I have now moved into the District of Columbia, having survived a slew of medical nastiness, one blown tire in a thunderstorm on Northern Parkway in Baltimore, the adventure of finding an open pharmacist to fill prescriptions for steroids and antibiotics at 3 AM in Langley Park, driving a cargo van in miserable weather, etc. I am out sick from the job today; my chest hurts when I breathe but at least now I can take full breaths. Getting one full night's sleep helped a lot.

Comcast will be installing internet service to my apartment tomorrow and thereafter I will be in a much better position to blog routinely.

Of late, I have not had much to say about non-personal subjects. I have not cared about Obama and his minister, McCain and his minister backer, Clinton and whomever she may be boring to tears at the moment. I have been focused on divorce, finances, children, visitation, home settlements, clearing out garbage, cashing checks, splitting debts and furniture, autism-proofing an apartment not made with children particularly in mind. When I get my boys every other weekend, I will want to know what to do with them for two days. They like to bang, and climb, and break things. They are effectively non-responsive to English most of the time. I care about this more than I do about whether Obama's minister is asking God to bless America or to damn America. Whether America is blessed or damned, all I have is my to-do list.

There have been a lot of things I have wanted to say here of late, but putting one's divorce details into a blog is, beyond a certain point, a bit tasteless. Not "fun tasteless" like flatulence jokes, but "cruel tasteless." On the other hand, I have a moral right to discuss my life, if done in a civilized manner. Finding the balance between "real" and just "real tacky" is not easy. I feel more comfortable discussing the children and my relationship with them, though.

Concerning the blog, there will be some new focuses here. One of the topics dear to my heart, but heretofore soft-pedaled out of misguided diplomacy, is secularism, secular government, separation of church (mosque, synagogue, etc.) and state and more up-front advocacy of skepticism and atheistic perspectives and more aggressive critiques of the actions of religious leaders and religious institutions. I have soft-pedaled these topics in the past out of a desire to maintain diplomacy with my religiously very-conservative ex-wife. That diplomacy is no longer a priority, for the common-sense reasons that you would more or less expect. The religiously conservative bloggers among the Maryland Bloggers' Alliance for example are quite solid advocates for their views; I hope to match their quality and rhetorical vigor from a substantially different perspective. There will continue to be Maryland and DC content both here, but with new emphases. There will be more information about local cultural events in DC, in part because I will be more able to participate in such events every other weekend (and occasionally perhaps a few with the boys.) There will be more autism content, more single-Dad content. There may even be (gulp) dating-world content.

Tomorrow we sell the Godfrey Estate and Manor, i.e. a townhouse in Reisterstown and its associated clod of dirt. In six months, I will file for an absolute divorce in DC, and shortly thereafter the law will recognize our current personal realities through a court order. By March 2008 I should be divorced.

Since I now longer live in Maryland, I decided to change the name of the blog to "Beyond Eastern Avenue," reflecting the location of my new home near Eastern Avenue (actually closer to South Dakota Avenue, but I get groceries at the Chillum Giant on Eastern Avenue, Maryland side.) It is a little jarring to realize that if you drive along Eastern Avenue and let your tire override the double yellow line, you are (if I am correct) driving illegally in two different jurisdictions. I don't know where the line technically lies: down the stripe, closer curb, outer curb. This is the sort of thing I should know, but don't. But in any event, it's economically, if not politically, the same neighborhood on both sides of Eastern Avenue. It is a little odd too to realize that the west side of the street (my side) gets no real representation in Congress while the right side gets Donna Edwards (or will get her in just a few months.)