Friday, November 16, 2012
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Middle Aged Sexcapades
I can't believe I'm actually middle aged. 38 to be exact, and I suppose that's middle aged. Or maybe not, what with how long people are living these days. Maybe middle age is really around 50. Wait, let me check Wikipedia. Eh, shit. The Census defines it as 35, Collins Dictionary as 40 and Oxford English Dictionary as 45. Erik Erikson says 40. So the average of that: 40. Okay, I'm not there yet. Close, but no cigar.
Things with Guy #1 are going really well. We survived Thanksgiving, to which his ex-wife did not show up, and I think next year maybe I just want to stay at home and eat country ham and broccoli casserole. I won't have my kids next Thanksgiving, so it won't matter if I do that. We'll see.
I took my children to see Santa this past weekend, and my mother went with us, since that's my normal routine. I had planned on The Ex NOT being there, since he bitched about Santa every year since my older daughter was born, but my older daughter insisted on calling him on the way to see Santa and then insisting to him that he come. To his credit, he did manage to extricate himself from World of Warcraft and get his ass in to see Santa, and didn't bitch about it much. Maybe his third marriage is agreeing with him.
My mother got to my house a little early and we were sitting pretty much hip-to-hip on the sofa, trying to figure out her fancy schmancy new iPhone, being that she upgraded from a tracfone to an iPhone with nothing in between (who the fuck does that?) when my phone buzzed. As a prequel to this whole story, Guy #1 and I had been indecently texting each other all day, well, because we can. It's my phone and if I want to text dirty, I can do just that.
Anyway, my phone rang.
I see it's Guy #1 calling.
I answered, "Hello?" even though I knew it was him, because my mother and children were in the room.
Keep in mind my mother and I were still sitting hip-to-hip at this point, thus causing the proximity of her head to my head to be about six to eight inches apart being that we were looking at her phone together.
Guy #1 says, with no greeting, "I wish you were bouncing up and down on my cock right now."
I was silent.
I did not move a muscle in my body as I cut my eyes over to my mother and wondered if she had heard that, since her ear was only a few inches away from my phone that I then desperately tried to press into my inner ear.
That five seconds of silence between the three of us, Guy #1, my mother and I was deafening.
And then my mother snorted, and I think just a teensy bit of soup that she had been eating right when Guy #1 made his proclamation shot out of her nose. She got up and stumbled into the kitchen and I heard a chair scrape back from the table.
Oh. My. God. She heard that.
I whispered to Guy #1, "My mother is HERE!"
He says, "So?"
I said, "She heard THAT!"
Of course Guy #1 didn't believe me, and the peals of laughter coming from my kitchen didn't convince him. I was somewhere between laughing and crying at this point, because that's pretty embarrassing. Mothers are not supposed to know that stuff. Although, I'm pretty sure she's come to the conclusion that after a year of dating, he and I have consummated the relationship. But still, that's not a point of discussion between my mother and I because I am 38 and don't need sex advice from her. That's what I have girlfriends for.
Guy #1 continued to insist that my mother did not hear him say that. I finally had to hold the phone out and yell at my mother in the kitchen, "Hey, did you hear that?" To which more laughter came. I put the phone back up to my ear and said, "SEE?!?!? She heard you!"
And then it got worse. My mother yelled back, "It brings back memories!"
Oh. My. God.
Who knew that in one split second one of my eardrums could burst and I could throw up in my mouth, all at the same time? It's amazing what the human body can do, that's for sure.
With that, Guy #1 was silent. He said, "Did she really hear me?"
I whispered, "Yeah, she heard you."
Guy #1 said, "Oh my god, why would you have your phone on speaker?"
I said, "It wasn't on SPEAKER, you damn fool. We were sitting right next to each other."
Guy #1 argued back, "I wasn't that loud!"
I said, "You know I've got bad ears and I have to keep the volume all the way up!"
He said, "What's wrong with your ears?"
Holy shit. And that's when it struck me. Bad ears, bad eyes, bad back. I'm getting old. Helloooooo, middle age. I didn't think the realization would hit me like this.
Some days are just like that, I suppose.
Things with Guy #1 are going really well. We survived Thanksgiving, to which his ex-wife did not show up, and I think next year maybe I just want to stay at home and eat country ham and broccoli casserole. I won't have my kids next Thanksgiving, so it won't matter if I do that. We'll see.
I took my children to see Santa this past weekend, and my mother went with us, since that's my normal routine. I had planned on The Ex NOT being there, since he bitched about Santa every year since my older daughter was born, but my older daughter insisted on calling him on the way to see Santa and then insisting to him that he come. To his credit, he did manage to extricate himself from World of Warcraft and get his ass in to see Santa, and didn't bitch about it much. Maybe his third marriage is agreeing with him.
My mother got to my house a little early and we were sitting pretty much hip-to-hip on the sofa, trying to figure out her fancy schmancy new iPhone, being that she upgraded from a tracfone to an iPhone with nothing in between (who the fuck does that?) when my phone buzzed. As a prequel to this whole story, Guy #1 and I had been indecently texting each other all day, well, because we can. It's my phone and if I want to text dirty, I can do just that.
Anyway, my phone rang.
I see it's Guy #1 calling.
I answered, "Hello?" even though I knew it was him, because my mother and children were in the room.
Keep in mind my mother and I were still sitting hip-to-hip at this point, thus causing the proximity of her head to my head to be about six to eight inches apart being that we were looking at her phone together.
Guy #1 says, with no greeting, "I wish you were bouncing up and down on my cock right now."
I was silent.
I did not move a muscle in my body as I cut my eyes over to my mother and wondered if she had heard that, since her ear was only a few inches away from my phone that I then desperately tried to press into my inner ear.
That five seconds of silence between the three of us, Guy #1, my mother and I was deafening.
And then my mother snorted, and I think just a teensy bit of soup that she had been eating right when Guy #1 made his proclamation shot out of her nose. She got up and stumbled into the kitchen and I heard a chair scrape back from the table.
Oh. My. God. She heard that.
I whispered to Guy #1, "My mother is HERE!"
He says, "So?"
I said, "She heard THAT!"
Of course Guy #1 didn't believe me, and the peals of laughter coming from my kitchen didn't convince him. I was somewhere between laughing and crying at this point, because that's pretty embarrassing. Mothers are not supposed to know that stuff. Although, I'm pretty sure she's come to the conclusion that after a year of dating, he and I have consummated the relationship. But still, that's not a point of discussion between my mother and I because I am 38 and don't need sex advice from her. That's what I have girlfriends for.
Guy #1 continued to insist that my mother did not hear him say that. I finally had to hold the phone out and yell at my mother in the kitchen, "Hey, did you hear that?" To which more laughter came. I put the phone back up to my ear and said, "SEE?!?!? She heard you!"
And then it got worse. My mother yelled back, "It brings back memories!"
Oh. My. God.
Who knew that in one split second one of my eardrums could burst and I could throw up in my mouth, all at the same time? It's amazing what the human body can do, that's for sure.
With that, Guy #1 was silent. He said, "Did she really hear me?"
