No time right now for a detailed update, so here’s a few of the highlights since my last major life update back near November of 2012.
0x01: Met a wonderful woman at work. She wore a poncho one day. I said, “It’s impossible to be unhappy wearing a poncho.” It’s a Mighty Boosh reference. Next day she left an orange juice bottle on my desk wearing a little poncho. We are still together, despite my sometimes difficult personality. She’s the best female I’ve ever had in my life, with the exception of the one who brought me into the world and the ones I brought here.
0x02: Started “vaping”, as per the penultimate (as of this writing) “Digital/Analog Freaky Smoke” entry. I’ve got 90% lung capacity now. Pretty good for smoking raw zware tobacco for two decades. No more wheezing at the end of a long exhalation, and no more of that stench you only notice when you stop smoking.
0x03: Shaved my head. Kept the goatee and mustache. Without facial hair, a man ain’t a man. A bald man without facial hair is demoted all the way to a baby. Grew the hair back. Shaved it again, and the current HEAD is bald with beard.
0x04: Contact with the girls has continued at $50 a week for a two-hour supervised visit. I contend that the $200 would be better spent directly on the children who want free access to their father. My opinions do not matter to anyone who makes decisions about my participation in my family. Namely: lawyers, this police state of ours, and a woman apparently scorned.
0x05: Continue to see Dr Gandalf. In March we were both surprised to realize it had been a year since my involuntary hospitalization at the Erie County Medical Centre. We’ve made a lot of progress. I’ve made a lot of progress, mostly credited to my new special lady friend. Needless to say, grieving the loss of ones family is “difficult” — even if that loss is (mostly) figurative. Maybe worse in this case, since my daughters aren’t “gone” from the world, but simply being kept from me. They’re not silent in their graves– they live and cry and need their father, yet are restricted to a few hours a month of closely supervised visits that preclude so much as a whisper between us.
0x06: My oldest daughter turns ten soon. I’ve missed over a year of the last years of her childhood. Girl? She’ll be a woman soon.
Orders of protection are generally classified as either “stay-away” or “refrain-from”. The former specifies that a party (the “respondent”) avoid all contact with another party (the “petitioner”) and perhaps other associated parties, such as children under the petitioner’s care. The latter simply requires the respondent to refrain from some specific behavior.
If the petitioner is in a state of desperation or urgency (e.g. being contacted by an exish-spouse with undue frequency and in states of inebriation and/or otherwise being a nuisance), s/he may not know or (understandably) care to learn the difference between these two types of orders. S/he may ask that the respondent be denied any communication with or access to his or herself and their children. S/he may have felt this was his or her only recourse, and, if s/he is a “she”, the petition will likely be stamped by a “family” court judge without consideration and “he” will be denied his right to be an active and available father.
The more you know…
If such a bureaucratic miscalculation is made, the petitioner may request that the order be vacated by the issuing judge of the original or a subsequently amended version of the order.
If the petitioner still fears some manner of harassment from the respondent, s/he may request the aforementioned “refrain-from” order which, if granted, would result in the arrest of the respondent for contempt of court should s/he “misbehave”. In cases that do not involve violence, a “refrain-from” order is logically the best and fairest choice. And, from the perspective of the petitioner, it puts even greater pressure on the respondent to modify his or her behavior, as s/he is still allowed to communicate with the petitioner, but if the petitioner construes any such communication as harassing or otherwise in violation of the order, s/he may call the authorities and have the respondent immediately arrested.
In the author’s opinion, such risk is worth being allowed access to his or her children.
Furthermore, assuming those children are in no danger from the respondent and were not exposed to the alleged harassment, a single-party refrain-from order is a more fair and just recourse for a petitioner who may have a legitimate reason to limit their communication and feels compelled to seek legal intervention in the matter.
0x07: I’m on Wellbutrin ER 300mg/day, Adderall ER 60mg/day, Klonopin 0.5mg/6h as needed, and some residual Provigil. The Provigil (presumably in conjunction w/the Adderall) gives me the anxiety somethin’ fierce, so it’s rarely used.
0x08: The divorce continues to crawl along. An agreement was made that if a professional evaluated me as suitable for unsupervised visitation, it would be done. The evaluation was made. It hasn’t been done. The next court date is in a week. It will probably be postponed. Again.
