Careful readers may have noticed a drop in production here at Crablaw of late, with substantial reliance on YouTube materials. So-called real life has been taking a bit of a toll on my time, energy and creativity. I don't feel comfortable discussing the purely personal side of the divorce reality of my life - this is a blog and being my lawyer, counselor or Father Confessor is not what you signed up for - but the non-personal, publicly available goods are more or less as follows.

We had an open house for our townhouse on Sunday and we got some favorable response. There is a gap between a "favorable response" and a bid. We will see if that gap closes. If so, my life will start moving pretty quickly, starting with a real as opposed to speculative search for 2 bedroom apartments inside the DC Beltway. I may wind up choosing DC over Maryland even though the idea of giving up my Maryland citizenship for even 1 year galls me, though it would probably save me slightly in taxes (a surprise there, let me tell you.) But I am probably more likely to talk myself into living in downtown Silver Spring. Not a cheap option per se but if it cuts my commute, it facilitates my overtime so I will earn it back on the back end. I also considered Langley Park; the crime reports about that diverse, inexpensive but troubled area do not bother me (have lived in far worse in West Baltimore) but the warnings I read about bedbugs in the complexes I was looking at freaked me out. I am also looking at places like Rockville, New Carrollton and, for when I hit that lottery, Bethesda.

Once I am down "here" I will start getting used to my new lifestyle and arranging the bedrooms for toddler-suitable use. This means duplicating much of Sam's and Noah's lifestyle down here - mattresses with tent covers as their preferred beds, their preferred foods, clothing, sippy cups. They won't be with me much of the time but they need to have my home be fully their home also, not as guests but as part-time residents, replete with fuzzy blankets and stuffed animal snakes, etc. Silver Spring is good in that it has parks pretty nearby though keeping hold to two autistic toddlers is no small trick. Answer: my friends will be drafted to join in play with Pookie and Cootie.

One of the things that I will be doing with my extra time now killed in obscene commuting to Reisterstown from DC and back down again every night and morning is to explore business and online publishing ideas about which I can now only ruminate. There are three pretty tiny streams of income that I derive now from Crablaw.com's activities as a whole; while I don't need to become the next Fark.com grossing six figures monthly, I intend for my online projects eventually to replace a meaningful part of my income from legal work, ideally enabling my retirement. I will succeed in achieving that goal in time but I would like to make that day come a whole lot sooner. Blogging has given me, in its ups and downs, more satisfaction and probably a greater rudder for my sanity over the last four years than anything else I could imagine. I look forward to applying my skills towards that goal.

Of course these prospective buyers may bust, lose interest, fail to get financing. We have another open house scheduled for two weeks from now, and that one should do the trick in warmer, post-Easter spring-thinking climate of weather and of people. I think the Equinox is this weekend, maybe on Easter itself, and those announcements should provide some psychological lift as well. Despite some truly bad-crazy "crazy times," in the title of one divorce book in my bag, I am optimistic about a better future and a more productive, satisfying and happy life in the near future. They say that Ireland knew how to endure any hardship other than the hardships of modern prosperity (gridlock on roads where prior residents could not afford cars, etc.) Perhaps I will get a chance to be inundated and stupefied with similar good fortune.