Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Apparently I'm in Adrenal Failure

Stupid Stupid me. I took a women's adrenal health quiz that was delivered to my mailbox from a newletter I get (that sometimes has useful information on things like masturbation), because it hinted that my lack of energy might be due to the adrenal gland. I thought I was doing well--I eat well, I exercise almost every day, I recently cut way back on my use of alcohol.
And here were my results:

Your profile results:
Your symptoms rank in the moderate to severe category.
The demands you place on your body are severe.
By comparison, the support you give yourself is substantial.


SEVERE demands mean that your body is experiencing an even greater burden than most women’s. This burden can easily overwhelm your adrenal glands’ ability to balance the hormones they produce, like cortisol and DHEA. Some of these demands are not within your control, but it’s important to minimize those that are. In addition, you need to give yourself extra support to counter your demands. Remember, the greater the demands, the greater the need for support!

So this dumb little quiz says that I'm experiencing alot of environmental stress and that I need to cut back on it and take care of myself. Absolute Brilliance!!!

It should have had just one question: Are you alone in the house with three teenage girls?

And the result for answering YES would have been RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

AND I wouldn't be so stressed if I drank more. But wait, I wasn't feeling any stress at all until I took this quiz and realized how SCREWED I am!


Monday, September 28, 2009

How to Clean a Teenager's Closet

Rules of Toss IT or Keep IT
  1. Sit at least 5 feet away from your teenager. This way she can't reach out to grab whatever you're holding, but should be able to identify it if it's important to her.
  2. If it's a picture of you that she drew when she was 4 and you go "awwwww," Keep IT.
  3. If it's a pile of 25 notes from a boy three boyfriends back, Toss IT.
  4. If it's a school picture of someone she can't identify in 5 seconds, Toss IT.
  5. If it's a giant pink sparkly ring and her eyes light up and she looks really sweet like she did before she became a teenager, Keep IT. This ring is one of the last connecting threads to the humanity she lost when she became a fledgling.
  6. If it's an opened package of food from some science experiment creature she was supposed to grow in a plastic dish under a lamp, say ewwwww for reinforcement, and Toss IT.
  7. If she has saved every notebook she has ever written in, find the one with her algebra homework, open it, and hold it up so that she can react badly to the sight of equations and beg you to toss it. She won't even care to look in the rest of the notebooks before you toss them too.
  8. Unless you keep a barrel full of beads for that magical day when the bead fairy comes down and fixes all the broken jewelry in your house so that the Bead King will be pleased when he visits and won't eat your youngest child as a sacrifice, TOSS THEM ALL.
  9. This is a good time to pull out her baby footprints, first hair cut, and most importantly her bellybutton--just to show her what is worth saving and what is just useless trash.
  10. All batteries can go. Who saves dead batteries? For that matter, who saves unidentifiable plastic pieces, bread crusts, and soda cans?
  11. Don't give her TOO MUCH shit because you KNOW what's lurking in your own closet.
  12. This is supposed to be a cosmic freeing joyful experience so hum cheerfully while you sort through piles of art, stickers, and pieces of cloth. You might feel an obsessive need to untangle the yarn remnants, but think about how much your time is really worth and how cheap yarn is. Toss IT.
  13. You might find some things from your own childhood amongst her treasures, as she has searched through your closet when you're at work and scarfed anything of interest. She wants to feel connected to your childhood as well because you were once a geeky little packrat too and it gives her hope to see how mature and organized you are now.
  14. Try your best to fit all her treasures into one big box that you can store outside her room. Give her empty containers to start filling again. This way you never have to resort the stuff you've already sorted through 28 times since she was born.
  15. This gives you time to do the same thing with her younger sister, who saw what you were doing and asked that you help her sort through her stuff too. Maybe it was the maddening cheerful humming that hypnotized her into thinking all this cleaning was fun. Or maybe it really is. Cleaning out the old crap leaves space for the new. And look, her room is already messy again!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

My Winter of Discontent

Although it may appear OTHERWISE here on my blog, I was content enough with the little life I worked so hard to resurrect. I have my own little space, my own little job, my own friend (or maybe 2), my favorite gas station, my high speed internet, my mornings with Abrah.

Now I live in a constant state of discontent. No, seriously. I was content before. I am not content NOW. Somedays I just can't keep still and I pace around my little apartment looking for something that just isn't here. Other days I'm tired all the time and can't get motivated to do anything at all.

