The Velveteen Indian

"This has got to be the good life."

2011-11-01T15:53:00.001-05:00

Man, I am a ball of confusion and self pity and feeling gross lately. It’s really pretty ugly. I am ugly, lately.

My asthma is totally out of control; I gag and wheeze and pant every where I go. My two inhalers usually make me feel better for about an hour; then it’s back to wheezing and panting. I’ve been to the doctor several times; he doles out antibiotics that never make me feel better, and usually make me feel worse, until I’ve given up, I think.

I’ve gained some weight, which I think bothers me less than I keep telling myself it should. I’ve always done this, gained and lost and gained and lost. It’s just that when I get on the gained side of things, and I get all those surprised and pitying looks from people I haven’t seen in a while, or even from people I’ve seen recently, it gets a bit difficult. Phil through it all tells me that I am beautiful, that he will never think I’m not beautiful. He says things like, “You can probably still wear your old jeans if you just lay down on the bed to zip them.” And I can’t help but reply, “Yes, but then I’ll look like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. NO MUFFINTOPS.”

I’ve hit one of those walls in which every day feels like the movie Groundhog Day- I do the same things, day-in and day-out, and I’m not able to satisfy anyone around me. We run out of groceries; we need to buy groceries. All the clothes are dirty; we need to wash clothes. Reed is dirty; he needs a bath. Phil’s daughters come every other weekend and witness more than I’d like to admit my inability to handle regular, every day life that seems easy for everyone else they know.

I am especially concerned about Reed these days. He acts pretty normal, and we seem to have settled into a pretty good schedule as far as sleep and school and everything else. He got his purple belt in karate, meaning he moved up a level already. He’s learned Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in violin, and will have a recital this December. But then, about once week, he does something awful and I get totally worked up and confused about how to react. Let me be clear- he’s not abusing animals or joining the Republican Party or anything like that; he threw a rock at a passing car and scratched it. He hit a neighborhood boy in the face with a stick, scratching his face. It’s mostly just the sorts of things that can honestly be passed off as “the kind of thing growing boys do now and then”, that should be dealt with sternly and immediately, but not obsessed over.

But I’m finding myself obsessing and worrying, feeling incredibly unsure about what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong. I feel crippled and impotent, if you want to know the melodramatic truth.

What I wish, what I think would be best, is if Reed’s dad could actually help. As it is, he’s doling out clichés and parenting mottos from 3000 miles away. I try to explain what’s happening and it is frequently clear he’s not listening, because he either asks the same questions over and over again, or asks for details that I’ve already given him, usually stuff that I’ve actually given him in writing already. When did this happen? What did the teacher say? What has Reed said about it? Where did he do that? It usually devolves into the two of us, sitting totally silently on the phone, with nothing to say to each other.

I am absolutely not sure what I’m doing, is what I’m saying. I mostly teeter back and forth between trying to suck it up and deal with it, and collapsing on Phil at the end of the day. Phil loves me and he loves Reed and he’s here to help. He does things like picking Reed up from school or taking him in the mornings, taking Reed with him to his daughter’s soccer games, taking Reed with him to the grocery store. But neither he nor I expected that he was pretty much going to be Reed’s other parent, and it’s weighing a little heavily on all of us.

So, here’s where I try and remind myself about all the good stuff. Phil loves me, and I love him, and we’re married to each other and we live together in an apartment that we love. Reed is smart and cute and sweet, and a joy to talk to and be around. As I write this, my best friend in the world is having her baby, and I get to go and meet him tomorrow. I have a place to live with heat and air conditioning and showers and beds, and food to eat. I have a job! That I like! We got a dog about a week ago; his name is Rocky, and he is hilariously cute (read: ugly) and sweet and well-behaved. I have a few girlfriends left who still can put up with me, and I with them.

I mean, I get it: this, too, shall pass. I will get through this, and Reed will get through this, and Phil will get through this, and we will all be happier and more grown-up and more carefree when it’s over. BUT, best I can tell from other parents, it’s not over for about 15 more years, so I still can’t get too comfortable with it. I’m hoping God might bestow upon me a little bit more grit, a little bit more backbone to persevere through the hard times that will inevitably come. Until then, I’ve got Halloween candy. And American Horror Story. Seriously, what the HELL is going on in that show?

Sometimes the bridges get burned out from under you.

2011-09-13T15:59:00.000-05:00

These last few weeks have been really crazy and confusing and draining and painful, in so many ways that I’m certain I won’t even think to detail all of them here.

Phil and Reed and I have all been taking turns being sick, with stomach problems and back problems and colds and flu and allergies and asthma and sliced-open thumbs and slipped discs. WE HAVE BEEN A BARREL OF MONKEYS, I tell you, and I am praying that perhaps now we can be well for a bit. There is nothing more exhausting and sad than taking care of a sick kid, except maybe taking care of a sick kid when you’re sick too.

Reed started kindergarten, and with it karate, and it’s been so exciting. It is so weird to drive him up to the front of the elementary school each morning and drop him off, watch him pause to turn around and wave, and then run inside by himself.

His teacher is very pretty and very young and very enthusiastic. She is, however, an Auburn fan, but I forgive her because she has such great hair. She wears super-high wedges with a belt that matches the straps and she always looks fresh and excited and, y’all, THE HAIR IS FANTASTIC, long and wavy and always perfect.

In school Reed has a different “special” every day- music, computer lab, art, library, and free play, and the music teacher has already emailed me to tell me how sweet Reed is and how glad she is to have him in her class. Also, his regular teacher told me one day in a very serious tone that Reed is one the most “meticulous” students she’s ever witnessed.

I can tell you myself that Reed has certainly turned out to be an Agan; “actually” is one of his favorite words, following in the footsteps of his articulate older brother. He does this thing where you explain something to him, and he says “Okay, SO, what you’re saying is..” and then repeats everything you just told him. If that’s not Kane, I don’t know what is. He also just started swimming without swimmies, and jumping into the pool with so much abandon that I hardly recognize him as the kid who, only a few weeks ago, would only enter the pool by gingerly going down the steps. He’s loosing teeth and getting big-boy hair cuts and getting himself dressed and washing his own hair. HE TURNS SIX IN THREE MONTHS, PEOPLE.

This life is weird, and I gave up a long time ago trying to keep up or stay ahead of things. It’s one day at a time around here, and sometimes I even have to cut it further down, coach myself into just toughing out the next hour, or the next ten minutes.

Phil and I persevere by goofing off together, watching movies and playing cards. The card-playing has become our standard time-passer, and there are few ways I’d rather spend the evening, once I’ve gotten Reed settled in with a movie or supper, than sitting together on our patio playing rummy and listening to music.

I read a tweet from Dooce today, or yesterday maybe, that said September is a particularly hard time for people with depression, and it made me think not just of myself but of a lot of people I love. September is an odd time; fall starts rolling in- perhaps somewhat slowly here in the South- and the days get shorter and you see your friends a bit less because people are buckling down, not quite as carefree as during the summer.

A particularly challenging problem for me right now is the loss of a very close friend, someone I’ve loved and trusted, asked for help, offered help, leaned on, let lean on me. I’m finding myself thinking I was just asking for it the whole time; I’m one of 6 people she has stolen prescription medication from, sometimes in large amounts, and she’s stolen them from ME twice before this time. Every time it’s happened I’ve called her on it, told her how hurt and mad it made me. Every time I’ve thought, okay, that’s it, we can’t be friends any more. But then I end up missing her so badly, wanting to talk to her about my day or about something funny I read or heard.

This particular friend is someone that I connect with on such a deep and organic level that the experience of trying to control myself, keep myself from talking to her feels like cutting out a relationship with a sister. This is someone who knew me before Jason, during Jason, and now with Phil. I have told her all of my secrets, let her in on every aspect of my life, fought for her with other people whose trust didn’t regrow like mine did.

The other times that I’ve discovered that she’s taken things from me I’ve told her how mean and unacceptable it is, how she could just ASK for these pills and I would give them to her, but to just find them missing is so hurtful, such a bizarre and unexpected betrayal, so disrespectful and shitty.

A particularly painful aspect of the entire experience is knowing that she knows how difficult things have been for me lately. She knows that life has been precarious and scary, and still thinks it’s okay to sneak into my medicine cabinet and take 11 oxycontin (out of 14) and 2 morphine pills (out of 2) without asking. And let me make it clear: the oxycontin were prescribed to Phil for a slipped disc, and the morphine were given to him when he nearly cut his thumb OFF of his hand, and he just never took them. In the past it’s been Ambien I was prescribed for sleep, Lortabs I was prescribed for a severe throat infection. Point is, we don’t have this stuff for recreation, we have it for legitimate health problems, and this person who I have frequently given rides to or bought beer and cigarettes for, not to mention given a place to stay, came into my house and went through our medicine cabinet and took our medicine and put them in her pocket before giving me a hug, telling me she loved me, and leaving. It is fucked up.

I also want to make clear that I am very aware that I am not perfect. I make mistakes. I make people mad. I hurt people’s feelings. I am absolutely certain that there have been times when this girl needed me, or wanted to go out, or wanted to talk, and I wasn’t there for her. But no matter how many terrible things I try to think up that I may or may not have done, I can’t come up with a reason that makes me think, “Well, in THAT case, she should have stolen from me. 3 times.”

I can’t really articulate, can’t really completely explain how I feel about all this. For the first week I was really just pissed off. Now it’s devolved into sadness, an intense pain in my gut knowing that I am just a total idiot, that I should have seen this coming, that our friendship was this disposable to her. I feel thrown away and worthless. I feel heartbroken that it didn’t matter to her that it would hurt me.

Since then, she and I haven’t talked. I spent several days trying to decide what to do, how to confront her. I finally decided that even if she admitted what she’d done and apologized, it wouldn’t help, since this isn’t the first time she’s done this, and it isn’t the first time she’s gotten caught. Then she started to post to Facebook- pictures of a new laptop, new clothes, posts about spending $60 on nail polish and shampoo and getting a new phone. I lost my temper and posted on her page that I hoped she enjoyed the medicine. We still haven’t talked. She hasn’t bothered to deny or admit or scoff or cuss or anything at all.

Keep in mind that for several years now this has been a girl who can’t buy her own gas, beer, cigarettes, food, sodas, and suddenly she’s buying a MacBook Pro and new clothes and make up. It just feels insulting, hurtful, mean, and a hundred other words I’ve probably either written here or whined over the past week.

Bottom line is now is the time when I have to move on, but it’s just so hard to do when this girl has been one of the first people I tell ANYTHING to. There are about a million different tv shows and movies that make me think of her, not to mention about 2 million songs, and before this happened I’d text her any time I was thinking of her. I find myself picking up my phone and putting it back down about a hundred times a day. I thought that she loved me and respected me, needed me, wanted to be my friend, but I’m not sure how to think that considering what she’s done.

So, this is September for me. I’m trying to remember to enjoy Reed and Phil and my life, while grieving a huge loss, one that hurts worse because she chose this.

L-I-V-I-N.

2011-07-18T15:39:00.000-05:00

Still here, still surviving, still hitting myself in the face with a shovel, metaphorically speaking.

I get timid about writing these days, as every single time I post anything I get an angry phone call from my ex-husband- telling me everything from how selfish I am to how I better stop “poking the dog”. It’s exhausting, and unfair, and hilarious, and infuriating, and sad and confusing and bizarre and about a million other things. But, I’m making an attempt to carry on, to remember who I am, to keep being who I used to be before everything got tossed into the air and scrambled around me. I deserve that, I think, and however pathetic some people might think it is, this blog has been an important part of my life for several years. I’ve let it slip for too long.

I realize all the time that there are so many things that I haven’t written about, things that are important to me, or funny, or interesting, and I can’t keep up with them.

In the last several months I’ve met the band Guster and the comedian Pauly Shore, both huge favorites of mine, both owing to my thoughtful husband Phil. Meeting Guster was fun and memorable because I love them so much and I’ve loved them for so long and they were so nice. Meeting Pauly Shore was memorable because I love him so much and I’ve loved him for so long and he was a TERRIBLE, AWFUL ASSHOLE. I mean, DIVA, people. It was such a disappointment.

I also met a band from Austin, Texas called The Sword, and took their pictures. Phil is buddies with them, so they’re constantly sending him emails that they’ve got his name on the list, or back stage passes, for their shows. They were nice fellas, and I’m glad that I got to meet them. If Phil was ever going to marry a dude, I think it would be Bryan from The Sword. And Bryan’s just so sweet and funny and personable that I think I’d just have to be okay with it.

Reed will start kindergarten in about three weeks. He’s such an amazing person, so funny and complicated and difficult. I find myself spending at least a few minutes every day getting to know him, learning new things about him that I didn’t know, being surprised by how smart he is. The kid has lungs, too; I sincerely hope we might be approaching a time when hissy fits can go by the wayside, because it gets me SO worked up and irritable when he freaks out, mainly because he reaches a point where there is nothing that will stop the fit. He doesn’t want me in the room with him, but he doesn’t want me to walk away. He wants to (for example) call Ma, but he doesn’t want me to leave the room to get my phone. He wants some ice cream, but giving it to him now doesn’t make him happy; I should have given to him when he asked a few minutes ago. Sound confusing? Try living with it.

Most recently, he just got back from going to stay with his dad in Long Beach, California. He flew out with Kane and Jude, and let me just tell you: the experience of sending him 3000 miles on a plane for 6 weeks away from home has been one of the most intense of my life, in a lot of different ways. First, the two weeks before he left were two of the most excruciatingly awful weeks of my life. I was terrified and unsure and confused and anxious. Was it okay to send my 5-year-old so far away, to a place where I’d never been before? What would happen if he got sick or hurt? What would happen if he wanted to come home early? What would happen if he totally wigged out on the plane and hated flying and wanted to get off? Would Kane and Jude be able to handle Reed’s headstrong, willful personality on a plane for 7 or 8 hours straight? I’ll just stop there, because you get the idea- it was a whirlwind of questions in my head. And enduring everyone else’s advice and opinions, whether they were for Reed going or against it, was FUCKING TERRIBLE. Every single person that expressed any opinion whatsoever had good intensions, okay? I know that. And most people’s manner of telling me what they thought about it was totally acceptable, not stressful for me, not confusing. But there were a few people that nearly broke me into pieces, nearly drowned me with wave after wave after wave of indignation and condescension. And those people, unfortunately, made it more difficult for me to process what everyone else thought of it, or what I thought of it.