I whispered, "Yeah, she heard you."
Guy #1 said, "Oh my god, why would you have your phone on speaker?"
I said, "It wasn't on SPEAKER, you damn fool. We were sitting right next to each other."
Guy #1 argued back, "I wasn't that loud!"
I said, "You know I've got bad ears and I have to keep the volume all the way up!"
He said, "What's wrong with your ears?"
Holy shit. And that's when it struck me. Bad ears, bad eyes, bad back. I'm getting old. Helloooooo, middle age. I didn't think the realization would hit me like this.
Some days are just like that, I suppose.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Write Stuff???? (Part Deux)
Still working on this recommendation in my head. I got halfway through it in my brain last night, but then the whole thing spiraled out of control into a Breakfast-Club-this-is-where-we-are-twenty-years-later schtick. Collectively, my classmates and I are a lot of things. I'm not going to name them all out, because that would just be too cliche, but we are good stuff, and here and there are bits of badness. Kind of like someone in the class behind me who got picked up for a messy felony offense and then deported to a country that they hadn't lived in since they were an infant because their dumbass adoptive Farmville parents never finalized the naturalization process. Boom! Hello, impoverished South American country where someone doesn't speak the language and has no relatives! But then on the other hand, there is my senior year prom date who very likely could end up as governor one day and I'll be his dirty little secret from high school. The total dichotomy of his father (who was the school superintendent) kind of leading the charge on almost expelling me from school and then, reversing course by allowing his son to take me to prom always made me wonder if dear old dad was just trying to make sure his son had a sure thing on prom night. Cause he didn't! That joke was on him! Anyway, this is exactly why I posted our prom picture on facebook. I.am.ahead.of.the.curve.here.
But back to homeslice and I. We ended up going to the same college, but he was lucky enough to live on campus and I was not-so-lucky enough to live with my father because he and my mother had basically determined they weren't going to pay for me to live on campus. My choices were Longwood or VCU. I was jealous of homeslice, because he got experience college as it's meant to be experienced, and that's with the view from a dorm window. I got to experience college with a view out of my commuter windshield. We ran into each once or twice that first semester, and I drove him to the bank once, but then headed right back to Farmville when living with my mother became an better option than living with my father. The lesser of two evils, I suppose.
The last time I saw homeslice was 1996-ish, when somehow a bunch of us from high school ended up in the trailer he and some other guys from high school had rented drinking beer and laughing about high school. I got the distinct impression that they were all looking at my T&A and found a reason to leave. Yes, the post-high school years were good for me, developmentally.
I suppose what amazes me about homeslice's writing (and I've tried to go back and read his whole blog, but it's damn near impossible because there's got to be at least a thousand entries on that thing, plus I still haven't read his stuff that's been published. My name is bad friend.) is that he manages to catch the sheer hopelessness, poverty,small-mindedness small-townish-ness and aimlessness that is where we grew up but he does with the acuity of being able to look from the outside in, and back out again. Mix that with varying degrees of socio-economic awareness (by the time I was in eighth grade I could break down all the different types of white people there were in our county, I'm ashamed to admit), a convoluted racial hyper-vigilance cultivated by our county's history, and hanging out in a junkyard every now and then. Some of the shit he writes about I don't get, that usually being music and MMA, but the rest of it, yeah, I'm there. Of course, I'm kind of biased, being that we've known each other for years upon years upon years, and I know of the people and places he writes about.
I'm definitely going to do the recommendation, but here's the rub. He didn't give me enough time to frantically read up on and research about ten other authors in my mind I'd like to compare him to in my head prior to writing this damn thing, and I can't count on Wikipedia to be reliable for this. Yes, it's reliable for me diagnosing all of my medical problems, but for something this serious - hell to the naw! This program only accepts ten students per year. I did at least get on the school website and do some reading on that. The other, and greater, concern that I have is that I'm going to be the person to dumb this whole process down. Obviously, homeslice is smarter than me. His slice of genius is slightly bigger than my slice of brilliance, which means he's way ahead of me. Seriously, though, I have some serious reservations about me being the retard who accidentally stumbled into the Mensa meeting or something. Something this big, I can't fuck this up. I mean, this is someone's life here, and what if these people look at my letter and they're like, 'That's the dumbest and most ignorant shit we've ever read. Admission denied.' What if I have too many commas? We,all,know,I, have a, thing,for,commas,,,,,. And I don't want to just pull something out of my ass. I'm honored to have even been asked, considering I consider homeslice to be not only smarter than me, but a better writer, too. You don't respect and honor something by just pulling some shit out of your ass. Even though I've had something floating around my head for the past couple of days, I can't let this shit percolate but too long, because the deadline is looming and shit that's over-percolated always taste like, well, shit.
But back to homeslice and I. We ended up going to the same college, but he was lucky enough to live on campus and I was not-so-lucky enough to live with my father because he and my mother had basically determined they weren't going to pay for me to live on campus. My choices were Longwood or VCU. I was jealous of homeslice, because he got experience college as it's meant to be experienced, and that's with the view from a dorm window. I got to experience college with a view out of my commuter windshield. We ran into each once or twice that first semester, and I drove him to the bank once, but then headed right back to Farmville when living with my mother became an better option than living with my father. The lesser of two evils, I suppose.
The last time I saw homeslice was 1996-ish, when somehow a bunch of us from high school ended up in the trailer he and some other guys from high school had rented drinking beer and laughing about high school. I got the distinct impression that they were all looking at my T&A and found a reason to leave. Yes, the post-high school years were good for me, developmentally.
I suppose what amazes me about homeslice's writing (and I've tried to go back and read his whole blog, but it's damn near impossible because there's got to be at least a thousand entries on that thing, plus I still haven't read his stuff that's been published. My name is bad friend.) is that he manages to catch the sheer hopelessness, poverty,
I'm definitely going to do the recommendation, but here's the rub. He didn't give me enough time to frantically read up on and research about ten other authors in my mind I'd like to compare him to in my head prior to writing this damn thing, and I can't count on Wikipedia to be reliable for this. Yes, it's reliable for me diagnosing all of my medical problems, but for something this serious - hell to the naw! This program only accepts ten students per year. I did at least get on the school website and do some reading on that. The other, and greater, concern that I have is that I'm going to be the person to dumb this whole process down. Obviously, homeslice is smarter than me. His slice of genius is slightly bigger than my slice of brilliance, which means he's way ahead of me. Seriously, though, I have some serious reservations about me being the retard who accidentally stumbled into the Mensa meeting or something. Something this big, I can't fuck this up. I mean, this is someone's life here, and what if these people look at my letter and they're like, 'That's the dumbest and most ignorant shit we've ever read. Admission denied.' What if I have too many commas? We,all,know,I, have a, thing,for,commas,,,,,. And I don't want to just pull something out of my ass. I'm honored to have even been asked, considering I consider homeslice to be not only smarter than me, but a better writer, too. You don't respect and honor something by just pulling some shit out of your ass. Even though I've had something floating around my head for the past couple of days, I can't let this shit percolate but too long, because the deadline is looming and shit that's over-percolated always taste like, well, shit.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
The Write Stuff??? (Part 1)
So I've been asked to write a recommendation for a friend of mine. Not a big deal, right, because I've written a few completely trumped up job references before, making the said candidate sound like they really should be working for the Supreme Court or something. But this isn't for a job. This is for a friend's MFA Creative Writing program admission. Huh, you say? Yeah, me too.
