I am sending a smoke signal out from behind enemy lines.

S.O.S.

Wyatt and I have been under a self-imposed quarantine the last 3 days during which we have been playing hot potato, passing back and forth to each other, a very virulent virus. And yes I know that’s redundant. You’ll have to excuse the verbosity; I’ve had a collective 4 hours of sleep over those 3 days. The majority of them collected on the bathroom floor. I’ll tell you what; those extra plush bath mats were totally worth the added expense. They have paid for themselves ten-fold during our two-man plague.

During these four days I have done approximately 244 loads of laundry, most of them bed sheets and towels. We’ve lost two entire outfits who in a grand gesture of self-sacrifice called out “Save yourselves!” before being tossed in a garbage bag on the porch labeled TOXIC WASTE.

That’s how tired I am, I can now animate clothing.

At 6 am this morning, after being awoken by Wyatt at 11 pm (vomit, which necessitated new pajamas, a bath, stripping his bed and starting laundry), 1:30 am (kind of like vomit except more northerly), 2:21 am (and again), 3:47 am (again), 4:12, 4:29, 4:55 (again, again, again); I attempted to make myself a cup of coffee only to realize I had poured honey instead of milk into it. Do you know what? I drank it anyway. I could not muster the energy to not drink it. Forget about harnessing the energy to make another cup.

Even now I cannot be sure if I am writing in English or Sanskrit. So if this is completely incoherent babble at least you know why. Although I suppose not if it were written in Sanskrit, because then it is likely you wouldn’t be able to read it at all.

See? See how tired I am? I just rambled on for a paragraph about you not understanding my unintelligible writing because I am so sleep deprived as to have mistakenly written this in a language you wouldn’t understand even though you wouldn’t be able to understand why you weren’t understanding it because I hadn’t written my explanation for the strangeness of it in a language that you could understand and somehow not noticed I’d jumped not only languages but entire periods of human existence and culture.

I hope that helps clarify things.

In things not related to my impending insanity, news has broken far and wide of our move to California. So much so that even Wyatt appears to know about it now, which was the one person I was really trying to avoid telling because how do you explain to a 3-year-old “we are moving cross country to California in seven weeks”? How do I explain California? Or the word “move”? Or seven weeks? The answer is you don’t, or at least I didn’t. And then this morning while reading a book about trains Wyatt said to me, “Mommy, are we going to take a train to California?” Except he pronounces California with a few extra syllables so it sounds like Cali-Eeee-for-Narnia.

And I am told that isn’t too far a cry from what Southern California is, Narnia, a mythical land of creatures not seen anywhere else ruled by bitchy white women with narcissistic complexions and men wearing Aslan Affliction tees.

On Monday I returned to the Middlesex County Courthouse to have our custody modification heard by a judge regarding the relocation to California. This is the trillionth time I’ve been to the court house in the last year to file for dissolution, sign sworn financial affidavits, attend parenting education classes with a group of people who you’d wish would never have become parents in the first place, file appearance forms, file modification forms, arrange to have the other party served and deposit half of my savings account in court fees.

So imagine my glee at having to repeat this process, not six months post-divorce to have our new shared-custody arrangement sworn in by the family court judge. Which is why I spent the week before dreading telling myself and everyone I knew that this was for a really good reason. And it is. But that won’t stop me from complaining.

If you have as of yet spared yourself from having to enter family court for any reason let me give you a little insight into what the process is like: HORRIFYING.

There, that is all the insight you need.

                In more detail it goes like this:

Once all your paperwork is in order (although people with incomplete paperwork still somehow manage to show up and slow down the system) you receive a summons from the court saying come to the 4^th floor on day X at time Y, show up at least 30 minutes beforehand. In the case of family court it is always a Monday at 9:30 am. After an early-morning frisk by security, you proceed to the 4^th floor with about one hundred other people all congregating like a herd of sheep into a wide, empty hallway. No one knows what to do as you have been given no further instruction. There is one bailiff, a minimum wage worker who is too busy texting to look up and knows enough by now to realize its better never to make eye contact otherwise people will start asking you things like, “what do we do now?”

