Hippie and the Midgets

The Link cause I know how lazy you all are! :)

2009-12-20T09:28:00.004-05:00

I have moved over to WORDPRESS!

http://kristilz.wordpress.com/

I'm moving more Than Just Everything

2009-12-19T16:08:00.002-05:00

I was trying to sign up for Technorati, but they told me I didn't exist and when they finally found me they said that robots were taking over my blog and that they were bad robots and wouldn't let theirs in. Apparently all web pages have robots and blogger only allows the Google ones and tells all the other ones to Bugger Off.
Since I am all for Robot Freedom and strongly believe they can go anywhere they want, I am going to give Wordpress a try. I hate to leave my spot here, but what's a world with only one kind of robot.

This is my new address: http://kristilz.wordpress.com/

Please notice that there is an l in there. That's an L in lower case. This is a little different from the address here, but someone else had taken kristiz. Please don't read that blog and think it's me because it's probably a wacko blog about robots or porn or something. I'll leave this up indefinitely so you won't miss me too much, or at least until I decide the robots over there are more forgiving. And I figure out how to import my posts from here. I have no idea how to do that!

This is me, not OWNING IT, yet.

2009-12-18T19:11:00.006-05:00

GNHZZ8X572WH

I went to my father's house to do laundry today. Yeah, I know. How old do I have to be before I stop using his hot water? He is starving for conversation, or more like a willing victim to tell his every thought to--from the draining of carbohydrates in the maple sugaring process, to his relative's insanity, to how much firewood he's using now that he's home all the time. I enjoy this time with him, but today I had something really important to say and it was hard to just throw it in there after hearing "yeah, the dog hasn't had a seizure in a while."
That's great Dad, but you know that guy who came for Thanksgiving? We're getting married. Yeah, he'll think I'm marrying the dog and Nick has seizures sometimes.
So I snuck my way around that question, just like I sneak my way around anything I have to say that's important but the other person might not like it..
"Will you watch the girls while I go on a trip in February?"
Sure, sure he would. He calls me just to take them anyway when he's bored.
And later on, after hearing about the company watch that he should go pick up, but doesn't really want, and the variability of the price of dish detergent on the Price Is Right, I threw in the real news that he never asked for because he was still trying to understand how the woman on the Lifetime Channel movie was really the daughter of her grandmother's daughter, whom she always called Auntie.
"I'm going out to visit Nick."
I snuck that in there really well because he never even paused to take a breath and instead went through a seed catalogue showing me what he was going to buy for next spring and told me twice that he had started his 65 Chevy truck, that sits in the garage.
So now I can say that I DID TELL HIM that I was marrying the love of my life and moving back to Wyoming next summer, and that he of course is invited to the wedding and that we'll work out how he can take the kids for part of the summers and he can't say I didn't.
It's not that I don't love Nick and I have to hide him. It's just that 5 1/2 month is a long time to be around people who don't want me to move. And I want that ring before I announce anything. It'll make it real and then they won't think I've lost my mind, not completely anyway.

The Twelve Uses of NickAngel

2009-12-14T19:08:00.009-05:00

In the spirit of Christmas and giving and blah blah blah I have agreed not to spread the joy of the NickAngel around (or maybe because he begged me not to), but since he has already appeared once on my blog I think I can continue to post him occasionally without getting into too much trouble.
Besides, he gave me the idea of posting the TOP 20 USES of NickAngel. (Hint to him: don't ever GIVE me ideas freely.) I have decided to only post 12 however, because that seems about right.

The Twelves Uses of NickAngel

1. Posted on Facebook

2. A Deck of Cards

3. On a Coffee Mug:

4. On a t-shirt

5. On an Ipod

6. On a Laptop Skin

7. On a Card

8. On a Wanted Poster

9. With Edward

10. On a Stamp

11. In a Museum

12. On Christmas Ornaments

See, I do have the Christmas Spirit!!!

More Ghetto Queen--I woke up with this in my head

2009-12-13T09:19:00.003-05:00

(To the tune of Dancing Queen by ABBA)

You can drink, you can drive, having the time of your life
See that girl, crush that can, digging the Ghetto Queen

Friday night and the lights are low
Rats come out and play in the snow
Where they sit and light one up, getting in the swing
You come out to look for a king
Anybody could be that guy
The neighbors are young and very high
With a Bud Light in hand, everything is fine
You're in the mood for a beer
And that's how you'll find your man...

You are the Ghetto Queen, old and mean, only forty-teen
Ghetto Queen, feel the beat from the Ghetto scene
You can drink, you can drive, having the time of your life
See that girl, crush that can, digging the Ghetto Queen

You're a loser, you hang one on
Leave them crumpled and then you're gone
Looking out for another, any can will do
You're in the mood for a beer
And when you get the chance...

You are the Ghetto Queen, old and mean, only forty-teen
Ghetto Queen, feel the beat from the Ghetto scene
You can drink, you can drive, having the time of your life
See that girl, crush that can, digging the Ghetto Queen

Ghetto Queen

2009-12-11T13:57:00.003-05:00

So he left a 12 pack of Bud Lite cans in Vermont. And being me I can't let any alcohol go to waste! Maybe you remember the Deadly Bottle of Gin last year that I openly passive-aggressively decided to finish off instead of dumping down the drain and only stopped when one sip would burn a hole in my stomach lining.
I decided to start drinking the beer last night and poured a can into a giant beer mug in an attempt to make it classier. My mistake, it looked like a giant mug of pee, only not my pee because I don't drink nearly enough water to make my pee look that light.
It had no flavor at all until I was about halfway through and I must be a lightweight because I already had a little cheap beer buzz going on and it started to taste like something. Not like beer. More like water that is just slightly better than my nasty tap water.
Then I realized that I had unknowingly succeeded in the plan I had made when I moved into the ghettos two years ago. If I was going to live in the slums then I was going to become the Queen of the slums and sit on my doorstep drinking beer out of a can. (This was the slummiest thing I could think of and obviously shows I belong here.)
After moving in I realized that if I did something like that the neighbors would think I was cool and friendly and come over and talk to me! Nooooooo! So instead they probably have me labelled as more of a stuckup bitch. Much better.
So I think I'll keep drinking the beer, but I won't be doing it on the doorstep. I'll remain a closet Queen drinking pee out of a glass. I can still crush the empty cans on my forehead before I throw them into the recycling box in my hall closet.

2009-12-11T13:04:00.004-05:00

Sometimes when I watch Survivor I think WOW this is alot like my life. All the strategizing, saying things a certain way to get a specific outcome, watching my back. Just yesterday someone hit me with an email which was just as outrageous as Russell saying he had all the power because he holds the immunity idol and that having it doesn't put a target on his back.
That's about as idiotic as my ex husband suggesting he work out any misunderstandings ahead of time with the man I'm marrying in September.
I like to try to sit on things for a day before I let them fully sink it. Hang onto the panic that comes whenever I hear from him. Sit alone in the dark and breathe or lay on the livingroom floor, because if I shut myself in my room the girls tell everyone they can find that I'm lost, or dead, or having some major crisis. At least in the livingroom they only lay down next to me and stare at me, waiting for me to take my last breath so that they can have my new favorite scarf that Abrah gave me for my birthday.
Where was I going with that?
After a day of trying not to take any specific direction on this outrageous email I have come to 20 different conclusions. The most important one is that he just screwed himself out of the best direction he could have taken in controlling my life by saying that he's happy with my relationship and that I'm moving. It will be nearly impossible to go to court now and claim that I can't move because I'm taking the girls away from him.
Major Strategic Mistake!
His second mistake is thinking that he can use my man and my therapist against me. And not very subtly either. "Kristi won't like this" is a huge understatement. But then he's tried to undermine me with the girls by telling them stories about me, with my mother by trying to get her help in seeing the girls, with my father by buddying up to him, with the principal of the girls' school, with the police chief, with everyone at Family Court, with the Office of Child Support, with the Department of Family Services. The only person I think he's never tried this on is Abrah.
He wouldn't DARE call Abrah and attempt to be friends.
I'm a bit surprised he didn't ask to bring her to therapy too, because if he wants to hang out around me and be invited into my house he would definitely have to get past her.
And Bill too of course.
The third mistake which should kick him out of the game immediately is thinking he's in control and stating in a booming all powerful voice "All is Forgiven."
He needs to take a logic class.
Anyway, I'm hoping that in writing down my conclusions I can get them out of my head and move on to other things like grocery shopping. So let's make a list of the 20 conclusions of Kristi:
1. He is mistaken about who is in control. I think it might be Ellen. But then again I hired her.
2. Documentation works both ways.
3. My fiance will never side with him against me.
4. Twisted is as twisted does.
5. The chances of running into him are slim.
6. And #5 is not a big deal anyway. I can scream really loud.
7. The criminal is the one to be forgiven, not the victim.
8. Forgiveness is not one of the stops on the Path to Gof.
9. Unless it's forgiving myself for having a Stupid Moment.
10. Or maybe a couple.
11. Delusions full of contradictions will only bite you in the ass in front of a judge.
12. Using big words only makes you look stupider.
13. I need more therapy.
14. This is merely a good test, to see who's who and who does what.
15. I need to be protected sometimes.
16. Sending me an outrageous email while I'm at work makes for an interesting day.
17. I can get through this without self-medicating.
18. If I can laugh, I can breathe.
19. He's afraid of Abrah.
20. Installing a microwave security system is a really good idea!

Slushy Vermont Days

2009-12-10T07:32:00.003-05:00

Yes, that was me in my red Christmas Pajamas and non-matching blue winter coat, headed to the dumpster this morning with a leaking bag of trash. Why are there so many people up so early scraping their cars off? At least no one dares to look directly at me. No one says "Good Morning." No one makes eye contact.
That's the way I like it in the ghettos.
I might have also been whistling tunelessless and pulling my pajama pants up cause they kept slipping down. And I didn't want the bottoms to get wet so I'd have to sit around all morning wishing I'd kept them out of the slush.
I think they're slipping down cause my boobs are shrinking.
Yes, we're back to the boobs.
I went off the pill 5 days ago!!! Woo hooo! 5 Hormone Free Days. I'm like an organic cow. I feel okay, a little loopy. That may be normal though for being so close to Christmas, licking Christmas frosting to make sure there was just enough salt in it, and missing Nick. My boobs definitely do hurt though. Everything shrinks back to normal noncomplacent size. Hopefully this will happen with the pudge as well. It would be WRONG to have small boobs and a huge pudge. Maybe I could convince people that my boobs just SANK and joined together.
Anyway, I drove Haley to school in my pajamas and stopped to ask the other girls why the school bus hadn't come yet. I rolled down my window and the sheet of ice that was stuck to it fell in my lap. I am an idiot. So my pant legs are dry but I still need to change.
Obviously I'm much better than yesterday and I think Ellen might be the Queen afterall.

NOW reminds me too much of THEN

2009-12-09T18:05:00.003-05:00

the whole waiting for something bad to happen thing.

Unable to do anything.

Just kindof blank and fuzzy.

Hopefully it will fade soon.

In July of 2003 I happily packed all his things into the back of his truck and sent him off to Idaho. I didn't care how bad things would get, just as long as he wasn't around anymore. And things did get bad. He stopped paying the mortgage because according to him "it was now my responsibility." He turned off the utilities one at a time, expecting me to switch them over to my name, even though in the six months until I left he send me a total of $800 and most of that was the first and only child support check he actually wrote out without it being garnished.

Soon I was sitting in the cold and the dark, borrow money from the girls' piggy banks to buy a loaf of bread for Christmas Dinner.

And most of the time I was happy enough. Except that he would call and call and call. He would call to make sure I was home. He would call to find out if I had left the girls in the house alone. he would threaten to call the police. He would threaten to come back and throw me out. He would beg to talk to "his girls." Fifty times a day he would call and leave messages.

I spent alot of time lying on my bed staring at the ceiling in some kind of comatose state of anxiety. I was packing and cleaning and making a plan to run while he wasn't looking. He would call and tell me exactly where I'd been that day. People stalked me for him. Was he going to come back and break all the windows on my van, loosen the spark plugs, take all my money? All things he's done before or said he was going to do. When he came over to "his" house he would go through everything, lecture me on how all the men in town would be trying to come over and screw me because I was vulnerable, and tell me how messed up the girls would be if we weren't together. He would talk at me until I started to cry and then he would apologize and be all nicey-nice. I wasn't buying it.

This time I didn't drink or smoke. I planned and I protected. And I forever pay the price for all of that. I didn't sleep much. I was living in some kind of fog in between sleep and being awake. I had 6 hours head start if he found out I was going in the other direction. I lost weight. I was down to a scary 115. I was running on adrenaline and not much else.

Yes, it's true. I feel like I'm right back there although things have changed. I have alot more power now. He can't legally call me ever. He can't send nasty emails. If he comes anywhere near me I'll just scream. But it's like the POW's trapped in a small cell for months. If the lights go out, even after they're safe at home, they go right back to that terrible place in their heads.

And even though it logically seems like there's not a whole lot he can do I can't feel free of it. He still chases me in my dreams. So I guess Ellen's right. I have to fix this. I have 6 months to fix this. I have to be free.

Do I look GIRLIE to you???!

2009-12-08T16:04:00.002-05:00

Okay, so looking for the perfect wedding attire. Me. The one who despises weddings has become obsessed. WHY?

Because I love him more than anything and being together means so much to me that I want it to be perfect and simple and meaningful.

So today I found a dress and they wanted measurements.

I wonder what my waist is.

I pulled out the measuring tape.

Where exactly is my waist?

Do I measure over the pudge or above it?

I can definitely find my hips though.

I must be measuring all WRONG. My measuring tape is broken! Or I need to stop thinking about things and start running toward Johnny Depp again. This is a nightmare!