Eventually I made the decision that I was letting him go, and I stuck to it through a lot of nastiness and difficulty. Reed said he wanted to go. I talked to him repeatedly about what it would be like to fly, how long he’d be gone, etc. etc. etc. He continued to be excited about it. I stood by my decision.

Now he’s back, and I still feel that letting him go was the right thing to do. He got to be with his dad and his brothers for six whole weeks. He got to be away from me for six whole weeks. He did exciting new things and went exciting new places- to the beach, and the aquarium, and Little Tokyo. He probably tried new food and saw amazing things. He met a lady with a pet rabbit and decided that we need one, and assured me that if we get the brown and white kind, it won’t pee and poop in the house. He lost his first tooth. AND FOR GOD’S SAKES, HE BOUGHT A NINJA STAR.

But wow, did I miss him. It would hit me so hard and fast; one moment I’d be totally fine, then I’d suddenly be crying, heartbroken. When he came home, when I saw him walking out of the gate, I couldn’t keep from sobbing right there in front of everybody. He ran to me and I held him and I cried, and he kissed me several times and said “I missed you, mom.” It was like a scene out of a movie. It was a beautiful moment for me, one that I’m pretty sure I’ll remember vividly, still be able to taste in my mouth, for the rest of my life.

Which won’t actually be that long anyway, because THE CHILD IS DRIVING ME CRAZY, I’M GOING TO THROW MYSELF INTO THE POOL WITH A CASE OF BEER STRAPPED TO MY LEG.

Jet-lagged, still sleeping.

2011-07-14T11:16:00.001-05:00

Reed graduated.

2011-05-25T10:34:00.001-05:00

2011-05-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

Well, hello there.

‘Sup. How’s it going with you guys? Does anybody still take a look at this every now and then (besides, of course, my requisite viewers in California, but more on that later)? I hope so. Leave me comments so’s I know that folks stop by.

Wow, where to start? What to say? What not to say?

How about I’m just going to list the big stuff that’s gone on over the last year or so, in somewhat chronological order?

1. Last summer, my ex’s ex shot herself with the intention of killing herself. AND LIVED. For fuck’s sakes, I’ve never known anyone with as many unwanted lives as this woman has. As a result, Reed’s brothers moved in with Jason for a few months, then moved back in with their mom. Weirdness. But hey, it ain’t my place to care about them any more, or so I’ve been told, repeatedly, by he who will not be named. Except I already named him so we’ll all just have to get over it.

2. Reed turned 5! He’s had a very hard time with all of the event of the past year, but he sure is growing up. It’s bizarre to me both that he isn’t a baby any more and that he ever was a baby. I can say this much: he sure is an Agan, through and through. The boy talks until his mouth ought to be about ready to fall off, and he’ll eat as many apples as I’ll set out in front of him, and he makes sound effects and hums a soundtrack for himself every where he goes. He does still love the superheroes, but now he’s added Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Legos to his passions. He’s (sort of) learning to skateboard with Philip, and he’s taking violin lessons, and he plays video games. The child starts kindergarten in August. I don’t know what else to say but, “Woah.”

3. I got a job! I got a job I got a job I GOT A JOB.

4. Phil and I got married in February! Crazy: yes. Fast: yes. Awesome: yes. As a result Reed has two step-sisters. Reed informed me the other day that “they are MY sisters, and that means I can tell them to stay out of my room.” THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT THAT MEANS, BIG GUY.

5. On a related note, we moved out of my mom’s house at the end of March. We live in a 3-bedroom apartment that’s close to my work and that’s in a zone where Reed will go to a really neat school when he starts kindergarten. I lived at my mother’s house for a year-and-a-half, and I have to say it is so COOL to have my own place, my own kitchen, my own bathroom, places for my own things. The swimming pool is about 10 yards from our front door- I mean we can SEE it when we stand on our patio- and it’s rad. It’s been pretty warm this week, and we’ve been swimming in the evenings when we all get home.

6. Jason and Julia moved to California back in February, making Phil and me pretty much Reed’s sole caretakers. Of course we get tons and tons of help from my mom, so it’s not like we haven’t had a moment of down time or anything. But it’s odd, knowing that Reed and Jason haven’t laid eyes on each other in 3 months. I personally would be going crazy. I need my breaks, but I would melt down if I hadn’t touched Reed’s hair or watched a movie with him or dusted him off when he falls in that long of a time. The other day Reed told me, “I miss my dad. I’m starting to forget what he’s like.”

7. My best friend Kristi is pregnant! She’s having a boy! I’m gonna be an auntie! I am so very excited. Phil has decided that the baby shall be named Spider. I said that they should name him Otter. And if they have another baby, they can name him Juan. So then when something gets broken and Kristi says “Who did this?”, Chris can say, “Well, it was either Juan or the Otter.”
HA HA HA HA HA. Right? Are you feeling it?

So, I think that about brings us up to speed. I’ve said a million times and I’ll say again, this life sure tosses me around quite a bit. It frequently seems like every time I get comfortable, settled, in a routine, something happens to throw it all into upheaval again. I have had some happy, exuberant moments in which I’ve known that I will survive and Reed will survive and that we love each other and Phil loves us and we love Phil and life is wonderful and thank goodness I’m here to enjoy it. And then I’ve had some excruciating, fearful, dizzying moments in which I’ve thought that life is terrible and I can’t possibly withstand it any longer. And, of course, I’ve had about 7 million moments of everything in between.

I spend a lot of time taking deep breaths. I spend a lot of time praying. I spend a lot of time finding something funny to watch or read to distract me from my thoughts.

A lot has been wonderful and a lot has been rough. I wish that I could find the inspiration to write like I used to, but it just hasn’t come. I’m kind of forcing this one out because I don’t want to let life beat me into giving up on something that I love: writing about it here. So I’m going to keep working on it. Maybe I’ll be able to get back to writing frequently. But for know it will probably be random and kind of scattered. If anybody is out there reading, thanks for checking on me, and I hope you come back again.

So tired.

2011-03-31T20:23:00.001-05:00

Taken at Home

Sick.

2011-02-15T18:59:00.001-06:00

And tired.

Reedy.

2011-02-05T12:28:00.001-06:00

Wedding night.

2011-02-04T21:09:00.001-06:00

Yep, we did.

2011-02-04T19:52:00.001-06:00

Jitters..

2011-02-03T18:27:00.001-06:00

Taking care of them.

Untitled

2011-01-30T21:22:00.001-06:00

Man, I hope this is true.

What a day.

2011-01-27T18:17:00.001-06:00

I'm ready to go home.

Hello

2011-01-26T21:46:00.001-06:00

2010-08-05T22:28:00.003-05:00

Okay, then. Still chugging along.

Life is so fucking difficult sometimes, and I'm honestly enjoying re-learning how to do this, how to get through each day and appreciate it, be grateful for it. I think a lot of good things are coming in both the near and distant future. I'm thankful that I'm still here to look forward to the good stuff, and persevere through the bad stuff.

Jason and I are up and down, back and forth, as far as being able to get along, to communicate with each other. He still thinks that I'm selfish and unreasonable, and I still think... pretty much the same about him.

Kane and Jude have moved in with Jason and Julia, and as a result Reed has actually been spending the night with Jason some. I think it's good for everybody involved, especially Reed.

I'm still seeing my someone new, and he's still a fucking blessing every single day. Philip constantly reminds me that no matter how hard all of this is, it's worth it, I'm worth it, what we have is worth it. And it's not that I wouldn't have thought those things on my own, but it's so, so nice to have someone there day-in and day-out who says it, over and over again. I feel like if I wasn't here, or if Jason and I had stayed together, I'd be missing out on a lot of really good stuff. And that really means a lot for someone like me, who has been through countless days in which I've not been able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, in which I've not been able to remember to be grateful for my life and everything in it.

Still job-searching, still helping Reed cope with the divorce, still having days that are good, and occasionally days that are bad. But, hey, such is life. How many times have I written here that all I can do is keep trying, keep managing, keep ignoring, keep persevering? A lot of times, is how many. So here I am, still doing all that shit. Will life ever be easier? I don't know. But life certainly does keep getting better, and I don't want to miss any of it.

A nice exchange.

2010-07-14T10:01:00.001-05:00

From a sweet girl:

I was writing because I just came out of a particularly shitty bout of depression, you know- what used to referred as a nervous breakdown, and my family is being so supportive but sometimes they have trouble understanding. I wanted them to read your blog entry titled "On Shovels" because it's one of the best pieces I've ever read that describes the evil monkey... your blog gives people hope... I read it because it give me hope. Hope that I can live a free life, be honest with people, love, get married and make a baby one day, be creative, and just not give a fuck because it is what it is. Thank you so much and I hope you and Reed are doing well.

My reply:

Hey, lady! I'm sorry you've had some hard times lately. Things over here have been up and down, sort of one step forward, two steps back. Some days I feel good, some days I feel terrible. Reed's the same way; some days I thank God that he seems to be adjusting and doing well, some days he's nutty. But it's to be expected. We're still all just trying to wrap our heads around the fact that Jason's gone and living with Julia and things will never be the same.

I hope that you're feeling better, and it makes me feel incredibly humble and grateful that reading my blog has done good things for you, however small. Writing makes ME feel so, so much better, and I've always thought it's important to use my right to say HEY I'M ALL FUCKED UP AND LOOK HOW I'M STILL SURVIVING, you know? Because sometimes it feels like you won't survive it, and then you do.

I'll talk to you soon, and thank you for always being so nice to me. Every little bit helps, you know?

"A-well hello, Mistah Lincoln. And the drinks are on me."

2010-07-06T08:30:00.002-05:00

Goodness gracious, back and forth and back and forth. I'm feeling better, more able to move forward, which just means I'm continuing on with this roller coaster, up and down, up and down. I'm pretty sure that's normal, though.

I'm excited to have made my blog public again. Hi, y'all! Jason had objected pretty strongly to it being public, and out of respect I locked it. But then once I realized that Julia was saying really awful shit about me on the internet (that I am a "selfish, jobless, incapable, alcoholic, useless piece-of-shit slug"), I figured what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Speaking of which, hey Julia! I'm glad you took some time to read me while you were up in Elizabethtown. It's nice to know folks are reading. On that same subject, hey Heather! How's Jackson treating you?

Anyway, moving on from the shout-out portion of my post, life goes on. Still looking for a job, hanging out with Reed, trying to take care of myself. We spent the holiday weekend swimming and hanging out with friends and having sleep-overs and laughing and goofing off. I'm seeing someone I really, really like a lot, who is great with Reed and even better with me.

I managed to mess up my knee again. Man, did I even write about that the first time? A klutzy moron managed to kick my knee out from underneath me a few months ago, and I sprained my acl? I think? Anyway, weeks of wearing a brace and icing it down and taking steroids and trying to stay off it made it get better. Then, Friday night, I talked my new dude and his roommate into teaching me how to ollie. I gotta tell you, I totally almost nearly did it. I was getting there, dude, when suddenly I had a blinding pain in my knee and the next thing I knew I was writhing in the floor clutching it and telling them not to touch me. Now it's stiff and fluidy and bruised and gross. I'm headed to the doctor today to have it checked out. I'm hoping to avoid surgery.

Still seeing my counselor, who says she's very proud of me and that I'm making amazing progress. It's nice to talk to somebody on the outside of all of this, who can lend perspective when I can't seem to find any. Which is, you know, pretty frequent.

I feel at odds with a lot of people right now, and all I know to do about it is take a deep breath and wait it out. I'm enjoying life right now, and it's disappointing to me that there always has to be something, that when I feel better about some part of my life another part has to spring out of wack.

But I'm still working on it, still having days in which I feel optimistic, in which I laugh and smile and hug and kiss, in which I feel lucky, fortunate, grateful, excited. And that's really all I can ask for right now. So, you know, score.

"Burning bridges shore to shore."

2010-06-10T19:17:00.003-05:00

Hm. Well, I wrote a few months ago that I would probably sink back into some depression and sadness before all was said and done, and it's happened.

The past month or so has been really awful for me. Things didn't work out with Eric, and a close friend and I have had a pretty intense falling-out, and somehow in the midst I started yearning, really desperately wanting, Jason to come home.

Jason and Julia moved in together a couple of months ago, and since then he and I have had a lot of trouble communicating. He blames me for his financial troubles because he has to pay me child support. He also has cut way back on seeing Reed, and their (Jason's and Reed's) relationship is suffering because of it. He's yelled and cussed and blamed and made fun until I've started to feel like we might not ever be able to speak to each other civilly. He also told me that he in no way needs therapy because he "doesn't have any problems". MUST BE NICE, ASSHOLE.

I, on the other hand, have some problems. It started about the time Jason's dad died- feeling really, terribly sad, lonely, wrong, stupid, ugly, worthless, useless, invisible. It progressed to throwing up almost every time I eat, having nightmares about Jason and Julia almost every time I sleep, shaking, aching, feeling just terrible.

And that's where I am now. I have days where I suddenly feel better, a little happier, more able to cope, but they are the exception, not the norm. Coping is just so difficult right now, because the way I want to cope (sleeping and resting) isn't working for me- it's working against me (what with the nightmares). I know I'll get better, that this will pass; it's just really intense and unsettling right now.

I'm still seeing a counselor, and I like and trust her a lot, and she really is helping me. She says I need to get in touch with my anger and figure out a good way to get it out. I haven't stumbled onto the way to do that yet. I mean, I definitely feel angry, and I certainly have talked through a lot of it with my friends and family. But it's still in there, festering. If, in the next few days, I post some letters here that have a startling amount of bad words and blaming and whining, just cut me some slack.

I'm still here. I'm still here. I'M STILL HERE. MOTHERFUCKERS. Sorry; mantra. For the longest time my mantra had been I got this. That doesn't feel like it applies any more. So, for right now, I suppose it's I'm working on this. I hope y'all will stick with me until I manage to stumble out the other side.