I have too much time on my hands to think about things. I need a hobby that doesn't have anything to do with THINKING like maybe football or hunting or daydreaming about Nick.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Reasons I shouldn't OWN a CELLPHONE

I was trying to get in touch with the head of the Math Department at the highschool but kept missing his call, and instead kept getting that You've Got Voicemail buzz. Thankfully Haley was standing next to me so I handed it to her and said "Fix it!" because she was born with the phone manual implanted in her head. She said something about Bluetooth being on, but I don't even know what that is although I suspect it has something to do with PIRATES and I don't know how I turned it on.
But the problem with carrying a cellphone is more than that. It puts the focus on how distractable I am. I got a text message while I was walking over to get Haley at the school and I dared to read it quickly, but then I had to WAIT until I got to the school to text back. And then I felt like I was trying too hard to look cool while leaning against the track fence and texting, but really I was just trying not to fall over. Standing and texting is almost as dangerous as walking and texting.
So no worries about me driving and texting. The kids won't let me. And the cellphone is buried in my bag or in my left pocket secured by the seat belt. In all the fumbling and swearing I realize that I can't even get the phone out without endangering myself.
It would be cool if it did come with Pirates because then they could take my calls and text for me and everyone would think I was cool sounding like Captain Jack because I'd be all "Har, and Aye, and Where's the RUM?" And everything comes back to Johnny Depp just as it should. Johnny Depp should come with my phone. I'm turning on Bluetooth as soon as I brush my hair and teeth and throw on some perfume.

Survivor's Russell Will Get His in the End.

I've lived with Russell before, only his name was Joe and he wasn't so short. The similarities keep me watching the show with a grimace, but also cause me to hope that someone will be wise enough to take the man DOWN. It could be my exhusband or Russell:
  • Condescending to all women
  • Thinking he's more intelligent than anyone else
  • Using the idol/tax money to indenture people to him
  • Doing things so unbelievable in plain site
  • Manipulating one person at a time
  • Causing fighting within the tribe so that no one will notice him
  • Thinking he has total control over the game
  • Thinking he has so much control that he is actually playing against the producers
  • No sense of guilt
  • Forcing people to play along because they feel threatened if they don't
  • Accusing women of threatening him
  • Using real people's pain to gain sympathy for himself

And I have this to say about the path Russell has taken: Karma will bite you in the ass. The more you think you're in control--the more mistakes you will make.

And that's why I am not driving over to get a tax form I need to sign out of Joe's mailbox. The best way to fight back is not to play at all.

And to Russell's wife: I offer FREE therapy sessions.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

God Would Love Wine

On September 12th my life changed! My friend Abrah, who may no longer be my friend due to this revelation that she should have kept a secret FOREVER, told me that wine has CALORIES. I had assumed it was just pretty water. So I looked up the specific nasty-ass box of wine I happened to buy during my moment of poverty and degradation and it has 12o calories in a 5 ounce serving! Horrors! I was drinking about 360 calories a day. Drinking it down laughingly and with joy.
Well, to Hell with Joy. I've stopped drinking and started keeping track of all the calories I've saved. In 10 long boring lifeless days I've saved 3460 calories! woohoo. Great.
I think I'll keep doing this until I save enough calories to not weigh anything and then I'll look down at my pudge and I'll ask it why it's still there! OMG, what if it really is the last thing left? I'll be a skeleton and I'll still have this enormous belly! Sobbing.
Why, why would you do this to me?
And this is why I don't believe there is a god. Cause if there was one he would love wine as much as I do and he would give it negative calories. And then wars would end and there would be no disease or famine. It's all about who has the wine and who hasn't got any and has to drink cheap crap out of a box!

I do LOVE the internet. Really I DO.

I whine alot about the internet and its use by aliens as a tool to make us too dumb to wonder why they've decided to take over our planet. Or maybe I kept the crazies to myself.

I love the internet too because amusing things happen like getting this as a captcha:


when I tried to leave a comment on my blog this morning. I decided not too, as I've deliria.

Where else can I start the morning by saying "I'm invisible, but I'm here." and have that make sense? My period of invisibility didn't last long anyway because it was too exhausting, but for a moment it was fun.