But not just any friend, well, because, I don't have that many friends. Ha! Just kidding! I'm super popular. Or not. Anyway, I've known this cat since fourth grade, and even in fourth grade, he wasn't a guy, or a boy, he was a cat. He was that kid who had hair that was too long, had a really cool name and his parents were rumored to be hippies. Yeah, I had a terrible crush on him. He ignored me completely and I think he told me I was stupid at some point on the bus ride home one afternoon. But that was fourth grade, and then a new boy transferred in to school starting in fifth grade and I had a new crush. Who also ignored me and told me I was stupid. My sixth grade crush turned into an actual boyfriend, you know, who actually asked me to 'go with him'. Seventh grade crush was the guy who I snitched out for giving me pot in tenth grade, eighth grade crush also thought I was stupid, ninth grade crush dumped me for one of my arch enemies, and so it goes on.
I got completely off track there. People keep texting me and I can't concentrate. See, I told you I was popular! Anyway, my fourth grade crush and I never had any classes together until high school. My school was small, and there were probably only about enough students for four or five separate classes (if I recall correctly) per grade, and I was always in the second smartest class. Those 80's standardized tests pretty much kept the same kids in the same class with each other all the way through middle school. I always realized that I was never in the smartest class, and watched other kids filter in and out of the second smartest class, but I never seemed to be able to work my way into the smartest class category. I blame this partially on my mother for not giving a fuck about my education other than to harass me endlessly about why I wasn't doing better (even though I think I recall her never making much of an effort to help me) and I blame this partially on myself for being pretty much satisfied with second smartest class. And maybe a little blame goes on a couple of teachers here and there for just sucking in general.
By the time I got to high school, I had determined that the only way that I was going to succeed in the high school social game was going to be by making smartest class. I buckled down in ninth grade and actually started applying myself and applied for the 'honors' type program, which really wasn't honors but probably more like what the good high schools were teaching, and voila! Social entree was mine! All of a sudden I was in the smartest class, minus math. I compensated for that by being in the retard math classes. And a whole new world of kids opened up to me, those kids who had always been in the smartest class and had been together since fourth grade (or before). I had a lot of catching up to do. Suddenly, I was in class with my fourth grade crush. Awkward high school friendships were formed, because these kids knew I didn't have the history with them that they had with each other. I stayed in smartest English and History classes for the rest of high school, and supplemented it with French (where I insisted on only speaking English, because really, I was just taking that shit for college, not to be able to actually speak it), and did a few other things, along with remaining in dumbest math class that was almost learning disabled (still with the guy who gave me the pot - there's a reason for this, I think) and working my way down from smartest biology to pretty damn stupid chemistry.
The friendship that fourth grade homeslice and I had was strange, because I thought he was a little weird in that hippie-commune kind of way, and he probably thought I was as self-absorbed and shallow as any teenage girl. Our friendship was also made even more awkward by the fact that my stepfather had, on occasion or two, arrested his father. And I think his uncle. And was gunning for him to make it a hat-trick. Homeslice knew this, I knew this, my stepfather knew this and his father knew this. So he and I would kid around in school and then go home and have to individually hear shit about how the other's person's dad or stepdad was a shithead, blah blah blah. For a lack of a better word, the friendship was precariously based upon whether or not my stepfather was going to be involved in arresting one of his relatives. That always seems to complicate shit, you know? I was desperate to be included in all of the cool parties that I always heard about AFTER THE FACT, and I've convinced myself that homeslice and our other classmates were probably torn between inviting me and living in fear of getting themselves locked up. I don't care what anyone says, growing up with a (step)parent who is the long arm of the law in a small town, and eager to be a complete dick, really, really, really sucks. Period. I think most of the trouble that I got into in high school was directly related to my desire to prove that I wasn't a goody two-shoes.
And that's it for tonight. More tomorrow, as I try to piece this recommendation together in my brain.
But not just any friend, well, because, I don't have that many friends. Ha! Just kidding! I'm super popular. Or not. Anyway, I've known this cat since fourth grade, and even in fourth grade, he wasn't a guy, or a boy, he was a cat. He was that kid who had hair that was too long, had a really cool name and his parents were rumored to be hippies. Yeah, I had a terrible crush on him. He ignored me completely and I think he told me I was stupid at some point on the bus ride home one afternoon. But that was fourth grade, and then a new boy transferred in to school starting in fifth grade and I had a new crush. Who also ignored me and told me I was stupid. My sixth grade crush turned into an actual boyfriend, you know, who actually asked me to 'go with him'. Seventh grade crush was the guy who I snitched out for giving me pot in tenth grade, eighth grade crush also thought I was stupid, ninth grade crush dumped me for one of my arch enemies, and so it goes on.
I got completely off track there. People keep texting me and I can't concentrate. See, I told you I was popular! Anyway, my fourth grade crush and I never had any classes together until high school. My school was small, and there were probably only about enough students for four or five separate classes (if I recall correctly) per grade, and I was always in the second smartest class. Those 80's standardized tests pretty much kept the same kids in the same class with each other all the way through middle school. I always realized that I was never in the smartest class, and watched other kids filter in and out of the second smartest class, but I never seemed to be able to work my way into the smartest class category. I blame this partially on my mother for not giving a fuck about my education other than to harass me endlessly about why I wasn't doing better (even though I think I recall her never making much of an effort to help me) and I blame this partially on myself for being pretty much satisfied with second smartest class. And maybe a little blame goes on a couple of teachers here and there for just sucking in general.
By the time I got to high school, I had determined that the only way that I was going to succeed in the high school social game was going to be by making smartest class. I buckled down in ninth grade and actually started applying myself and applied for the 'honors' type program, which really wasn't honors but probably more like what the good high schools were teaching, and voila! Social entree was mine! All of a sudden I was in the smartest class, minus math. I compensated for that by being in the retard math classes. And a whole new world of kids opened up to me, those kids who had always been in the smartest class and had been together since fourth grade (or before). I had a lot of catching up to do. Suddenly, I was in class with my fourth grade crush. Awkward high school friendships were formed, because these kids knew I didn't have the history with them that they had with each other. I stayed in smartest English and History classes for the rest of high school, and supplemented it with French (where I insisted on only speaking English, because really, I was just taking that shit for college, not to be able to actually speak it), and did a few other things, along with remaining in dumbest math class that was almost learning disabled (still with the guy who gave me the pot - there's a reason for this, I think) and working my way down from smartest biology to pretty damn stupid chemistry.
