THIS WEEK I will finally sign my divorce papers. It’s like that old Woody Allen joke, “The food here is terrible – and such small portions.” I didn’t want to get divorced, and I’ve been waiting two years to do it. It’s a friendly little divorce that started out as a simple mediated settlement, but we made the mistake of hiring lawyers. The legal bloodletting around the Beatles’ breakup took less time and surely cost less. But here we finally are, about to sign papers that enshrine our daughters’ rights and our rights as parents and put into stark English the courtesies my ex and I would naturally extend each other anyway.
That’s Wednesday, unless it’s Tuesday (my lawyer can’t seem to keep track of which day we’re meeting), and Wednesday also there is a school field trip I chaperone to I don’t remember where, and somehow between the field trip and the review and signing of the divorce papers I hire a team to gut and rewire our new A Space Apart office on Madison Avenue, arrange for two internet services to wire our 19th century building, and order the furniture.
Today I take the kid to school, meet about wireframes for the A List Apart redesign, interview Khoi Vinh for The Big Web Show, meet about a Happy Cog redesign, and run back to school for the kid. Somewhere in there I get a meal. Thursday, blessed relief, I’m in Philadelphia for a holiday party (yay!), and Friday my Dad and his bride arrive.
In short, it is a week like any other.
Since I started my first business with two nickels and a Power Computing Mac clone, I have not had a week that would pass for normal, if normal means manageable. The last predictable week I had was my first week in AA in May of 1993, although that certainly wasn’t usual in that sweating and shivering and coming to God (in other words, quitting drinking) isn’t a normal or even expected event in an alcoholic’s life. But that week did find me in the same room in the same city doing the same thing for five days straight — surely the last time that happened, if you don’t count those four days in Disney World.
I’m a boring guy, but my life has conspired to be interesting. Members of my inner circle who have access to my calendar get ulcers just from looking. And for all that constant change and growth, although somewhat stressed, I am most grateful.