But MOM, I need to bother you every two minutes

2009-12-05T12:38:00.002-05:00

to make sure I'm still breathing? To keep me from taking more than two deep breaths? Why do these children keep calling me when it's OBVIOUS that I've shut myself in my room? I haven't gone anywhere. I'm laying on my bed in the dark enjoying a silent night moment after Christmas shopping, playing free taxi service, and cutting out 72 Gingerbread Men.

Here's a list of the things they found were so important that they had to run up the stairs and come in to turn on the light and tell me, or yell "MOM" twenty times from downstairs until I couldn't take it anymore:

MOM, where's the milk? Oh, it's in the fridge of course.

MOM, Haley gave me an evil look!

MOM, can I have a cookie?

MOM, can I sit on the couch and read a book?

MOM, I need a ride--in an hour.

Mom, I forgot how to butter bread. Can you show me?

Mom, I found this used popsicle stick that WAS MINE in Haley's room. She's stealing my trash.

Where's the Christmas Spirit people? All I want is FIVE WHOLE MINUTES to myself. The funny (but not really) part is that I feel so ALONE all the time since he left. But I am alone--in my head.

2009-12-04T06:46:00.004-05:00

If you combine my hatred of weddings with my dread of Facebook's influences on how we interact, you get the story of the groom who stopped his wedding to update his facebook status. While this does not shock me, as Facebookitis creeps through our social structure, eroding the core ways in which we think about our relationships with others, it still just gives me the creeps.

The logic these days is that if it doesn't happen on Facebook it's not REAL. If you don't post that your boyfriend is cheating on you, it didn't happen. If you forget to tell the world that you're vomiting repeatedly and hugging the bathroom floor then it's just all in your head. If you hate your job, your family makes you crazy, or you are dying of boredom then everyone must know or it won't count.

But if everything on Facebook is REAL then I am a lesbian, I'm very confused and overwhelmed ALL THE TIME, and I have a canoe and an ARK. I drink alot of wine, I'm forgetful and I live with a puppet.

Okay, that doesn't necessarily prove my point.

Ow My Boob Hurts

2009-12-02T06:56:00.005-05:00

I think I pulled a muscle in my boob yesterday. Don't laugh. It's not funny. I made a grocery list. Then I lost it before I left the house. I searched for it everywhere, but left without it. Then I got a basket instead of a cart, cause I hate using carts in our little grocery store cause there are only two. Then I got more and more HEAVY things until the basket was too full. And I could carry it with one hand (the other was holding a gallon of water) but it pulled something in my boob. Then 4 hours later I found the list in my pocket.
Now I need some boob physical therapy and I am NOT going back to that surgeon who stuck that big needle into my hip without telling me what it was because no one is sticking a foot long needle into my boob.
I'm just going to keep holding it and saying "My Boob" at work today. No one will even notice.
And I'm too old for baskets at the grocery store. Next time I'm going straight for the motorized carts.
At least now I have an excuse for not helping the kids. When Haley says Go get my backpack from my bedroom Mom while I put on my shoes, I can say No My Boob Hurts. Or when Emily keeps calling my name to come check out some stupid video on the computer about a photo booth I can say that laughing makes it hurt more, so no thank-you. Or when Gina pushes me away when I'm trying to hug her, I can complain about my aging body and how I'm going to die soon and she'll feel bad that she didn't show me some love.

On a small tangent: It is a sign of EXTREME LAZINESS to call my cell phone as I sit in the living room from the house phone that you carried to the upstairs bathroom to tell me you're out of toilet paper.

And why was my box of sugar in the bathroom medicine cabinet? I still haven't figured that one out. If anyone knows please leave me a comment.

And You Live in a Crazy House is not an answer.

Back Asswards

2009-11-30T10:25:00.002-05:00

I decided to hit my head hard enough to put myself into a coma
So that the next 183 days will go by faster.
Only I hit my ass instead.
On the corner of the coffee table.
(And no, the coffee table is not super-tall and I am not a midget.)
But it must have caused some amnesia
Because I don't remember what I was doing under there.
It was after I had rearranged all the furniture.
And after I found Haley's retainer container in the hall closet.
Leave it to me to do it entirely wrong.
All I got was a bruise on my ass and a mild case of amnesia.
And now this post looks like a poem about my ass
Which is so amusing to me that I'm going to leave it this way.

Thoughts for This Evening

2009-11-29T20:17:00.002-05:00

If I can hang out with Keira Knightley by climbing into a cupboard then I'm going to do it right now. I hope she's under the kitchen sink because I think that's the only one I can fit into.
Why do my teenager's friends use up my limited texting by telling me they have to pee and they're going to use my bathroom?
How do I tell someone what I really want without making them feel unmanly?
Haley would be perfectly happy with a pomegranate and an old crusty mostly empty jar of Fluff for Christmas so why am I buying her a new camera?
How long is 184 days?

2009-11-29T13:03:00.003-05:00

After eating half a bag of jellybeans and some whole coconut milk curry in some silly attempt to feel even more miserable than I already was I discovered that my pudge had bloated up so that it was actually hanging over the edge of my laptop as it sat on my lap. And as the pudge expanded like a giant hot air balloon it pushed the laptop farther and farther away until I had to stretch my arms WAY OUT to type.
This was a problem.
I stopped eating things that hurt and started drinking Fennel Tea and taking peppermint capsules but it was too late. I was up until 2 a.m. feeling extremely hungover.
So today I took all the crazy and I put it into a more productive behavior than eating food dye and high frutose corn syrup and fat and instead I had Haley help me clean her entire room which is a huge feat that rarely happens all at once. Sure, I sneak in there every day and pick up trash that she'll never notice is missing. Today we sorted her books by size, color, and copywrite date, found lonely socks under her mattress where they slither away to hide from her sweaty night feet, and found her retainer container--which is a fun thing to say outloud.
Then I pulled the bed halfway out of the couch downstairs and had Haley crawl into the crack to dig out all the trash that the kids had stuffed in the couch to make it look like they NEVER eat in the livingroom. Then I vacuumed the mattress, and under it, and Haley's butt. IT WAS RIGHT THERE. What was I supposed to do? We rearranged the furniture back to where it was before that odd askew day last year when I wanted my ENTIRE life to be crooked just so that it would make more sense.
Then I had Emily help me clean her side of the bedroom she shares with Gina. It's nice to see their faces when they realize how much crap they keep and how much space there is when you throw away all of those crumpled up pieces of blank paper, broken toys, and dead mp3 players. I almost think they might dig through the trash can in the kitchen to save the things I've thrown away, cause I swear a couple of those mp3 players had already seen the inside of the trash can two years ago.
Ok, so now what do I do? This place is too small to clean forever. Maybe annoying the kids will be my new hobby. Hey Haley! Come here so I can vacuum you some more!

Reverting

2009-11-28T08:52:00.002-05:00

Since he left I've made up for all those things I stopped doing before he got here. I started chewing off my fingernails in the car on the way home. I ate a bag of jelly beans and some chicken curry so even though I'm not any fatter, I look like I gained 20 pounds of bloat this morning. I am still in my pajama pants and I might just stay that way all day. I'm eating 2 day old leftover oatmeal. My posture is so bad that my breasts are actually brushing against my thighs. I haven't done dishes in a day and a half, which in my house means they are piled high and haphazzardly and no one is brave enough to even look at them without fear of being trapped on the kitchen floor under an avalanche of mismatched plastic cups and stolen restaurant plates.
And the BEST news is that the girls informed me last night that they have Monday off from school. WHAT??? Monday isn't a holiday?! I'll bet the teachers decided they just couldn't handle seeing kids so soon after having to be thankful and wanted to hold off reality just a little longer.
So here I am stuck with them one more day and I can't shut myself in my bed and curl up on the side he slept on and pretend he's still here. Because they come in every 30 seconds with excuses like: Can I have a piece of bread? or Can I call Grandma? Or Emily has been on the Wii 2 hours and 28 minutes longer than me! I know they really just need to know where I am and what I'm doing every second so they feel secure that I'm not upstairs crying.
Besides, they pick on me when I cry.
It's not the End of the World Mom.
Yes, yes it is. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

He's Halfway to Salt Lake City

2009-11-27T16:06:00.002-05:00

and I am home in Vermont. :(

I hope he had an interesting trip

escaping across the border and back, and across and back
listening to my father name every tree on his 27 acre tree farm, the bear scratched tree, the racoon's home tree, the stump from the tree he cut down in 1976
while the girls and I walked behind with our sacred sticks and fern crowns, bowing to the sacred stumps and moss and trees and puddles and noisily mocking Grandpa
watching Gina catapult a pencil into her own eye
making too-perfect icicles on the gingerbread house
visiting the Magic Red Button
trying to use nudity and cesspool in the same sentence on a Facebook status update
watching people at the liquor store buy beer in shopping carts like real Vermonters do

And of course the second he left the November storm blew in and now I'm back to being stuck in the house with a girl who keeps popping out her retainer to swear at me properly and a girl who doesn't realize she's pmsing when she yells at me about how bored she is. ERGH.

Got to Post Something So I Don't Lose my Following

2009-11-25T10:28:00.003-05:00

So we've been to Fryeburg on the Maine border. We've stood on the line between the U.S. and Canada in Derby. We've been to the orthodontist twice. We spent an evening surrounded by man-scent. In about an hour and a half I'm taking him to the mom's therapy group I go to. We've driven in circles for hours every day and I realize more and more that I live in my car.

Three states and one country later and the trip is almost over. Then I'm all alone and more bitter than ever because I'm going to miss him way too much.

Wyoming is a whole lot farther away than Canada.

See you on Friday evening when I'm alone again --blog world!!!

A Sneaky Post

2009-11-23T07:20:00.005-05:00

Ooops, I disappeared. I had nothing to write about because everything is so cool. And besides, it would be rude to say, hey Nick, wait a minute, that thing you did was really funny and I have to go blog about it!
But now he's still in bed and the kids just went off to school so I snuck on here to post something quickly before he realizes that I'm missing.
We went out with Abrah and Bill Saturday night and things worked out better than I planned. Here's a quick run-down:

Having the same part of the same thumb missing because of a woodworking accident makes you as good as TWINS.
As long as there are plenty of quarters men are happy.
Calling it man-scent doesn't make it smell any better.
Bill is my new picker and as odd as that sounds, if he's comfortable enough to talk non-stop for 6 hours then something must be right. :)
Blue cheese can be deadly.
Hard cider DOES have alcohol and I can't believe I was the first person EVER to order that.
There are at least 5 ways to get there from here--and all of them are the same distance.
Vermont has ALOT of roads but FEW people
Which is a GOOD thing because there are a lot of intersections I just don't know how to navigate. I think the locals set it up that way just to prove that we're not from there.
I DRIVE ALOT.
No matter how I look at all the details I just don't want to spend the rest of my life without him.

The Pants Fairy's arch-nemesis

2009-11-17T10:40:00.003-05:00

You know how after you wash jeans and hang them up to dry when they're still half wet because you're too impatient to wait for the dryer to finish and you have ten million other things you need to get done and how your jeans are all stiff after they dry hanging on the treadmill in your bedroom? The first few moments you squeeze back into them are extremely uncomfortable until they stretch back out and soften.
Well, I've spent the last week stretching out all of my clean jeans and putting them back in the drawer so that when HE gets here I can just slide into them like they fit perfectly instead of all the usual heavy breathing and swearing. I realize in writing this just how insane I am.
Well, this morning I opened the drawer to see if there were any I hadn't softened up yet and a pair was missing. So I went into Haley's room and there they were. She'd been wearing them. She stole the jeans I worked so hard to make comfortable and wore them! All that hard work gone to waste!
I know WHY. She isn't allowed to wear jeans with rips and holes to school. And she ruins her clothing. She also buys skin tight ones and I'll bet mine are just so much more comfortable, BECAUSE I DID ALL THE WORK!
So I'm going out to buy myself new jeans now and she can just keep stealing my old ones!
She's like the anti-pants FAIRY, taking away my best pants so that I can't wear them. I hope the two of them meet and have a huge BLOODY battle and she learns that you can't just give pants and have someone else take them away. Not without the wrath of a mom who likes her pants to have some breathing room. Next time maybe I'll make her do all the work--as PUNISHMENT.

I'm the Biggest Hypocrite on the Face of the Planet

2009-11-16T15:13:00.004-05:00

An hour ago I realized how far I was behind on the bloggess. (See list of places I go.) No wonder all the joy has been stripped from my life! So I've spent the last hour catching up on where she's been and all the embarrassing things she does and then has anxiety about.
I was reading the April Flores interview on her sex column and then started watching the video, which is a nice photo shoot with porn-ish music playing in the background.
But let's back up for a minute to about 3 weeks ago when the MAN decided to buy me a webcam and send it to me so that we could keep in touch. I immediately assumed a webcam would mean porn and made it clear there would be no porn. NONE. I guess American Pie was on my mind. Using the camera isn't as bad as I thought it would be--it's all nice and blurry and very forgiving. Perfect for my need to remain anonymous.
So here I was watching this ahem photo shoot (because she's all round and not stick thin and it was just such a relief to see someone who is a real size do this and look good) and he called me on gchat. It rings like a phone from the gmail page. I minimized April's window and accepted his call. And then realized that the MUSIC WAS STILL PLAYING.
He asked what I was watching.
"Um, nothing" was the best thing I could come up with! I own all of these words. ALL OF THESE WORDS. And I said "um, nothing."
And then my face turned red.
And although the webcam is slightly blurry and weak, I'll bet he knew. Yes, I was looking at another woman in her underwear. I don't know why at that moment I couldn't just say it. I admit it.

Memory Foam

2009-11-16T08:41:00.007-05:00

It isn't on there!