The friendship that fourth grade homeslice and I had was strange, because I thought he was a little weird in that hippie-commune kind of way, and he probably thought I was as self-absorbed and shallow as any teenage girl. Our friendship was also made even more awkward by the fact that my stepfather had, on occasion or two, arrested his father. And I think his uncle. And was gunning for him to make it a hat-trick. Homeslice knew this, I knew this, my stepfather knew this and his father knew this. So he and I would kid around in school and then go home and have to individually hear shit about how the other's person's dad or stepdad was a shithead, blah blah blah. For a lack of a better word, the friendship was precariously based upon whether or not my stepfather was going to be involved in arresting one of his relatives. That always seems to complicate shit, you know? I was desperate to be included in all of the cool parties that I always heard about AFTER THE FACT, and I've convinced myself that homeslice and our other classmates were probably torn between inviting me and living in fear of getting themselves locked up. I don't care what anyone says, growing up with a (step)parent who is the long arm of the law in a small town, and eager to be a complete dick, really, really, really sucks. Period. I think most of the trouble that I got into in high school was directly related to my desire to prove that I wasn't a goody two-shoes.
And that's it for tonight. More tomorrow, as I try to piece this recommendation together in my brain.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Much More Chill
As the title would suggest, I'm much more chill today. A long afternoon with Guy #1 tends to do that for me. So I am probably not going to drink my way through Thanksgiving, but I may have a couple of shots here and there. I'm not going to call them shots, though, I am simply going to call them fortifiers. I don't know if the ex-wife will show up, but if she does, then she does. I have no choice but to roll with it and be the princess that I am. I will simply nod my head at her and say, "What it do?" My stepfather, on the other hand, may get a few more curse words hissed at him randomly throughout the day. Or... I'll figure out which alcohol belongs to him and I will work on drinking that exclusively. As long as it's not moonshine, we'll be good to go.
I had to pick my mother up from work today and she never mentioned the whole thing and I didn't either. I had already decided I wasn't going to mention it, because I didn't want her to be in the predicament of hearing me bitch about her husband. I mean, really, she can't help what comes out of his mouth any more than I can. So it was a long and awkward ride, what with this whole topic hanging in the air and yet remaining unspoken. I decided halfway through the trip that this too would go on the "List of Shit My Mother And I Will Never Discuss". It's not a pretty list, trust me.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the football picks thing over at http://www.armchairlinebacker.com/ kind of fell apart, but hopefully we can get something going again in the next few weeks. I think we did it for a total of four weeks. Week 1 - I fucking rocked! Week 2 - not so great. Week 3 - I know a few retarded people who could make better picks than me. Week 4 - I lost so much pretend money that I was only allowed to bet on one game, and I picked right! Ha! I win, bitches! But this was also the week the whole thing fell apart. However, if you need a guest contributor to blather on endlessly about everything and nothing and maybe a little bit of the requested topic, I'm yo' girl! Hit a sista up!
We've wrapped up the whole fall athletic thing. My older daughter survived cheerleading and I've managed to extricate the cheer director from her life and from mine. Culling the herd is a good thing, you know? My younger daughter played football this year, yes - football - I can't remember if I mentioned that or not. Anyway, she played flag football, but that was because of her age, not because she can't play tackle. She did awesome, and I'm pretty damn proud to have been the mother of the one girl a team of 30 boys. Once she understood what she had to do, she did her best to go out there and make it happen. I was surprised that towards the end of the season she was telling her eye doctor that she played football and the doctor asked what position she played. I whispered to her, "Safety", because that's what I thought she played. My daughter looked at me quite scornfully and rolled her eyes, and said, "No, Mommy, I play outside linebacker!" Well, excuuuuuuse me, is what I thought. But fucking awesome that my daughter is playing linebacker! Hell yeah! And I was even more excited when she managed to hold the other teams players off, sometimes two at a time. Yep, that's my little princess out there. And even better was that she was one of the few kids on her team who didn't cry all season. The Ex and I had drilled into her over and over and then over again that THERE'S NO CRYING IN FOOTBALL!!! We figured that as soon as she started crying then it was over for her. The whole girl stereotype thing would just take over and her season would be done. Sidelined. But my girl hung in there tough and didn't shed a tear once. She made a point of telling the coach that she was the only one who didn't cry all year, and then, at the awards banquet, when her name was called, the coach made sure he repeated that she was the only one who didn't cry all year. I'd like to think this was because she had earned his respect, and not because he spent last football season and this football season trying to make 'eye contact' with me.
My older daughter surprised me the other day by informing that she had sold one of her cups of jello to a friend for a dollar. Several things were wrong with this picture. First of all, I just got screwed because I bought that jello for her, and I did not get reimbursed by that dollar. Second of all, her friend got screwed because I'm pretty sure that jello cup wasn't worth a dollar (or maybe it was to the friend, I don't know), and lastly, why the hell is she selling the jello instead of just giving it to her friend for the sake of being a good friend? Oh, that wasn't lastly, lastly-lastly, that jello was for her to eat since she's still recuperating from having her tonsils taken out two weeks ago, although I'm positive this little budding hypochondriac will make this recovery last for about 2.89 years. But on the other hand, I was still kind of pleased, because this does show some early entrepreneurial skills, and because she's learning the laws of supply and demand along with a touch of negotiating skills. I asked her why she sold the jello instead of giving it away, and she said because her friend offered to buy it. Well, okay, but why does an elementary school kid have cash on them? The school has a rule - no cash with kids, probably because of stuff like this, and because my younger daughter will be that other kind of kid strong arming everyone out of their lunch money. Oh, her friend had that cash on her because the friend stole it from her older sister. Lovely. Since my daughter doesn't like the friend's older sister, I know she took even greater joy in selling the jello, then. We had a little talk about how if you have an extra jello (which Mommy bought for your throat!) and you'd like to share, then just give her the jello for the sake of being a good friend. As a reward, I promised to set her up the candy bar business in middle school and she can run around and financially rape those kids if she so chooses. Middle school IS a dog-eat-dog world, you know. Everyone needs a niche in middle school and I'm glad we've already defined hers. My father, half-shyster and Indian-giver that he was, would be delighted by this.
And with that, Happy Thanksgiving!
I had to pick my mother up from work today and she never mentioned the whole thing and I didn't either. I had already decided I wasn't going to mention it, because I didn't want her to be in the predicament of hearing me bitch about her husband. I mean, really, she can't help what comes out of his mouth any more than I can. So it was a long and awkward ride, what with this whole topic hanging in the air and yet remaining unspoken. I decided halfway through the trip that this too would go on the "List of Shit My Mother And I Will Never Discuss". It's not a pretty list, trust me.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the football picks thing over at http://www.armchairlinebacker.com/ kind of fell apart, but hopefully we can get something going again in the next few weeks. I think we did it for a total of four weeks. Week 1 - I fucking rocked! Week 2 - not so great. Week 3 - I know a few retarded people who could make better picks than me. Week 4 - I lost so much pretend money that I was only allowed to bet on one game, and I picked right! Ha! I win, bitches! But this was also the week the whole thing fell apart. However, if you need a guest contributor to blather on endlessly about everything and nothing and maybe a little bit of the requested topic, I'm yo' girl! Hit a sista up!