Cleaning out my text messages.

2010-05-29T15:28:00.004-05:00

- Smite me, motherfucker!

- In the summertime, I really like for the Asians to be all over my feet.

- Women are only good at 3 things: cooking, cleaning, and vaginas.

- I PUT ON MY BEST. MOCCASINS.

- There aren't any blow jobs in your stocking.

- I wasn't sure what I was looking at until it ejaculated.

- I hope you know the Heimlich because I'm gonna put my bike in it.

- You look like a douche bag.

- Beer goggles: it's what's for dinner.

- They're smokin' weed outta meat?

- They all love hunting. That, and fucking their daughters.

- My toes are exhausted.

- At least we haven't loaded up to drive to Mississippi and kill that asshole and his dumbass dog.

- I miss the rains down in Africa.

- I'm live right now and that makes me important. Or that's what my mom tells me.

- I'm, like, a man. Or at least 75% man.

- Nice to know you two are discussing my junk.

- "Homeless Entrepreneurs and Anorexic Geeks" is the title of my new autobiography.

- My autobiography would be titled "What the Fuck Just Happened?" Wait, maybe that would be my tombstone.

- Sometimes I like to NOT have to say I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU DRUG ME when I go to the bathroom.

- Mama's drunk. You wasted time arguing with me GAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

- I ALREADY TOLD YOU I'M IN DIRTY JEANS WITH SWOLE EYES. I'M IN ALL CAPS SO CLEARLY I'M VERY SERIOUS.

- COME ON. Break out of your mold. HANG OUT WITH DRUNK GIRLS.

- You have a poor, single mom offering to buy you drinks.

- YOU COULD BE THE NEXT PERSON I PUT MY BUTT ON!!!

- I'm trying to theduthe you.

- I hate dudes. Why don't you live here? I was more shaking my fist at the heavens than actually asking you.

- You still hiding in a dressing room?

- You're a sultry minx.

- Reed just taught Chris how to use a doorknob to open a door. No joke.

- I don't think he can penetrate me from the next state.

- I'm tired of bald pussies. I want a real woman.

- I make cunnilingus-in-the-bar-bathroom promises.

- I'll wine and dine you. But I expect, at least, fellatio.

- There was a faggot in bed with us!

- You could BE that Coke Icee.

- Okay, apparently a dude is about to show up who is a dairy farmer AND has four nipples. CAN'T YOU COME WITNESS THIS?

- We have rimming syrup.

- I SWALLOW AND I LOVE TO SWALLOW AND SWALLOWING ROCKS.

- They're about to smoke pot out of a potato.

- You only like me because I'm reading a book about turn-of-the-century Midwesterners.

- I wasn't making fun of Jerusalem. I decided I was too scared.

- The last time I was there I arrested a waitress.

- Why is he cocky? He's from Mississippi.

- Oh, wait, you mean you don't literally have a pine cone in your ass?

- I like it rough. Punch me in the face.

- Why do I have to be a jackass?

- I like letting gay guys bite me.

Cleaning out my text messages.

2010-05-17T18:00:00.007-05:00

- I received my first shocker last night.

- Just like negroes, all amputees know each other.

- There is a cute, young ONE-ARMED DUDE working the toll booth today. He used his nub to count my change.

- Snap him up and then y'all can have a brood of Virginian, White supremacist babies.

- OH HOLY FUCK DUDE. SON IN LAW IS ON.

- I ran into that fucking d-bag who ran our tab up to $65 and I tried to kick him.

- Oh, drunk bitches, I was you once, before I got old and found out going to bed and eating Krystals with my bff was way better.

- I just had some 5-foot Mexican be all YOU SMELL GOOD and I was like I KNOW BITCH IT'S CHANEL.

- I'm gonna smoke another cigarette and then go pass out next to a dude wearing make-up.

- I'm reading Dorothy Parker at the bar. I feel like Alabama's number 1 loser alcoholic.

- The band is playing Voodoo Chile. Want me to request Voodoo Chili next?

- FUCKIN HELL YES DINKIN FLICKA

- It's your tv. That, and your HUUUUUUUUUUUGE... dvr selection.

- DUDE, the old ornery guy downstairs just asked me to have a beer with him. I was like, Naw, I'm still drinking coffee.

- Do we need the nunchucks or the throwing stars? I'll be there in 3 hours with a bitch-lynching posse in tow.

- Sacred you are not. I mean, neither am I.

- I brought my boobs tonight in case shit went down.

- I'm sitting alone. OH WAIT, I HAVE MY KNEE BRACE.

- Guys who get bj's from strippers = no point in jockin' their tip at all.

- I just had a shot called Sex With An Alligator. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T ORDER ONE. IT TASTES LIKE FEET!

- Bumped into Hatchet Face yet?

- Riding down the road in Mississippi, listening to Color Me Badd. Jealous?

- About to eat crawdads for the first time. Something about sucking the head?

- Starting the day off right with coffee, tamales, and Michael McDonald.

- I wish Eric and Bill from True Blood would take me to the mall.

- Does it turn you on when I make Journey references? Does the wheel in the sky keep on turn-ehn?

- A kool aid pickle? A caesar salad? A steak sandwich? Spooge?

- Yeah, I'd let him lick my face.

2010-05-08T10:25:00.003-05:00

Okay, okay, so I'm not writing nearly enough these days. Life has been nutty.

With the divorce, and Jason's dad dying, and my being so preoccupied with Eric, and life going on as usual with Reed and the daily grind, and job-searching, I've been a little low, a little crazy, a little emotional, irrational, scared, excited, hopeful, pretty much every human emotion (and some non-human ones) that you can think of.

My mom is getting a book published, called Sweet Music On Moonlight Ridge, and we're all really excited about it. I took some photos of her holding a possum at Ruffner Mountain, and she's using one of those for her author photo. It's really a lovely story, and I'm so proud of my mom for persevering and making this happen.

Eric took me to the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis last weekend, and it was a LOT of fun, except for some outrageous inclement weather. Rain and rain and rain and rain and wind and supposedly a tornado. But we saw Jerry Lee Lewis, which was one of the coolest shows I've ever seen ever.

Then yesterday I got my nose pierced. Yep. I'd been thinking about it for years, and yesterday I woke up and said, "Well, today I'm going to get my nose pierced." And HOLY FUCK, the blood. I'd forgotten what a free-bleeder I am when I get pierced. And the adrenaline, jeez. But I'm loving it, even if it did HURT SO BAD.

I'm not sure what the future holds; my expectations and predictions change constantly, every day almost, and it's really frightening. But all I can do now is go with it. So here's to two months, to girls' night, to divorce papers, to Mississippi, to Alabama, to kids, to beer, to nachos, and sharp needles. Love y'all. Thanks for not giving up on me.

2010-04-13T10:09:00.002-05:00

So the day that I wrote here last, Jason called and cussed me out about the blog, and then two days later did it again. Consequently I've changed the blog to invite-only. If you know anybody I should invite, let me know, because it makes me happy for people to be reading.

Last week was just awful. I was a self-involved mess for most of it (what else is new?), but I think, ONCE AGAIN, that I've come out the other side.

It just felt so lonely and wrong and odd to be floating around over here not knowing what was going on with Jason's family at such a terrible time in their lives. The funeral was Saturday, and guess what? I didn't go. I intended to, but Jason told me it was at 3 when it was actually at 2. I think it was probably just a mistake on his part; he's never been good at details. I was really nervous about going; with the divorce, seeing his family was going to be really hard, and seeing Julia sitting with them was going to be even harder. But I still needed it for closure, to be able to say goodbye- not just to Big John, but to the Agans. Looks like I'm going to have to find that closure somehow within myself.

Jason told Reed on Friday, and he seems to have handled it remarkably well. He's brought it up once or twice, but he doesn't seem too distraught about it, which is a good thing. Plus I think Reed's too busy SUCKING MY WILL TO LIVE; he's prioritizing, see? He has been so energetic and wild lately, I have a lot of trouble keeping up. Jason has suddenly decided that he ought to be spending more time with Reed, and I agree. They hung out last night, and when they got home, Reed sung us Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in Spanish and it was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. Knowing, seeing for real that Reed will be fine, makes me feel much lighter during such a heavy time.

Eric, my boy in Mississippi, has changed things for me in so many ways it's hard to count. I feel optimistic. If you know me, you know that that means THE APOCALYPSE BE COMIN', Y'ALL, TAKE COVER. We talk every day- as evidenced by my $8657 phone bill THANKS T-MOBILE- and we text a lot. I've never attempted a long-distance anything, so this is all a learning process for me. A yearning, bittersweet, shallow-breathing learning process, but a learning process nonetheless. He is so cute, and so sweet, and he makes jokes. AND LAUGHS. JOKES AND LAUGHS. I can't tell you what a breath of fresh air this is, to be with someone who knows how to look for silver linings, who knows how to be goofy, who knows how to make me smile every single day. Luckily he's only about three hours away, so we can visit a lot. I didn't get to go see him last weekend, but you better believe I'm going out there this weekend. We're going to have tamales for breakfast and drink beer and goof off in his living room floor and make out AND MAKE OUT AND MAKE OUT, and I can't wait.

So, you know, if you see a crazy lady burning up the road towards Kosciusko this Friday, just stay outta my way.

2010-04-08T10:31:00.003-05:00

Well, it seems to be three steps forward, two steps back around here.

Jason's dad died night-before-last. He wasn't the healthiest person ever as far as his lifestyle, but he hadn't been sick that I know of, hadn't had heart problems or anything of that nature. It was pretty unexpected. He was around 60, I believe.

John was the first member of Jason's family that I met after we started seeing each other, and he immediately welcomed me into the family when everyone else was hesitant, as Jason was going through a nasty divorce at the time. He treated me with kindness and respect. We joked and laughed and drank beer together, and picked on each other and hugged each other. John would hug me until I thought my bones would break into pieces.

Only a few weeks ago I dropped Reed off at John's (where Jason is living now) and John hugged me and told me he loved and missed me.

The grief I'm feeling now is only intensified by the fact that I'm not really a part of their family any more, can't go to them and hug them and cry with them and remember John. I mean, I guess I could, but I haven't been invited and no one has been calling me. I feel awfully lonely, out here by myself, no one to commiserate with. I called Jason's mom and left a shaky, weepy message asking her to please let me know if there is anything at all that I can do. I haven't heard back from her. It's probably unfair of me to be having these thoughts and feelings, but it feels wrong some how not to be involved in this process with them. John was my father-in-law for 6 years, and the ink isn't dry on the divorce papers, and he was Reed's grandaddy John.

Oh, God, and Reed. I don't know if it's because of Jason's leaving and the divorce and all, but he's been asking a lot of questions about death lately. "Are you going to die? Is Ma going to die? When? I don't want Ma to die, because I love her." All I've known to tell him is that everybody dies, but it's when they're very, very old, and it's going to be a very long time before Ma or I die, that we'll be old, old, old. And now someone has to be like, "Except grandaddy John! He died. But no one else will for a long, long time." I feel like a liar, a failure, lost, wrong.

Also Jason has asked specifically that he gets to tell Reed. But now I'm left to wait and wonder, when? When will he tell him? Because there are no plans anytime in the next several days for Jason to see Reed. And while I don't know for sure, I bet all the other grandchildren have been told already. No one has called to talk to Reed, or visited him.

I think I'm just selfishly feeling like the outcast, and I'm fearing that Reed is going to be cast out with me. I'm absolutely dizzy right now with too many thoughts, too much confusion. I just wish I could do something, could help them right now. But I suppose that's just my place any more.

2010-04-06T11:55:00.002-05:00

So then, new life, first installment.

Divorce papers were signed on Friday. I spent the weekend with my new boy from Mississippi and Reed. We went to the park and the McWane Center and ate lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant, and at night we housesat for Chris and Kristi and drank beers on the back porch and listened to music and talked and talked. And talked.

I'm feeling prepared, ready, unafraid, in ways that I wouldn't have expected, ways that I am thanking God for.

I have to keep up the job search, have to keep being there for Reed and taking care of him, keep doing the laundry and the dishes and all that other daily stuff. But now there's something else behind it, incentive, excitement, satisfaction, purpose, that wasn't there before. For all I know it WAS there before and I just didn't see it, couldn't find it, something; all I know is it's there now and I like it.

This coming weekend I'm going to Mississippi, spending one night in Jackson to see a band with the boy, and the other night in Kosciusko at the boy's apartment, cooking and talking and drinking and, let's face it, making out a little bit. Or a lotta bit, whichever. I can't wait for Friday, can't wait to see his face, to hear his voice, smell his neck, to play with his dog, to sit on his couch.

Right now the only real concern I have is Jason and his fading connection with Reed. He never calls, never asks to see him. I call him and ask if he wants to hang out with his son, and he seems indifferent, annoyed, put-out. I can't understand it, because he's always been a fantastic, enthusiastic father, and somehow that's changed, and it scares the shit out of me. I mean, our marriage is over, he can piss me off all day long and I'll get over it, but Reed is 4 years old, young and fragile and scared and confused, and this is a crucial time for Jason to reassure him that their love will never change. I fear that he's not realizing how his attitude affects Reed, how Reed can tell how angry and bitter and resentful Jason is.

But, for right now, all I can do is keep encouraging Jason to see Reed, keep telling Reed how much we both love him, that we're not going anywhere, that we'll always be his parents, always love him. And keep moving on with my life, with Reed in tow. We'll be alright, we just might hit a few speed bumps on the way.

2010-04-01T19:59:00.003-05:00

Wow. Wow. I don't know how to start.

In the middle of January, Jason left me. He came home from work one day and said he thought we should separate, that he needed some time alone, and I cried and begged and pleaded and told him I loved him and wanted to be with him and Reed needs his dad and so on. That evening I went to Kristi's and tried to work it out in my head and couldn't come up with much. The next morning he told me he didn't want to separate, he wanted a divorce. I totally fell apart. I cried and puked and begged and cried some more. I didn't eat for days. I cried for days.