This morning I woke up at 5:30 again and started going about my morning of shoving everyone in the car with everything they needed. Then I suddenly realized that I didn't know if the girls' appointments were today or tomorrow. Of course, these weren't written on my calendar because I didn't remember long enough to write it down.

I am getting old. There was a time when I could run on 5 hours of sleep for three straight weeks before feeling tired. I could stay up for 4 straight days and only start hallucinating at the very end. I could sleep on the ground for 8 days and still get up and run.

NOT ANYMORE.

If I'm not sleeping in my own bed I'm not sleeping. And that's not necessarily caused by sleeping in a place that smells like my father since last Wednesday, or sleeping with a dog who must be having the same nightmares about Joe that I am because she sometimes growls wildly and thrashes in her sleep. Soon I'll be taking her to Dartmouth for some prozac as well.

I just miss my bed. My nice big bed that's not too soft or too hard. That smells like incense and sage and me. I miss how it gently cradles my hip and it has just enough give to let my boobs breathe. I love my 4 pillows, two big and fluffy, one a little flatter, and one made of memory foam. Which is something my head is missing this morning.

Could Time Move Any Freakin Slower?

2009-11-15T13:16:00.003-05:00

Okay, so take the longest week ever and then add to that being stuck away from the internet and movie channels and all the chores I could be doing at home and if this goes any slower I'm just going to aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

There is absolutely nothing funny going on. The kids watch Spongebob for hours. I didn't know he had a cousin whose name is Stanley and he acts an awful lot like Haley, going from one thing to another and creating havoc and explosions.

I have washed everyone's bedding (That's like 10 loads of laundry) and I found 6 dollars in people's pockets and I used a Magic Eraser on Haley, but she's still here.

And my dog ate something nasty and her stomach keeps making terrible noises that squeal and gurgle and sound like there's an alien puppy growing in her stomach. She keeps farting and looking pathetic and embarrassed.

I miss the ghetto and all the things I had to complain about. All I can complain about here is how they grow immensely huge and fast spiders that only come out at night and strreak across the livingroom floor.

First Day of Drama and the Pants Fairy

2009-11-11T08:37:00.003-05:00

Well, I did it. I got up. I threw on some pants and shoes. I made her scrape the windshield off. And I drove her to school at 6:15. It felt really good for about an hour--Yay, I can be a morning person! I have lots of energy! I have tons of extra time!
Now I realize those were just the schizophrenic thoughts of a tired mind. It was all true until the other kids went to school and I sat down to write an email. Then I saw the disconnect between my head and my hands. As soon as I started to type I lost the ability to think of words. Crash and burn. Coffee is not helping.
But I do have to say that I found a new pair of pants hanging in my closet with the tags still on that I must have forgotten about. I was a little afraid to try them on because sometimes I buy things without trying them first and then later I realize that I'd have to lose my pudge or let it hang over the top. I stuff those pants in the back of my closet and try to pawn them off on people. Or plan on finding my abs by spring and put them in a box marked "summer pants" along with all the other pants I've never worn but take out once in a while to admire.
These pants fit so well. They must have come from the Pants Fairy. As much as I ABHORE shopping, especially for pants--there is NO WAY I would have had the patience to find these myself. My ass looks good. My pudge is under control. Ahhhhhhhhhh.
Yes, I do believe in the Pants Fairy now. And I'm sure he's a gay guy with slender transparent wings and rosy cheeks who sneaks pants into the closet of people who willingly drive their kids to school at 6:15 in the morning. I'll be waiting for him tomorrow morning.

Awesome summer camp letter!

2009-11-10T14:11:00.002-05:00

I am cleaning out my filing cabinet today. What could be more tedious than that??? Oh, it's not all bad. I found this letter Haley wrote me from summer camp when she was maybe 10 that still cracks me up:

Today wasn't as bad but it still was bad. I had to go to fishing first then I had to walk up to riflery and then I had to walk back down for sailing then I had to walk back up line up walk back down for lunch walk back up for cabin time walk back down for kayaking then walk back up for farm and garden then walk down for dinner walk back up for poetry then we go to sleep. I miss you.

A Revision

2009-11-10T07:52:00.004-05:00

I have to post this because it's a masterpiece and it's never too late to laugh about the stupid relationships I've had ever since leaving Wyoming.

Runaway James (to the tune of Runaround Sue)

Here's my story, its sad but true
It's about a boy that I once knew
He took his stick then ran around
To every pool hall in town
Ah, I should have known it from the very start
This boy will leave me with a broken heart
Now listen people what I'm telling you
A-keep away from-a Runaway james
I miss his books and his pajama pants
His voice as he asks for just one more chance
So if you don't wanna cry like I do
A-keep away from-a Runaway James
Ah, he likes to travel around
He'll love you but he'll put himself down
Now people let me put you wise
He goes out with other guys
Here's the moral and the story from the one who knows
He'll leave so fast that he'll forget his clothes
Ask any fool that he ever knew, they'll say
A-Keep away from-a Runaway James
He likes to travel around
He'll love you but he'll put himself down
Now people let me put you wise
James goes out with other guys
Here's the moral and the story from the one who knows
He'll run so fast that he'll forget his clothes
Ask any fool that he ever knew, they'll say
A-Keep away from-a Runaway James

So besides rewriting songs and laughing about them I also have decided that I do in fact have hobbies. I may not hunt or fish or make anything right now (unless this song counts) but I do like vampires. Vampires are a hobby. And I like wine. And I do like to bitch sometimes. That's a hobby. I wear sweatpants too, which is this new hobby I just picked up a couple of month ago when I stopped caring about what I look like when I'm at home. And I am really good at loud sighing. I'm just full of hobbies!
How did Haley get to school if one of her new shoes is under the coffee table??? I'll bet she forgot to put shoes on. I'd better go find her.

Many Random but Important Events That must be connected Somehow

2009-11-07T12:32:00.004-05:00

Today I got the birthday present I bought myself through the mail. I am now feeling supported and separated, lifted and somehow thinner. Is this really where the boobs are supposed to be? I keep hitting my chin on them and I can definitely see the six pack of small rolls where my abs should be but aren't. When not dragging against my knees they look really HUGE. I am so amazed that I keep looking down and then feeling them, cause I can't quite believe they're mine.

I took Haley to Dartmouth yesterday where her doctor (who I LOVE) thought there's a good chance most of her issues are caused by a sleep disorder. So she filled out the paperwork (one piece of paper) for a referral to the sleep clinic to at least rule this out before we go the ADHD route. She said that when she faxes these down to the sleep people they somehow lose them and so she wanted us to walk it down (2 buildings over and 3 floors down) and hand it to them in person. When we found the sleep clinic all the doors were shut and because it's a small city I finally decided to enter the business office.

The three women who were sitting there chatting were AGHAST that I would walk in. They spoke ANGRY INTEROFFICE language at me that sounded something like "You can't hand this to us! You have to send it by interoffice doctor transportalator facsimile machination" and each one looked up at the sky (or ceiling) like whatever it was lived above us. So maybe they meant I had to talk to God first, and when I refused and said "The doctor said to walk it down here and hand it to you" they were even more AGHAST that I would refuse to bow down and worship this thing they so feared and revered. "The doctors keep doing this to us, instead of using the interoffice doctor transportalator facsimile machination," they said to me so that I would be on their side of the interoffice schism. And maybe I was or maybe I wasn't, I didn't really care as long as the paper got to where it was going.

Then they just looked at me like I should apologize for bring this nasty piece of paper to them. I turned to the one nearest me and asked politely "I have no idea what you are talking about, but can you please get this to where it's supposed to be."

She took it from me and said that she would fax it upstairs so that it would be faxed back down to her, the way things are supposed to work in the hospital. If this order was not kept apparently the whole system would fall apart. I don't doubt that she made a paper airplane out of it and threw it down the elevator shaft after I left. And I now realize that she may have been merely following the Pathetics on the Way to Gof, in which case I commend her attempt at trying to make me feel like she was doing me a huge favor and as long as the paper made it up to God and back I'm okay with it.

The third thing that happened was what I found when looking back through the history on my laptop to find a walkthrough for LOTR for Emily that she looked at on Thursday. I haven't seen so many bizarre sites since the days of Joe and Jim in my basement. No, no, no! I wish I'd never seen those pictures. When I was a kid you had no access to these things and now all you have to do is find the five minutes when MOM has locked herself into the bathroom and type Animal Porn into google and there it is!

Can you tell that they've been home sick all week and I haven't had a break since a week ago Friday?

A Letter to Joe

2009-11-04T20:10:00.004-05:00

I am angry. I am just completely wrecked and murderously angry. A while ago I made a long list of all the things I lost when I finally ran with my kids and my life. But really very little of that hurts me all that badly anymore. I don't care that you stopped paying the mortgage and I had to lose my house. I don't care that I gave away all the furniture, the swingset, the lawnmower, or all my books. Today, it doesn't matter so much that I lost most of my friends, that I became homeless, or that you continue to threaten me. It doesn't even matter that I lost the ability to eat cheesecake because of all the stress you've put me through. And I love cheesecake. Today all that matters is that you stole the last six years of my cat's life from me. It matters that I had to give him away and that because you are irresponsible and unpredictable I could never afford to rent some place where I could get him back. I wasn't there when he died. For this I will never forgive you.
I don't believe in forgiveness for things like this. Not even that old forgiveness is for yourself bullshit. There was no reason for any of this to happen. No excuse. You knew exactly what you were doing to me by making me make that choice and by keeping me running and poor. I am not sad that he died Monday night, on the full moon, as any black cat should. He was old and it was good that he died in his sleep. I am angry that I couldn't spend his last 2000 days with him, that I had to sacrifice him in order to leave you. The cost was impossibly high and my soul is forever scarred.

The Cheese Nip that Almost Joined Jesus

2009-11-04T07:11:00.005-05:00

Gina was happily eating a bowl of cheesenips next to me last night in my big futon chair, watching Heroes. You know the kind of cheesenip with two flavors in the same box--that kind. Cheesenips are awesome, but you NEVER want to feed me any. Anyway, suddenly she opened her mouth wide in AWE and held out an orange cheesenip in front of her, to see in better in the light from the television. The light shown on the cheesenip and it glowed a powdery orange.

"MOM!" she exclaimed.

And I knew what she was thinking. She had found another crazy piece of highly processed food, created in the weird image of Jesus, or miniature like that flour tortilla, or musical like a carrot, or bumpy like the badly twisted pretzel. She had found a cheesenip that would join Jesus on the holy shelf of all things weird and not to be eaten.

I looked at it. I looked some more. I couldn't see anything weird about it, except that a corner had broken off, leaving the cheesenip as a rough triangle shape. She flipped it over and over in her hand, until she saw that the edge was indeed ragged and not accidentally shaped that way by an error of the cheesenip manufacturers.

She was SO disappointed. But I laughed and laughed and laughed and then bit the corners off more cheesenips to show her how it's done. This cheesenip would not be joining Jesus and neither would the others.

She was so offended by my laughter that she then confused herself for a cheesenip and said "But I thought that the Gina was special."

Yes the Gina is special. The cheesenip is not.

Swine Flu, the Swine-ASS, and spilling my wine

2009-11-02T21:27:00.004-05:00

We've been struck down by the flu since Friday. One at a time they fall down, call me to pick them up at school, and spread mounds of used kleenex all over the house. They share the same thermometer in a contest to see who is the warmest. They cough day and night and race each other to the bathroom. I'm running out of toilet paper.

But that's not really the digusting thing I wanted to talk about tonight. The truly disgusting thing is that my children don't want to talk to their father and so he sent me this tonight:

I am going to assume that your phone has been cut off. I will call you at work tomorrow to set up a way I can talk to my children.

At work? Seriously? Now, this appears to be a bluff but then sometimes he really does the things he says he's going to do. Like calling my employer to tell them I'm selling crack in the parking lot. And maybe that time he said he was going to call the financial aid office at the college I was going to to tell them I had inherited money from my dead Grandmother so that they wouldn't give me grant money.

All she left me was a Rubik's Cube.

Is he really going to call a counseling center? In his demented head this forces me to

Do what he says, which is to force the girls to talk to him on the phone which makes me a hypocrite and a bad parent
Tell everyone at work all about him in case he does call
Live with the anxiety that at any minute he could start calling my work over and over and over and tell them I'm selling crack in the parking lot.

The problem with this twisted manipulative plan of his is that THEY ALREADY KNOW. I tell everyone I work for and with, all my friends, every school my children go to, the mailman, the street cleaner, and the guy who wears the orange vest and directs traffic at deserted intersections.

It's true that some people do believe his stories. But I don't need those people anyway. They are easily bought and suckered. I need people like the police chief in my town who listened to my ex talk about how he was moving to my town and they needed to be prepared because "something is going to happen"--and thought he was completely off the wall.

So yeah, call my place of work. I just hear MC Hammer in my head singing "Can't Touch This" which is very bizarre but so true.

Oh, and I spilled my wine on the carpet in a moment of spaz, not unlike Meg Ryan who throws the best fits in movies I have ever seen. I admire that.

Dentistophobia

2009-11-02T10:41:00.004-05:00

Usually I don't mind going to the dentist. I end up fighting them off like used car salesmen when they try to sell me services. If I ever agreed to having my wisdom teeth removed for no reason other than preventing possible future cavities and having them taken out at some later time, I would no longer be able to spread my wisdom all over this blog. I also don't need fillings especially since they've refilled the same tooth three times already. I finally caught on to that little scam.
I was surprised to have a male hygienist this time. It feels a little personal to have a man looking in my mouth. They've looked in other places--but never there. He was a very short little man and when he stopped quickly and I tripped over him in the hall I reached out to steady him. Sorry little man for hurting you. When he put on his weird sci fi surgeon style goggles I closed my eyes so that it wouldn't seem so intimate. I thought he'd be timid and gentle, the way other male doctors and other professionals usually are. (Except that surgeon I went to, let's not forget that incident!)
And then the pain began. A half hour cleaning turned into an hour of torture. Okay, he was good. And vicious. I practiced deep breathing. I counted to ten instead of slapping his goggles right off his close little face. I wondered if he did this to children as well. I wondered if anyone ever requested him. I tried not to cry. I thought about happier times. I kept telling myself it could only last so long.
Not entirely unlike other intimate moments with men.
I now have a healthy fear of the dentist.
Thank goodness he didn't decide to become a gynecologist instead.