We've wrapped up the whole fall athletic thing. My older daughter survived cheerleading and I've managed to extricate the cheer director from her life and from mine. Culling the herd is a good thing, you know? My younger daughter played football this year, yes - football - I can't remember if I mentioned that or not. Anyway, she played flag football, but that was because of her age, not because she can't play tackle. She did awesome, and I'm pretty damn proud to have been the mother of the one girl a team of 30 boys. Once she understood what she had to do, she did her best to go out there and make it happen. I was surprised that towards the end of the season she was telling her eye doctor that she played football and the doctor asked what position she played. I whispered to her, "Safety", because that's what I thought she played. My daughter looked at me quite scornfully and rolled her eyes, and said, "No, Mommy, I play outside linebacker!" Well, excuuuuuuse me, is what I thought. But fucking awesome that my daughter is playing linebacker! Hell yeah! And I was even more excited when she managed to hold the other teams players off, sometimes two at a time. Yep, that's my little princess out there. And even better was that she was one of the few kids on her team who didn't cry all season. The Ex and I had drilled into her over and over and then over again that THERE'S NO CRYING IN FOOTBALL!!! We figured that as soon as she started crying then it was over for her. The whole girl stereotype thing would just take over and her season would be done. Sidelined. But my girl hung in there tough and didn't shed a tear once. She made a point of telling the coach that she was the only one who didn't cry all year, and then, at the awards banquet, when her name was called, the coach made sure he repeated that she was the only one who didn't cry all year. I'd like to think this was because she had earned his respect, and not because he spent last football season and this football season trying to make 'eye contact' with me.
My older daughter surprised me the other day by informing that she had sold one of her cups of jello to a friend for a dollar. Several things were wrong with this picture. First of all, I just got screwed because I bought that jello for her, and I did not get reimbursed by that dollar. Second of all, her friend got screwed because I'm pretty sure that jello cup wasn't worth a dollar (or maybe it was to the friend, I don't know), and lastly, why the hell is she selling the jello instead of just giving it to her friend for the sake of being a good friend? Oh, that wasn't lastly, lastly-lastly, that jello was for her to eat since she's still recuperating from having her tonsils taken out two weeks ago, although I'm positive this little budding hypochondriac will make this recovery last for about 2.89 years. But on the other hand, I was still kind of pleased, because this does show some early entrepreneurial skills, and because she's learning the laws of supply and demand along with a touch of negotiating skills. I asked her why she sold the jello instead of giving it away, and she said because her friend offered to buy it. Well, okay, but why does an elementary school kid have cash on them? The school has a rule - no cash with kids, probably because of stuff like this, and because my younger daughter will be that other kind of kid strong arming everyone out of their lunch money. Oh, her friend had that cash on her because the friend stole it from her older sister. Lovely. Since my daughter doesn't like the friend's older sister, I know she took even greater joy in selling the jello, then. We had a little talk about how if you have an extra jello (which Mommy bought for your throat!) and you'd like to share, then just give her the jello for the sake of being a good friend. As a reward, I promised to set her up the candy bar business in middle school and she can run around and financially rape those kids if she so chooses. Middle school IS a dog-eat-dog world, you know. Everyone needs a niche in middle school and I'm glad we've already defined hers. My father, half-shyster and Indian-giver that he was, would be delighted by this.
And with that, Happy Thanksgiving!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Oh.My.God.Thanksgiving.Is.Here.
So, Thanksgiving is almost upon us. And with the holidays comes the drama. Revenge is a dish best served cold, so they say, and I'll have to assume that drama is a dish that usually comes at you piping hot. For the record, I generally dislike drama and really try to remove myself from it. The fact that I work with a bunch of women makes this difficult, but on my personal time, I feel like I really work towards avoiding that shit. Having an anger management problem can complicate this, except for me trying to tell myself that my anger management problem really isn't a problem for me. Yeah, I'm not convinced either, because I'm usually the one that walks away looking like a jackass.
Anyway, today. I get a text from Guy #1 saying he's got something to tell me and please promise I won't be upset. Okay, note to Guy #1, if you have to precede the message with that, I will most likely be upset. But, I promised because I was sure the worst thing he could tell me was that he was working on Thanksgiving and wouldn't be able to join me for the day. Oh my god, I wish it were that simple.
Somehow and somewhere in the realm of a rural county, my mother's husband (my second stepfather) decided to invite Guy #1's ex-wife and her husband to Thanksgiving dinner. Huh? Actually, that's huh to the eighth power, because my stepfather is not even friends with Guy #1's ex-wife or her husband, at least not to my knowledge. Okay, wait, let's stop texting and let me call to verify that I've got this right, because I can't possibly be reading this correctly. I called Guy #1, and yep, I've got it right. His ex-wife is saying that she's been invited to Thanksgiving dinner. As I felt my anger rise up within me, I hung up the phone and called my stepfather.
"Did you invite so-and-so to Thanksgiving dinner?"
"Well, yeah, but we were just joking around and I didn't really mean it."
"WHAT THE FUCK did you do that for? I mean, GODDAMMIT, are you kidding me?"
"No, it's okay, we were just laughing and joking and I invited four or five other people to dinner to but none of them are actually going to come."
Famous last words.
"Don't worry about it, I'll tell them tomorrow that I was just joking and they won't come."
"At this point, I think you've done enough. But just in case, how about I invite your ex-wife to dinner? How would you FUCKING like that?"
"I swear, they aren't coming. We were just laughing and joking."
Click.
I have met Guy #1's ex-wife for the briefest of moments, and I was so pissed at myself for not looking like Miss America at that exact moment in time. It didn't matter that this was the most happenstance of all meetings, nor did it matter that they had already been divorced for more than 10 years. It mattered to me that my hair didn't look supa-fly and that I can't fit into any clothes that are in the one-digit range. Meaning 0-2-4-6-8. Not that I'd want to be a size 4, because I've been a size 4 before and I've gone back and looked at those pictures and I looked fucking anorexic, but still. I don't even know why this bothers me other than I'd like to think I'm the upgrade, not the downgrade. And I want the woman who got upgraded to know that she got upgraded, because that's how the mind of a woman works. Kind of like between me and The Ex, well, he knows I'm still the upgrade, even though he has a new wife. Of course, I'm still moderately sore about Guy #1 telling me in the spring that his ex-girlfriend thought I was fat and ugly, and I've kept it in my mind that that's probably what everyone thinks about me. The fact that all of this came out today in the same Thanksgiving phone call wasn't helpful, and I couldn't help but to feel sorry for him in the end (still not as sorry as I felt for myself, though), because I know he had no idea those words had been living and festering in my brain for months.
Yes, I am shallow like this. Just like I'm shallow about dating ugly men. Meaning, I won't date someone ugly. No, thank you. That's what God made ugly women for. Of course, I'll modify that completely horrid statement by saying that one woman's ugly is another woman's handsome. But still. It's out there.
