I do LOVE the internet. Really I DO.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teenage Girls and the Terrible Twos

Girls between the ages of 13 and 14 are more exhausting than they were in the terrible twos, with many of the same issues: tantrums, mood swings, saying no to everything you ask, tantrums, brattiness, and tantrums.
They just discover the outside world where they can walk to the post office or the grocery store. Where there are new people and things to do and see. They test the boundaries over and over to see if by constant bashing they can widen those walls of protective parenting. They can drive a parent right over the edge into whining and crying and wine drinking.
I have two now. I'm really hoping that by the time the third one gets there in 1 year and 10 months that the oldest will be over it. Just like the flu, one at a time comes down with it and I run in circles until I fall down from exhaustion and declare myself to be ON STRIKE.
There's no one here to take over though so I can't lay on the floor for more than a few minutes before someone shouts "I'm going out to meet someone in the dark alley!" And I look up to see their boobs hanging out over their low slung tank tops and it's below zero outside and I can't see their eyes under all that makeup and they smile at me, just to see if I'm still alive.
I think they should give free medications and alcohol and full day trips to the spa to single mothers. With free childcare. And playpens to take home to put the teenagers in until they're at least 15. I hope it goes away by then. Or a vaccination to prevent the whole thing.
Are you listening Obama? I voted for you.

The New Study on How Single Moms Should Stay Single Forever

EGAD.

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

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

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

The burden is always on the MOM.

Where is DAD in all this????

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

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

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

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

Dumbassedness is the Word of the Day

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

My Calculator is Worth More Than My Car

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.

The Office of Child Supports wants my UNDERSTANDING

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

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

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 AM A NORMAL MOTHER--I think???

Before I discuss viruses you can pick up at the pool--ICK--I want to say that today I tried to be a normal mother for about 30 seconds and it was difficult and I sounded really fake and no one could mistake my sweetness for sympathy when my youngest smacked her head on the hard arm of the couch. I think she didn't even hear me, but I COULD HEAR ME and I sounded like an intoxicatingly sweet commercial for bandaids or hamburger helper.
I think I should stick with what I know, which is this odd and somewhat disturbing sense of humor that leaves people wondering what I just said and laughing nervously with me, while in their heads they are filling out the paper work to have me involuntarily committed.
My daughter tells me not to change, not to be like the NORMAL moms and then in the next breath tells me she's already found the SPECIAL place to send me when I get old. I sure hope it's Abrah's house!
What is normal anyway? Stuffy adult strict do this-do that. I would rather they have many memories of me so that when they have children they can tell them how crazy I was and smile sadly at each other. Then they can visit me at the SPECIAL PLACE and I'll just lie and say none of it is true.