18 days

2009-10-31T15:33:00.002-04:00

I have to make a list of all the things I have to do before he gets here. I had assumed he was just a figment of my imagination and would never really buy a plane ticket. Ooops. Now I have to

Lose 20 pounds
Get a haircut
Clean the underside of the toilet seats
Stop chewing my nails
Stop chewing my nails to lose 20 pounds
Stick butter in my hair to make it shiny
Stop eating black beans entirely
Only drink water
Clean out my car
Make all kinds of plans to see everyone
Teach the kids some manners
Get rid of these dark circles under my eyes
Will Oil of Olay take ten years off if I use it right now?

And THIS is why I LOVE my children!

2009-10-28T08:57:00.004-04:00

He sent me a care package with several interesting things including this huge spider. He knows me too well. Or maybe we share the same stupid sense of humor. I decided to leave the kids a little surprise when they got up this morning in the middle of the living room floor.

And they must really be my children because instead of shock, outrage, and pathetic crying over the cruel treatment of the beloved puppet they just rearranged the scene better.

I think we'll all get along just fine.

The Thing about Candy and Me at Halloween and a Happy Birthday to You

2009-10-27T21:14:00.003-04:00

First I would like to say Happy Birthday to my LURKER. It's a few hours early, but hopefully you have something better to do this evening than to lurk on my blog. Always remember that you will always be older than I am. Always. Anyway, Happy Birthday and I hope the second half of your life is WAY more exciting than the first half. :)

Now let's talk about candy. CANDY. CANDY. CANDY. I'm pretty good with a weekend of candy, especially if I bought it for the kids because they're having friends over and I just have a couple of pieces and then it's GONE. But it's only okay because knowing there is an end to it means that I have enough willpower to not make myself sick and then I can spend Monday detoxing.
It's like bumming one cigarette off my little brother. I know I'm not going to go buy a pack, so I enjoy it and then I cough for a couple of hours, and then I wake up all stuffy and I go on with my life.
But if there's candy Monday then I'm in trouble because then the sugar low I'm experiencing from withdrawal needs to be fed. And if it gets fed then it becomes an addiction.
The WORST part of it is that I already know that an hour or two after eating chocolate or anything with corn syrup or dye I'm going to bloat up like I've swallowed a balloon and have cramps and feel like I want to die. And the withdrawal the day I stop eating candy leaves me fatigued and depressed, which is why it is dangerous to have any around because I'm eating to feel better and not because it actually tastes good anymore. And that's a bad sign.
I can write all this BUT the thought that there are m&m's in my hall closet is killing me right now. I spent the day dragging my ass around, laying on the floor holding my stomach, and hearing Billy Idol sing Dancing With Myself over and over in my head until I annoyed myself half to death and Abrah along with me.
That bumper sticker the kids put on my car makes sense to me now. If I must die, let it be death by chocolate. I just though that meant I'd accidentally drown in a vat of milk chocolate. Now if I see that vat I'm going to turn around and RUN.

It would be funny if it wasn't so accurate.

2009-10-26T20:32:00.005-04:00

Well, I've finally discovered the solution to sibling rivalry. Only the word rivalry is too NICE. It's more like sibling bickering over absolutely nothing until mother goes downstairs and raids the wine box. For a while I was trying to interrupt their arguments and give them something even more absurd to argue about, but they can go at it just as easily when the topic is whose shorts are shorter and what color the sky is at night.

So today the youngest was in my bed, reading a book, when I yelled "time for bed."
"Not yet, Mom. I have ten more minutes," she demanded.
"By the time I get you in there and you're done the whole bedtime routine, IT WILL be bedtime," I said.
Then I did a fifteen minute skit playing myself, her, and the sister she shares a room with, mockingly showing her what bedtime looks like in my house. Nothing at all like the Walton's Goodnight JohnBoy, Goodnight Grandpa.

No, this was more like:

Me: Goodnight Gina.
Gina: But Mom, I just thought of something. Then I forgot. No, don't leave. It was important . . . while gripping my hand.
Mom, I feel like something is watching me all the time. Do you believe in ghosts? Why are some people bad? What happens to stars when they die? One hundred and fourteen days ago someone took my hair tie and I can't find it. Emily took it!
Me: It's late Gina, go to sleep.
But Emily took it! I hate her. She's a retard!
Emily from the bottom bunk (in a squeaky high voice): I'm not a retard. Mom, punish her. Why don't you ever punish her? She hit me forty-two times today and you didn't do anything. I swear I'm going to hit her if she says one more word.
Me: No, you're not. Go to sleep. You can fight tomorrow.
Gina: But I had a really bad day at school. What are they going to do at the Doctor's tomorrow? Hmmmmmmmhmmmmhmmmm
Emily: Mom, she's humming. Make her STOP.
Gina: Hmmmmmmhmmmhmmmm, I am not humming. You retard. You never should have been born.
Emily: I am not a retard. You're an IDIOT. I'm going to hit you.
Gina: Mom, mom . . . she's calling me names. I'm uncomfortable. Can I switch pillows with you? I know this was yours. I want mine back. Fill up my water bottle. No, don't go. I remember what that was I wanted to tell you. No, wait. I forgot again. Will you come check on me in fifteen minutes?
Emily: Wasn't it easier with just two children?

I thought this was a pretty accurate representation of what goes on in their room when I shut out the light and say goodnight. Especially when I walked in there with Gina to really say goodnight, after she laughed hysterically at my version, and the first thing Emily said was "Mom, I hate you. Now go heat up my rice bag, turn the fan on low, and tell that little idiot to shut up."

We're not the Waltons. That's for sure.

My Life of Entropy: Broken by a LUMP of Peanut Butter

2009-10-26T10:50:00.003-04:00

I am doing the same chores over and over and over. I move things downstairs that end up upstairs: shoes, recyclable containers of shampoo, dishes. And then I take things upstairs that end up downstairs: clothes, pillows, books. I pick crayons up off the desk and put them back in a big can, knowing they'll just get dumped out again. I carry things to and from different rooms no matter how many times they sneak back. Every week I hang the same twenty pairs of shoes on the back of the hall door, sweep the same dirt and leaves out the door that just come in with the next herd of children, put the same games back in their cases, and vacuum the same crumbs that sneak back out of my vacuum to reappear one morning when they get up before me. I do the same laundry that will just reappear in a pile on the bathroom floor the next morning. I wash the same dishes that will end up under the couch cushions. I spend at least 2 hours a day "cleaning" the same things I cleaned the day before and that I'll clean tomorrow.
It would seem to me that I'm fighting against some universal rule. That everything in my home tries to become disorganized and that I am expending a lot of energy trying to keep it at a level that it does not naturally like.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in a closed system (my house) everything runs from hot to cold (from organized to disorganized). This says it all (from a University of Idaho paper on entropy): An ordered entity requires a quantity of energy to create and maintain itself as an entity. Once it reaches an ordered state, it will, without further infusions of energy, gradually become disordered.
This should also, however, include a clause about the energy infusion going on strike and the DIRE results of pissing it off and causing it to resign itself to watching the disorganization to occur unchecked. Who am I to fight against the natural state of things? For example, I am sure that that tablespoon sized lump of peanut butter belongs on the floor beside the trash can.

Formal Dressup Day at the High School?

2009-10-24T16:34:00.002-04:00

Dress up day is hard enough. Twice now on early Monday mornings she has called me because she forgot to dress up and she needs clothes. Now she's being told that Formal Dressup means she has to wear a GOWN. Not a dress, a GOWN.

Yes, my closet is full of GOWNS. I wear them to many events: Balls, the Opera, and around the house cleaning. I wear them to therapy appointments, the dentist, and in my mom-taxi. I wear them when I take the trash out to the dumpster and while carrying in a fresh box of wine. I wear them to the bus stop to do my happy dance when the kids leave for school. I have a closet full of GOWNS.

So while I'm thinking about my gown collection, she's on my cellphone talking to a friend and I hear "I have a black dress that's kind of like my mom's hooker dress only without the sequins."

Sigh.

A good daughter

2009-10-23T09:51:00.002-04:00

A good daughter will post random bloggy things while your setting up appointments for her :)
I have to sneeze.
A CHOOOOOOO
I cant spell Monket
Monkey
I GOT IT RIGHT.
Gof is scary, very scary.
I dont know what to write, you still havent asked me what i am typing... Oh never mind you caught me and told me not to publish anything.
IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I DIDNT MEAAANNN TO HIT THE PUBLISH BUTTON

~Haley~

I'm a WINER!

2009-10-20T14:59:00.003-04:00

I thought I'd written a blog at some point about me being a winer, but I looked back and I can't find it anywhere. I probably wrote it in my own head one night while dreaming about Johnny Depp and thought I really had. You know how realistic my Johnny Depp dreams are!
So today I received this (censored) email from the ex husband. He really should know better than to send me things he wants to keep private, including finally telling me I win!

Subject: Wining

Stop posting things about our divorce etc. on Facebook. This thing about the 2 checks that allegedly bounced. And you cant believe that ppl who bounce checks to the govt. aren't put in Jail. That was over a year ago and it was The Tavern. And you still got paid. This only makes you look like a winer, at least that is what the ppl who contacted me said.

Until I opened it I thought maybe I'd finally won something! Of course, after reading it I came back down to Earth and remembered that I have an ex who bounced child support checks, can't keep a job, and tries to tell me what to do because he'd rather keep it a secret that he's a deadbeat and he wants me to help him keep that secret too because it's embarrassing for me to tell people that he's such a deadbeat. But what he doesn't get is that I DON'T CARE.

Oh, I'm sorry, I look like a winer. Which must be a winner or someone who drinks wine OR BOTH, because that would make a whole lot more sense than me caring about whether the world knows he's $20,000 or more behind in child support. Shhhhhh, I'm supposed to keep that a SECRET.
I'd better get on with the wine part of wining, cause I'm a bit pissed off that he would tell me what to post on my Facebook page. Oh yes, he thinks he's ENTITLED to privacy about his abuse, but I'll tell you the huge secret men like him don't want to share with the world. Telling people about it is the only way to make it end! Now where's my wine. I've got to start wining.
And what is he doing anywhere near my Facebook page anyway? And who are these people? Oh yeah, that's right! He's always got these imaginary witnesses to back him up, like his little mafia. Only I've never seen them. But hey, if they think I'm a winer too, well I kinda like them!

Some happy thoughts to erase the image of NickAngel

2009-10-20T09:29:00.003-04:00

I feel like I owe my audience some pleasant thoughts to make up for my last post. That's the problem with being a zebra. I can use my powers for good or evil and some days evil is just more fun. So here are some pleasant things to think about:

Rainbows
Butterflies
Unicorns
Fairy Sparkles
Finding your true love

Ah, hell, where's the fun in that? Let's talk about how I always look like I'm dressed for a funeral when I go to work and how despite my desire to become a vampire, I've decided it wouldn't work now that I'm middle-aged because I would FOREVER be stuck with these boobs. Let's talk about that!

What is Gof anyway?

2009-10-19T11:54:00.003-04:00

Gof first contacted us, and by us I mean me and the one other follower that I know of so far, through gchat. Contact was in the form of what would otherwise be seen as typos, but gained importance as Gof's true nature became apparent through the following clues, which alone are meaningless but when looked at from a distance through scratched lenses, paint a picture of the next great religion.

No one can truly know Gof because Nglish is too hard to follow.

Followers of Gof can be found cracking themselves up alone in their offices.

For everything there is an opposite equal, so in this case gmail is the anti-gof.

If you think you are Gof, you're not. You're just schizophrenic.

And this is the ultimate proof of Gof, a picture taken of one of the Angels of Gof:

That horrified, disgusted, and strangely amused feeling you have right now is actually bliss. You just haven't been truly happy in so long you get the feeling confused with wanting to vomit. It's so awful that it's kindof awesome. Just like Gof. Follow the bliss!

The Theorems of Pathetics

2009-10-19T07:49:00.012-04:00

We've all been taught that assertiveness is the key to getting anything, getting the job, getting the girl (or boy), getting the A, or just plain old getting ahead. But the theory of relativity teaches us that there is an opposite and equal reaction and we all know that correlation does equal causation when arguing with a mother of teenagers, so I offer to you the Theorems of Pathetics (like callisthenics without the exercise). Pathetics offers you the opportunity to use the opposite of assertiveness to get what you want without all the effort to be direct and firm.
Those of us who struggle with assertiveness need to stop trying so hard to say what we want, and instead embrace our pathetic spirit and make it work FOR US.

Thus the Theorems of Pathetics was created.