But back to Thanksgiving. I'm stuck at this point, because Guy #1 says they won't come by because they have too much to do for their own dinner, but I'm of the opinion they will. I mean, why not stop by? They've been invited and are probably a little curious. So now I'm in a pickle of the highest order, because I can do several things:
1. Not go to Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, this is my favorite option, but it's also the option where I cut off my nose to spite myself. This is also the most passive-aggressive of all of my choices, even though I like to call it me making the decision to not get involved and just completely remove myself from situations I don't want to be a part of. Those of us out there who operate on the shady realm of passive-aggressiveness have a million excuses as to why this behavior is acceptable. If I didn't have my kids for Thanksgiving this year, this would most likely be what I would be doing. But I can't bring myself to effectively punish my children for what they don't have any understanding of. Fuck me! for being somewhat of a good mother.
2. Go to Thanksgiving dinner and then pray upon all great beings, including the StayPuff Marshmallow Man, that Guy #1's ex-wife doesn't show up. And when she does, I can hide. I really don't want to have any dealings with this woman, because I know how she has chosen to do certain things in her life and I don't like it and don't trust myself to keep my mouth shut. However, this option will never work because I.am.an.alpha.female. and we don't hide. Period and end of story. So the hiding option is out.
3. Go to Thanksgiving dinner and drink. This is looking like the only viable option, because when I drink I love everyone. And so, if the ex-wife shows up, I'll just make a new friend! Yay! We can take trips to the bathroom together like we're in a club and I'll accidentally drop her phone in the toilet. And then I'll drink too much and puke in her car. Okay, maybe it won't go that far, but I can try!
Guy #1 is of the opinion that I'm blowing this way out of proportion, but dammit, how has he been dating me for a year and not know that I'm just a teensy bit high maintenance? Just a teensy bit high strung? Okay, maybe a little more than a teensy bit. The fact that I'm about to have a panic attack because I've got that tingling feeling in the top of my head and down the back of my neck and tightening in my chest will just go unsaid. But more than anything, I'm pissed that I'm not going to be able to lose 30 pounds and get my hair done in the day and a half before Thanksgiving. I don't feel very upgrad-ish right now and that's what I'm really mad at.
Anyway, today. I get a text from Guy #1 saying he's got something to tell me and please promise I won't be upset. Okay, note to Guy #1, if you have to precede the message with that, I will most likely be upset. But, I promised because I was sure the worst thing he could tell me was that he was working on Thanksgiving and wouldn't be able to join me for the day. Oh my god, I wish it were that simple.
Somehow and somewhere in the realm of a rural county, my mother's husband (my second stepfather) decided to invite Guy #1's ex-wife and her husband to Thanksgiving dinner. Huh? Actually, that's huh to the eighth power, because my stepfather is not even friends with Guy #1's ex-wife or her husband, at least not to my knowledge. Okay, wait, let's stop texting and let me call to verify that I've got this right, because I can't possibly be reading this correctly. I called Guy #1, and yep, I've got it right. His ex-wife is saying that she's been invited to Thanksgiving dinner. As I felt my anger rise up within me, I hung up the phone and called my stepfather.
"Did you invite so-and-so to Thanksgiving dinner?"
"Well, yeah, but we were just joking around and I didn't really mean it."
"WHAT THE FUCK did you do that for? I mean, GODDAMMIT, are you kidding me?"
"No, it's okay, we were just laughing and joking and I invited four or five other people to dinner to but none of them are actually going to come."
Famous last words.
"Don't worry about it, I'll tell them tomorrow that I was just joking and they won't come."
"At this point, I think you've done enough. But just in case, how about I invite your ex-wife to dinner? How would you FUCKING like that?"
"I swear, they aren't coming. We were just laughing and joking."
Click.
I have met Guy #1's ex-wife for the briefest of moments, and I was so pissed at myself for not looking like Miss America at that exact moment in time. It didn't matter that this was the most happenstance of all meetings, nor did it matter that they had already been divorced for more than 10 years. It mattered to me that my hair didn't look supa-fly and that I can't fit into any clothes that are in the one-digit range. Meaning 0-2-4-6-8. Not that I'd want to be a size 4, because I've been a size 4 before and I've gone back and looked at those pictures and I looked fucking anorexic, but still. I don't even know why this bothers me other than I'd like to think I'm the upgrade, not the downgrade. And I want the woman who got upgraded to know that she got upgraded, because that's how the mind of a woman works. Kind of like between me and The Ex, well, he knows I'm still the upgrade, even though he has a new wife. Of course, I'm still moderately sore about Guy #1 telling me in the spring that his ex-girlfriend thought I was fat and ugly, and I've kept it in my mind that that's probably what everyone thinks about me. The fact that all of this came out today in the same Thanksgiving phone call wasn't helpful, and I couldn't help but to feel sorry for him in the end (still not as sorry as I felt for myself, though), because I know he had no idea those words had been living and festering in my brain for months.
Yes, I am shallow like this. Just like I'm shallow about dating ugly men. Meaning, I won't date someone ugly. No, thank you. That's what God made ugly women for. Of course, I'll modify that completely horrid statement by saying that one woman's ugly is another woman's handsome. But still. It's out there.
But back to Thanksgiving. I'm stuck at this point, because Guy #1 says they won't come by because they have too much to do for their own dinner, but I'm of the opinion they will. I mean, why not stop by? They've been invited and are probably a little curious. So now I'm in a pickle of the highest order, because I can do several things:
1. Not go to Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, this is my favorite option, but it's also the option where I cut off my nose to spite myself. This is also the most passive-aggressive of all of my choices, even though I like to call it me making the decision to not get involved and just completely remove myself from situations I don't want to be a part of. Those of us out there who operate on the shady realm of passive-aggressiveness have a million excuses as to why this behavior is acceptable. If I didn't have my kids for Thanksgiving this year, this would most likely be what I would be doing. But I can't bring myself to effectively punish my children for what they don't have any understanding of. Fuck me! for being somewhat of a good mother.
2. Go to Thanksgiving dinner and then pray upon all great beings, including the StayPuff Marshmallow Man, that Guy #1's ex-wife doesn't show up. And when she does, I can hide. I really don't want to have any dealings with this woman, because I know how she has chosen to do certain things in her life and I don't like it and don't trust myself to keep my mouth shut. However, this option will never work because I.am.an.alpha.female. and we don't hide. Period and end of story. So the hiding option is out.
3. Go to Thanksgiving dinner and drink. This is looking like the only viable option, because when I drink I love everyone. And so, if the ex-wife shows up, I'll just make a new friend! Yay! We can take trips to the bathroom together like we're in a club and I'll accidentally drop her phone in the toilet. And then I'll drink too much and puke in her car. Okay, maybe it won't go that far, but I can try!