The only thing that kept me from totally falling off the deep end was Reed, daily routine, stuff to do. And being unemployed, there wasn't always stuff to do. I see-sawed back and forth between dealing and totally not dealing. Well, honestly the other thing that kept me from falling off the deepend was my collection of the best girls on the planet, my girls, who would answer the phone any time, answer my crazy texts at any time, and remind me that this, RIGHT HERE, is reality, and I can deal with it and move on.

And that right there, the fact that my only option was to deal with it and move on, was the hardest to grasp. I kept waiting for Jason to come to his senses, to realize that he couldn't live without me, to realize that he'd made a terrible mistake, to realize how terrible this would be for Reed. But over the weeks it slowly and painfully became clear that that wasn't going to happen.

It took about a week for me to nag Jason into admitting he was spending time with someone else, 13 days for me to badger Jason into admitting that he was fucking her. The night that he admitted that, he told me that I'm crazy, that I have problems, why wouldn't I just let him go, that I was abnormal for wanting to know what he was doing and who he was with.

Julia, the girl that Jason is with now, is someone we've had problems with in the past. I never wrote about it, because I wanted to keep some part of our lives private. Two years ago Jason and I were having some marital problems, and it came to my attention that he'd taken nude photos of a girl without my knowledge, and that he'd been talking to people he worked with pretty extensively about our marriage, to the point where a few girls he worked with were encouraging him to leave me. Keep in mind that these were girls who had only met me a few times and didn't know me or our marriage at all. One of those was Julia. Once all that came to light, I looked at our cell phone records and realized that he and Julia had been texting each other a whole lot for some time, sometimes 30 and 40 times a day. I told Jason that I thought it was unfair for him to talk about our marriage to his manager, who also was younger and had no children and had never been married and didn't know me at all. He claimed that all that texting was just about work, that they were just friends, that nothing was going on. He went on to make fun of her, to tell me that she had no sense of humor at all, that she was dull and boring and snobby, stuck-up, had no personality. He put a stop to the texting, even though she openly threw a fit about it, in front of other co-workers, enough that people were asking what the hell was going on.

It took me a couple of months, but I got over it. Jason reassured me that he loved me, would never leave me, wanted only me, was committed to me and Reed and our marriage.

Fast-forward to him telling me that he wanted to separate. I looked at our cell records and found that he and Julia were talking again. When I asked him about it, his response was, "She's just being there for me. We're friends, and nothing else." It was about a week after that that I found out he was spending the night at her house. It was a few days after that that he admitted they were sleeping together.

Then about two months later he started telling my friends that he "has deep, strong feelings" for Julia that he's had "for a very long time". About a week after he left me, he admitted that he thought about moving to California with her. Now he's pressuring me to allow Reed to hang out with her. I have to say, I have a lot of reservations. It's not because it's Jason's new girlfriend; it's because it's a girl who has been after my husband for years, a girl who has met Reed and knows we had a life and child and a history and didn't give a fuck about it.

Also, really, who would want him? Jason now has two divorces; he's left two woman and three children behind. Is this what's attractive now?

And this isn't even getting into all the bullshit he's fed me. Two weeks before he left, I could tell something was wrong, and I asked, "What's going on? Are you going to leave me?" His response: "I love you. I would never leave you. You're stuck with me. I'm not going anywhere." And that ain't paraphrasing; that's what he told me.

The day he left, I asked him if he could please not date anyone until after we were divorced, if that was what was going to happen. He said yes.

Anyway, here we are. We're signing the papers tomorrow. I've been through a lot in a short amount of time. I've cried and begged and despaired and grieved and begged some more and pleaded and lamented and feared and avoided and every other possible option. But I think, I think, that I've come to terms. I don't want to be with Jason if he doesn't love me any more, which I'm pretty sure is the case. I don't want an unhappy marriage, I don't want Jason with me out of obligation. My love for him was so intense and all-encompassing that it was hard for me to see out of it, hard for me to see a way to exist without him in my life. Fortunately for me I have Reed and my girls, so I've made it.

And I've made it to a really, really happy place. I know that there will probably be more sadness, more loss felt, but right now I'm able to truthfully say, "Okay, this if life, this is what's happened, and I'm better off because of it."

I've met a boy.

I've met a boy.

I'm not sure what to say about it right now. I can say that he makes me laugh, makes me feel light, makes me feel like there is a lot of life to live that I haven't even had a taste of yet. He makes me feel like I am lovely, have something to offer, am worthwhile, that I have worth. He makes me feel like the way I am is okay, is better than okay, is desirable. I am remembering that I am funny, smart, pretty, fun. I am remembering that I am good mother, that I am responsible, that I am good. I am remembering that I am good.

I am remembering that I am good. Goddamnit for it taking a boy to make me remember it, but isn't it good that I remembered? I think so.

We'll see what happens from here. I'm just happy to be happy. To be able to laugh and smile without feeling scared, guilty, about it. To be able to look forward, without shame. To be able to yearn in a happy way, instead of in a sad way. To be able to talk to someone who is excited about what's to come.

I'm back, for anyone who might still look here. I ain't going anywhere. Except maybe to Mississippi.

Cleaning out my text messages.

2010-01-18T09:59:00.002-06:00

- Who shit on this carpet?

- I wasn't prepared to set up a velvet rope at your funeral.

- Lord, the end is near. I just caught myself singing Nickelback. I hate myself.

- I just googled how to tell the difference between gray and blonde hair. It's harder than you think and google is USELESS.

- I just "fixed" my Uggs. Most I've done all day outside of karaoke.

- I totally wouldn't kick trainer Bob outta bed... but I don't have a penis so I don't think he'd be into it.

- I've never wanted to get someone, besides me, laid more in my life.

- Man, I just wanna chain smoke and drink beers. Merry Christmas.

- I got a feeling he works on a dairy farm.

- The fact that in that diagram the anus was represented by the green light = DIAGRAM FAIL.

- Dude, I just bought a puffy silver vest for $3 THANK GOD I'VE NEEDED ONE FOR SO LONG.

- The girl to your left is a hot-ass mess.

- Wet, slide, thighs, shaft, quivering. These are your sexting words!

- I'm on my knees in the dirt at work, and I'm slipping in vomit when I play. Why would I buy $100 jeans?

- I'm at Walmart and the car parked in front of me has 10- TEN- air fresheners hanging on the rear view.

- There's a black man! Yay! Leeds ain't racist!

- No on likes a butt munch!

- Jason is sitting here looking up and watching Lady Gaga videos on Youtube. Hello, apocalypse.

- My mom's playing her Hall and Oates Christmas album. Fuck yeah, Merry Christmas!

- Whatever. If you wanna dance me off, I'll serve you.

- I love that Chris' shorts are the deciding factor.

- My kid just punched me in the stomach even after I told him I'm not feeling well. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE OF BIRTH CONTROL.

- Now it's watery pickle poop in his pants.

- Wa-oh. I am wearing a lot of make-up.

- You need to send me dirty texts.

Lindsey sent this to me, and I love it.

2010-01-14T15:09:00.003-06:00

My favorite part is "Imagine ten thousand flies simultaneously grabbing you."

2010-01-11T10:55:00.002-06:00

The other night Jason asked if I had any new blog posts coming up, and all I could think was, "..."

Life for me has been a mindless routine lately, a lot of Get up, Get Reed to school, Clean kitchen, Do laundry, Apply for jobs, Dinner, Get Reed ready for bed, Mess around for a while, Go to bed.

I've been unemployed for just over 4 months now, I've applied for lots and lots of jobs in lots of different fields, and I haven't had a single interview.

Today I'm feeling just a bit discouraged and pessimistic. It's dramatic to say, but I've been constantly haunted lately by decisions, bad and good, mine and those of others, and how they've changed our lives in the past couple of years. I'm having a lot of nightmares, not sleeping well, feeling anxious and pukey, stuck, impotent. The logical part of me knows that things will change, get better, but there's still a tiny part of me that just can't see out of this right now.

Anyway, there's my magical post for today. We're headed to Mobile to photograph a wedding at the end of this month, and I'm looking forward to getting out of town for a couple of days. Perhaps I'll be able to clear my head a bit then.

2009 Picture Show.

2009-12-31T12:39:00.004-06:00

Music by Grizzly Bear. I got the idea to do this from Dooce.

The goose done gotten fat.

2009-12-28T12:11:00.004-06:00

Lordy, y'all: EXHAUSTION. We've finally finished Christmasing, though, and let me just tell you, we've done Christmas six different times in the past week, and I'm glad we're done.

Yesterday we drove to Tennessee to see Jason's mom's family, something I've done once before. It didn't go so swell the first time, or at least the drive home didn't, and this time I honestly thought, "Reed's four now; it'll be fine." And it really was mostly fine, but about two hours outside of Birmingham Reed suddenly started freaking out. He yelled and screamed and cried, mainly because he wanted to get out of his seat and sit in my lap. We kept explaining booster seats and seat belts and air bags and THE LAW and shit, trying to tell him all the reasons why he couldn't do that, to no avail. It sucked pretty bad, listening to my kid scream and watching him writhe and trying not to panic and freak out.

But we made it, and I remembered that all last week I kept telling myself, if I can just make it to Monday, I'll be okay. So here I am on Monday, and I am okay. Tonight our book club meets to discuss Travels In the Scriptorium by Paul Auster, and let me just tell you THAT SHIT IS WEIRD, so I think it'll be a good meeting.

Now, onward ho to 2010.

2009. 2010.

2009-12-22T11:28:00.016-06:00

Okay y'all, 2009 is almost over. FUCK, it has been a hard year. Every year is a hard year, and I keep saying "I hope that this coming year is better, easier, happier, calmer" and CLEARLY I am jinxing us because it just keeps getting harder and crazier.

This year has been long. I lost my job, Kane and Jude stopped coming to see us, there were fights and drama, we lost our house and moved in with my mom, and things in general were just weird and creepy.

There were good times, though. There was much drinking, karaoking, dancing.

We continued on with Drunk Psychology, had lots of fun with it, even took it to New Orleans.

We went to Costa Rica and had so much fun WITH NO GODDAMN AIR CONDITIONING.

But there was beer, so it was okay.

We won that contest, the one called "Drive To Tennessee and Pay $175 For the Dog Who Farts More Than Any Other Dog In the Whole World!!!" Duque is awesome and we love him. But his farts stink. Bad.

I turned 30.

Jason turned 35.

Reed turned 4.

My mom turned... 27?

I got to photograph Guster, one of my favorite bands ever.

Kristi and Chris graduated from law school, passed the bar, and got married.

Reed was their cute-ass- if very ornery- ring bearer.

I made some new friends...

And spent time with some old ones...

Jason and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. The fact that we've managed to stay together, to stay in love, to keep respecting each other and keep wanting to be with each other when things have been as hard as they have on every front, is proof that if you work hard enough you can achieve anything in this world.

We got a one-eared kitten who lives in our Christmas tree.

And I managed to stick pretty closely to my resolution, to be more upfront about my feelings, what's going on in my head and heart. It hasn't always been easy, but I've tried to weigh the pros and cons in the situations and experiences in my life and bite the bullet and speak up when necessary.

Here's to hoping that I'm still around, both in the blogging world and in the world at large, at the end of 2010. This ride just keeps getting bumpier, but screw it, I've got beer.

Cleaning out my text messages.

2009-12-16T16:34:00.001-06:00

- If you feel so inclined, a swift kick to that junky, withered black hole some might call her box would elicit FIVE WHOLE DOLLARS from my wallet to yours.

- I think it's nice that handjobs are her standard slut operating procedure.

- We hulahooped and I wasn't a whore!

- The museum is hosting an exhibit of American art from revolutionary war times. I fell asleep just reading the billboard.

- I just saw a Wal-Mart commercial with an unnerving amount of "people from the Orient". I saw several cameras in the commercial. Even Wal-Mart doesn't know when it's wrong to make fun of stereotypes.

- Holy hangover, Batman!

- The Jeep Liberty in front of me has a tag that reads "supbrah".

- My cousin has a natty light tall boy AND a 2 liter Dr. Pepper in her fridge- we're definitely related.

- I just ate a bunch of ants. They were blending in with my left over Mexican steak.

- There is a swole part on my ear that oozes and smells a little. I'm pretty sure I'm going to die.

- We're at the foozball table. And I'm on a team with some random dude who tried to pick me up by telling me he got offered the head of security job at Bass Pro Shop. Help me.

- I need to ask you something really serious. Do you think Branjelina is breaking up? Also, Jason wants you to know he can't get behind striped hoodies.

- Duque just swallowed a rib bone whole.

- Yay! Prozac high five!

- Is it bad that there's a coat at Cracker Barrel that I want?

- I have alleviated my hangover with aspirin, cocola, and chicken biscuit.

- Watching Desperate Housewives brought me down, but watching Best of Jimmy Fallon brought me back up. Oh my God, what's happened to me?

- Watching a Roomba? Now that's entertainment.

- Is she still secret-dating a dude?

- Batman doesn't wear his cape when he pees.

- She's an equal opportunity lesbian. She thinks of a dude as a strap-on with a man attached.

- Mooses are pretty damn cool.

- Ironic mullet fail.

- Some tattooed, pierced dude is singing Do You Believe In Life After Love by Cher. I think Armageddon is upon us.

- I'm wearing a Mylie Cyrus blazer. What's become of us.

- Sweet Georgia Brown: when you want a beer that tastes like bugs smell.

- The funny think is I wasn't even wearing my fake Uggs last night. I just said it to gross you out.

- Whither thou goest, knave?!? To thou, likest whatest you look upon, whaeheh?!

- Do you want to be, like, Jersey shore Santa, or like, a classy Santa with pearls?

- You just had to drizzle some ear goo in a few places real quick.

- I bet one of their names is Donette.

- Cosmic zombie Jew.

- Are you gonna tell him the truth now or wait until he kills me and blinds himself?!

Sorry, Jesus, the inn is full.

2009-12-09T09:38:00.003-06:00

So you know how we have five people living together in this house? And two dogs? And did you know that we have, like, 74 cats?