And hoaxes are great online because they look so real!!! Write a little story about exploding cell phones, add some disgusting pictures, email it to your best paranoid friends, and watch it fly until some guy in Wyoming tells his girlfriend that you're not supposed to talk on a cell phone while it's charging and she says "What are you talking about?"

After a minute of research on random websites provided to me by the all-knowing alien owned google search engine I concluded that talking on your cell phone while it's charging is as dangerous as typing on this laptop while it's plugged into the wall. And seeing as batteries are $136 I am going to be plugged into the wall for quite a while.

Monday, September 21, 2009

The Most Important Journal Pages, my brief stint as a poet

I was going through my closet. How much stuff can a person pack in a 6 by 6 space? I found an old journal from 2002 and read through it before I threw it away. I'm putting all of the past behind and cleaning out my energy leaks. I found two pages that were important enough to rip out though and I will post their contents here for all to see:

For Tarri

I thought and thought all day
Of something positive to say
This Joe crap is such a chore
But they do sell wine in the grocery store.


There once was a woman who loved to drink Crown
She got really drunk and kept falling down.
She hit her head so hard that it cracked
And went to class in the morning a little wacked.
Her classmates were shocked, she was dressed in pajamas.
They thought she might be a wee bit bananas.
She didn't want to do something a little less risky.
She just couldn't stop sippin the whisky.


Tarri Tarri
Big Blueberry
Where does her balance go?
She slips and she slides
Are you up for a wild ride
And a crazy ass show?
Perhaps it's the whisky
A little bit frisky
No wonder she has such a glow.
Just give her a mirror
It's never been scarier
It's a good thing she's not made of dough!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Teenage Girls are Fledgling Vampires

It all became very clear to me this morning
as I watched an episode of True Blood with my Pahaska coffee cup in my hand while in my blue plaid pajamas alone in the living room before the girls get up on a Sunday morning and take over all my space and time.
Sookie is so right. She is my new guru. Fledgling vampires are just like teenage girls: "They have no humanity, they are in the grip of overwhelming transformation, and they can't control their impulses."
It's all connecting with me now. My love of vampires and my fear of teenage girls. No wonder I'm tired. I'm playing vampiresitter without all the old vampire energy and strength. They are sucking the life out of me.
I'm running away now, for real this time.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Teenage Girls and the Terrible Twos

Girls between the ages of 13 and 14 are more exhausting than they were in the terrible twos, with many of the same issues: tantrums, mood swings, saying no to everything you ask, tantrums, brattiness, and tantrums.
They just discover the outside world where they can walk to the post office or the grocery store. Where there are new people and things to do and see. They test the boundaries over and over to see if by constant bashing they can widen those walls of protective parenting. They can drive a parent right over the edge into whining and crying and wine drinking.
I have two now. I'm really hoping that by the time the third one gets there in 1 year and 10 months that the oldest will be over it. Just like the flu, one at a time comes down with it and I run in circles until I fall down from exhaustion and declare myself to be ON STRIKE.
There's no one here to take over though so I can't lay on the floor for more than a few minutes before someone shouts "I'm going out to meet someone in the dark alley!" And I look up to see their boobs hanging out over their low slung tank tops and it's below zero outside and I can't see their eyes under all that makeup and they smile at me, just to see if I'm still alive.
I think they should give free medications and alcohol and full day trips to the spa to single mothers. With free childcare. And playpens to take home to put the teenagers in until they're at least 15. I hope it goes away by then. Or a vaccination to prevent the whole thing.
Are you listening Obama? I voted for you.
When someone tells me they aren't ever getting on Facebook and they tilt their head back slightly, pull their eyebrows down in consternation, and give me that I'm never going to join the cesspool of the internet look, I LAUGH. It's only a matter of time! If you're not on Facebook you're just not REAL anymore.
Facebook language and applications are part of real life social interactions now. We think in terms of status reports. We do quizzes to make major life decisions. We make avatars to interact with each other. If there is someone we're not sure about, we can conclude that at least they are our friend on Facebook and that MEANS something.
Alot of this is still murky though. If there's an exboyfriend and we friend him on Facebook are we cheating? If we just email through Facebook that doesn't really count, does it? If my puppet friends another puppet and she wants to ask him to be in a relationship, but he's not a very nice puppet, should she do it anyway because it doesn't MEAN anything, or should she keep her puppet integrity and not let all her teenage friends think she would Facebook relationship someone who posts nasty things?
As a parent, Facebook is where I get most of my information. I know who is where and when and what they're talking about with who. AHA, all you teenagers don't think about that when you post that you have snuck out of the house to meet the boyfriend you're not supposed to have.
Sometime in the future it's going to be mandatory to have a Facebook account. Everyone wants to know what you're up to. Your employer, your government, the aliens who are using us as an experiment. They've finally found a way to change our brain chemisty and turn us into Farmtown idiots who do what we're told and smile all the time. Join the herd, people!!!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

ox wine kils brayne cells ded

If you can read that, you have a serious drinking problem and you should seek help immediately. Or you're in my kitchen. Either way, you still need immediate attention.

