$146.88

Let me attempt to describe how I'm feeling. Bear with me. This could take a while. I have my own little study group here, including an eight-year-old girl who, when I told her about an upcoming play date, got red cheeks and said, "I don't know if I can express what I'm feeling."

"Are you happy," I probed, "Excited?"

"Yes, both," She answered, "But it's more than that."

Life being as chaotic as it is around here, her 10-year-old brother broke in to show me his candle from the Día de los muertos march they both were just home from here in the Mission.

I didn't find out the complexities of her emotions until this morning. It turned out she was feeling a spectrum of emotions -- not all positive. But we never got around to finishing that conversation.

***

It's probably long overdue, but I am now in the midst of finishing up my second divorce. All that remains, from a legal standpoint, is submitting papers about things we've long since agreed to, and getting the judge's stamp of approval. I know enough about divorce to know judges are extremely grateful for cases like ours, where nothing significant is at issue, except -- of course -- our viability as two struggling single parents to fulfill our parenting and tax-paying responsibilities in the years to come.

Without getting into inappropriate detail, let me say one feeling I have right now is resignation. There are things that happen to us in this life that we have no ability to influence, let alone control.

I am staring at a book titled "Statistics" as I write this. In some ways, statistics have been my life as much as writing, love, or travel has been. The title of this post is the sum on my credit card from yet another Safeway trip tonight. I am also feeling very excited now, because I'm anticipating my 25-year-old's arrival late tonight with a few buddies from Cal Tech.

On the spur of the moment (which is one of the perks of being 25) they are driving up to the City for this weekend. So, I'll have somewhere between 5 and 8 or 9 people overnight here tonight. Since my food supplies had become depleted this week, I wanted to stock up on all the usual suspects, so I did.

That is not a particularly large food bill. I easily spend $1,000 a month, as does almost anyone trying to feed as many people as I do. If you don't have your calculator handy, that's about $33 a day. Not too burdensome, right? But in many a month, I match that with restaurant and take-out/delivery meals...thanks to the pressure of commuting, the "hard stops" imbedded in the kids' schedules, their eating preferences, and my (many) business meals out.

I'm sure my soon-to-be ex-wife spends every bit as much on supporting the family. The problem is we live in one of the most special (and therefore expensive) places on earth.

***

Speaking of preferences, my little girl informed me last night she is a "Flexitarian."

I hadn't heard that one before, but she was adamant that it doesn't mean she is "flexible" about what she eats. What it means is that she may no longer eat some kinds of meat as often as she did before. Like, lamb, for instance, her favorite.

Given our Scottish genes, lamb is one of those dishes that resonate deeply with me. This feeling was reinforced by my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Afghanistan. So, it isn't rare for me to cook a lamb roast on Sundays...

But, children are complex mixtures of the genetic heritages of two people, not one. And her mother was a serious vegetarian when we fell in love; for years, I tried to play along with her preferences as much as possible. But, since we broke up three-and-a-half years ago, I've solidified my role as a serious carnivore, actually an omnivore, but that includes a heavy dose of Midwestern, meat-and-potatoes preferences.

Luckily, since both my youngest son and my youngest daughter show a desire to become vegetarians already, I truly love every kind of vegetable I've yet encountered. So, it won’t be that bad a transition if and when it comes, from my point of view. And I certainly agree it is a way to live lighter on the earth, and is therefore a better diet for the future -- vegetarianism, that is.

I simply love to eat meat -- it's one of main pleasures in my life. So, somewhere around $20 of that $146.88 tonight was spent on ground beef, pork sausages, sliced salami, and turkey slices...

***

I started out saying I would try to capture and convey my actual emotional moods. It is hard to write this blog while holding to that commitment. Sometimes, to be true, I am too sad or too angry to post anything at all. Words can cut and slash another's feelings, and I have no intention of doing that to anyone.

Tonight, I am feeling many emotions. Of course, I am sad about the divorce. I never wanted our marriage to end, but it did, definitively.

So, I also look forward to being a truly single man in the eyes of the law.

Who knows, maybe even for me there can be a third act in life. The first two were great -- I love my ex-wives and I love all of my six children equally. I love my unborn grandson, due in the next couple months; as well as all the unborn ones.

But, I also have lots of love to give still. Maybe, when all of this chaos dies down a bit, I'll be able to enter that new stage. I hope so, since next April I will attain the age that has recently been determined to be the new "middle age."

Please accept my apologies: Not many feelings have been discovered nor revealed herein tonight. After all, at the end of it all, I am only a man, not really much different from all the rest of men.

-30-

p.s. Go Blue.