affadavit, so please give me a call.”

I couldn’t think of a reason to call her, so I didn’t.

The phone rings at work. Othello is on the line.

Condensed: “Mom got the papers. Peter is moving out. I don’t think I can go along with this right now.”

My reply, condensed: “The papers were filed last Friday. It’s. Too. Late. I could pull back, but Zelda is never going to trust me again, she will try to get even, and I just poured 5 grand down the hole to get this far.”

The phone passes to his sister.

Condensed: “Mom got the papers, ran into the house, and threw up. She isn’t going to fight you on this. Peter really is leaving this time. You don’t need to go forward.”

I repeated my condensed version.

Zelda called a few minutes later.

Me: “We don’t need to go to court on this.”

She: “I think we do. I’m going to sue for custody, plus child support. If you have enough for a lawyer, you have enough for child support.”

Me: “I think, very strongly, that you should talk to my lawyer. We don’t need to go to court. Talk to your daughter.”

My lawyer’s phone has been busy all morning.

Othello bailed on me.
His sister is thinking about it.
Zelda is enraged and has decided she needs to punish me for betraying her.
I owe about $1500 in lawyer fees, borrowed from my mom.

This is not betrayal.
This is not betrayal.
This is not–

Papers are signed, and, as of ten minutes ago, in the hands of my attorney.

I have my prepared line, useful for each and every salley from Zelda, and from which I swear on my new book of Zelazny short stories I will not deviate: “Speak to my lawyer.” I’m paying the nice lady to negotiate this on my behalf because I have not been able to on my own. Saying anything else to Zelda will be defeating the point of hiring her.

So. Paper. Canned Response.

tictictic.

Several nights of 20 degree temperatures, and \wHUMp/ go the oaks in the front yard. Gone, the mud, the garden, the driveway, everything, under a lovely, even carpet of suddenly fallen leaves.

I know that, from a standpoint of gardening efficiency and industriousness, I should be out blowing the leaves into a pile and then shredding them up to “the slow fire of rot” over the winter, but they’re pretty and I’m busy. I think they can stay until rain threatens to turn them to a slippery menace.

I have four bosses.

I’ve my immediate boss, Gilligan. She is a wholly owned subsidiary of her boss, so I have him, as well. I have the head of Accounting, who is in charge of the computer biz here, and therefore in charge of me, theoretically. And I have the Prez, who has a perfectly justified sense of perfect entitlement; what he wants, he can get for the asking.

There are some issues, all power-related.

Accounting can pull me with little or no notice, as computer issues come up when they come up, and take as long as they take. So I can be jerked from the office at the falling of proverbial headgear.

The Prez has been working toward a new database for our company-wide system, and I’m the guy to do that. He pulls me, without remorse, and hands me day-long (or days-long) tasks without notice.

Gilligan’s boss doesn’t like other people playing with his toys, and, as one of Gilligan’s people, I’m that.

Gilligan has some issues with me, in any case, largely (I think) stemming from her vague understanding of what I do. I’ve tried to explain tasks as they arise, but, to her, editting a 4000 record db is the same as typing a flat table, and anything she doesn’t have ready understanding of is, I think, threatening. Okay, I get that, but it results in me being heavily “supervised” (read, “micromanaged”) so that she feels like I’m not out and about malingering instead of working. She will, several times a week, try to catch me not at a desk I’ve gone to on a help call, and so forth. Embarassing for both of us.

The Prez just pulled me to work on his db, which was going to take me a couple to several days. I told him I’d probably need to go into OT to manage it, which was fine. The power struggle went up several notches, resulting in my being told by Gilligan’s boss that I would not be working on the db during normal work hours — since I’d already cleared that I could do OT to accomplish that.

…fine….

Later that day, the Prez told me he’d like the db finished and in place early this week.

I had options. I could tell him I’d been told not to work during the day, which limited how much time I could put in. I could talk to Gilligan’s boss, explaining that the Prez had put a deadline on me that wouldn’t be met unless he bent. I could refuse to work OT and let everyone else sort it out. In fact, what I did was make the problem my own, worked the OT (12 hours), because I need the money and I want to do the db project.

But. There must be something done before the next occurence. This is not an acceptable working condition. I am not a tug-o-war toy. I basically skipped my weekend for this, and, frankly, they don’t pay me anywhere near what it would be worth to do that again.

Add to that the natural upshoot of the whole conflict: with all the hubbub about what I’m doing and not doing, Gilligan is having her face rubbed in the high demand for my time and the fact that she doesn’t understand what I’m doing. Her reaction I predicted days ago, and was spot-on: I am being “supervised”.

Grah.

I’ll find something she can teach me to do in the next day or so; it always soothes her by re-establishing our relative knowledge. One only teaches those more ignorant than oneself, you see.

And there’s one other thing, without objective support. I get a sense that I am the wrong gender to ever be trusted or treated well by Gilligan. I have no objective evidence. None. I just notice that I am the only male in the office, and the only one regularly over-supervised, the one left out of conversations, the one treated as a bad child, the one … feh! I hate not being able to point at a specific behavior and say, “See! That!” I have a new sympathy for people I know who’ve been discriminated against; it’s hard/impossible to prove in any but the grossest cases, and is real.

I’m tempted to buy a pair of falsies and see if my treatment changes.

I didn’t used to mind managing other people’s neurotic self-esteem issues. I wonder what’s happened?