Today at work I was asked what the letters after my name are. I was like "What?" and then "Wait a second" and then I realized that I do indeed have letters after my name. I KNOW I'm supposed to be all high and mighty and use those letters when I sign my name on birthday cards and credit card slips in restaurants and on toilet paper in peoples' houses when I visit. They are supposed to be important to me and set me aside and above everyone who doesn't own letters.
They are so important to me that I had to go look them up! The MS I remembered. Master of Science. I'm a master of science!!!! That actually sounds pretty cool. But it's too close to PMS for comfort. Hello, I'm Kristi Z., PMS. Nope.
The other one I had to look up and I hope I got it right. ASAC. Apprenticed Substance Abuse Counselor. Being an apprentice makes me feel like a magician's apprentice, like Mickey with all his walking brooms, which is pretty close to what an ASAC does-- the neverending things to sweep up.
So now I have letters on an official college brochure. I feel smarter already. All powerful. All ready to go vacuum the cheese nips crumbs off the living room carpet. Yay!
I made up a new description for myself too, which should be included in any profile: winer. A combination of winner, whiner, and whino.
There should be letters after my name for making up cool new words. CNWM.
And Haley called me at work to tell me that they painted the lines in the parking lot at our place in the ghettos and that I should park straight this time. She knows me too well. I am a not straight parker. NSP
So I think that if a few letters makes me all powerful, then more letters means that I am on my way to being the MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE.
Kristi Z. PMS, MS, ASAC, CNWM, NSP
That's me!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Signs that You Are Mature Enough to Have a Threesome

Some background for those of you who don't know me: I'm (ahem) pushing middle-age. I've got two teens and a tween. I used to be entertaining, but now I'm tired and worn out and just want to live a simple and boring life. I was dating a guy 10 years younger a while back and he was trying to push the threesome thing on me, and wouldn't give it up because "every man wants a threesome and it's a sign of maturity to say so to the person you just started dating" and "you must be really insecure to not want to do this" and "you are just afraid I'd like the other woman better."

My Wonderfully Helpful Muse decided I should have a list handy of signs that someone is "MATURE" enough to handle a threesome:
•You're so BORED with your own damn performance that you need to be entertained. It is all just a performance, isn’t it?
•You can multitask.
• You are generous and enjoy sharing your bounty with many.
• You don't worry anymore about what other people think of you.
• You can share the cost of birth control
• You are quite handy.
• You were SO busy today that you had to do chair exercises.
• You need other people to do your work for you.
• At this point any work is good work
• You realize you don't need to have feelings to have a good time.
• You know that more hands always lightens the load.
• You realize it's all about the TEAM.
• You have developed excellent leadership qualities.
• You work well alongside others.
• You are good at providing support.
• You would ask someone to do something you wouldn't be willing to do yourself.

If you fulfill all of the above required characteristics please print them out and present them to your significant other along with your request. Just don't ask me ever again.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Help! My brain is Imploding: Sanity vs. Love

So in my life two things can't possibly exist at the same time: SANITY and LOVE. A man can't be sane and be madly in love with me at the same time. It just doesn't happen. If he's sane, has a job, doesn't live with his mother, then he doesn't really like me and he eventually bores me with his ambivalence. But if he calls me, takes me out, spends every moment thinking about me then eventually the facade of sanity wears off and I discover he's crazy as a loon. Although I'm not sure how crazy loons are. Where did that saying come from? He's as crazy as Edward Norton's personality in Primal fear, both of them.

So the question then is do they have to be crazy to fall for me? Or would anyone sane find me unattractive? Or are they as good at acting as Edward Norton and Aaron is the real Roy, or Roy is Ed, or maybe I just attract the wrong people because I'm just way too KIND for my own good.