1. When given an opportunity to succeed first whine for 15 minutes to lower expectations.
2. Make it look like you're doing the WORLD a FAVOR just by continuing to breathe.
3. When asked to defend your position, pretend to be on the edge of a major breakdown so that if people don't take your side then your three year stay in a psych ward is their fault.
4. Agree with them that it is all your fault. Everything. Its all you. And since it can't be 100% anyone's fault they will most definitely assure you that they are partially to blame.
5. Always have a disheveled appearance, that way everyone knows how busy and overwhelmed you are, but that you will STILL help them. Even if it obviously will push you over the edge.
6. Whatever you do, don't allow sunlight to touch your skin so that you always look like you haven't slept in days. Accentuate the dark circles. And acne.
7. Carry Rescue Remedy in your purse. Offer it to people, then use it yourself. Often.
8. However, the Golden Rule of Pathetics is that you must never TALK about how hard your life is because then you just look like a whiner and no one wants to hear it. Pathetics is all about giving the image that your life is extremely difficult, but never sharing the details because no matter what they are you just appear annoying.
9. Spend some time at the Humane Society and mimic the body language of abused dogs. Almost anyone will treat you really well if you cower.
10. Never do anything productive if no one is watching. Save it up in piles. Sigh alot. Look overwhelmed. Never complain. People love to help. It makes THEM feel better to make YOU feel better.

Pathetics are the road to a new life, a creed by which to travel the highway to Gof. I don't really know what Gof is, but I do know that it's so indescribbleable that it must be good.

Breaking Up Isn't Simple Anymore

2009-10-17T22:44:00.002-04:00

It used to be so simple. Boy meets Girl, falls in love, does something stupid, and the Girl's parents make them break up. A few tears.

Now it's much longer because of the whole internet, facebook, texting, voicemail crap that connects us all even when we don't want to be connected.

Boy meets Girl, Boy and Girl do stupid things that are spread all over Facebook, Girl's mom wants them to breakup so Boy's mom tries to tell her that it won't work, then Girl's therapist breaks up with him for her, then Girl's mom breaks them up on Facebook, but Boy passes notes to Girl and Girl passes notes to boy, and Boy keeps calling Girl's house, and Girl steals Mom's cellphone and texts Boy, and Boy's mom tells Girl's mom she's a bad parent for keeping them apart although it's none of her business, so Boy's friends tell Girl's sisters that they are still together although it gets Girl in trouble every time because it's all over Facebook, and Girl's mom asks Boy's mom to tell him not to call anymore, but he still does and so does she, and then they read her entire blog, and Girl's mom blocks them on both her phones and Girl's Facebook account, but apparently this is still confusing to someone, but not to me.

I miss the simple days of a few tears.

Honestly, I have been trying to figure out how I attract these people and I think Abrah is right when she says "you KNOW when people are acting like psychos." Between the ex husband, the screwballs there are to date around here, and some of my family, my psycho meter is very well-tuned. In other words I have excellent boundaries from years of practice and I call other people on their lack of good boundaries.

Up next: The ten theorems of Pathetics, the Path to finding Gof. And other great typos.

Halloween is not for PORN

2009-10-16T12:33:00.004-04:00

I'm off work today! Can you tell? For the first day in forever all I have to do is write a letter and make a couple of phone calls and be a traitor. That's a day off!

My oldest daughter wants to have a Halloween movie night with her friends. Her choice of movies: The Unborn and Last House on the Left.

I don't want to be here when they're watching these movies. I don't even want to think about anything Unborn. Or something crawling down a hall with its head on backwards. Ick. And how am I supposed to watch her and her friends if they're watching this movie and I've got gum in my ears and a paper bag over my head? She has 4 boys and 1 girl on her list of friends. One boy being the boyfriend she really hasn't broken up with anyway. Hmmmm. No.

So I suggested renting sappy love movies. The theory being that if I start far to the left the compromise ends up in the middle. "Love movies are for Valentine's Day," she told me. I thought Valentine's Day was for uncomfortable dinner dates with people I should have dumped back on Election Day. One of the other girls yelled out "How about some porn then?" And then all three giggled and said "Mother's Day is for Porn!"

Children never forget anything you want them to, and they only remember anything important long enough to repeat it back to you and run out the door.

Benedict Me

2009-10-16T11:22:00.003-04:00

I am a traitor.

How come it seems to always work out that the right thing feels so terrible and heart-wrenching? Shouldn't the right thing be easy and floofy, and thank you kindly when you're done.

My oldest daughter is not going to thank me today when she gets home from school. I'm going to throw her weekend bag in my car, have a huge fight with her that'll end with her threatening to leave, and drop her off at the one place she might dread more than her father's. Ouch.

It's nice to have other people freely offer their services as the bad parent. But it's so hard for the good parent (me) to do something she'll never forgive me for. If I could send myself for the weekend I would. I would LOVE it there.

Instead I'm going to spend the evening house-sitting at Dad's with a bottle of whisky and my arthritic dog and my blind cat, and a golden retriever I have to carry up and down the stairs. I'll fit right in!

And when Haley comes back hopefully I'll be able to whistle and she'll come right over so that I can throw a saddle on her.

I cannot take her to Wyoming with me while she's being all defiant. She blames her attitude on how hard teenagers have it now. I can't say I blame her. Every other generation of teenagers had it so easy, so much respect and freedom and opportunity. I feel sorry for all her friends with their cell-phones and their playstations and 175 channels to choose from every night.

I think the feeling of being a traitor just passed and now I'm pretty pissed off that she looks at me and says "what are you going to do about it?"

Now I'd love a live web cam at Kath's. I owe that woman alot.

My Food Pie Graph for Today

2009-10-13T21:46:00.004-04:00

I want to share this because of the utter patheticness of my eating habits. I ate well all day, yogurt, salad, an apple, a chicken sausage. And then I completely screwed it all up because I was so stressed out from the stomach cramping caused by HUNGER that I drank two glasses of wine and completely killed all the great healthyness I'd done to myself!
I mean, look at that big black triangle. That's my wine consumption compared to the other things I ate. Holy Shit! It's huge! And BLACK. And glaringly BLACK. 17.4% BLACK because I drank 10 ounces of wine. I just don't know anymore (shaking head sadly). What's there to live for?

My Father's Fascination with Old Age

2009-10-13T18:52:00.003-04:00

My father called me this morning at 7:30 to tell me how old my Great Uncle Roy is getting which included a long story of how Great Uncle Roy has trouble walking 10 times around his kitchen like he's supposed to do for exercise every day. And how he shouldn't be driving anymore because he's gotten too dangerous.
Firstly, I'm completely jealous of Great Uncle Roy and his exercise regiment. I circle around my kitchen at least ten times every morning looking for something more entertaining than oatmeal to eat. And that's without lifting one foot, because my kitchen is too small to actually take a full step in any direction.
Secondly, I assume that this is the habit of people new to retirement. Calling me to tell me how old everyone is. How Jack the dog must have had a stroke and can't remember who he is. How Ollie the cat is blind and falls off things now, like the stairs. How Zoe the dog is lame in the morning. Dad seems to be giving aspirin to everyone.
When I visit he talks about people from work dying in accidents or distant relatives who are in their eighties and can't travel anymore.
The first thing he looks at in the paper are the obituaries. But not for people he knows. He looks at the ages everyone died and compares them to his age. If people are younger he seems to think he's overstayed his welcome and if they're older then he still has hope of another year or two.
Even as I walk away carrying the four loads of laundry that I just did at his house for free (because I firmly believe that if I ACT young I will stay young) he yells down the stairs that some 85 year old man just came down with Parkinson's.
As I spent my weekend comparing middle-ages ailments with my best friend, I suppose I shouldn't think myself too different from the gene pool I grew out of.

Halloween Candy House--the best Walmart Find Ever

2009-10-11T15:15:00.007-04:00

Yesterday morning I was in Walmart spending $130 on stuff I would never remember buying later, when I found the best thing in the Whole World!

Forget Christmas gingerbread houses. This was made for me! Purple frosting does stick things back together better than superglue! But it also stains everything it touches, the table cloth, the floor, Haley's elbow, the bathroom ceiling.

I don't have much else to say today. Except maybe that Abrah's visits come in 3 parts: the actual visit, the rush to upload pictures to Facebook while she's driving home, and the chatting on gmail about the pictures later. Right now she's on her way home, so I am posting as much as possible so that when she gets there she can walk into her place, say a brief hello to Bill, and then spend the rest of the evening sitting in front of her laptop giggling about our eerie trip through the cemetary at night, the Halloween Candy House Massacre, and the disastrous trip to the Fallen Rock sign.

Handicapped Drunken Pirates

2009-10-08T17:27:00.005-04:00

So this article was on MSN today about the 5 SUSPECTED pirates who somehow accidentally thought this hugeass refueling ship was a commercial boat filled with gold bullion. Maybe it's just me and my adoration of Captain Jack, but you'd have to be really drunk to think a big refueling ship was a happy little trade vessel.
The 5 SUSPECTED pirates in their tiny little row boat, along with another pirate laden skiff, shot their little pop-gun rifles at the GIGANTIC refueling ship. Which means they must have been really really drunk. I mean, what are the bullets going to do, bounce off?
And the absolute worst part of the whole deal? They weren't just 5 drunken SUSPECTED pirates in a row boat. They were 5 armless drunken SUSPECTED pirates in a row boat who just realized that they accidentally shot the WRONG people. This is what the article said: "There were five suspected pirates on board. No arms, no water, no food,"
Poor pathetic drunken mistaken pirates. After looking at the picture of the HEROIC capture of these powerful villainous handicapped pirates I just want to adopt one.

How to Not Have A Complete Mental Breakdown

2009-10-06T19:23:00.006-04:00

Even though at times I appear to be losing my sanity and putting it here for all the world and my friends to see, it's actually the other way around. I use this space to KEEP my sanity. And here's how:

That whole bullshit saying "Fake it till you make it" is bullshit, just as much as this sentence is circular reasoning. Pretending to be happy until you are can be a dangerous thing. Now if you're just pretending in certain situations throughout your day, but you vent to your next door neighbor who just happened to be walking by as you were crying on your front lawn--then maybe it's okay. If you want to smile at work so no one really knows you're hearing voices--then maybe it's okay. There is a certain time and place for putting on a professional face. Like if your mother drops by unexpectedly and you REALLY don't want to share with her why you're still in your pajamas and bunny slippers at one in the afternoon, cause she'll just tell you that you're depressed and that you take after her. That will only depress you more so it's perfectly understandable that you pleasantly say hello, take the muffins, and close the door-with her on the outside.
HOWEVER, if you pretend all the time and have no outlet for all the anger, anxiety, pain, frustration, guilt, and confusion-- and you get up in the morning pretending and you go to school or work pretending and you go home and pretend to family and friends and your doctor and your counselor--this is a problem.
The vast difference between the way you want things to be, wishing so badly that everything is fine and that nothing is wrong AND what your intuition is telling you about the situation and the way you feel--this is where one day soon you're going to lose your grip in a big bad way. If you push all those doubts right down inside and try so hard to pretend that you are perfectly happy then they are going to continue to grow and you're going to have to work harder and harder to push back and pretty soon the incongruence between what you feel and what you pretend will cause a HUGE SNAP.
So the best way to be is just to be REAL. To not try to pretend. And to accept the small tragedies for what they are, normal parts of the human condition. And share with others, as I do here. So that we can all laugh together. So if I'm talking to a Peruvian Onion and I tell you about it, then I'm really okay. Right?

Peruvian Onions and Sanity go Together

2009-10-06T12:02:00.007-04:00

I have two things to say today and one is about Peruvian Onions and the other is about Sanity.

Let's take the easy one first. I bought a sweet onion and I was peeling it for lunch (No, not like I was gonna take a sweet onion to work and just gnaw on it!) and it is already moldy on the inside and I just bought it last night at the local grocery store. And I just happened to look at the sticker on it and it's from Peru. Is this the closest place on earth that makes onions? How long did it take this onion to get here? What kind of hardship did this onion go through before it arrived all moldy on my doorstep?
Maybe it took a trip like Dave on the Early Show's No Way Home, except I'll bet my onion didn't have 50 bucks and a Blackberry. I think it's cheating to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere and have 50 bucks and a way to connect to the internet! I think he should be dropped off with no money, a six-day beard and in his blue striped pajamas, like the rest of us were in the nineties or was that a flashback from the sixties in my head? Except I didn't have a beard, cause I'm a girl. No offense to all the girls with facial hair of course (just to cover my ass incase my pagan friend Pink also sports a soul patch). Laugh girl!!!
You shouldn't be able to connect with people on twitter who want to pick you up for their 15 minutes of fame. Instead you should have to beg and plead total strangers on the road who have never even heard of you. You should have to ride with large creepy men who ask you for a kiss before they let you out of the car. You should sleep on the floor of bus stations without a pillow. You should be thankful just to wash your face with soap once a day.
But I was talking about this ONION of mine. Don't they grow onions somewhere closer than Peru? What ever happened to onions from Washington state? The poor thing has been on quite a trip.
Can you see how bored I am, spending a couple of days a week at home alone. Worrying about the trials of being an onion?
Sorry, I'm not sane enough right now to talk about Sanity, which was the other thing this post was supposed to be about. I was going to talk about signs that you might be on the verge of a psychic break, and I don't mean lottery numbers appear in your head. There are signs that a person is going to crack completely. And I swear this has nothing to do with Peruvian Onions. But it might have something to do with the Early Show, which I swear I don't watch. I just don't like to feel all alone in the morning and it's nice to have someone talking to me who doesn't live in my head.

