Dawn Is Me

I guess I should probably mention what I have successfully avoided talking about here for months and months and months.

My marriage is over. It’s been over for quite some time now, really. All that’s left is the formalities.

Gino and I have stopped carefully stepping around each other and finally had the talk. We’re getting divorced; I’ll be filing right after New York’s new no-fault divorce law takes effect next month.

He is okay with me living here until I can get my fiscal act together to move — and that is going to take several months, unless I win Lotto or something — and he is okay with me having custody of Kimmie and Ricky. He’ll keep the house (I wouldn’t touch it with a barge poll); I’ll probably rent a place uptown.

So, that’s that. I suspect that his reasons for being agreeable to this are not the same as my reasons for wanting it in the first place but I guess that’s not really important. What I do know is that I will soon be free.

For the record, there is no “other man” in my life right now. I’m not longing for my freedom so that a can dash into somebody else arms. In fact, I’m thinking I might feel greatly relieved if I give myself a bit of time to be entirely unencumbered.

September, like January (new year) and March (spring) has always felt like a time of new beginnings to me.

And so it is.

And now, on to other news.

They call Oneonta, NY “the city of the hills.” I don’t know if anybody has ever counted to know how many hills — I seem to remember hearing the number 7 but I don’t remember where I think I might have heard that.

In any event, however many hills there are in Oneonta, Hartwick College sits proudly atop one of them.

This makes for some breathtaking views when you stand on campus and look out across the foothills of the Catskills. I can only imagine what that view will be like during leaf-peeping season in October, or later in the year after it snows.

(See, Gina? Ithaca isn’t the only campus with lovely vistas to behold!)

It also makes for some strenuous walks between the classroom buildings and the freshman parking lots, which also sit proudly atop the top of said hills. I foresee much step aerobics and possibly some weight loss in my future.

Yesterday was matriculation. I did everything I needed to do on campus except to actually matriculation. The lines were too long and the whole thing was interrupted by Convocation and then I had to go home. So, I guess I’ll do that on Monday.

I did get a bunch of other stuff taken care of, though. I checked in and (finally) got my parking sticker and picked up the textbooks I ordered and got my student ID card sat through an orientation meeting for commuter students. It was a productive day on campus.

It was a productive day at home, too. Yesterday was Kimmie’s 16th birthday. So, I went home from school and baked a birthday cake and made Kimmie’s birthday dinner. And then I drove over to Ithaca to pick up Gina, who is sick as a dog and came home for the weekend because she didn’t want to get her roomies sick, too.

Overall, it was a good day.

I’m celebrating.

I QUIT SMOKING ONE YEAR AGO TODAY!!!

You may not be impressed but I am. Especially in light of the fact that Gino has continued to smoke this entire year — although, in justice to him, not in the house.

(I wish he had told me back when he did quit — for a whole year, too! — that having me in the apartment, still a-puffing away, was making it harder for him. I would have stopped smoking in the apartment and he might have been able to stay on the wagon. Oh well … !)

Meanwhile, Gina is home this week and we did something I’ve been threatening to do for years. We had a Girls’ Night Out and took ourselves off to Interskate 88 for a few hours of roller skating.

Do you think it’s pathetic that I so have no life that I can get excited about going roller skating?

Well, hey … screw you.

I like roller skating. It’s good exercise and it’s a lot of fun. I haven’t done it in years, so I’m not all that good at it. For that matter, I’ve never been especially good at it. I just like to do it.

Besides, it is a form of physical activity that Kimmie appears to enjoy (always excluding sex, of course), which is something of a miracle all by itself.

So, once I got my skates on and got to my feet, I did several laps that fell under the category of, “Oh, god, I don’t remember how to do this, I’m gonna kill myself … !”

But, after that, I started getting the hang of it again. I’m not going to say it’s like riding a bicycle, exactly, but it wasn’t far removed.

The best part is that now, on the day after, my legs are not rubbery or even a little bit sore (many thanks to The FIRM and, specifically, to Emily and Kelsie, who kick my butt on a regular basis).

And, at the prompting of my daughters, I’ve decided that I’m going to do this regularly … maybe weekly. It’s a real cheap form of entertainment and I really don’t get out enough.

Besides, I think I’m going to enjoy spending time with Kimmie (and Gina, when she’s home) outside this house.

That was a good idea of mine. (See? I have them occasionally.)

I haven’t been in here in a little while, so I haven’t told you yet that we’ve had something of an event in the Baker household.

Gina has had a birthday.

Not just any birthday, either. Gina turned 20 last Saturday.

Now, compared with either 18 or 21, you may not think of 20 as all that big a deal. Ah, but you see, turning 20 (as Gina herself pointed out to … somebody) means you are officially no longer a teenager.

It’s funny, we notice things like the “official” beginning of teenagerdom at the age of 13. I’m sorry to say that I,for one, had never considered its natural end at age 20.

This is why I need children, to teach me these things.

As events have unfolded, I soon had real and tangible proof that Gina is, indeed, no longer a teenager.

You see, a couple of months ago, in a moment of sisterly initiation, I happened to see her carefully instructing her younger sister. “Rule number one of being a teenager,” she told Kimmie. “You must have your cell phone with you at all times.”

So, the day before yesterday, when I heard Kimmie yelling at Gina (who had just gone downstairs) that she’d gotten a text message, I realized that she really truly had passed beyond teenagerdom.

Welcome to the world of the Grown Up, Gina!

Anyway, I’m about to head into the kitchen with my teenaged daughter and my no-longer-a-teenaged daughter to start baking pies. That’s ’cause TOMORROW IS THANKSGIVING AND DIETING BE DAMNED!

-ahem- Excuse me.

Happy Turkey Day to anybody who might stumble upon these ramblings. Do stop to ponder things you are thankful for between bites. I’m sure there’s something …