So when a really crazy person doesn't like me, or at least says he hates me after I have to break up 3 times with him, then I don't quite believe him when he says that. Crazy people love me!

The worst part is that when a perfectly sane man says he loves me, I get all suspicious of his sanity. How can that be possible? You must be crazy! What are you talking about? The squareness of a sanity/love combination doesn't fit into the round hole of my brain.

What happens when two competing forces have to occupy the same space?

I drink more wine! Woohooo!

But seriously people, I am a Queen doubter among the cynical masses and I KNOW that it is possible for two people to love each other for years, to carry that with them, and to find each other again. And for both to be completely sane and madly in love. This knowledge is in direct conflict with my entire life experience. I am shocked by what I don't know, which apparently is a WHOLE LOT.

Monday, September 14, 2009

The Worth of Brothers

I was thinking about brothers today because I have so many that I feel like if I'm mad at one there are plenty of other ones to take their place. I had dreams of everyone growing up and changing and becoming a close-knit family that revolved around me, the only girl in a world full of brothers, but I guess a more realistic outlook would be Once an Ass, Always an Ass and I am no longer playing pin-the-tail on the donkey with a blindfold on.
Sometimes I wonder if it's me. Am I driving them away? Are my expectations too high for normal human interaction? Did that last question come out wrong somehow?
Is my expectation of not speaking of my daughter like she's the class ho too much?
Is it okay to say that Jewish people aren't really Jewish and can't be my friends?
Am I a doubter for not believing in a brother who says he's the new Messiah?
Is it okay to push Creationism at family gatherings?
Should I bow to the manly authoritative tone aimed directly at me?
It would be nice to say that we can still set aside our differences and get together for Christmas, but I do believe that would turn into a debate on where I came from, because I am NOT one of them. I am the blacksheep in a world full of men. We all know why.
I'm not playing anymore and I'm okay with that.
I'm just full of questions this morning. Like James always said when he didn't want to fess up to some new idiocy: I have lots of questions and no answers. My questions are more relevant than his were, because his were more about How fast can I run out the door so she doesn't catch me at it? My questions are more like:

If my muffler is making my radio rattle is that a bad thing?
Why is there so much makeup in the way of getting to my coffee maker every morning?
Will Sandra Bullock call me personally to thank me for the package I just sent her?
Why did I get the kids pets that I end up cleaning and feeding?
How did Haley manage to have her bedroom door fall completely off its hinges?
If I stop drinking wine will I lose weight or gain it? Or will Abrah gain it for me?
Why are the mosquitoes still multiplying and finding me on the couch at night even with the windows closed?
Why do I keep objects that have some personal significance, even if I never ever use them?
Where did Gina say that big spider was last night when she came screaming into my room?
How do really good people come from really messed up families?
Who lives in Hampton, Virginia?

Saturday, September 12, 2009

My Over-Developed Skill of Blocking Things Out

So I'm realizing more and more how completely unobservant I've become. (Which sounds contradictory but that's the way my world is.) I walk around like I'm caught in a snowglobe, dodging the sparkly flakes that spin around me whenever someone picks up my world and shakes it, but never seeing very far outside my own little world that mostly exists inside my head. My head is just too full of other things.

I'm oblivious as I walk around and I miss really important things like:

  • An old man with a cane whose face was twisted up on one side and down on the other and was so terrifying that Gina asked if he was wearing a mask.

  • A young man in Waterbury with a sombrero, standing outside Ben and Jerry's. Apparently the sight was so exciting that Haley had to buy a sombrero immediately. I guess she wants to join him.

  • A man/woman with facial hair outside the mall in the BIG CITY wearing a pink spandex tank top and jean cutoffs. However, I think that Abrah may have made this up to take our attention off the previous five minutes when her back side was hanging out of a photo booth we had all squeezed into.

  • A red car that had stopped in the middle of a busy intersection because it couldn't decide which way to go and was holding up traffic and then decided to just follow us because of the sombrero wearing chicas in the back seat.

Of course there are also some things I saw that I wish I hadn't:

  • The Tinkerbell pajama pants that Haley had decided to wear on our trip into the BIG CITY.

  • The powder blue shirt with big white flowers that Abrah held up across the second-hand store and yelled "How about this one?" It might have won me the prize at Ugly Shirt Poker Night, but the sight has scarred me forever.