0x09: Complicating the divorce issues, my place of work shut down last month. I immediately notified my lawyer of this. I promptly applied for state assistance, and for a modification of the support order. Because speaking with the mother of my children would mean my going to jail, I was unable to freely communicate regarding any issues of financial needs. My modification petition was a blunt request for a “suspension”, since NYS unemployment insurance (“UI”) would barely cover my rent and bare essentials– not counting food as an essential.
0x0A: Got a job about two weeks later, mostly thanks to a good friend from the old place. Received a total of one UI check for about $300. Attended the scheduled support modification hearing after filling out another dozen pages of financial details. Opposing counsel requested it be rolled into the matrimonial proceedings. I don’t know what my obligations are now. My communications with anyone in this debacle has been unreliable, sporadic, downright refused, punished with jail time, costly, necessarily vague, rarely understood or fully addressed– it’s been shite, o my brothers.
That just about brings y’all up to date. I suppose I didn’t have to put it in bullet-list form, but I didn’t want to change the title.
The past year and a half has been, mostly, some kind of a special Hell. A relationship with a woman triggered it, and a relationship with a better woman has helped turn things around. In any case, I’m a better man than I was last year.
If we can’t say, every day, that we’re better than the other-self behind us in the clone-queue of our life, then we might as well be dead.
An account change notice from Verizon inspired a brief and generous presumption that my bill would be lowered due to a large chunk of monthly payment having been extracted.
That was, of course, a ridiculous notion.
In any case, friendly advice to the genital pubic: if an exing-relation wished to extract eir service from a shared martial{sic} account, said relation could get an independent line and tether Internet access to eir house over 4G, getting faster speeds than what s/he pays for DSL now.
S/he may not be able to do that on eir current account, as each line may have a usage cap since the unfortunate demise several months ago of Verizon’s omni-benificent data-usage grandfather.
Also, s/he could get eir own auto insurance, and probably at a cheaper rate than half of what the other-half pays now, and considering the other-half was probably court-ordered to pay half of what that half had been salaried, and will be paying half (or less than half) now that said half’s company may have expired — well, when the other-half finds a new job that likely will pay half-of-half of that previous half, such a cost-cutting measure would not be for the other-half’s sake but for the sake of all involved.
And eir medical insurance may expire at the end of the month.
And s/he should consider public assistance.
And s/he should definitely find a job that pays the money required to keep eir children in food and clothing and under shelter.
Especially if s/he hasn’t managed to do so in twelve or more months since kicking eir sole provider out of the house, presumably because s/he has been too busy holding eir children hostage from the other parent with the friendly help of the Mrs Doubtfire gub’mint.
Speaking of which: When one is allowed to see ones children only through professionally supervised visitation, and such a court-ordered condition is predicated on demonstrably false accusations involving no danger of harm to said person or eir shared children– Well, they would be demonstrated false (in this hypothetical case) if the state cared to afford a parent accused of such wispy, nebulous charges an audience to do so, and considered the emotional support of a single parent (even a *shudder*“father”) more important to their well-being than an inconceivably remote chance of danger to them that was never actually claimed by anyone—
Er.
When that is the case, one should consider whether or not the money paid for such visitation might better be spent on feeding ones children.
“Do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?”
Today, I am charged with contempt of court.
A year ago, I loved my country, and I respected its courts.
A favorite slogan of mine was “One Nation Above God”, and I would flaunt this as evidence of my patriotism being stronger than that of any Christian or other believer in phantom deities, as I put my country above all else.
At the end of February, the police came at midnight and took me for “evaluation”. I was taken, in the middle of the night, without being allowed to make any calls, to a snake pit of psychiatric “evaluation”, and after being stewed in that environment of insanity for six hours or more, I was judged suicidal and committed. I was held without any recourse to the law.
Nearly a week later, after convincing my jailer/doctors that I was not a danger to myself or others, I was released.
“They” came and took me away in the middle of the night. I used to think only schizophrenics and the like alleged such things.
The court did this.
When I was released, I found that my wife had scribbled some absurd accusations on a petition, had it rubber-stamped by a judge, and I was now forbidden from contacting her or my daughters under penalty of imprisonment. For three months, I was not given an audience to answer the charges in the petition, and had no idea what my daughters were being told concerning the sudden absence of their father. For all I knew, they thought I was dead.
The court did this.
At one of the hearings, while I was still pro-se, I discovered that my wife’s counsel had asked a judge to subpoena my psychiatric records from the asylum (“ECMC”) to which I had been involuntarily committed. ECMC turned them over. The very foundation of psychotherapy — the trust between therapist and patient, the assurance that all communication is private and will not be used against oneself — had been shattered. My trust in that system had been shattered. My belief that the state held certain confidences inviolable was shattered.