So the sheep all stand (there is nowhere to sit, and you aren’t allowed to sit on the floor it’s the one thing the bailiff will tell you) shifting nervously from foot to foot. Until someone seasoned in the system steps forward and signs their name to a white board with 4 sheets each numbered 1-18. After which the mob descends, anxiously trying to get their names highest on a list that they really don’t know why they are signing their names too. At 9:29, a minute before court opens, the lawyers descend. Like the bailiff they don’t make eye-contact with us stupid sheep. They disappear into conference rooms that dot the hallway, which the rest of us are not allowed in. At 9:30 the herd is ushered into court by the bailiff. After the judge does role call you are dismissed without direction back into the hallway.

This time a door is open that wasn’t before with a white paper sign that says “court services” taped to it. One person thinks to form a line outside of the door, within three seconds the other ninety-nine rush to follow suit. The Court Services Officer is meant to review your paperwork to see that everything is in order. If not, he is supposed to mark your case incomplete so the judge knows to skip it, and give direction as to how to secure your missing forms. Since this was not my first time at the rodeo I was prepared and knew my file was complete, furthermore I know they need to make copies of everything and I saved the Court Service Officer the effort by having made two sets of copies of everything ahead of time. I had every “I” dotted, every “t” crossed and every sheet notarized whether it was required or not. I know the game and the game is brown nose.

Before you can see the judge, but after you have seen the CSO, you must meet with case management who approves your file and helps to negotiate a written agreement for those people who do not come with one. Let me break here to say I think it is ludicrous you can show up to a hearing without a written agreement already in place, was that not the point of the six weeks between when you submited your motion and your court appearance?

Logic would follow that once you saw the CSO and he confirmed all of your paperwork was in order your file would be given to case management so that they knew who was ready and who was not. Naturally, this is not what happens. Instead in what I can only assume is intended to maximize distress on an already stressful day, the case managers proceed as follows:

First seen, anyone where one or both parties have an attorney. ANYONE. Whether they have agreed on an arrangement or are spitting in each other’s faces in the hallway. Case managers must stay with a party until the case is resolved so to make their way through the 18 cases who signed up on the sheet marked “Parties with one or more attorneys” can take 20 minutes to get through or 4 hours. And without even a hint of exaggeration I can tell you it took 6 hours alone to make it through this list.

Did I mention there are only two case managers?

What do those of us who filed “pro se” (without a lawyer) do during this time? NOTHING. We stand in a hallway for SIX HOURS. There are no seats and you are not allowed to sit on the floor. You are not allowed to have food. You are not allowed to have beverages. Cold air is blasting from the ceiling vents with the explanation that they have found hot people are more volatile than frozen ones. You could presumably leave but no one will tell you when your case is likely to be called and if you miss it, you are removed from the list. I am assured by people in the know this is similar to the interrogation-resistance training military members are put through; extremely cold temperatures, prolonged periods of time in uncomfortable positions, denial of food and water. Check, check, check, check.

Pause for a minute to consider why people are here in the first place; they are getting divorced, they are filing restraining orders, they are fighting custody, or arguing paternity. All around a happy, agreeable group, no? So for an indefinite amount of time, in extremely uncomfortable positions, where no one will acknowledge your questions you are forced to stand next to the one person in the world you could not dislike more in that moment, your spouse/ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend/baby daddy.

In my six hour wait I saw a very young couple fighting paternity claims threaten to maim one another in front of a court officer, which resulted in issues of arrest. I saw one girl rip hair right out of another’s scalp. I heard husband’s plead with wives to talk. I heard new wives lambast ex-wives for dragging the family back to court. I saw many a man stare at his shoes with an intensity usually reserved for video games or the Superbowl in a desperate attempt to avoid his wife’s seething gaze.

When my case was finally called by a case manager at 3pm I had been there for 7 hours. I presented my already agreed upon, typed and notarized agreement and its photocopy to my case manager who said, “well that was easy” and walked my file over to court. In total I sat in her office for 2 minutes about 90 seconds of which was spent looking for her pen.

Once in court I sat and waited to be called in front of the judge. In the mean time, because you are forbidden from doing anything else, I sat facing forward and listened to the cases being heard before me. Of all the indignities suffered during the course of your court date, the hearing is the worst. In front of a room full of strangers, the judge airs all your dirty laundry. I actually turned red from embarrassment for the couple called before me. They were filing for divorce and as the judge read aloud had amassed an incredible amount of consumer debt (north of $55,000), had lost their home to foreclosure, he had been carrying on an extramarital affair and was arguing that she had been neglecting her marital duties and had refused to have sex with him for the past five years since the birth of their children.