2009-10-05T12:37:00.005-04:00

If there was a god, gods, or something out there forever playing jokes on me I would say to her:

Stop Giving me Signs!

because obviously this all-powerful, all-knowing thing would be reading my blog to know exactly how to make me crazy and then setting it up so that the sound of bagpipes is coming from cemetary hill as I take a walk along the street. Bagpipes alone don't mean much to me (except some painful flashback of someone playing them in a closed middle school gym and having to hold my hands over my ears), but they seemed to imply that some significant moment was about to occur. Which I was unprepared for in my sweatpants, sweatshirt, and dirty old sneakers. However, I was carrying my cellphone in my hand in case some really important phone call came in, like Haley calling from the school to tell me that her shoes finally fell apart and that NONE of the twelve other pairs in the closet fit her anymore.
Anyway, so I left my usual comfortable place in my head and looked around me to see what that significant thing might be and there was another Wyoming license plate on a big truck in the driveway I was passing in front of.
That makes 2 in 2 days. I discovered the other while taking the trash out yesterday morning. It was attached to a tan midsize car in the visitor parking lot next to the dumpster and although it had the number 22 on it, which is not Cody, I looked around thinking maybe Nick was lurking somewhere and about to jump out at me. Although why he would drive 2600 miles just to lurk, I don't know.
Just so you don't think I'm crazy, there have been other signs as well, of this huge life-changing time coming at me. Old friends from out there finding me on Facebook, the National Geographic article on Yellowstone, my sudden urgent desire to poke Nick hard enough so that he'd talk to me, and the new bathtub that I HATE that's not big enough to be a bathtub for a normal human-sized person.

Enough signs already!

On second thought, keep sending them my way. I need to keep thinking that I'm not going to live in the ghetto forever, all alone, and drinking wine.

Which leads me to my other thought today: Wouldn't God (if there is one) be on Facebook? It's just such a great way to keeps tabs on everything that I can't imagine she wouldn't be. Has anyone found her yet?

Have I talked about Virtual Villagers before?

2009-10-04T21:20:00.006-04:00

There's this really stupid downloadable game called Virtual Villagers and I guess we have the 3rd one.
My youngest wanted me to buy it for her and she and I worked on it until we got to the end. There were some things I was a little iffy on, but she seemed to enjoy it.

NOW THE PROBLEM: Haley has rediscovered the game on this computer because she is so bored by not having any life at all. And those things that I ignored for Gina are SO OBVIOUS for Haley.

Like the sounds the characters make when you pick them up. OOH, AAH. It's like an Herbal Essence commercial and not in a good clean way!

And I pointed out that she could name her characters and it would be funny to name them what they are. So then she named one "Retard" and one "Whore" which wasn't quite what I meant. But "Retard" keeps running away from the tasks he's supposed to learn. And "Whore" keeps ignoring her duties and running off to breed.

Somehow I find it amusing that Haley spends her time virtually chasing after these people and saying things that sound a little like what I keep saying to her.
"Get back to work!"
"Why don't you learn after I tell you twenty times?"
"Kissing again and again makes you want to breed more."

Okay, not that last one. Not quite like that. But why have a game in which one of the skills you have to teach them is how to embrace each other and head off to the Love Shack to have babies?

Haley was mad when her doctor got pregnant. Well, not really pregnant. They go into the Shack and come out with a baby that they breast feed for two years (Two years!) and during this time they can't work for the village at all.

And I'm all like "SEE, Haley! That's what I'm talking about."
And she ignores me.

She should pay more attention to the game. Then she'll understand why she is to have NO CONTACT with any boys until she's 35.

New Age Parenting Has Created Teenage Idiocy

2009-10-02T10:31:00.006-04:00

Teenagers are entirely different in this generation. I know every . . . ahem . . . older generation says that. But I really think a major shift has occured after the new-agey bullshit crap of the nineties. We were told to never yell, never spank, never take control and instead just have conversations with our children and let them make their own choices and learn from the "natural consequences" of their actions. If your kids hate you, then you're a BAD PARENT. Be their friend or they won't come back for Christmas when they're older.

So we have created our own NATURAL CONSEQUENCE which can be seen everyday in small interactions with the new set of fledgling teenagers.

For example:

A barely 13 year old boy thinks he can debate with me about whether or not he should be allowed to date my daughter. Which he's not. In my generation, no child would have ever imagined calling, texting, or emailing an adult to argue anything EVER!

Part of me wants to give him my reasons for not allowing continued communication with my daughter, but I find that debating with a 13 year old little boy to be, well, RIDICULOUS. At 13 he does not have the capacity or ability or language or life experience to understand what I would have to say, even IF I cared to tell him. It seems that children now think they are equals to us and have the right to share their opinions. Humph. His opinion seems to be that It's Not Fair!

Maybe I'm just not SCARY enough. I have yelled at him in front of a crowd of teenagers at the movie theater. I have thrown my daughter into my car when I find her walking down the road with him. I have given him the STINK EYE. I have talked about placentas and played country music in my car. How much scarier can I get? In my day (here I am sounding old again) adults were scary because they were ADULTS. That's all it took for them to maintain authority. There's no authority now.

And no grasp of the English language either.

All of this texting and email and chatting online is turning proper English into some kind of shorthand gibberish that everyone makes up differently. Did the tower of Babel story in the Old Testament say anything about computers or cellphones? Fledgling teenagers in middleschool have gone past the boundaries of anything decipherable and are now making up words.

For Example:

"do you think im a pesation or somthing cus every time she gets in troble you take me away and thats not fair to me cus i didnt do anything."

Now seeing as I spend some time on the internet and I can now text fairly well without spelling errors that turn boxes into boxers when I'm sending a text to my daughter's therapist, I can decode most of that sentence into something that makes sense, EXCEPT for the word PESATION.
Is it short for Compensation?
Is he a Superstar Sensation? With an ego so big that he dares email me?
Does it have to do with PEZ, as he's 13 and should be into PEZ right now?
Pest?
Truthfully, I appreciate that he's given me this new word to play with. I LOVE new words.

But if you're going to try to argue with an adult by hiding behind an email, cause you know that if you try to argue to my face I will SMACK YOU DOWN like the little punk you are, then at least show me that you're smart enough to not be a pesation.

It's not his fault really. It's the fault of parents who give a kid a cell phone without teaching them social rules. It's the fault of a parent who will tell another parent that they don't understand how not letting the kids keep seeing each other is going to help the situation. It's the fault of a parent who says things like "If we don't let them see each other they are only going to do something worse."

Sounds like you're a hostage to your teenager, and not a parent.

Which would be why your son thinks he can argue with me. To take me hostage as well.

Perhaps pesation means CHILD. I think he's a child and that's why he has to follow my rules concerning my daughter or not be allowed to speak with her.

Imagine that!

I can hear all those NEW AGE people coming after me with their robes flying and their crystals and their electronic music playing the Age of Aquarius.

I'm just going to yell out "Pesation" and shut the door now.

Apparently I'm in Adrenal Failure

2009-09-29T09:03:00.004-04:00

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!

How to Clean a Teenager's Closet

2009-09-28T08:06:00.006-04:00

Rules of Toss IT or Keep IT

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.
If it's a picture of you that she drew when she was 4 and you go "awwwww," Keep IT.
If it's a pile of 25 notes from a boy three boyfriends back, Toss IT.
If it's a school picture of someone she can't identify in 5 seconds, Toss IT.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
All batteries can go. Who saves dead batteries? For that matter, who saves unidentifiable plastic pieces, bread crusts, and soda cans?
Don't give her TOO MUCH shit because you KNOW what's lurking in your own closet.
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.
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.
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.
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!

My Winter of Discontent

2009-09-27T20:42:00.005-04:00

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.

Reasons I shouldn't OWN a CELLPHONE

2009-09-25T15:00:00.003-04:00

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.

2009-09-25T12:14:00.004-04:00

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.

God Would Love Wine

2009-09-22T15:34:00.003-04:00

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.

2009-09-22T12:31:00.006-04:00

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.

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

2009-09-21T09:24:00.004-04:00

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!

Teenage Girls are Fledgling Vampires

2009-09-20T08:23:00.003-04:00

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.

Teenage Girls and the Terrible Twos

2009-09-19T17:11:00.007-04:00

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.

2009-09-19T09:28:00.002-04:00

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!!!

ox wine kils brayne cells ded

2009-09-17T16:30:00.007-04:00

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!

Signs that You Are Mature Enough to Have a Threesome

2009-09-16T08:54:00.007-04:00

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.

Help! My brain is Imploding: Sanity vs. Love

2009-09-15T20:34:00.004-04:00

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.

The Worth of Brothers

2009-09-14T18:54:00.005-04:00

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.

2009-09-14T10:19:00.004-04:00

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?

My Over-Developed Skill of Blocking Things Out

2009-09-12T19:38:00.005-04:00

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.

What Every Mother Wants

2009-09-09T21:16:00.004-04:00

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.

An Ironic Day in the Ghetto

2009-09-08T10:59:00.004-04:00

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.

The Traveling Pants Continued

2009-09-06T22:33:00.008-04:00

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

2009-09-06T18:04:00.008-04:00

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.

I Was Dating a Borderline--a serious post

2009-09-05T21:30:00.007-04:00

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.

Dumbassedness is the Word of the Day

2009-09-03T13:48:00.007-04:00

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!

Wine Dispensing Drive Through and don't tell anyone but I bought a BOX...shhhhhhh

2009-08-31T17:34:00.007-04:00

After 15 days of self-imposed sobriety due to the recent economic downturn and future high costs of putting braces on teenage girls without help from the ex, and fixing my car which is now loud enough to rumble instead of hum, I have given up and become one of the wine box drinking hoard. Hoard is a word that means angry crowd of wine drinkers who storm a liquor store because they've recently decided to not stop drinking after all and they aren't very happy about drinking cheap wine.
These are the people who take the wine bag out of the box and blow it up like a balloon in order to inhale the last few drops.
These are the people who always have a splattering of wine on the kitchen floor, directly under the counter where the wine box always goes. They'll say it's part of the tile pattern, but it's really from that last drop after they've taken a glass.
These are the people who never need a bag at the liquor store, who avoid direct sunlight, and who are usually toasty by two in the afternoon because when they open the fridge to look for orange juice and the wine box is sitting there, it's difficult to look away.
But my sobriety was making me bitter and unfunny and not a very good mom. And I was eating a lot of sugar to try to get that same high, but it never worked out.
So then I decided that wine was necessary for my health, because without it I'm a rambling anxious mess and I don't sleep more than a couple of hours, and it's noisy in my head. So I took my insurance card down to the liquor store because it's cheaper for the insurance people to pay for wine instead of a nice prozac/lorazepam/sleeping medicine mixture. I'm sure they would agree and would actually APPRECIATE that I was trying to save them money. So I decided not to tell them and instead surprise them with the idea later.
I swiped my card through the credit machine, while grinning madly at the cashier in an effort to distract her. I don't want other people to copy me because I'm sure that the BUSH people are still out there and would try to stop the typical American Family from buying a box of wine because that money is needed to bomb other people on the other side of the world who don't agree with the BUSH World Domination plan.
It DIDN'T work! DECLINED. Sigh.
I guess I'll call the insurance company tomorrow or maybe write to them. They might take a professional looking letter much more seriously.
So I drove to the ATM to get $20 out and thought that it would be a great idea to put a wine machine next to the ATM in order to save me the time and gas money to run all over town for wine. A wine dispensing unit that would refill my empty bottles while I was sitting in my car!!! Or at least a vending machine that I could drive up to right after I take money I don't really have out at the ATM!!!! With all the time I would be saving, I could do something more productive. Like BLOG. Or spend time with my kids. Or get a second job so that I can pay more taxes! I know this idea will be found by someone IMPORTANT who loves wine as much as I do and they'll send me money for it!

Avoiding Hannah Montana

2009-08-30T08:36:00.008-04:00

I was in Payless yesterday looking for sneakers that didn't have Hannah Montana's face on the side, or were pink, or were "MOM" shoes, whatever THAT means. It was an impossible mission as Hannah Montana has taken over the World, the only color all the OTHER girls wear is PINK, and anything else is more than ugly which somehow equates to being MOM-LIKE.
Then in the shoe-store-silence, a muffled ringing sound. I looked at Gina. She looked at me. The cashier looked at me. And then I realized that I'd accidently left my new cell phone in my bag after the Fair. This new cell phone experience is overwhelming. I like to be UNAVAILABLE. I like for people to think that I'm doing something so super important that I can't talk to them right now. I like to hide when my child visits the school nurse for the 20th time this week and it's easier for the school to call me and ask me what to do about the paper cut on their tongue.
I answered it ONLY because everyone was looking at me.
Haley's voice sounded far away, another cell phone feature I hate.

"Mom, can I jump off the footbridge on my way home?" she asked.

"Aren't you wearing your green plaid pajama pants?" She'd already lost one pair of pants in the river this week. That I had to stick my hand inside of to turn right side out before washing them. The thought of it makes me cringe.

"Yes," she said.

"Then no, you can't jump in the river," I said and hung up.

Now, was that conversation important enough to call me when I really just want to hide out in the mall and avoid Hannah Montana? That's difficult enough without being distracted by the ringing in my bag.
And would Haley have jumped off a bridge if she hadn't been able to reach me?

Probably.

Was it Worth $100 to go to the County Fair?

2009-08-28T20:23:00.002-04:00

Here's what I got for my money:

2 Jumbo bags of Cotton Candy
A short ride on the Merry-Go-Round with 10 noisy teenagers who got in trouble for facing the WRONG WAY (nope, I don't know them).
Fifteen minutes on the Ferris Wheel which included at least 2 minutes of terror at the very top as the people under me laughed. They knew me.
A nice long talk with Haley's boyfriend who had Candy Apple dripping off his nose, while she stood in line for one of the rides without him.
The look on her face when she saw me talking to him.
Two dozen sneezes after visiting the chickens.
Being used as a towel three times by children with wet, sticky hands.
The guilt on the face of an old roommate who screwed me financially by running out on our lease. I love guilt.
This paper bracelet that says "Dreamland Amusement, Inc." that I won't take off until it falls off.
A stomach ache from all the cotton candy.
3 happy children

Kristi's Hypothetical Facebook Obituary

2009-08-27T12:28:00.002-04:00

Kristi will be sadly missed by her family and all her friends on Facebook, including people that she hadn't seen in twenty years, old boyfriends, and the occasional rock star. She led a long and active life that revolved around plowing her fields and begging for harvesting workers in Farmtown, committing random acts of crime with her gang in Mafia Wars, and posting stupid pictures of squidlike thread on her profile page. She was always getting old friends together and guilting them into friending each other, as well as making everyone feel welcome by leaving sarcastic comments anywhere she could. She was a great help in the community as well. Her efforts at curbing teen angst that had been left for future employers to see and her ability to spy on the underworld of the teen population through a puppet, made the world a safer, less bitter place. We will miss her profile picture and her little green dot, which she left on almost all the time so that none of her friends would feel alone. We hope that all her quiz results and her IQ score will remain up so that the world can always compare themselves to this great Facebook icon.
Donations will be accepted in her memory at The Recovery Center For Facebook Addicts.