  • The bulge in the front of a bottom-only black mannequin who was guarding the women's clothing section and was draped with nylons. A big bulge and very wrong. The girls pointed this out to me. Of course it was only this morning that I was informed that there were THREE half mannequins and that one had a red skirt pulled down below its man-parts. They probably thought I'd do something embarrassing like pull the skirt back up and say "There, all better now" as the rest of the shoppers watched in horror.

  • The calories in a 5 oz glass of wine. My ability to block this number out is so GOOD that I am newly surprised and disheartened everytime I see it again.

  • Me in a pair of Eddie Bauer Jeans which had sand-blasted white horizontal stripes right where my permanent bloat is, drawing all attention to it, and making it literally the WHITE ELEPHANT in the room.

  • Those nasty imported tea-party people who protest everyone having health insurance. It's easy to be a right wing republican if you HAVE healthcare, a secure job, and own a house already. I thought maybe they got together to drink TEA, but instead they just stand on the street corner waving their offensive signs that should really say "We only get along when we're in charge" or "Sore Losers".

Call it self-preservation.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

What Every Mother Wants

  • I would like to not find toothpaste on my earrings when I put them on in the morning. They are 20 feet from the nearest toothpaste, in a box, in my room. I just don't want to know.
  • I want someone else to throw away the uneaten leftovers in the fridge and then take the trash out. I don't know why I bother putting them in the fridge in the first place. Guilt. It must be guilt about all those starving Ethiopians who are somehow going to be saved by my sticking 3 peas, a piece of potato and a chicken bone in a plastic container and saving it for 2 weeks.
  • I would like someone to unplug a toilet after they plug it. And for the next person who wants to use that bathroom to say something, instead of heading upstairs to the other toilet too and plugging that one. And still not doing anything and keeping the Code of Silence, so that eventually I have to run to find the plunger before I can pee out the 6 cups of coffee that are making me dance.
  • I would like to NOT have to complain about being bloated 26 days out of every month. Someone is going to catch on eventually.
  • I would like to be able to find the phone the first time it rings, or the second, and not after whoever leaves a message and I spend 15 precious minutes searching for it and eventually find it in Haley's hamper hidden under her suspiciously damp clothing.
  • I want to lay on the living room floor and poke my hip muscles and groan without someone asking me if I'm having a good time.
  • I really want to be able to text fast enough to stop all the teenagers from laughing at me.

Well, I guess I can't have everything. I CAN have this box of wine. It makes everything seem better.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

An Ironic Day in the Ghetto

Today I find it very ironic:

  • That I do all my work for the day in about 15 minutes and spend the rest of the day thinking about doing something productive.
  • That carsalesmen are the most gullible people on the planet.
  • That wearing red and pink pajama pants with snowmen on them isn't embarrassing, but having your mom and her friend each pull on the string that holds them up, and head in two different directions in a store IS.
  • That I was happier when the DENTIST didn't have my phone number.
  • That textbooks cost a small fortune but I can only sell them for a couple of dollars each.
  • That having my best friend friend my boyfriend makes me suspicious about what they're talking about.
  • That cleaning makes a bigger mess.
  • That I am the one responsible for remembering all these appointments. Who the hell came up with that one?
  • That I was wrong about everything important. And soon I'll have nothing to write about. (Yeah, right. Like I think my life with ever be so PERFECT that there will be nothing to bitch about. Life would be ALL WRONG if there wasn't something stupid happening. And as there will always be Dentists around I'm sure I won't quit writing any time soon.)
  • That anytime the management company says someone is coming to work on something they don't show up until 2 weeks later. This may not be ironic. This may just be their evil strategy to make me clean up. It's not working this time! I'll show them!
  • That ads for snus show up right after huge ads warning about snus being just as dangerous as cigarettes, in Rolling Stone magazine. Even Haley was confused about this.
  • That Haley would show me anything.
  • That I must be doing something right if Haley shows me things.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

The Traveling Pants Continued

I thought they were gone, but they keep coming back like stray boyfriends. BEGONE CURSED pajama pants!

I thought I would introduce my oldest daughter to the ex-boyfriend cleanup ritual on Saturday, which involved traveling to John's to get back a wine glass and the cover to my AA Big Book. I don't really care about either of those things. They were worth the price of my freedom. But I thought it might be humorous to show up and not leave, the way he did to me the night Abrah was here and I had to try to convince him we shouldn't see each other for the second time.