The court did this.
I filed for divorce. In June, I was allowed supervised visitation at the price of $50 for two hours per week. I was able to see my girls again. This was an agreement between parents. The court had little to do with it. Soon thereafter, it was alleged that I sent a text message to my wife, and a few days later left flowers on her doorstep on the occasion of our twelfth anniversary. One might consider this a gesture of reconciliation. I can’t imagine either act being construed as dangerous, or frightening my wife, as the order of protection had all my weapons removed and she is a black belt in karate. Furthermore, she states in the petition she has no belief that I intend to harm her or the children.
The police came to my place of work and took me away in handcuffs. The judge, without asking a question, without once looking at me, set my bail to $5,000 cash or $15,000 bond. I was sent to the Erie County Holding Centre and spent almost three days in jail.
The court did this.
Today, I am charged with contempt of court.
A year ago, I loved my country, and I respected its courts.
Today? The courts, its officers, and the nation under whose vile and gangrenous rubric they operate–
Yes.
I hold them all in the deepest contempt.
§ § §
That didn’t happen.
I arrived at 8:30 in Williamsville Village Court. I waited. My wife arrived. The ADA called her twice before asking me in for conference. He offered me the violation of “Harassment in the Second Degree”, and at the time it seemed good enough, and I accepted.
My turn in front of the judge.
Before a plea can be accepted, the defendant must answer a series of questions. In my case, this involved asking if I waived my right to be assigned an attorney. I debated the particulars of this matter, as I would have been happy to have been assigned one, but was denied by every agency to which I was referred. You’ve heard it: “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot or will not afford one, one will be appointed to you.” This is not true. Not in New York. Maybe elsewhere. In New York State, unless you are nigh indigent, you will not be appointed counsel. Thus, I am pro-se in this case. Eventually I simply stated that yes, I am proceeding pro-se voluntarily.
Did anyone coerce you to enter this plea? Are you doing this of your own free will? Do you give up all rights to an appeal? Are you under the influence of any drugs or alcohol?
I gritted my teeth and growled the appropriate answers to each to get me to the next.
Finally, he describes the charge, and I notice that it hinges upon an “intent to harass, annoy, or harm” the “victim”. I had no such intent, and said as much. After much back-and-forth, he asked me to sit down and the bailiff handed me a copy of the relevant penal code entry and practice cases. After reading this, and waiting, the judge called me back, and I told him that I would be perjuring myself by admitting to this charge, as I had no such malicious intentions.
The judge stated that it seems as if we’d be going to trial, unless the ADA could offer some other plea, “perhaps something under §240.20?”
The ADA met with me, and we reviewed the code for disorderly conduct. It begins with “A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof” and the “recklessly created a risk thereof” bit satisfied me.
He offers #1: “He engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior.” No, not that. I had threatened nobody.
#7? “He creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose.” Well, closer.
Inasmuch as my wife seems to consider nearly everything I do as “physically offensive” and because any contact would be violating the order of protection and thus not be “legitimate” in the eyes of the court, well, OK.
We return, and we wait.
The judge goes through the same questions. I elucidate my agreement to the disorderly conduct subsection.
“Do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?”
“My place of work has stated that they cannot practically continue to employ me if there are further legal complications. If I am sent to jail, I’ll lose my job, and my daughters and this creature beside me would be deprived of my income. Personally, I don’t care what you do to me. The visitation facilities we use have closed and once again I can’t see my daughters, and don’t care much what happens.”
“One year’s adjournment in contemplation of dismissal. Stay out of trouble[…]”
And that was it. No fine, no jail time. “ACD” for a year. Stay clean, and the court will effectively forget any of this happened. From what I can discern, all bail obligations have been fulfilled, so the friends who bailed me out don’t have to worry about losing everything they own if I trip over some violation.
Glad I didn’t use my speech.
I still hold the system in contempt, but I appreciate the patience and fairness of the individual Judge Voelkl in my case, and what appeared to be an earnest desire on his part to offer me every opportunity at achieving a “just” resolution to the case. The assistant district attorney, whose name I do not know, was also fair and professional. Both were helpful within the parameters of the law. They can’t give me legal advice.
Overall, I think I did pretty well.
As I drove out of the parking lot, someone gesticulated at me. I brought down the window, and he tells me my back tire is flat.
Totally flat.
So, I’m staying home today, waiting for that to be fixed.