Well apparently God decided that we don't have quite enough pussy around here, and he had someone drop off a kitten in a cardboard box on the front steps of the library where my mom works. So OF COURSE my mom is like, We have a new cat! Woo-hoo! And I was all, Hello, I'm Scrooge, no more fucking cats in this house, we have 192, that's enough cats. So my mom quietly brings the cat home last night regardless of what any of us think about it.

And it's pretty fucking cute. And it's a tiny kitten, and it's all, Mew, mew, I'm so little! And it wants Duque to be its mama. So I'm coming over to the dark side.

And now, today, it's favorite place is sitting on my shoulders, purring and emitting little Darth Vader breaths on my shoulder. The force is strong with this one.

Welcome home, number 411.

2009-12-06T08:59:00.007-06:00

Reed,

Today you are four. On this momentous occasion, all I can really think to say is, BEING A PARENT IS SO HARD. And this day means that I still have 14 more years of it to get through.

I love you so much that it makes it hard to say the following, but somehow I think I'll muddle through: HOLY JEEZ at those lungs you have. You've suddenly found yourself in a place in your life when it seems like a good idea to scream, writhe, and throw tantrums for an hour or so at a time, for terrible offenses done to you by your awful family such as opening the yogurt wrong, giving you a bath ever, or taking off your shoes before we try to put on your jeans.

Let me just reiterate: On Thanksgiving day, you got your pants wet so we had to change them, and you had an hour-and-a-half fit because I took your shoes off before I put the clean jeans on. Because taking the shoes off makes them get "all sprinkley". And I tried every thing I knew to appease you; I offered to put the shoes back on before putting the jeans on, to change your socks, to clean out the shoes (whatever that means), to give you a gold monkey, and to put on different shoes. You made it incredibly clear that the only thing you wanted, the ONLY acceptable option at that time, was to never have taken the shoes off in the first place.

Honestly I don't know what in hell you're talking about half the time, but as long as you're not yelling, I sure do like to listen. Recently you asked if I got "that" from across the street. I had no idea what "that" was, and I was too afraid to ask because I knew it might displease you for me not to know, so I flew by the seat of my pants and said "No, Kristi gave it to you." And you were absolutely enlightened and satisfied with my answer, so much so that you then wanted to know if she also has "Wall-E ones". I told you I don't know, but I'll sure ask.

Before I forget- Kristi, do you have Wall-E ones?

Anyways, Reed, you are testing every limit I got to the point where I think, I will never be the same, some of these things will never go back to the way they once were, and it's not a bad thing, only a weird thing. Honestly I can't describe how weird it is to be a parent, to have known you when you were a squiggly baby, and then a tottering toddler, and now a little boy.

One day you were running through the house making car noises, and I suddenly looked at Jason and said, "Oh, Christ, one day he'll be a teenager." Because that's part of this whole parenting thing for me: I frequently forget that all these periods, these moments in time, are only moments, are finite. I remember when you were a teeny baby, and I was so tired, and I was telling Ma that I wasn't sure if I'd make it. She said, "Just remember that none of this is forever. It only lasts a little while." I have since passed that little jewel on to most of the pregnant women I've known and some of the non-pregnant women who talk about having kids one day because, for me, it was so easy to think, Okay, here it is, this is the rest of my life, this sleeping for an hour or two at a time and always feeling sweaty and scared and anxious and nauseated and wrong and unsure.

Point is, I remind myself of that fact all the time, that this won't last long, that before I know it you'll be all grown and I'll be going, Wait, where did my time go with my baby? Because I already listen to you sing songs and describe movies and shows and watch you draw pictures and think, Where did my time go with my baby? Thank the good Lord that, right now, you'll still kiss and hug me, even in front of "your children" at the daycare. And a couple of months ago I spied you holding two stuffed dogs up and pressing their mouths together, making kissing noises. HA. Sometimes you're sweet as pie.

For at least a little longer, I'm going to keep thinking of you as my sweet baby, even though I know you're not a baby any more. Because even if they're few and far between, I still get moments where you snuggle in my lap, or kiss my cheek, or tell me you missed me, or stroke my hair, just because you feel like it.

I love you,

Mom

Come see me!

2009-12-05T10:34:00.000-06:00

I'm in the Bottletree Craft Bazaar this year, and you should come down and see my jewelry, along with all the other gorgeous stuff here! I'm in the Avondale Bricks building on 41st street south and 2nd avenue.

2009-12-04T11:25:00.002-06:00

Sorry; not much coming to the surface to put down these days. Things have been kind of muddling together, days and nights and weekdays and weekends. Thanksgiving was good, Jason's birthday was good, our anniversary was good, taking some bridal portraits was good. Now it's on to Reed's birthday, a wedding we're photographing, Christmas, and New Year's.

I've applied for some jobs but haven't gotten any phone calls. So for right now, just keeping on.

Happy Thanksgiving.

2009-11-26T08:46:00.002-06:00

DSC_0001.jpg
Originally uploaded by cuttingroomfloor

Celebrate with a little dog butt.

Giving thanks.

2009-11-25T10:04:00.004-06:00

So it's Thanksgiving time again, so I thought I'd go the traditional route and write about what I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for having a roof over my head. In this time when so many people are dealing with foreclosure there are many who don't have any place to go, and there are more still who don't have a place as nice and roomy and comfortable as my mom's house. I know how lucky we are to have a place only a few miles from our house to move in, so close that it didn't have to change our daily routines, didn't change our driving time to work and Reed's daycare.

I'm thankful for my mom who isn't afraid to take care of her daughters who are grown and ought to be able to take care of themselves. I'm glad she still has the stamina to deal with us.

I'm thankful for having free time to write, to take pictures, to clean the house and do our laundry and cook supper. It's scary not having a job, and having to try and survive on Jason's income alone, but the silver lining is that I get moments to myself, time to think, to enjoy the silence.

I'm thankful for Duque, a dog that if he doesn't stop shitting in the house might become a roasted blue heeler and save us the money of buying a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. What I'm saying is STOP SHITTING IN THE HOUSE, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.

On that note, I'm thankful for Clorox wipes.

I'm thankful for my friends, the people who have helped me pick up the pieces an infinite number of times, and will likely do so infinitely more. My closest friends can split a six pack with me, comfort me when I'm crying, laugh with me when I'm laughing, and take me out for nachos. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to be there for me in good times and bad.

I'm thankful for Reed, my child who tests the limits of my patience (fairly short) and the limits of my sanity (about the size of a cocktail weenie) every single bleeding day. Yesterday my mom and I had Thanksgiving lunch with him at his school, and he ate an entire pile of collard greens and then proceeded to recite the books of the bible. All of 'em. He astonishes me daily, almost hourly, with his ability to roll with the punches, deal with life, and still find joy in odd places.

I'm thankful for Jason, the strangest, most patient, forgiving, ornery man I've ever known. He loves me even in my ugliest moments, even when every limit I possess has been breached and I am shaking and screaming and slamming doors and sterilizing door knobs. He loves me when I am pronouncing that we'll all die of the plague, when I'm buying too many shirts, when I'm covering all my food in hot sauce. I'm thankful for the laughter that we share, for our ability to joke with each other and giggle like all is right with the world. Happy 35th birthday Jason, and happy 6th anniversary. We've been through a lot in the past few years, and if I've learned anything it's that it's never over, things can always get worse, and all we can do is keep striving, keep persevering, and keep making jokes. I'm glad we're in this together.

Lastly, I'm thankful for beer and Mexican food, without which I probably would have thrown myself out a window by now.

Cleaning out my text messages.

2009-11-17T13:47:00.006-06:00

- Should I be this excited about applying for a job that, in the listing, has a job "discription"?

- That's okay, yankee, go ahead and shoot me. It's hot outside and I don't wanna milk the cow.

- I guess I should suck it up. : * That's an emoticon of sucking.

- The hipsters have invaded Trussville. I repeat, the hipsters have invaded. Over.

- I've spent all day writing about anal fistulas. It's not the same as a fissure, which was my hope.

- You gay fucking gypsies.

- I wish I knew how to read.

- Rad! Fuck em! WE ALREADY BEEN GOTTEN OUT!

- And here's a pirate sucking it up: . *

- Oh, Lord, and the cooking and the walking and the shooting and the turkey-plucking. The Civil War was GROSS, dude.

- We at ur hows, steelin ur theengs. That's lol cat.

- The guys who aren't worth stalking are stalking you.

- Hipsters in Trussville! How did they ever get in?

- I GOT this shit. I am so ghetto.

- "What you about to learn is they ain't no balm in Gilead."

2009-11-16T15:25:00.003-06:00

Man, oh man, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And it's always darkest before the dawn. And just when you think things can't get any weirder, they do. And some other random, cliche words and phrases and people say.

A lot of things are coming, like Jason's birthday, Thanksgiving, bridal portraits, Reed's birthday, a couple of weddings, and Christmas. This time of year is both fun and incredibly stressful, and lately I'm focusing more on the stress than the fun, unfortunately.

But, as they say, this too shall pass.

Fuck.

2009-11-10T10:14:00.004-06:00

Ida is showing herself here today, and I've decided to wait the weather out inside, under a blanket.

I took a couple of pictures from various windows in the house.

Days like today make me incredibly thankful that I have a roof over my head.

The odd couple.

2009-11-09T13:47:00.002-06:00

The odd couple.
Originally uploaded by buffpuff

I've been spending a lot of my time with these guys lately. They are weird, ornery, and hungry.

Anyway, life goes on over here. Reed went back to school today, and Jason and I got our new bedroom better settled and organized.

I'm reading Cold Mountain for the first time, and getting ready to start People of the Whale for book club.

Okay, that's all I got.

"You look like a doily."

2009-11-06T09:53:00.004-06:00

This week has been nutty.

We took Reed to the doctor on Wednesday; turns out he has the flu AND strep throat. Luckily he's on the mend now, and it's even possible that no one else in the house managed to catch any of his plague.

I went to meet a friend for a drink at Bottletree last night, and happened to see Those Darlins, and MAN, they are really good. So, so good. And Nikki Darlin gave me a free sticker! You can't beat that with a stick.

Tonight I am meeting my lawyer for a much-needed margarita. By "my lawyer", I mean Kristi. And by "much-needed", I mean FOR DAMN SURE, I NEED IT. I spend several days this week thinking maybe I was getting sick with whatever Reed has, but it never progressed, never turned into fever, body aches, total grossness. Finally I realized that I'm in some kind of slump. I hesitate to just say, "Okay, I'm depressed", because somehow this is different. I think it's probably a combination of moving, learning to live with my mom and my sister again, being unemployed and attempting to job search when I see listings for secretarial work that say "Must have ten years secretarial experience", and the time change that means it's dark by 5 every day.

Nevertheless, I have stumbled upon a few neat opportunities with writing and photography, and I'm hoping they pan out. Also I'm showing my jewelry at the Bottletree Craft Bazaar on December 5th, so if you're in Birmingham, come and check it out.

Anyways, the moral of this story is there is no moral to the story. There's no point to any of this. It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle... and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt.

And now I'm quoting Troy Dyer. I think it's time to go.

Pig meat, books, and music. And a Jew.

2009-11-03T09:50:00.004-06:00

A year ago today I was starting my new job. This year on this day, I'm eating bacon. See, things are lookin' up already!

My friends and I have started a book club called Bitches, Booze, and Books!, and I'm pretty excited about it. Last month Valerie chose The World According to Garp, and the meeting was really fun. We decided that the book is mainly about blowjobs, and the male fixation on such. Well, that's what I decided. This month I've chosen People of the Whale by Linda Hogan, which I read several months ago and really liked. I hope this month's meeting is as fun as the last one.

In other news, Matisyahu is coming to Birmingham this Saturday night, and I'm hoping that Lindsey and I get to cover it for al.com. We'll be covering Pete Yorn and Eric Hutchinson (who I have photographed before) in the coming weeks, and Jason will be helping Lindsey cover Cage the Elephant.

Also I just discovered that Matisyahu's birthday is June 30th, just three days after mine, SO CLEARLY WE ARE GOING TO BE BEST FRIENDS.

"She's infectious human waste!"

2009-11-02T11:30:00.004-06:00

Ah, another Halloween come and gone.

Reed was The Black Spiderman (as he calls it), but only for a little while at his daycare Halloween party. Friday evening he came down with a fever and cough that lasted until Sunday afternoon, so no Trick or Treating for Reed this year. I'm thinking of getting him dressed up in his costume some time this week and taking him to a couple of houses to get candy, because I feel so bad for him to have missed it. Oddly enough, he doesn't seem to be concerned whatsoever.

Jason and I dressed as Tyler Durden and Marla Singer, respectively, and I think it might have been our best costumes yet. Of course I'm automatically a fan of anything that allows me to have huge hair and tons of makeup.

Life around here is starting to feel very calm and quiet, and it's both reassuring and unsettling. I'm still applying for jobs and not getting any phone calls. Most days I clean and rearrange and walk dogs and feed cats and clean some more and do laundry. As a result, I'm not finding myself with much to write about. So, you know, bless you guys' hearts for having to come on here and read about what I had for breakfast.

It was oatmeal, by the way.

Ha!

2009-10-29T14:49:00.001-05:00

Photo 603.jpg
Originally uploaded by cuttingroomfloor

I finally have my computer hooked up to the internet here at my mom's house, and in celebration I decided to abuse the dog.

One night only!

2009-10-23T13:26:00.002-05:00

Jason and I, along with several other people, are showing stuff in an art show on Sunday night, October 25th. If you're in the Birmingham area and want to come, get in touch with me for directions and shit. I'll have tons of new jewelry, and Jason painted a brand new piece just for this show.

Gretchen, the wonderasshole.

2009-10-21T15:09:00.001-05:00

Gretchen, the wonderasshole.
Originally uploaded by cuttingroomfloor

This is my mom's dog Gretchen. Yesterday I took her and Duque over to our old house to let them run around in our fenced back yard. OF COURSE, Gretchen managed to get out of the fence.

Cut to Lindsey and me, driving around the neighborhood slowly, hollering and whistling out my windows. We discover Gretchen, sleeping peacefully in the sun in someone else's driveway about three blocks from my house. Lindsey catches her, and promptly loses hold, and then we're running through people's back yards trying to catch her. We end up in a back yard where a dude is sitting peacefully on his back porch, and he smiles and waves and half-heartedly calls Gretchen to see if she'll come to him.