Guy #1 is of the opinion that I'm blowing this way out of proportion, but dammit, how has he been dating me for a year and not know that I'm just a teensy bit high maintenance? Just a teensy bit high strung? Okay, maybe a little more than a teensy bit. The fact that I'm about to have a panic attack because I've got that tingling feeling in the top of my head and down the back of my neck and tightening in my chest will just go unsaid. But more than anything, I'm pissed that I'm not going to be able to lose 30 pounds and get my hair done in the day and a half before Thanksgiving. I don't feel very upgrad-ish right now and that's what I'm really mad at.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Stuff On My Mind (AKA Updates)
Here it is:
1. I saw a few little blurbs on facebook tonight about an impending global disaster, which will then bring forth a food shortage, the likes of which have never been seen before. People blabbing about how they've been stockpiling food for the past year, how much a 50 pound bag of rice costs, how much rice can sustain a person for x amount of time, so on and so forth. Huh? Okay, I'm still on my news moratorium, except it's starting to creep back in because I have found myself checking the local newspaper website a few times a day. I don't like that I'm creeping back over to obsessing about the news, because it only brings me anxiety, but I'm finding it hard to stop. So a food shortage? Holy shit, should I be stockpiling food too? What should I buy? Just a few cans here and there? Peaches or pears? I mean, it probably doesn't matter because you'll eat anything when you're starving. Where should I put the food I start to stockpile? Attic or crawl space? Although, it's not really a crawl space for me, because I'm short. So it's a stand space for me. I have shelving in my crawl space, but maybe I should move the shelving to the attic. Nah, the temperature extremes in the attic probably wouldn't do good. So maybe I'll start to buy three or four cans of shit on sale per week and stocking up. I'm not sure if this is just fearmongering to the extreme, so I've sent a message off to Uncle Finance (not Uncle Hippy!) through Uber Aunt and we'll see what he says. Should I stockpile water, too? I'm never sure about the water thing. I've only stockpiled water once, during a hurricane when the county water source was compromised. And that stockpiling consisted of me filling up the bathtub.
2. Made it through a year with Guy #1. We recently celebrated one year since we started dating, and guess what? Got engagement? Don't worry, I don't. Lots of discussion and chatter amongst our various friends about when that time will come, I suppose because for a lot of people, that one year mark is "it". Nope, not for me right now. We've settled into something right, something that is so right that I can't even find the words to describe it, other than it's righter than anything I've ever had before. We talk about when "the" time will come and he knows that I'm not ready. I *just* got divorced, and really, I'm enjoying having my own house where I'm in charge all of the time and no arguments about what I want to do in my house. Ten years of a shitty marriage, constant bickering and power struggles will really make you appreciate not arguing all of the time. The few times that Guy #1 and I have argued, it's been really nice that we can just go to our separate houses and not have to be together (in that moment in time, at least). And for real, this man is a k.e.e.p.e.r. of the first order. Any man who can stand twelve feet up in the air on a ladder and pull start a gas powered blower to clean my gutters out is the man for me. Or maybe that's just the firefighter in him, I don't know. But as I wake up every morning and go to sleep every night, I know that I am loved, and appreciated and cherished. That's some powerful shit. I've had a few men that I've encountered over the years tell me later that I was the one who slipped away. And guess what? Guy #1 will not be one of those men. If you've got something good, then don't let it slip away.
3. My older daughter got glasses this past week, and also had her tonsils taken out. So she gave a little and got a little. Two days after surgery, just when I knew that we had bid a fond farewell to strep throat, guess who go strep throat? My younger daughter. Are you kidding me? However, I've gotten so good at diagnosing that shit that we marched right off to the doctor's office, who promptly examined the child and pronounced that she did not have strep throat. Until the nurse poked her head in the examination room and whispered the strep test was positive. DO NOT QUESTION THE MOTHER!!!!! Dammit, we know what we're talking about! I wanted to tell the doctor if I was drug-seeking, and if I were to use my children to seek out drugs, it sure as hell wouldn't be an antibiotic. Just give me the damn prescription and let me be on my way. The older daughter likes her glasses, though. I secretly tried them out after she went to bed the other night and they seem more like magnifying glasses to me. It's just for reading, so maybe that's all they are is magnifying glasses wrapped up in a pretty Candie's frame with hearts on them. Being that she's still reading below grade level, I am slightly hopeful they will help, but I'm not holding my breath. I've diagnosed this as the most minor of all reading disabilities, because her fluency is below grade level, but her comprehension is on par. Plus, she's actually absorbing the reading because she reads a chapter out loud and then I ask her to tell me about what she read and ask her questions, and she's on the money every time, which means she's not just saying the words. She's actually reading and absorbing. I have pretty much stopped expecting the school to address it, because she's one of a thousand students in her school (holy fuck, that's a big elementary school!!!) and I'll just have to figure this out as we go along. And her grades are good (other than reading fluency). So go figure.
4. Not-so-nice things with The Ex. If you read my last shortest of all posts, you'll know that things are getting ugly on the visitation side of the custody thing. Instead of just heading right to the courthouse today to file for a hearing (as I threatened him with last night), I called my attorney today. I'm waiting on a call back, and maybe a strongly worded letter from her will set things right. In the meanwhile, though, I've printed up every email and begun transcribing all of our text messages and every other kind of communication. I think I've known for a while it was going to come to this, and that alone saddens me because I don't want to be in a place where I have to sit down every day and write everything down. I just don't. It's stupid and I hate it, and it makes me feel like I am still stuck in this strange, demilitarized zone of our divorce. I felt like for most of the marriage I was raising another child (and not doing it very well because it's hard to go back and correct 30-some years of fucked up parenting) and now I just feel like I'm his supervisor and I've ramped up the documentation in a last ditch effort of getting rid of him. But this is what I have to do right now. I look at my gorgeous, funny and most sweetest daughters, and I wonder how in the world the two best things that ever happened to me resulted from what is undoubtedly my biggest mistake. This paradox is not lost on me, believe me.
5. I called my stepsister tonight to let her know that my daughter's birthday gift arrived and she answered the phone sobbing. This would be the stepsister that I still speak to, if you hadn't figured that out. And for that one milli-second in time, I thought to myself, "Oh, shit, why did I call her tonight?" You know it's bad when that's the first thing you think upon hearing the other person. She went on to tell me, between sobs, that she's been diagnosed with a chronic, progressive pain disease thing that not a whole lot of people know about (that whole lot of people would actually be me). Ultimately (per my favorite medical source, Wikipedia) and in the extreme worse case scenario, it can lead to amputation of the affected limb. Except this shit is in her back. Yep, no such thing as a back amputation. Horrible, right? But here's the rub - this stepsister has been getting progressively fruitier over the years, much like her mother, Mothbrain, and I'm not sure how much of this is just maybe her need for drama. I feel badly for her, certainly, because she's states away and no family nearby to help her out, but at the same time, I'm like, "What?" It was after that phone conversation when I realized that my drama is really garden variety, and for real, I have no reason to complain about anything. And so, I won't. I've still got a leak in my roof (contract signed, repairs not for another two months due to hurricane backlog), I've still got bills I'm going to pay late, I still owe my younger daughter a bike for her birthday, I'm still going to get fucked on taxes this year because I can't go from six withholdings to zero in one year, I'm still not going to know if I should stockpile spaghetti sauce or just plain tomato sauce, I'm still not going to be able to figure out how to tell the world that saying "Holy Shart!" is way funnier than saying "Holy Shit!", but in the grand scheme of things.... Life is good. My children are healthy, my family is healthy, I am healthy, (knock on wood because I'm terribly superstitious about jinxing myself) and that's all that really matters.