ALL of this is read aloud. And those were just the “important points” of the agreement. Apparently, there was much more we were spared from hearing.

Finally, at 3:30, 7.5 hours after I had arrived that morning the judge called my case. After being sworn in by the clerk and stating my name and address to the transcriptionist the judge perused our written agreement and said:

“This looks agreeable to me, if you have no questions Ms. Dinnen, I will swear this into the court file.”

And with that I was dismissed. Not another word was spoken.

And if I hadn’t been so relieved it was over, and hungry enough to consider how necessary my left hand would be to my continued survival minus a finger or two I would have stood up and said, “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!”

But I didn’t. Instead I raced out of the courtroom because it was now nearly 4pm, I hadn’t eaten or drank anything in over 8 hours, and I had to drive 45 minutes cross state to pick Wyatt up from daycare.

I have never been more tempted to develop a drinking habit than following my two court appearances. But since Wyatt forgot to bring his fake id to school I had to settle for the next best alternative:

SHOPPING.

So while Wyatt munched on chocolate filled Easter eggs from Lindt I bought myself a new work/computer bag from Dooney and Burke. If you saw my old computer bag, if one-year post purchase can be called old, you would see why I had to put Old Yeller down, from the mange, and the staining, and the airport security belt black mark.

Old bag (please ignore the  background disarray):

New Bag:

And after snagging my new bag (on clearance dear!) and eating approximately 1,112 Lindt Easter eggs after Wyatt went to bed I felt remarkably better.

I am in the middle of dealing with a small health crisis. And before you begin with the condolences and Edible Arrangement fruit baskets (sans pineapple please) I could be considered slightly melodramatic in labeling it a health “crisis” when it is probably more like a health “inconvenience.”

I have an eye twitch.

BTW these are pictures I took while in San Diego at the beginning of February that have been filtered through an app on my Droid called “Little Photo” using the “Ballpoint Pen” effect.

I halfway want to print them out and frame them they look so authentic. Also, I could take psuedo-credit for them which almost makes me sound like an artist to people who don’t know me well enough to know better.

So anyway, back to the eye twitch.

This is not your garden variety eye twitch. I’ve had it for the better part of four weeks straight and it causes my upper left eyelid to twitch roughly every 90 seconds. I know this because I have had an eye twitch for 28 days now and so naturally, I have timed its frequency.

And it just won’t go away, no matter what I do. It is the Charlie Sheen of eye twitches.

About 2 weeks in I went to the doctor, which I despise doing so I can tell you it really is that persistent, to make me feel compelled to make an appointment and was told it could be one of any numerous causes:

1. Exhaustion

2. Stress

3. Excessive eye strain

4. Dehydration

5. Vitamin B deficiency

6. A neurological disorder

and 7. as the favored diagnosis of medical professionals everywhere nowadays, “or it could be something else.”

If we temporarily shelve my hyponchondriasis (NEVER Google “persistent eye twitch and nausea” I beg of you) and suspend diagnosis 6 “neurological disorder” which of the above don’t I probably have?

Exhaustion? That was MONTHS ago, I’m functionally comatose at this point.

Vitamin deficiency? Likely, my diet consists largely of tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, humus, Ramen and the leftover crusts from Wyatt’s nutella sandwiches.

Dehydration? I despise water and more scientifically, as my blood test revealed I win the title of “most dehydrated person I’ve ever seen outside of a hospital bed” according to my physician.

Excessive eye strain? Newborns have better eyesight than I do. Add that to the fact that I look at a computer screen a minimum of 10 hours a day.

Need I go on?

The a cure? Reduce time in front of the computer, have an eye exam to check prescription correctness, increase Vitamin B intake, sleep more and reduce your level of stress.

So basically, there is no cure.

Option B is to have botox injection into your eyelid which basically freezes the muscle to prevent spasming or movement at all for that matter.

So my choices are to either continue through life looking like a deranged pirate squinting with one eye nearly closed because of compulsive twitching OR have a needle injected into the centimeter thick skin above my eye. You know, that thing I use to see.

And just how long do eye twitches last? I’m glad you asked. Apparently the more chronic ones last anywhere from a few months to 2 to 3 YEARS. As in you could actually have to read about my persistent eye twitch until 2015. Wyatt would be six-and-a-half years old. Obamacare would be instituted. And I could STILL have an eye twitch.

The horror.