Eventually we corner her in his front yard up against his porch, but alas, I've left the leash in the car (4 houses down), and so I have to pick her up and carry her squirming to the car.

It was fun.

But now I have to go. She's gotten away from my mom's house, and I have to go and try to catch her.

Slowly getting back to normal. Whatever that is.

2009-10-19T16:51:00.001-05:00

Sleeping Duque.
Originally uploaded by cuttingroomfloor

We're slowly but surely getting all our things moved in at my mom's house. GAH, we have a lot of shit. I mean, loads and loads of shit.

We've moved most of the furniture, and our artwork, our books, our movies. And, while we've moved some of our clothes, HOLY CRAP at all the clothes we still have to move. And I have seriously already donated about 10 garbage bags full of clothes, shoes, and purses to Goodwill. For fuck's sakes, I don't know how we had it all in our house to begin with.

Duque is settling in especially well here. He's had a lightness about him, a spring in his step, that I've never seen before. He can play with Gretchen (my mom's Jack Russell terrier), or her abundance of cats. I think he really loves that, so far, he's been sleeping in our bedroom floor instead of his crate.

Reed loves this, loves living at Ma's house, and our only problem with him so far is that he is determined to sleep with Ma every night. We're working on getting him to sleep in his own room, and I'm hoping that's going to happen before we all go crazy.

Anyway, boring post, I know, but that's what's going on over here. What's going on with you?

Cleaning out my text messages.

2009-10-15T08:34:00.000-05:00

- So, everyone has nipple hair. I feel so vindicated.

- BE COOL IS IT THE FUZZ

- I wouldn't talk to Alan Hunter about Mtv because I try not to reward people's mediocrity. How sad it must be to have peaked in the 80's.

- This thing is kind of a celebration in kissing your own ass. I've never seen so many self important assholes walking around, smiling smugly at one another.

- I just got Chik Fil A because I was craving it like a business of ferrets.

- I guess my dead Phish spell hasn't quite kicked in yet.

- You have no idea how often I've wished you were here this afternoon specifically to YELL shitty dick at people.

- I AM LIKE CUCUMBER

- I just had a shot of tequila. You people should be concerned.

- 'slam on my breaks'- is that like 'devaining shrimp'?

- I am craving a hillock of beans.

- A hotdog just told me to do the wave.

- My lovecan's wasted.

"Who says I can't get stoned; pick my nose in my house alone."

2009-10-14T15:22:00.003-05:00

So, then, here I am at my mom's house. We're about half-way moved in, and everything is hectic and mixed up and every time we need something- clean underwear, socks, toothbrush- we have to figure out if it's here or there.

This is the part I hate about moving: moving.

What's cool about moving in here is that my mom has internet. INTERNET! How I've missed you. It's been right about one year since we lost internet at our house; one year since I've been able to roll out of bed and check my email, or read my favorite blogs, or job search, or write something new here. I'm looking forward to being able to do that again.

Plus, you know, PORN. Gotta love the porn.

Okay, I've got Jason dancing around in his underwear singing John Mayer right now. I've gotta go.

2009-10-07T14:36:00.001-05:00

Check me out in Birmingham Magazine!

We'll all float on anyway.

2009-10-06T12:46:00.002-05:00

Hm, where to start? I've already written about getting laid off, and about my uncle dying. Let's see; what else?

Well, on Friday we got a letter in the mail that our house has been foreclosed, and that we have ten days (until October 10th) to vacate. PARTY, right? So we've been planning and packing and trying to figure out how to fit all of us into my mother's house. It's not that small of a house, it's just the plan of action, and figuring where to put all our shit- really that should be ALL OUR SHIT EXCLAMATION- once we get there.

So this morning I called the lawyer for the mortgage company to find out if that date, October 10th, was the definite date we had to be out, because if we could get even a couple more days it would make things so much easier for us. The attorney said that we should call our mortgage company and ask for an extended vacate period, that they do that all the time, that it's nothing out of the ordinary. So I called Citimortgage at the number he gave me and spoke to Avery, who had no idea what I was talking about, and that I should call Joe X- I'm not shitting you, JOE X is who I should talk to. So I called the number Avery gave me for JOE X, and Kathy answered and said she had never heard of JOE X, and that the number I called was her direct line and she had never heard of a JOE X and that she doesn't work with loans and I could try Safeguard, the property management company. So I called Safeguard, and the girl there told me they had nothing to do with any of it, and I should talk to my mortgage company. THANKS. So I called the mortgage company again and spoke with a girl who said that there's nothing they could do; had we asked for assistance they might have been able to help us out. I said, "We DID ask for assistance; we filled out your hardship package TWICE and never heard from you guys, and every time we've called we've been told that our case has been turned over to someone else and that someone else is off today so we'll have to call them tomorrow." Then I asked to speak to her supervisor. Her supervisor Ashley informed me that we should call the sheriff's office to find out when we actually have to be out of the house and if we can get and extension. I said, "You're telling me that YOU can't tell me, and no one there at Citimortgage can tell me when we're supposed to be out of the house." She replied, "Yes." So then I said, "Hey, are you guys hiring? Because I need a job and I could come sit down there and not know what I'm doing for ten or twelve dollars an hour." I SERIOUSLY SAID THAT, I AM SUCH A BADASS. So I called the sheriff's department and they had no idea what I was talking about and I spoke to three different people including SMALL CLAIMS (a mortgage? small claims? seriously?) and probate and nobody knew anything about it. So now I've called the attorney again and left a message and I'm waiting to hear back.

DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE, EVER GET A MORTGAGE THROUGH CITIMORTGAGE. PLEASE. FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, DON'T DO IT.

Also, last night, Jason's ex-wife's husband started sending him threatening text messages about how he's coming to our house and Jason is a "jackass" and a "sorry ass". Oh, and I haven't even told you the half of what's been going on. I've been debating how much I'm going to write here about what's been going on with Jason's kids, so suffice it to say that everything is all messed up and the blame falls on me, on my being scary and threatening, and now my husband can't spend time with his kids and my son can't spend time with his brothers because of it.

All else I know to say on that is, 1) I am proud of this blog. I love to write, and I like everything I've written here. I enjoy every one's comments, whether good or bad, and I like knowing that people are looking at this blog. I don't regret the things I've written here because I am allowed to express love and exasperation and I am allowed to use sarcasm and exaggeration when I do it; I am allowed an opinion. If you don't like my opinion, don't read my blog. 2) I love Kane and Jude, tons and tons, more than I am capable of expressing here, and I have always treated them with love and respect and the things that I've written here about them speak to how deep and real that love is. Sometimes I write about day-to-day things like SOCKS! and COATS!, but I haven't written anything on this blog about any of that stuff that I haven't said out loud to Kane and Jude. And 3) I don't write this blog for children to read. The internet is a big, scary place and there is a lot of stuff out there that isn't for children. My blog certainly isn't the worst of it; there are all kinds of things scarier like PORN and CARROT TOP and REPUBLICANISM that kids could be looking at, but all the same, this blog is not for kids.

So, I think that about gets us up to speed. Thoughts? Questions? 'Ludes?

2009-09-25T08:31:00.003-05:00

I wrote here not too long ago about the horrific slaughter of dolphins that has been occuring and the documentary that has come out about it, The Cove. My mom has a spiritual and sentimental attachment to dolphins that I'm not going to go into here; suffice it to say that the subject feels very close to home for me.

I've just watched a documentary called Sharkwater, and it too was horrific. Did you know that Taiwan pays Costa Rica huge amounts of money for fishermen to illegally fish sharks, cut their fins off, and send them to Taiwan for soups, pills, etc.? Costa Rica is a country that makes a lot of money off of ecotourism, and shark fishing is technically illegal, yet hundreds of thousands of sharks die there in the waters around Cocos every year. Did you also know that, as a result of intense pressure from fishermen, Galapagos allowed longline fishing of sharks for a time? It has since become illegal again, but for fuck's sakes, Galapagos! It's a place that's known for being home to some of the most rare and interesting animals on earth, and one of the biggest threats in Galapagos now is illegal shark fishing (The most pressing threat to the Marine Reserve comes from local, mainland and foreign fishing targeting marine life illegally within the Reserve, such as sharks (hammerheads and other species) for their fins, and the harvest of sea cucumbers out of season.)

Have you ever watched fishermen catch sharks and "obtain" the fins? They use long lines, miles and miles long, with lots of hooks attached all along the line. When they haul the sharks onto the boats, sometimes they're already dead, but sometimes they're still alive. They slice off all the fins including the tail (even with the live ones) and toss the body back into the ocean. Fishing in this manner means that they catch all sorts of things, sailfish and other species that they aren't looking for, and all different kinds of sharks including hammerheads and tiger sharks and even whale sharks, a species that has no teeth and filter feeds, eating things like algae and krill.

We humans get the majority of our oxygen (that we need to survive) from the ocean. This shark fishing is rapidly killing off the animal that is at the top of the food chain in the ocean, and no one knows how badly this will upset ocean ecology, marine life as a whole when there are no more (or just drastically less) sharks. Sharks are the oldest living animal on this planet, older than dinosaurs, and they've survived and thrived for this long in nature, until now we're killing them off, obliterating them.

The man who made the documentary Sharkwater, Rob Stewart, talks about how he's always been drawn to sharks, how watching them die is like watching his family die. His intense concern for sharks reminds me a lot of my mother's connection with dolphins.

I realize that there are terrible things happening all over the world, that there are fifty million different causes to be concerned about, but I think the first step to change is to talk about these problems, to get the word out. In the film Sharkwater it is said that to make change, you don't need everyone in the world to fight for change, you really only need a few people who are really passionate about it. So I'm just trying to help get the word out.

Cleaning out my text messages.

2009-09-17T08:10:00.002-05:00

- So many douchebags, so little time.

- I FOLLOW THROUGH WITH MY HYPERBOLE, BITCH!

- Can you or would you be willing to ghostbust?

- BUFFY. There's a girl in Wal-Mart who is the TRUE embodiment of 10 lbs of shit in a 5 lb bag.

- Why do good hair days only happen on days when you have nothing to do but watch Gilmore Girls and eat slices of turkey lunch meat?

- I want a baby. What? Did that come out?

- My mom watches some dumbass soap opera and she's watching it now and I looked up and there's Kevin Arnold's mom, being a skanky ho.

- I am wearing shorts with a one-inch inseam and a Snapped t shirt. I think this qualifies as letting oneself go. I had an icecream sandwich for lunch.

- You can just lick the doorknob.

- Is she a Republican? Does she like Nickelback?

- I feel like a big dirty whore most of the time. I embrace my big dirty whoreness.

- I just folded your dumbass linens. I should be getting paid.

- I am dismayed by the youth.

- I feel like a prized asshole.

- Your lame leg is somebody else's pot o' gold!

- Gutter is a tool! Gutter is a tool!

- Hangover, I am your bitch lover.

- Dick Cheney: still a douche.

"Things that we learn are no longer enough."

2009-09-15T09:42:00.003-05:00

Hoo, boy, I don't even know where to start. Not that much exciting has been happening anyway, so there probably isn't actually even that much to say.

Life has been weird, difficult, trying, unpredictable.

So, you know, pretty much like any other time in my life.

I keep thinking of ways to make things better, steps to take, and I can't seem to muster any motivation when it counts. I'm having a lot, A LOT, of trouble getting things done, finding the persistence to work on my life.

I've been reading a lot, watching movies, the usual modes of procrastination. I've also been using a lot of energy just to get through each day without whacking myself in the face with a hammer, whac-a-mole style.

Again, like any other day.

I really hope I can get things going again on this blog soon. I am really very proud of a lot of the things I've written here, and I don't want to let it go by the wayside. It's been suggested to me recently that this blog has caused me so much trouble that I ought to just take the whole thing down, and that idea made me so sad, really really depressed, so I think I'm going to stick with it a while longer and see what happens. Selfish, maybe; it's just that it has really meant a lot to me, really gotten me through a lot of things to be able to document them here. I enjoy getting it out, working things out in type, and I love and appreciate everyone's comments, advice, encouragement.

There have been times when this blog has been all that has gotten me through the day. I'm just not willing to toss it out yet. Thanks to those of you who are sticking with it with me. I love y'all.

Ring Bearer.

2009-09-09T11:33:00.001-05:00

Ring Bearer.
Originally uploaded by buffpuff

Here is a photo of Reed when he was in Kristi and Chris' wedding a few weeks ago.

So cute.

In Memory.

2009-09-03T17:10:00.001-05:00

File0103.jpg
Originally uploaded by buffpuff

My sweet Uncle Vann passed away yesterday. Somewhere I have a recent picture of Vann with Reed in his lap. When I find it, I'll post it.

We all love and miss you.

I don't have the energy to title.

2009-09-01T10:08:00.003-05:00

Okay, I'm very sorry I haven't written much here lately. We still don't have internet at the house, so it's kind of difficult for me to get around to writing these days.

I've applied for unemployment, so hopefully that will come through in the next couple of weeks. Hell, hopefully I'll get a job. But I try not to dream too big.

If I'm going to be totally honest, I have to tell you that life has been hell this past couple of weeks. Really, life has been hell for this last couple of years. But hey, tomato, tomahto.

I can't go into too much, but I fear that we won't be seeing Kane and Jude for a while. It's really sad, because regardless of how much I miss them, miss seeing them and hearing how their lives are going, Jason misses the hell out of them, and I can't even tell you how frequently Reed asks where they are, when they're coming back, when he'll see them again. Right now we haven't seen them in about a month, and they haven't stayed at our house in about six weeks. I've written here on more than one occasion how much Reed loves them, how I worry, how much I love them.

I guess I should say again how much I really, really love them, have always loved them, have always tried my best to be there for them, take care of them, and provide them with a safe and happy place to call home.

This coming Monday is the third birthday of this blog. HAPPY FREAKING BIRTHDAY, VELVETEEN INDIAN. Maybe one day I'll be real.

First Dance.