It didn't happen as well as I'd hoped. He handed me a brown paper bag. I think he was mad that I never responded to his email after breakup #3 in which he asked if he could visit me in Wyoming and have me show him around. Hmmmmm. NO.

So in the car, Haley opened the bag and found the CURSED pajama pants. (You have to say that word in two syllables to get the full effect: curse--ED.) She knew what they were immediately and was horrified. I considered driving back to his place and throwing them on the lawn after setting them on fire, or giving them to the old guys at the coin drop as we passed by a second time, or just throwing them out the window. Anything to get the CURSED pajama pants away from me.

Then after dragging Haley to see the Time Traveler's Wife with me and Abrah, I realized that James needed his pants back. Because our whole relationship could be explained in terms of time-travel. During his good times he was younger, clean-shaven, and happy. Then suddenly, in the middle of the night, he must have time traveled and come back older and freaked out and run off. Then he would show up again later all clean-shaven and happy again.

But the only reason I can think of to run away from me if he traveled back as an older James is IF I DIED! And he suddenly appeared in my room! And panicked because I was there alive and I should be dead!!!!! I just realized this now!

I made a BIG MISTAKE on Saturday. On our way home I pinned a little pink note to the pants saying "I got these back for you because you might need them next time you time travel." Then I had Haley jump out of our getaway car and run up and leave them outside his door. Why would I give him the time traveling borderline pajama pants back???!!!! I just caused my own death in the future or in the past. I don't know.

I'm going out right now to get those pajama pants back and burn them. He'll have to give them back to me if I show up at his door and tell him that I need the pants back because he's going to time travel and cause my death. Or maybe it's already too late. I'm going to sleep with a softball bat beside me in case he appears in my room in the middle of the night. Then we'll see who time travels and lives and who dies. I knew I should have kept those pants to wear. I would go back in time and . . . hmmm, there's always the question of what one time could change EVERYTHING. I think I would go back and . . . no, I wouldn't. I like where I am now. I'd just sell them on EBAY.

The New Study on How Single Moms Should Stay Single Forever

EGAD.

Seems to be the only word I can come up with right now because I feel like YET ANOTHER burden has been thrown onto the shoulders of the single mother. This MSN article says that children are better off in STABLE households, whether that means the parents never divorce, or that MOM never moves in with her boyfriend or remarries. Any change in household status causes the kids anxiety.

So MOM should then sacrifice the best years of her life, before she's an old, decrepit, saggy, bitter old woman and focus herself entirely on the children. Anything else would be a neglect of her mothering duties. She should never have boyfriends come and go or GASP move in with someone who might not work out. She should know if it's going to work out AHEAD of time and if there's any chance the household is going to shift again, she should just choose to be ALONE, cause it's best for the kids.

Here's a quote: "Based on this study, we can't say for sure that marriage will be a good thing for the children of single mothers, particularly if that marriage is unhealthy and does not last." But wait! They don't KNOW whether another marriage is good or bad. We all know divorce is bad. So why do they suggest that MOM remain alone???

The burden is always on the MOM.

Where is DAD in all this????

I think what they SHOULD have said is that MOMs can do a really good job of raising children all by themselves as long as they are given the financial and community support to be able to provide a stable household situation. If MOM doesn't have to depend on a new MAN to help her out because she's left making the choice of working all the time and leaving the kids to fend for themselves, or staying home and being labelled a welfare mom--then she can raise the kids just as well without someone else to pick up after.

And where is MOM's welfare in all this??? Are the mothers who sacrifice their lives for their children's supposed well-being happy? Or neurotic as hell? I know that I need someone to talk to about all the issues involved in raising kids. I need someone to keep me feeling safe at night, cared for always, and loved. I love my children. But I will not sacrifice my own happiness for good scores in math. Which my kids don't need anyway because they excel at math regardless of what's up with my personal life.

I think that articles like this one are more dangerous to my health and my caretaking abilities and that they should be banned. Instead of wasting your time writing such dribble, why don't you come to my crappy little apartment and take my place.? That would ease the burden and the kids would have better math scores than they already do because I will have them time how long it takes you to get lonely and want someone to be with.