My Calculator is Worth More Than My Car

2009-08-26T20:16:00.005-04:00

Today I HAD to buy my 14 year old a Texas Instrument Graphing Calculator for Advanced Algebra I.

But first I ranted for twenty minutes about how I had to graph on GRAPH PAPER with a PENCIL all the way up to Calculus III at U.V.M. and how all they are teaching kids these days is how to press buttons to get an answer, but never teaching them how to think through anything and how some day what if all the electronic shit we rely on dies for some reason and we have a graphing emergency and how she won't be able to survive because she won't know how to graph the old fashioned way.

Then I went to New Hampshire and bought it. I had no choice. My kid won't be able to graduate and land a job as a hair stylist if I don't spend as much money as her first semester at Cosmetology School on this calculator.

I spent an extra $10 on a warranty for 2 years because this is the same child who lost her pants in the river on her way home from school yesterday. She should be declared a disaster area. I should call FEMA right now and have them buy her the calculator. They would want her to be prepared for that graphing emergency.

So we get it home and I have her scratch her name into it and I put it in a briefcase that has a coded lock and handcuff it to myself because I'm going to follow her around all day to make sure my investment is safe and while I'm doing all this what does she do?

She uses the keys on the calculator to type me a message: "Hi MOM, What's Up In The Hood?"

$119 well spent, I do declare.

For some reason I can't stop swearing in my head.

My Wasted Moment of Brilliance For the Day

2009-08-26T07:14:00.007-04:00

They say the most important place in your house is the kitchen. In mine, it's the bathroom. This is where the kids yell for help when they're out of toilet paper, or yell for me to come see what one of their sisters did NOW, or yell for me to come see their poo in the shape of a pretzel. If I'm looking for something important it's probably in the bathroom. I even do my best thinking in there.
By now you know that I live in a house full of women and that means alot of PMS and alot of HAIR. With all the brushing, straightening, shaving and pulling I am amazed they have any left. I think most of it goes down the bathtub drain, or almost down the drain.
Last night the drain was clogged again. Happens all the time. I unscrewed the screw that holds the trap in place, patting myself on the back for doing such a manly chore. I took it out and said a few choice words as I tried to slide the slimey clot of hair and soap scum off the screw where it firmly attaches itself. Foolish thing--having a screw there. Hair just winds around it until it forms a nastyass hair ball that eventually hangs down to clog the pipe. I finally whittled the hairball off with my screwdriver. Gak.
But the water still wasn't going anywhere. I poured a bottle of Liquid Plumber in and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The Liquid Plumber went down just a little bit and I ran some hot water after it just like the instructions said to do.
Nothing was moving.
I imagined having to ask the maintenance guy to fix it and he'd be all "What didja put down there anyway?" And he'd probably find a popsicle stick or a Bratz shoe or a small child that I didn't know I had, like that time I took the VCR to the repair shop and it worked just fine after they took the TOOTHBRUSH out of it.
I imagined them having to tear out the bathtub to get to the giant hairball which had settled somewhere impossible to reach and not showering for days because I am not going to lower myself to walking next door to ask my mother to use her shower, which would be more proof that I'm a bad mother by letting my children lose so much hair down the drain and not being able to control THAT.
I gave up for the night and left 2 inches of water still sitting there. In the morning I'd find something else to pour down or come up with some other plan of attack.
So 5 a.m. arrived and so did my 15 seconds of brilliance for the day, wasted before the sun was even up. I sat up in bed and thought "Was the lever that closes the drain up or down?" I couldn't remember and I didn't know if that meant it was open or closed anyway.
I couldn't go back to sleep so I got up and went into the bathroom to find out. The lever was UP. All of the water was right there where I had left it. I pushed the lever down and the water drained quickly with a whooshing sound. I'd been trying to unplug a drain that was closed.
I wish someone had been there to share the moment. No, really. Someone who would have said "Don't worry. This happens to everyone."

How I First Met Harry the Spider

2009-08-25T19:28:00.007-04:00

I should take a minute to tell the story of Harry, the spider to show that we really aren't crazy.

I moved into the ghetto two years ago this October and found the first Harry in my upstairs bathroom sink. As we are not allowed pets in the ghetto, I was very excited to have something ALIVE living in my apartment. I named him Harry because it just felt right. I left him alone for weeks, as he grew from a tiny speck to a gangly teenager with a small body and thin, long legs.

One day I came home to find his place on the bathroom counter behind the toothbrush holder EMPTY.

"Harry," I screamed. "Where's Harry???"

Haley admitted to washing him down the sink drain because he had taken up residence under the faucet and she needed to brush her teeth.

I was forlorn, but soon discovered other small Harrys around the apartment, dropping out of the ceiling vent in the kitchen, hiding behind the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, living behind Haley's bed. They are all so cute, I hate to kill them. I let them go outside or wait until they get bigger and I just happen to have a vacuum in my hand and I'm having a bad day. They all grow up to look just like the first Harry.

And the kids always say "Harry's come back to life, Mom." And we cheer.

So it would then make perfect sense that Gina would come rushing downstairs and say "Harry is a ballerina and he's in the shower."

My conversation with gmail

2009-08-25T10:08:00.002-04:00

I was chatting with Abrah on gmail this morning and then SUDDENLY:

Abrah did not receive your chat.
Abrah did not receive your chat.
Abrah did not receive your chat.
me: ack
Abrah did not receive your chat.
Abrah did not receive your chat.
me: Stop not receiving my chat!
Abrah did not receive your chat.
Abrah did not receive your chat.
me: fuck you gmail
Abrah did not receive your chat.
Abrah: LMAOhahhahhahaahhahah
I'm currently receiving your chat
me: well you weren't

The Untimely Death of Harry the Ballerina

2009-08-25T09:54:00.003-04:00

Harry, the ballerina, was hanging out in the corner of the shower on his newly constructed web. He was a big spider, with long thin legs and a tiny pin head body. One leg pointed straight down while the other seven clutched the thin rope, as he twirled like a ballerina.

Gina discovered Harry the Ballerina as she got ready to take a shower and came running for me.

"Harry the ballerina is in the shower! Help!" she begged.

Now, I don't mind little baby spiders. I usually set them free outside or ignore them. But Harry was a full-sized spider and there was really no way to get him down without hurting him. As he lay crumpled in the tub, seconds before being washed down the drain, I felt sad while looking at his twisted legs. He pathetically tried to untangle them and run from the water that washed him away to ballerina heaven.

It was a shame to have to kill him, but I'm sure there are 50 more Harry's hiding in corners waiting to grow and become lovely ballerinas just like their mom.

Insanely Dumbass Things Men Have Said To Me

2009-08-24T12:52:00.009-04:00

that I want to write down before I forget them:

"You're 38 and desperate to settle down before you get much older."

(Actually, since I already have kids and have been married I am much less likely to ever want to settle down again unless it's with the absolutely right person.)

"If you're in a relationship with someone, then you should be an open book. If you don't answer every question then you're keeping secrets."

(After reading the most PERSONAL questions out of a book of 4000 questions to get to know anyone, and too easy to say if you're 28 and you've never DONE anything.)

"I'm an INDEPENDENT kind of person."

(As a reason for not returning my calls for two days, just after spending 9 straight days at my place because he didn't want to go home alone.)

"If we were to have children and then you died because you're so OLD, then I would be robbing the children of time with you."

(After one month of dating.)

"Your starting to sound in some ways like one of those parents that comes into the office to have their kid fixed because the kid is the identified patient and the kids problem has absolutely nothing to do with them. " (His spelling error, not mine)

(This was after I said something about Joe being the cause of Haley's problems, which the experts have agreed with, and some naive booksmart kid shouldn't ever say to me anyway.)

"I like YOU alot but I don't want to be with anyone with 3 kids."

(After a year and a half of dating.)

"Driving half an hour to see you after work is too hard. You have more energy than I do because you don't DO anything all day. "

(After he saw only 2 clients all day at work. You're right. I don't DO anything.)

"I'm perhaps a bit scared that you would treat me like shit if things didn't work out the way you wanted them too. I don't want to be run through the mud or bullied or treated badly. I know you have done that to some degree with Joe. So I see that explosive potential and that scares me."

(Huh? What? I think I called Joe an asshole over the phone only once in all this time and it was just last month. I am the complete opposite of explosive, which has it's own problems.)

"You're attached to me at the hip . . . you want more from this relationship than I do . . . You want to be together all the time."

(During the very conversation when I was gently breaking up with him.)

"So if you move to Wyoming can I come visit sometime and you can show me around?"

(I don't even know how to reply to that one and so haven't.)

I can write these things here because some people have no interest in reading anything I have to write. That ALONE should have warned me. I am what I write.

And I don't mind if people say dumbass things to me, as long as they stop and realize that they're dumbass and then apologize for being such a dumbass and we laugh about it and they bring me wine when I'm out.

P.S. When I started writing this I forgot the thing that was said that was so inane and inappropriate that I was stewing on it a bit because I can't get it out of my head, which is why I wanted to post all this, so that it's out of my head and I can leave it on this blog and go about my life without thinking about it. So here it is:

Him after two months of dating and lots of ambivalence: "Let's do a threesome."

I ignored it the first time.

Him a week later: "Let's do a threesome."

"Are you serious?" I just couldn't believe that someone would say this to me. I'm old, been there done stupid things, and I'm now a halfway (snort) respectable person in the community. And to be honest, I was just sitting there thinking about someone out there who is NOT ambivalent about me.

Him: If you're with someone and you care about them then you want to help them fulfill their fantasies.

Ambivalence and relationships

2009-08-23T14:09:00.007-04:00

When the kids were little I taught them to say "MUD" after I said "What does Mom hate most in all the world." It didn't stop them from wallowing in the irrigation ditches and tracking brown footprints through my kitchen. Hosing them down with the outside faucet did. But it was still nice to not lecture them EVERY TIME and nice to know that they remembered even if they still loved MUD way more than they loved MOM.
Now that they don't play in the mud so much (perhaps because it's way too common in this swamp I live in, in Northern Vermont) I'm going to change my MOTTO.
It now is : What do I hate most in all the world?

Ambivalence.

I can't stand ambivalence when it comes to most things. But it is the death knell for me in a relationship. This word was said to me in the last few relationships I attempted. Men would say they were AMBIVALENT about me and then want to hang out with me and go on trips and have lunch and play games and stay over.
If you've got cold feet and are feeling uncertain, or have both positive and negative feelings about me--go somewhere else and don't waste my time!!! Go be ambivalent about that tree over there or the sidewalk! Don't act like you need time to THINK things through or tell me that I look really good on paper and you don't know why you feel the way you do.
If you're trying to fit crazy old me on a piece of freaking paper, that's why this isn't going to work out in the first place!
You can't write a three page biography of Kristi and think that you understand me. I've been living with myself for, um years, and I get about 32% of the things I do. The awesomeness of me comes from being inexplicable. Like a supernatural miraculous happening.
If you're trying to look at the facts, you'll be missing out. And you're not the kind of person I need.
I need someone who looks at me and KNOWS me, without looking at all the details. Someone who can look past the degree and the kids and the exhusband and the past and just wants to be near me right now, to sit in the warmth of my PASSION. I am anything but ambivalent.
Ambivalence is just a good way to hide from having to do anything, a way to not have faith in the universe, a way to reap the benefits of Kristi without having to reciprocate feelings of any kind.
You're ambivalent because you can't keep up! It requires alot of attention and energy, integrity and faith, kindness and hope and humor--to keep up with me. I see ambivalence as a character flaw on your part. Something that shows up with my expectation that you must always be authentic and I'm going to call you on it if you're faking.
I would much rather have someone say to me "Kristi, I can't stand you. Your breath smells like monkey balls and if you look in the microwave for your coffee once more time I'm going to have you committed." At least that would be authentic.
I don't ever want to be ambivalent about anything. Every day since I ran from Joe is a gift I've given to myself and I don't want to waste another breath on someone who can't get off the fence long enough to have a clearly defined feeling about me.

For Everyone who wanted to dial 911

2009-08-22T19:33:00.003-04:00

as they saw me walking along the road tonight. I wasn't waving my arms around because I was schizophrenic and paranoid that alien motherships were trying to beam me up. I wasn't having numerous tics that included slapping my forehead, arms, and legs. I didn't swear like a tatooed trucker bitch from Michigan because I have Tourettes.
It was the herds of giant hovering mosquitoes that rose out of the swamp and were dancing around me with their frenzies black fly companions that caused the bizarre dance I was doing. I apologize if I scared your children or aging grandparents, or if your windows were rolled down and you heard my profane rants.
And when I got home after the swamp water evaporated into the sky and rained back down on me, and the black flies tried to find shelter in my damp and tangled hair my children looked at me and told me to take a shower. Sigh.

I Refuse To Be A Morning Person

2009-08-22T07:40:00.002-04:00

5:45 This Morning

I was awake, staring at the ceiling.

Why?