2009-08-20T01:22:00.001-05:00

First Dance.
Originally uploaded by buffpuff

Much fun has been had, and times are weird. But this is lovely, so look upon it and know that everything will be as it should, if not now, then soon.

Right.

2009-08-10T13:28:00.000-05:00

Things have gone kind of quiet over here. I intended to use this day to clean my house, but then Jason did most of it last night so here I am, wasting my day, listening to the sounds of the house and my dog and the ceiling fans.

I got laid! No, wait; I got laid OFF. On July 31st they informed me that because of the economy and these hard times the company had decided to cut my position.

My best friend Kristi got married two days ago, and the days leading up to it were an emotional roller coaster for ME, I can't even imagine how it must have all felt for Kristi.

My dad is crazy. My mom is crazy. I certainly never had a chance.

Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent.

I am absolutely shaken.

2009-07-31T08:18:00.002-05:00

I heard this story about dolphin slaughter in Japan yesterday on NPR, and I am sick about it.

Click here for the story, here for a review of the documentary film, and go here for the trailer for said documentary called The Cove that is coming out about this.

Please go here to help.

2009-07-30T08:20:00.000-05:00

Okay, really, I just have to say something. I don't know if any of you keep up with my little section over there called "Search Engine Terms That Bring People Here", and I don't know if you understand what that means or how it works. Here's a short explanation from a person who is pretty much a tech-dumby (me): let's say you go to Google and search for Etsy, and the first link that comes up is Etsy and you click on it and it takes you to Etsy. Okay, let's say you type in something less specific, like "boot cut jeans". After a few sponsored links, there's a link to an article on Wikipedia called "jeans" and then a link to the Levi's website, etc. etc. etc.

Well, apparently if you search "sexy old ladies" or "porn appendectomy" or "flu sex", one of the links in the list that comes up is to this blog, this one right here, and someone somewhere has actually searched these terms and ended up at my blog.

So I'm looking through this morning for anything new or interesting that all you FUCKED UP weirdos have been looking for on the World Wide Web, and someone is looking for "sexy douche pictures". And, you know, I figured I'd help a brotha out (It has to be a dude, right?).

Looking for a sexy douche can be a tricky, tricky thing.

Perhaps you're looking for the douche who might need help turning door-knobs:

Or maybe a gap-toothed douche:

Black douche:

A couple of white douchi:

Many, many douchi:

A very rich douche:

An inexperienced, future-rich douche:

Two of the stupidest douchi you've ever seen:

A couple of ironic douchi:

No really:

And then of course there is the reigning Doucho Supremo:

Sexy douche pictures: you're welcome. I like to be helpful.

"I am a pig-eyed horse-frightener with an electronic part. Hear me sit down."

2009-07-29T08:20:00.000-05:00

This had me laughing out loud at work.

Keep on.

2009-07-28T09:19:00.002-05:00

Let's keep thinking good thoughts and sending good vibes and bakin' brownies and shit for Leonard and Kristi and Chris.

Also...

2009-07-27T12:00:00.005-05:00

Today is my mom's birthday.

Tomorrow is Leonard Peltier's parole hearing.

And today through Wednesday Kristi and Chris are taking the bar exam.

Let's think some good thoughts, people!

Irritated.

2009-07-27T10:57:00.004-05:00

So a fellow I went to high school with put the following up as a status update on Facebook:

Please disagree with Obama's health care plan. Unless you agree with free abortions and euthanasia. Are we in the twilight zone?

So I have to admit that I don't know as much about Obama's plans for health care reform as I should, but somebody please elaborate on this: what's the deal? I am going to just go ahead and assume that this is a blatant exaggeration in order to stir up anti-Obama sentiment, but somebody help me understand where this is coming from.

On an early grave.

2009-07-24T10:06:00.002-05:00

Last night Reed and I were riding along in the car and I said, "Hey, guess who's coming tomorrow? Kane and Jude!"

He said, "Ahhhhhhh, yay! That makes my life feel happy."

I honestly had to turn away and shed a little tear because it was just so sweet.

In other news, THAT CHILD MAKES ME WANT TO THROW MYSELF INTO A MEAT GRINDER SOME TIMES. For pete's sakes, I can't even relate to you how awful it can be trying to deal with a screaming, writhing, obstinate, raging MESS like he can be sometimes. I might as well be pinching him and stomping his toes, he has the same horrified reaction to my saying "Let's go to Whole Foods for dinner", and the best part is he loves Whole Foods, loves going there and eating there and hanging out there, but he wanted to hang out at Ma's for another FOR-FUCKING-EVER and then go to Whole Foods, while I wanted to go BEFORE THE END OF TIME AND EXISTENCE. So we proceeded to fight and slam and stomp and scream and cry, both of us, don't you for a second think I'm above acting like my almost-four-year-old son, because NO I am not.

I go through these (very short) periods in which I think THAT'S IT, I'm cured, the Prozac fixed everything, God bless it! But, people, there is not enough Prozac in the WORLD to make me capable of dealing with Reed "Bull In A Goddamned China Shop" Agan when he goes on a tear, starts throwing things and stomping and screaming and calling me a butthead.

Last night my mom tried to calm me by saying "Sometimes people just get too tired, and it makes them act like this." It occurs to me today that she might have been referring to me just as much as to Reed.

But at the time I just thought, "Yes, sometimes people get too tired, and sometimes people get locked in the trunk while people's moms try some of that new high-alcohol beer."

Hey, I said sometimes.

2009-07-23T15:34:00.001-05:00

I have found myself without much to say these past few days, I've been just kind of hanging about, waiting for something to bubble up.

So far I got nothin'.

2009-07-21T09:52:00.003-05:00

So, I'm planning this bachelorette party for Kristi. Yeah, I mentioned it recently. And I'm sitting around, going, you know one day I'm going to have to get started on, I don't know, sending out invites and actual planning and shit, but the party is so far away I can just sit on my ass for a while longer.

Then suddenly I thought, July 31st. Um, July 31st? JULY MOTHERFUCKING 31ST. That's, hm, A WEEK AND A HALF AWAY OH SHIT I'M NOT READY NOBODY HAS BEEN INVITED WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO WHATAREWEGONNADO????

Now I've calmed down a bit, sent out some invites (let's be honest: I've also gotten Ashley, my fellow bridesmaid, to send some out as well), planned some food and drinks, and I'm feeling really excited about the whole thing.

I used to be really good at this kind of stuff, planning and inviting and staying on top of things. HOOBOY, not any more. I just sort of drift about, going "tralala!", and then panic and feel like shit about messing stuff up by waiting until the last minute.

But, hey, I got the invites out. So now I don't have to think about it again for a while, right?

Ooo, shiny!

2009-07-17T08:46:00.003-05:00

Man, this life sure does get weird. I realize that I just said that, but I am forced to say it again as life continues to chug happily down the road toward OFF THE DEEP END.

I've been feeling kind of melancholy lately; nothing serious, just a constant, nagging, sort of wah-wah that hangs around in the back of my mind. I am hoping that it is a side-affect of going off birth control pills. That and the red sea that I have going on down there in my pants these past few days.

OOO, BURN. Slipped one in there on you guys. Let's just say Tampax ought to be paying ME at this point, as I am single-handedly keeping them in business, I'm pretty sure.

Next week will be a nutty one at work. Both my bosses are going to San Antonio, so I'll be handling all this stuff by myself, and by "this stuff" I mean not only will I have to do my blogging and online shopping, but I'll also have to handle the watching of the drum videos and making of crude jokes. WOOPS! I kid. Wow. I am headed straight for getting fired again, aren't I? We really do a lot of work, and it is twice as busy when I'm alone in taking care of everything.

I am really starting to have some very serious I-wish-it-would-just-go-away-already feelings about a few of the things I've been through. Clearly one cannot just choose these things; I've tried attacking these feelings with the whole spectrum of emotions from anger, to indifference, to hopefulness, to sadness, guilt, regret, contentment, indignance, relief, to pretending that the feelings don't exist at all.

Next weekend we're going to see the Pine Hill Haints at Bottletree, and then it's WEDDING TIME until August 8th. Not mine, of course; Kristi and Chris are getting married on August 8th. Jason is making the groom's cake and is the photographer and is making the wedding cake topper, and I'm the matron of honor and Reed is the ring bearer. It's a family event, folks! We gon' be wo' out by the end of it, I'm pretty sure, but I sure am excited, too.

I've got to get on planning the bachelorette party, including finding a good stripper; does anybody know if David Bowie can dress up as Jareth and take care of that for us?

Okay, really? A slutty, ten-year-old witch?

2009-07-16T08:21:00.000-05:00

The last several Halloweens have found my girlfriends and myself complaining that all of the prepackaged Halloween costumes for women are always slutty- slutty cheerleader, slutty nurse, slutty Snow White, slutty post woman, slutty police woman, slutty Goldilocks (FOR GOD'S SAKES, GOLDILOCKS WAS A CHILD). News flash: not all of us want to be slutty on Halloween. Some of us don't want to wear a tiny swath of spandex with our Cinderella-cleavage bursting out for all to see. But, you know, that's how it goes sometimes.

Then I happened across this on a website called Back To Basics Toys. I like the website, I like a lot of the stuff they sell, I've never ordered anything from them but I was considering a few things for Reed's next birthday. But THIS! No no no no NO, I tell you!

I seriously cannot deal with this shit, this idea that our daughters (okay, YOUR daughters) are supposed to be wearing fifteen pounds of make-up and a skirt with a sexy slit and a low-cut neck by the age of twelve (the largest size is for a 12-year-old girl), much less by the age of EIGHT (the smallest size listed), you sick, twisted motherfuckers! Lord help us all, I think we are veering madly into some sick, crazy, regrettable territory.

In a world where all our television programming is infested with "Let's Catch a Scary Pedophile!" shows, where lists of people who are convicted sex offenders are available on the internet, are we really also saying "Let's dress our young girls, very young girls, girls that are certainly too young to be viewed sexually, in some sexy, sexy stuff! It's just so darned cute!" And then that poor girl who modeled the outfit. Good Lord! What was her mother thinking? And the website or manufacturer or whomever is responsible for this? "Let's put this picture on the internet, where it's safe and sound and certainly no sexual deviants abound!" Listen, I get that anyone who puts pictures of their kid on the internet risks someone looking at them in different ways and for different purposes than they intend. I get that I put tons of pictures on my kids on the internet. But for fuck's sakes, it's a little different when you're TARTING UP YOUR KIDS AND STICKING THEM ON HERE FOR ALL TO SEE. There's something intentional about it, see? There is a huge difference between me saying, "Look, here's my kid cutting his birthday cake in his bike helmet and Batman shirt!" and someone else saying, "Look, here's my kid, my young daughter, wearing enough make-up to play understudy to Tammy Faye Bakker and a low-cut dress with a high slit! Maybe one day she'll have some boobs to fill it out!" I don't know if you see a difference, but I see a difference.

Point is, it's grotesque, and I think we're asking too much from these young girls when we allow them to dress like grown-ups, like slutty grown-ups, and then telling them to be chaste and save it for marriage, expressing concern about std's and teen pregnancy, espousing these ideals about kids should be kids and they are all growing up too fast. It seems to me that we should be teaching these girls that they have power and ownership over their own bodies and the way that they present those bodies has a lot to do with the way that they are perceived by others. I think that when we take these girls and say, "Aw, look, it's so cute when they dress like grown-ups!" that some part of their childhood is lost, something slips away when they start to think "Hey, I get a lot of attention when I dress this way". And plenty of girls realize that at some point, but I think that they're realizing it a lot earlier these days, using it a lot earlier these days, and I think stuff like this has a lot to do with it.

Also..

2009-07-14T08:40:00.000-05:00

Hello there to anyone coming here from Suburban Bliss!

And thanks so much, Melissa, for the Sandisk slotRadio! I can't wait to try it out. I won I won I won!

Uh-oh. We're old.

2009-07-13T09:23:00.004-05:00

Wow. Just... wow.

I just have to tell you, in case you didn't know, that this world is just a weird, weird place and just when you think "THAT'S IT, that's as weird as it's going to get!", it will proceed to get weirder.

First, I have discovered that my karaoke masterpiece is Hey Ya by Outkast. Also, if you shove enough liquor down Lindsey's throat, The Boys Are Back In Town by Thin Lizzy becomes OH MY GOD HER FAVORITE SONG EVER WE HAVE TO SIT IN THE CAR AND LISTEN TO IT EXCLAMATION EXCLAMATION !!!

Thirdly, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something. I hung out with one of the fellows on Saturday who I mentioned here not too long ago. It's funny, because I've recently run into another one of those fellows several times and it's been nice, friendly, refreshingly bygones-are-bygones, and I've been able to put to rest some residual guilt and anger that had been hanging around for a while. So Saturday we went out for Lindsey's birthday and this other one came, and I literally haven't seen him in many years, at least 8 or 9 years, and it was sort of nice and weird and uncomfortable and normal all at once. He seemed uncomfortable at first, but as the drinks continued to flow he loosened up considerably and by the end of the night we were having conversations and giving each other high-fives and everything was fine.

The most interesting part of all of that was that at some point he leaned over to me and said, "Hey, I'm really sorry." I asked what he was sorry about, and he replied, "How I was back then." I smiled and said thank you, and then asked if we could not talk about that stuff. He said sure, and dropped it. I just figured that what Lindsey wanted for her thirtieth birthday was NOT for me to sit at the table and have some kind of come-to-Jesus with some guy I broke up with ten years ago. Besides that, I'm not really sure what could be said.

Now I'm hoping that he meant it, and wishing I had said a quick "I'm sorry too" before I put the matter to rest. I'm pretty sure that it was wrong of me not to have accepted some responsibility too, even if it was a ten-second conversation.

I can't even express how surprising it was for him to acknowledge that he had ever done anything wrong at all, ever, as it was always just generally accepted as fact that I had totally screwed the poor little guy over, that he was wonderful and sweet and I was the most horrible person in the world for having done him so wrong. The reality was that the majority of our relationship was spent fighting, having these terrible, volatile screaming matches during which we called each other the most horrible names we could think of. If I ever wanted to leave his side for any reason whatsoever, he was sure that I was cheating, that there was someone else, that I was out to make him look like a chump and he wasn't having any of it. Actually, I just had a couple of girlfriends who sometimes wanted to do something besides sitting around in the dirtiest bachelor pad ever drinking beer and sniffing dog shit. Occasionally they'd invite me to go places with them, and I wanted to go. Clearly I am just EVIL, right?