I'm not bitter. But I'm not taking any more single mother crap either.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

I Was Dating a Borderline--a serious post

I expect to see Borderline Personality Disorder in young girls. That love/hate relationshp is difficult to deal with and hard to improve without some serious therapy.
I never thought I'd be dating one, a 42 year old male. I never thought about what that might look like. It was so confusing and the confusion made me anxious because I expect people to become aware of their own issues over time. I ran into the answer tonight as I was cleaning out all my binders of school stuff--lightening my load slowly so that later on it will be easier to know what to bring and what to leave behind. Do I need the 30 page research paper I wrote about the relationship between Guilt and Physical Health? Probably not. Just picking it up caused minor seizures.
In all seriousness however, I feel the need to tell you that I was in this relationship and missed what was really going on entirely behind the trees (like the forest, people) and if I'm that stupid, well, anyone could be.
But it was hiding in a handout on Differentiation of the Self and Relationship Strategies. Oooh, a slight tremor reappears in my left elbow. And since he continues to stalk my blog why the hell not throw this up here.

Borderline Personality Disorder (From the NIMH site):

A person with BPD may have intense bouts of anxiety lasting only an hour or most of a day. This may occur along with self-injury, risky behaviors, drinking or drug use. Serious thinking distortions and a lack of sense of self lead to frequent changes in long-term goals, career plans, jobs, friendships, and values. They may see themselves as bad or unworthy or hate themselves to an extreme.
They may feel unfairly misunderstood or mistreated, bored, empty, and have little idea who they are. If they are isolated from social supports they may frantically try to avoid being alone.
Relationships are unstable because being with someone is as terrifying as being without. They shift from love to hate very easily, becoming very close very quickly and then pulling away just as quickly. They are especially sensitive to rejection, reacting with anger and distress to any criticism.
***********
I continue to process this although it was over a long time ago because it was so disturbing and confusing. And he was right about one thing: He would continue to do it over and over, the pull back and then the move to closeness, and I was right when I finally said that I was better off alone. Dating a borderline is like riding a Roller Coaster and you do have the choice to get off anytime you want.
And if you remember the classic My Boyfriend Is Constipation post, it's the same thing.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Dumbassedness is the Word of the Day

I had to sign and hand in one of those Exemption Forms for not wanting my kid to have vaccinations. I think that should about do it as far as my swing to the Hippie left. If I swung any further over I'd be running around naked covered in painted daisies. But no one wants to see that!
The nurse at the highschool said that Haley would have to get the chicken pox vaccine (Varicella) even though she had the chicken pox in 2000. I have no doctor's proof of this because I didn't immediately take her to the doctor's office to expose the entire town, as I probably should have. Because now I am exposed as a Leftist.
But maybe I was then too, because I did what I thought any good mother would do and as soon as I heard the neighbor girl had developed red chicken-shaped spots, I sent Haley right over to play. Then I kept her home in order to infect her sisters and no one else. I didn't even take pictures. Maybe I should have. Would the nurse have taken that as proof??? What if I use a marker and cover her in red spots now and take a picture? A reenactment should be proof enough.
I admit that I did have the option of giving her the vaccine back then. I chose instead to let her go through the rite of passage. Why get a vaccine for something that won't kill you?
So the nurse told me she'd need to get vaccinated anyway. But seeing as I never give the kids something they don't absolutely need (I think out of all of them, Haley is the only one ever to be on antibiotics and it was just once), I told the nurse I refuse to do that. Ooops, there's the old leftist leaking out again.
The doctor looked at me all confused when I asked her what to do. She couldn't sign anything saying Haley had the chicken pox, since she never saw it. I showed her the picture of the reenactment, but she just didn't quite believe Haley looked like she was 5 and some of the spots were too big.
So she told me to find this form online and sign it.
There's a choice on the form of Moral or Religious Exemption. I'm just not sure what YOU'RE A DUMBASS FOR NOT TAKING A MOTHER'S WORD FOR IT--WHY WOULD I LIE? belongs under. Morally I just don't like it when people think I'm lying and it pisses me off. Religiously I don't see how some nurse is like my supreme ruler and can say Haley can't go to school unless I do what she says. Why is it I can't fill out a simple form without writing my own thoughts all over it? I wonder if they just shake their heads and file my forms anyway or share it around the office as the joke of the day. I admit this isn't the first time I haven't stayed within the lines.
Like I said before, I don't fit well on a piece of paper. So I'm making my own exemption category called The Dumbassedness of Bureaucracy and drawing a little box next to it, that I will check in red ink. I DARE them to not accept this!