There is still a week of summer vacation. No one needs to get up yet. And I'm awake. I just KNOW that once school starts and all the alarm clocks start going off at various times: 5:00, 6:00, 6:45 --that I will groggily drag my old ass out of bed, wander through the morning with eyes half shut attempting to kick the girls out the door to school before crawling back to bed or the couch to get another hour of sleep. I will wake up in the late morning to realize that I haven't DONE ANYTHING with my day and by the time I'm done the normal chores of washing the dishes and picking up from the morning's tornado, I will discover that it is 3:00 and the bus is on it's way to drop them off and I'm still in my PAJAMAS. So I'll quickly get dressed and look like I've had a busy and exhausting day so that they'll think I was actually doing something.

Hungry. Am I hungry at 5:45 in the morning? How could I be hungry when I fed you steak and potatoes and corn and hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps last night? Late last night.

Everytime I wake up hungry at this hour my first thought is that I must be pregnant. All the rumblings and the gas bubbles moving around under my skin--like an alien has made its home in my pudge. What else could it be? I'm not going to feed you!

I can lay here in bed and try to go back to sleep, but the more I want it, the less likely it is ever going to happen. I may as well get up and try to look productive. Then I can take a nap before dinner. :)

Things I Discovered Today

2009-08-21T17:48:00.003-04:00

My middle child is smart enough to cut her mouth while sucking on a popsicle stick and she is thirteen.
I can turn OFF my new cell phone if I don't want any calls, which I will be doing ALOT.
I need to take out an insurance policy on Abrah, because if she dies in a bizarre accident or otherwise then this blog will have to end because I will be muse-less.
Abrah is kayaking to some island in New Hampshire tomorrow in thunderstorms and Hurricane Bill, with her boyfriend Bill, which is too ironic and worries me because if she was to die it would probably be while doing something ironic.
Waiting for word from literary agents is harrowing and requires lots of entertainment and wine.
I am amazed that I made it through the past 8 years. I was sorting through 2 huge boxes of court papers, throwing alot away that I don't need anymore, and working toward my final hearing to end this whole mess--and I will have to create a post about some of the things he did to me. How did I not go crazy? Or did I and I just don't know it yet? Maybe that's what makes me soooooo special.
Sometimes I talk about my laptop as if it is me. I believe it is more me than this pudge that appears to have attached itself to my middle. I should have a laptop attached there instead, something I can pull out and fold open so that I don't have to lean over the kitchen table anymore.
I would fit into the dry hold on a kayak if given enough incentive.
Degradation is a really good word to use instead of poverty. I look up to the degradation line! Someday I look forward to living in degradation. If I could just reach degradation I would be perfectly content.
4 teenagers = 1045 times the noise.

Was I a Cougar or is he Just Learning Wrong?

2009-08-19T07:48:00.006-04:00

I went to a family BBQ last night and picked up a new boyfriend. He's a bit young. It was an accident.

The one problem with these parties is that no one drinks. I have opened a beer before ALONE but everyone looks at me funny and I feel like an alcoholic under surveillance, so instead I read a book, or hang out with all the kids (they are more MY SPEED), or sit on the couch. Last night I sat on the couch right next to this thumb-sucking little boy named Owen. He got up to play for a minute and someone took his spot and he yelled:

"I want to sit next to my girlfriend."

So I looked around and then he pointed at ME. Wow, men are pushy these days. They learn early. The kid was only 5. So I found myself saying "Listen kid, I'm old enough to be your grandmother." Eeeeeeeek. I am not going to blog about that.
Then I suggested someone more age-appropriate, like my 11 year old daughter, who heard me and tried to kill me with her razor sharp eyes.
But the boy said that she could be his girlfriend too. So there we go, with the threesome fantasy. Whose fault is it that we teach these little boys to feel so entitled that they can go around claiming women? It wasn't even cute at 5. What's he going to be like when he's 28?

The Office of Child Supports wants my UNDERSTANDING

2009-08-18T07:43:00.006-04:00

I received this notice on Friday. It's taken me this long to stop feeling that pain of profound frustration that causes the crease in my forehead, and to find this at all FUNNY.

"In an effort to help you receive your full child support obligation, the OCS reviewed your child support account with [Dumbass] and found past due child support owed."

OMG, a REVELATION, a DISCOVERY, who KNEW?

He's owed me back child support since a month after I divorced his ass in December of 2003. The amount of arrears only compounds on itself and although I'm not sure of the exact number when the 1% lousy interest is added, I do know that it's about 11,000 + 150 interest EVERY MONTH for the past how many years???

And that is with the lowered amount that doesn't even buy enough toilet paper for 3 teenage girls to wipe wipe their proverbial asses.

There was a little box checked off with an X, something they needed from me in order to grab money he doesn't have BECAUSE he moves from state to state, works for tips, and doesn't have a bank account.

They need me to sign A STATEMENT OF UNDERSTANDING. Everytime I say or read that I use a deep booming voice like a narrator in a commercial, or the voice of God in a movie. It's not a consent to their terms. It's a STATEMENT OF UNDERSTANDING. I signed it although I couldn't read it because it was causing me chest pain. And then I made up my own.

A STATEMENT OF UNDERSTANDING

I understand that if I divorce this asshole I will fight for every penny I can get from him and it will cause my death because I will no longer be able to digest anything with any real nutritional value without causing myself painful bloating.
I understand that I will have to constantly find out where he is working and supply this information to the OCS because they don't have time to go look for him.
I understand that if I take him to court to try to get my child support, the judge will lower the support amount in the hope that he will start paying it. He won't. If it was $5 a month he would still keep it until I could find a way to take it from him using force.
I understand it may take OCS 6 years to discover that he owes arrears, when by state law he should be in jail by now, but I need to not appear to be upset about this because then I will look terrible in court when no one from OCS wants to go with me.
I understand that he will die before I see much of anything and that I'd better be able to support myself and the children without any help and that I will look like the bad guy when I have to say no all the time and make us live in the ghettos, while he will continue to be allowed to argue in court that I'm a bad mother and not providing for them the way I should.
I understand that owing me $20,000 or whatever it is does not have anything to do with his visitation because not paying child support does not mean that he's a bad father. He is a GOOD father and has a GOOD relationship with the kids unless I prove otherwise.

This is what it should have said! I wish them luck in trying to find something to take away from him! Maybe they can take his shiny new PACEMAKER that the state paid for. Repossess the damn thing in order to pay me. I'll take a shiny new pacemaker!!!! I'll hang it on my wall to remind me that I UNDERSTAND.

No More Applebees

2009-08-17T15:34:00.003-04:00

There is nothing worse than eating at Applebees with your daughter and then driving an hour and a half home when it's too hot to roll the windows down and about halfway home your stomach starts rumbling and gurgling like it's going to explode and then you both have horrifying noxious gas every few minutes and it smells like pizza. And on top of that, you drank way too much iced tea and you have to pee badly, so everytime you fart you're afraid you might pee yourself.

I am never going to Applebees again.

A Cow's Nipple and How to Break Up without The Other Person Knowing It

2009-08-15T14:12:00.007-04:00

I'm confused by Men. If things are not working out well and he wants to go think about what he really wants in life and I want the kind of relationship he can't give me at this time and we agree on this and we return each other's stuff, doesn't that mean that we're not together-together?

So here I was last night, playing with Abrah, who is WAY more interesting while chatting online than she is in 90 degree sweltering humidity lying on my couch after a night of drinking and voodoo doll making. Anyway, here I was somehow having dinner with him and Abrah, seated 6 inches from a cow's ass. Not him. An actual cow's ass. Not a real cow. A fake cow painted on the wall almost life size. And not a nice little cow in a field looking at me, but a cow facing away, with its ass hanging over my head and it's udder hanging low enough so that a nipple is at eye level when I'm sitting. I couldn't take my eyes off the cow's nipple long enough to notice that I was being watched by the person who just returned my things.

Yes, stuck between him and a cow's ass. I look too serious.

They Stole My Phone Number and I Failed a Test on Myself

2009-08-13T15:41:00.005-04:00

So today Steve at Voicepulse called, as he seems to be calling thousands of people out there--he's a busy guy, to tell me that Voicepulse has lost my phone number. Some company named GlobalNETS actually owns it and rented it out to Voicepulse before the portability act (which says something about being able to carry your phone with you if you want to go to the bathroom. I don't know how this has anything to do with taking away the number that I've come to know and love).

GlobalNets took my number back from Voicepulse. So I get to switch telephone companies or have a new number outside my local exchange. Steve said a particularly confusing thing, more confusing than a portable rule on portation. He said that I could call him back and to ask for Steve as he was the only Steve at Voicepulse, which seems strange since Steve is such a common name and I really don't need another crazy boyfriend anyway.

I DID file a complaint with the FCC, because it's really against the law for Voicepulse to take my number away. And I can't just switch to a different company because one time I failed a test on myself.

When I moved back here from Wyoming, I tried to set up Verizon. But because I'd been out WEST and never used Verizon they wanted me to prove that I was ME. So they gave me a multiple choice test over the phone about places I have lived before.
EXAMPLE QUESTION: You once lived at which number:
a) 49
b) 102
c) 34
d) 1658

So I've lived at two of those numbers. Maybe more. I don't remember. Do you know how many times I've moved, and how bad my memory is, and how many times I didn't want anyone to find me so I didn't know my own address so that if they did meet me on the street one day they wouldn't be able to torture the information out of me and just show up at my house one day to visit?

I failed the test. So the customer service secret agent said that I would have to fax her a colored copy of my driver's license, social security card, 5th grade report card, and my first baby tooth.
That's when I said no thank you to the woman and decided to find a service that would take a credit card number and just bill me instead of trying to find out my real identity because obviously I must be someone else. I hope the real me is happily married to a wonderful man and living in Wyoming with a black cat and two dogs and laughs alot, and not necessarily at herself alone in the kitchen hunched over her laptop.

I Attract The Crazies

2009-08-13T07:21:00.004-04:00

People tell me the strangest things and I must have an "open for business" sign on my forehead. The tiny Walmart clerk reached over for my purchases as I pushed them toward her.
"Wake up," she said to the guy clerk who was just hanging around daydreaming or something.
"It's a good thing he doesn't have dreams like I used to," she said. "I lived in this building that was full of evil spirits and bad energy, with people shooting each other and screaming and putting their hands through the walls."
I tried to listen, but really I was just thinking about donuts. Really. It was lunchtime and I thought the kids would like a dozen donuts.
"And I used to see blue glowing orbs sometimes. And one time I saw an alien hand on my husband's chest. It was dark but I looked over and saw it."
Hmmmm, I was thinking that this was a weird thing to tell a total stranger.
"And then one day a bird came to my windowsill and I asked my aunt who is into stuff like that and she said it was a sign for me to leave."
Wow, I see alot of birds. That must be why I move around so much.
"And so here I am in a better place. I haven't had those dreams in a while."
Walmart. Hmmmm. Yes, probably a step up from the crazy haunted alien-ridden apartment building in a place where the sighting of a bird is extra-ordinary and meaningful.
My youngest child kept a straight face until we left the building and then looked at me and said "People just seem to tell you things, don't they?"
Yup, I attract the crazies. Just look at my ex-husband. And many previous boyfriends. And my mother. And that squirrel. And oh look, a butterfly . . .

I Could Camp everyday in Vermont without Leaving My House

2009-08-09T12:00:00.003-04:00

Camping in Vermont is kindof like dragging a tent out into the swamp. It really makes no difference if I drive half an hour to the National Forest. It looks just like my backyard especially when:

I am woken up by someone mowing their lawn at 7:30 in the morning. Anyone mowing the lawn in the forest really has too much time on their hands.
I wander off down a path that leads off into the woods behind my campsite, thinking I'll go off and get lost and have an adventure. It was all nice and murky and damp and buggy until after 50 feet I run into a dirt road that is someone's driveway.
Trains go by, compete with the clickety-clack train sound and whistles. Is there a train in this forest? A happy elf train?
I'm still sharing a toilet with 28 other slobs who spit on the faucet, leave the toilet seat damp, and don't make enough noise for me to use to cover up the sounds I make when I really need to go.
A man tells me I'm paddling wrong just because we're going in circles. Maybe there's a friendly dolphin under the canoe who wants us to stay over in this part of the lake. Maybe we've become trapped in a Stephen King novel. I know how to paddle--I play Wii sports!!! I'm proud to say that my arms aren't even sore this morning!
I immediately made friends with a chipmunk who wandered around the lean-to and then ran under my chair. I fed him some cashews cause he was giving me that hungry look, like he'd soon be nibbling on my toes in the middle of the night. He must have heard from the squirrels that I was an easy target.
My pillow still gets stolen. I ran out of wine. I dreamed about Wyoming and food all night.
So couldn't I just do this from the comfort of my own lawn next weekend?

Alien Abduction and Laptop Compliance

2009-08-04T15:23:00.002-04:00

For the past couple of days my laptop has been WARNING ME URGENTLY that it is too full and needs help, kind of like a little kid on a long car ride.
I ignored it, cause I just didn't have the time to pull over and let it . . . whatever, um look through and delete files.
It must have worked through the night, adding more and more files and pictures and incomplete songs until it got too crowded and refused to start. It kept getting stuck on the first DELL Inspiron screen, the bar would load halfway across and stop. Aargh.
I swore. I jumped around. I left the room and counted to ten. I had a drink. Then I came back, turned it off, unplugged the cord, and did the only thing I knew how to do. I took the battery out and put it back in, thus magically reminding the laptop that it can start with just a cord. I don't know why that would work, since the battery has been dead for over a year. I don't know why I would do that anyway, as it should logically have nothing to do with booting failure. I can only assume that some mysterious chip planted in my brain by aliens years ago connected intuitively to my laptop and knew what to do. I am usually a rational, reasonable person, as you can tell from my blog, and I can come up with no other answer.