1. I saw a few little blurbs on facebook tonight about an impending global disaster, which will then bring forth a food shortage, the likes of which have never been seen before. People blabbing about how they've been stockpiling food for the past year, how much a 50 pound bag of rice costs, how much rice can sustain a person for x amount of time, so on and so forth. Huh? Okay, I'm still on my news moratorium, except it's starting to creep back in because I have found myself checking the local newspaper website a few times a day. I don't like that I'm creeping back over to obsessing about the news, because it only brings me anxiety, but I'm finding it hard to stop. So a food shortage? Holy shit, should I be stockpiling food too? What should I buy? Just a few cans here and there? Peaches or pears? I mean, it probably doesn't matter because you'll eat anything when you're starving. Where should I put the food I start to stockpile? Attic or crawl space? Although, it's not really a crawl space for me, because I'm short. So it's a stand space for me. I have shelving in my crawl space, but maybe I should move the shelving to the attic. Nah, the temperature extremes in the attic probably wouldn't do good. So maybe I'll start to buy three or four cans of shit on sale per week and stocking up. I'm not sure if this is just fearmongering to the extreme, so I've sent a message off to Uncle Finance (not Uncle Hippy!) through Uber Aunt and we'll see what he says. Should I stockpile water, too? I'm never sure about the water thing. I've only stockpiled water once, during a hurricane when the county water source was compromised. And that stockpiling consisted of me filling up the bathtub.
2. Made it through a year with Guy #1. We recently celebrated one year since we started dating, and guess what? Got engagement? Don't worry, I don't. Lots of discussion and chatter amongst our various friends about when that time will come, I suppose because for a lot of people, that one year mark is "it". Nope, not for me right now. We've settled into something right, something that is so right that I can't even find the words to describe it, other than it's righter than anything I've ever had before. We talk about when "the" time will come and he knows that I'm not ready. I *just* got divorced, and really, I'm enjoying having my own house where I'm in charge all of the time and no arguments about what I want to do in my house. Ten years of a shitty marriage, constant bickering and power struggles will really make you appreciate not arguing all of the time. The few times that Guy #1 and I have argued, it's been really nice that we can just go to our separate houses and not have to be together (in that moment in time, at least). And for real, this man is a k.e.e.p.e.r. of the first order. Any man who can stand twelve feet up in the air on a ladder and pull start a gas powered blower to clean my gutters out is the man for me. Or maybe that's just the firefighter in him, I don't know. But as I wake up every morning and go to sleep every night, I know that I am loved, and appreciated and cherished. That's some powerful shit. I've had a few men that I've encountered over the years tell me later that I was the one who slipped away. And guess what? Guy #1 will not be one of those men. If you've got something good, then don't let it slip away.
3. My older daughter got glasses this past week, and also had her tonsils taken out. So she gave a little and got a little. Two days after surgery, just when I knew that we had bid a fond farewell to strep throat, guess who go strep throat? My younger daughter. Are you kidding me? However, I've gotten so good at diagnosing that shit that we marched right off to the doctor's office, who promptly examined the child and pronounced that she did not have strep throat. Until the nurse poked her head in the examination room and whispered the strep test was positive. DO NOT QUESTION THE MOTHER!!!!! Dammit, we know what we're talking about! I wanted to tell the doctor if I was drug-seeking, and if I were to use my children to seek out drugs, it sure as hell wouldn't be an antibiotic. Just give me the damn prescription and let me be on my way. The older daughter likes her glasses, though. I secretly tried them out after she went to bed the other night and they seem more like magnifying glasses to me. It's just for reading, so maybe that's all they are is magnifying glasses wrapped up in a pretty Candie's frame with hearts on them. Being that she's still reading below grade level, I am slightly hopeful they will help, but I'm not holding my breath. I've diagnosed this as the most minor of all reading disabilities, because her fluency is below grade level, but her comprehension is on par. Plus, she's actually absorbing the reading because she reads a chapter out loud and then I ask her to tell me about what she read and ask her questions, and she's on the money every time, which means she's not just saying the words. She's actually reading and absorbing. I have pretty much stopped expecting the school to address it, because she's one of a thousand students in her school (holy fuck, that's a big elementary school!!!) and I'll just have to figure this out as we go along. And her grades are good (other than reading fluency). So go figure.
4. Not-so-nice things with The Ex. If you read my last shortest of all posts, you'll know that things are getting ugly on the visitation side of the custody thing. Instead of just heading right to the courthouse today to file for a hearing (as I threatened him with last night), I called my attorney today. I'm waiting on a call back, and maybe a strongly worded letter from her will set things right. In the meanwhile, though, I've printed up every email and begun transcribing all of our text messages and every other kind of communication. I think I've known for a while it was going to come to this, and that alone saddens me because I don't want to be in a place where I have to sit down every day and write everything down. I just don't. It's stupid and I hate it, and it makes me feel like I am still stuck in this strange, demilitarized zone of our divorce. I felt like for most of the marriage I was raising another child (and not doing it very well because it's hard to go back and correct 30-some years of fucked up parenting) and now I just feel like I'm his supervisor and I've ramped up the documentation in a last ditch effort of getting rid of him. But this is what I have to do right now. I look at my gorgeous, funny and most sweetest daughters, and I wonder how in the world the two best things that ever happened to me resulted from what is undoubtedly my biggest mistake. This paradox is not lost on me, believe me.
5. I called my stepsister tonight to let her know that my daughter's birthday gift arrived and she answered the phone sobbing. This would be the stepsister that I still speak to, if you hadn't figured that out. And for that one milli-second in time, I thought to myself, "Oh, shit, why did I call her tonight?" You know it's bad when that's the first thing you think upon hearing the other person. She went on to tell me, between sobs, that she's been diagnosed with a chronic, progressive pain disease thing that not a whole lot of people know about (that whole lot of people would actually be me). Ultimately (per my favorite medical source, Wikipedia) and in the extreme worse case scenario, it can lead to amputation of the affected limb. Except this shit is in her back. Yep, no such thing as a back amputation. Horrible, right? But here's the rub - this stepsister has been getting progressively fruitier over the years, much like her mother, Mothbrain, and I'm not sure how much of this is just maybe her need for drama. I feel badly for her, certainly, because she's states away and no family nearby to help her out, but at the same time, I'm like, "What?" It was after that phone conversation when I realized that my drama is really garden variety, and for real, I have no reason to complain about anything. And so, I won't. I've still got a leak in my roof (contract signed, repairs not for another two months due to hurricane backlog), I've still got bills I'm going to pay late, I still owe my younger daughter a bike for her birthday, I'm still going to get fucked on taxes this year because I can't go from six withholdings to zero in one year, I'm still not going to know if I should stockpile spaghetti sauce or just plain tomato sauce, I'm still not going to be able to figure out how to tell the world that saying "Holy Shart!" is way funnier than saying "Holy Shit!", but in the grand scheme of things.... Life is good. My children are healthy, my family is healthy, I am healthy, (knock on wood because I'm terribly superstitious about jinxing myself) and that's all that really matters.
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