Anyways, point is, I'm sorry too, and if I thought hey, if I see him again, I'll tell him. BUT, but, at the end of the night I leaned over to him and said, "Hey, thank you for saying that." He said, "Saying what?" "Apologizing. That was nice." "Apologizing for what?" "Uh, for how you were back then?" He replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

So, yeah. NICE. I have absolutely no idea if he's just that forgetful, or if he was just that drunk, or if I embarrassed him somehow and he wanted to pretend that he hadn't said it. All I know is that, surprise!, it somehow negates it that he suddenly was like "wah?" about the whole thing. So, you know, anger and resentment back on!

Selections from an email exchange between friends:

2009-07-10T08:22:00.006-05:00

I called him at NINE to see if he wanted to hang out. Fast fwd to 11:15 PM & he finally comes to pick me up. I was so sleepy (see my previous "Help, I have your sleep disorder!!" email), I figured a Red Bull would be a mere drop in the bucket -- WRONG. SO wrong. Luckily, he & his out of town guests were in it to win it, too, and so everybody is just now headed to bed after killing a 12 pack of Bud Light -- WITH LIME (ew), 1 entire bottle of Berringer white zin (oh God, college), and 3/4ths of another bottle of white zin (oh God, more college). Now I'm sitting outside basically sober, smoking a cigarette & trying to entice the neighbor's dog to come over so I can pat him on the head. (He's not buying it, though, & continues to eat grass in the front yard.) A neighbor just came outside, calling for Nick. I think that's the dog. A dog named Nick. I'm oddly amused. Yeah, the dog is DEFINITELY Nick. "Nick, come here RIGHT NOW!" etc. Hahaha. Also, I hope the neighbor doesn't decide to come over & get chatty w/ the stranger sitting on Jonathan's patio at 6:45 am, b/c I'm in no mood to be neighborly with strangers.

...

Holy fuck (by the way, I just typed "Wholy fuck!", and was like,
wait...)! I haven't gotten an email this long from you since I DON'T
KNOW WHEN.

...

I'm sure you know this, but I love when people give animals human names. And, like, names you regularly run across in casual conversation: Nick, Eric, KEITH. (One day, one of us WILL have a pet named Keith, I declare it. And by one of us, I mean me. That'll be the cat I get AFTER my Scottish Fold named Push Pin, which will be after I move out, which will be never, so you know. Yay! "And this? This is my imaginary bunny. Named Keith. Would you like to pet him? He's really imaginarily soft!")
In my drunken stupor last night, I left Dan a message on his wall, telling him "I totes understand about not being able to drive. I'm sure we can make some arrangements -- if you're not gonna bail, that is," with "totes" being my weirdo web speak for the word totally & something I try really hard to keep on the d/l in polite company, because not everybody gets it, and now that's all I'm hearing from him is "I'm not bailing....totes!" and, when I called him a smart ass, "What? I'm serious....totes serious!" Lordy. Do boys EVER grow up?? In other news, I think she is HIS AMPUTEE ROOMMATE. You totally wanna go to the party now, don't you?? (BTW, I just had to Google the word amputee to make sure I spelled it right, and you just don't wanna KNOW the shit it pulled up.) Also I just have to tell you that someone has flipped my poop switch and I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO SHUT IT OFF. I'm SERIOUS. PS: This email thread alone makes me hope and pray and hope and pray that somebody somewhere at your company is screening your emails, b/c this is what all snoopers hope for when they get into the business. Emails about amputees and pooping.

...

OH MY GOD AMPUTEES! CANCER!!!11 AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!117 You need sleep. I mean, if we were together right now, I would totally be on your level on account of I had some sleep and then I just had a cinnamon crunch bagel and a huge cup of coffee, but then around 11 you’d pass out and I’d be like, “Okay, now it’s time for Mexican.” “Totes?” “Totes?” “Totes?” Word's lost all meaning for me. He will probably never grow up; that is just him. I bet when he typed it he did his little squinty eyed laugh. I think it’s funny that he could even figure it out. If you want to pull out some 13-year-old, inside humor you could reply that he needs to drink his boooooooooost. You have to say it like that, Drink yer boooooooooooooost!

...

I bet he had to Google the phrase "internet slang" and "totes" to figure it out. Was it a cinnamon crunch bagel from Panera? Because I love that shit, except for when they sit in the break room for 8 straight hours and you go to the bathroom and the office smells like cinnamon crunch bagel and you come back from the bathroom and the office smells like cinnamon crunch bagel and you go to lunch and the office smells like cinnamon crunch bagel and you come back from lunch and the office smells like cinnamon crunch bagel until you want to Lysol every inch of your body because EVERYTHING SMELLS LIKE CINNAMON CRUNCH BAGELS. But. They are delicious. "A lighter: you have one?" Dude, I will never NOT love this. ALSO. WHAT THE FUCK WAS UP WITH THAT DRESS, MAN?? WAS SHE SAVING IT FOR LUKE PERRY, ER, I MEAN, ESPECIALLY, VERY SPECIFIC VAMPIRE SEX WITH BILL COMPTON???? That's got to be, hands down, the single ODDEST choice of wardrobe I've probably ever seen in a TV show. & I mean, it's not like she just APPEARED with it on! We had to SEE her picking that shit out! Intentionally! Some costume designer somewhere put SHITTONS OF THOUGHT! into Sookie's psychology behind that choice! In other news, I bet Bill was like "Awww, yeah! I get to fuck Maid Marian! Holla!"

...

First, yes, Panera cinnamon crunch. So, so good. I just went to the bathroom and found some of the crunch IN MY UNDERWEAR. That is not a joke- it is TOTES for realz. And yeah, after Jason and I watched the possum episode we sat at the table making funny dialogue and it was hilarious. And the dress! I was immediately like, “Where did she get that? A Rembrandt Fair?” And Jason was like, “Yes, that is exactly what they’re called, Buffy: a Rembrandt Fair.” And I was like, “Oh, what’s it called? What are those called?” He had to tell me IT'S A RENAISSANCE FAIR, BUFFY ‘cause I couldn’t remember. And that dress is fucking stupid as hell. Also, due to my facebook status and the ensuing comments yesterday, I will forever use the phrase “hanging up one’s meat coat” to refer to people who have become vegetarian. As in, Jason hung up his meat coat.

...

Well thank God you're going with the G-rated version. I was afraid it was gonna be the new "beef peach" -- gack.

True Schmutz.

2009-07-09T08:25:00.001-05:00

An approximation of a tense scene in True Blood:

"I am not human. I am vampire. A lighter: you have one?"

"Non. But I do have this fireplace bread toaster. Let me show you it."

"Also, a Fresca. FUCK YOU! Holy shit. Are you high?"

"No. Well, yes."

*kiss kiss slurp slurp hump hump SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM*

"Are yawl tawkin' about SLAYVES? I KNOW YAWL AREN'T TAWKIN' 'BOUT NO SLAYVES!"

"What a whore what a whore what a whore scary vampires..."

"I can hear yawl! I can hear those thawts yawl hayuv! Yawl are awl hillbillehs! Gawd! Awl sex up a vampuhr any time Ah feel lahk eet!" *stomp stomp stomp* "Let me put awn my Renaissance Faire dress and run through a feeyeld."

*zip sweat sweat slurp slurp hump zip*

"Aw, Chrahst, yawl, Ah'm in luv with a vampuhr! Whut? That's MAH shit! You git outta mah house!"

"Whut thuh fuck ever- I do what Ah wawnt! Watch whawl Ah geek out and fuck sum bitches!"

Aaaaaaaand scene. Thank you.

Sadly, I still like this show.

On Crocs. Of shits.

2009-07-07T08:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, so, wait just a minute: has anybody else out there seen this website? It's hilarious! Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

This is more than a fad and if you would be smart enough to try a pair on you would also understand why smart people were Crocs. Were do people like you have time for creating such stupid websites.

fuck u u fuckin blowjob. i from Korea and i wear crocs. crocs cool!

Nice blog you FUCKIN STUPID ASS DIPSHIT!!!
GET A FUCKIN LIFE!!!
My entire family wheres Crocs. They fuckin rock!
YOU FUCKIN SUCK SHIT!!! WHO GIVES A SHIT ASS FUCK ABOUT FASHION YOU FUCK!!!
FUCK YOUR FUCKIN BLOG!!! FUCK FUCKIN YOU!!!

And let me be clear: I like Crocs. I own two pairs of them. When I worked at the flower shop and had to be on my feet all day long and had to run back and forth and carry 35 pound buckets of water and foliage and the floors were slippery and it was hot in the summer and I didn't want to wear tennis shoes, these were GREAT. I wore them with socks in the winter. I loved them. My feet almost never hurt, and when they did it was only mildly.

But they are some of the GOOFIEST shoes I have ever seen, hands-down, just ridiculous. JUST RIDICULOUS.

2009-07-06T11:04:00.006-05:00

So now we've stumbled into True Blood (no spoilers in this post, but there ARE spoilers in the Wikipedia article that is linked there, so if you aren't up to date on the series you could ruin some stuff if you read it JUST LIKE I DID MOTHERFUCKER). I kept hearing about it from various sources, so we Netflixed it and now we're hooked.

I suppose the best characterization of the show would be Southern gothic, vampire, sexy-sexy. Those are technical terms; for those of you who are laymen, I'm saying it's a lot of bad Southern accents and spooky music, sun and sweat, and pretty graphic sex scenes involving humans with humans, and humans with not-humans- namely, vampires. I'm sure there will eventually be vampires balling vampires, but I haven't gotten there yet so PLEASE DON'T SPOIL IT, FUCKERS.

I actually like it pretty well, because I am notoriously (notorious in my own head, at least) able to overlook melodrama, stereotyping, and REALLY FUCKING AWFUL dialogue spoken with about the WORST SOUTHERN ACCENTS I'VE EVER HEARD.

Seriously, Anna Paquin: not good at the Southern-speak. NOT. Stephen Moyer: one of the cutest boys I've ever seen (gah!), given some of the worst lines I've ever heard, not good at the Southern-speak. NOT NOT. Seriously, Sookie's holier-than-thou attitude along with Bill's I'm-a-Gentleman-of-the-Old-South phrasing get old pretty quickly. But I am able to overlook them in favor of the quirky, over-the-top plotlines- the love and lust, the mystery and murder, the feeling that there are massive things happening just under the surface, just where you can't quite see them.

The show does employ quite a few stereotypes which I can't decide if they're charmingly accurate, or frighteningly false and overused. There is the cute, ditzy Southern belle who is intelligent underneath it all; the Southern jock who gets all the girls; the bitter, angry black girl who wants to make sure everyone knows just how wronged she is; the kooky, gossipy grandma who always makes sweet tea or lemonade and cooks up three huge meals a day and always expects your best behavior; the gorgeous whore who is witty, self-important, and, above all, horny; and of course the scary, scary, sexy, sexy vampires. I just don't know; should we want more than the tired characters we've seen in a million other places, just rearranged in different orders with a little extra spice thrown in (i.e., a lot more boobs and asses and sweaty, naked bodies)?

Some things Reed says.

2009-07-03T08:22:00.000-05:00

The kid is hilarious, by the way.

For one thing, he randomly adds the letter d to ends of words. "I'm Batmand!" or "What about Kaned?"... come to think of it, perhaps it's only words that end with n? Because he'll also say "oned" and "wond" and "rund". What's really odd about it is that it's not all the time; in other words, sometimes he'll say simply "Batman", but other times it's "Batmand". WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY KID IS IT AUTISM DOES HE NEED RITALIN WHAT THE FUCK?

I should add that perhaps it's me with the problem; I had to type "KID" about fifteen times because every time I did it, it came out "DIS". Hm.

We're also smack-dab in the middle of a begging phase, a phase that, if I take into account my own mannerisms throughout childhood, should last approximately 26 years, I think. The other night he was begging for us to let him have another popsicle, and he actually implored to Jason, "Please, man. Man, please." Jason and I both cracked up and gave him the damn popsicle, for the love.

Also lovable and odd is "yaw". Reed says "y'all" frequently, but it comes out "yaw". "I want to come widj yaw!" "Do yaw want a popsicle?" "Can I ride widj yaw?"

OH MY GOD IS HE A HICK WHAT THE FUCK?

Hilariosity.

2009-07-02T08:14:00.000-05:00

From this article on this website:

Cats are dangerous in numerous ways: they have sharp claws and teeth; they can navigate in the dark using a complex navigation system embedded in their heads called “whiskers,” thus giving them an advantage during blackouts; and the only flesh they enjoy more than pig is newborn babies. So you make your choice. Will it be Mr. Jangles, or your precious, precious baby?

2009-06-30T08:14:00.004-05:00

So the busiest month is finally drawing to a close, and somehow we made it.

Our birthday party last weekend was a success, i.e., we danced barefoot to George Michael and screamed along with some Jodeci and R. Kelly.

We photographed another wedding last Friday night, and it was lovely. We got really good photos and probably scored another wedding, so you know, awesome.

I am so very tired, as we stayed out just a little to late last night covering the Starlight Mints for al.com. I'm glad we went; their music is really good.

So now I am thirty. Last night I laid in bed and prayed to God, prayed for him to just please take care of Jason and Reed, keep them safe, give them a happy life. I am realizing more and more how important they are to me, how much happiness I want for them, how impotent I am in making their lives what I wish it could be. I've written before that I know that Reed has a mama who loves him and that's special and that's enough and some people aren't lucky enough to have that, but I still just want more for him. And it's not an I-wish-I-could-buy-him-more-stuff situation; that's not it. I wish he could have parents who didn't worry about money, parents who didn't have a foreclosure and loans and several maxed-out credit cards to deal with. I wish Jason's wife could deal with life more appropriately than she frequently does. I wish Jason could have a job that was never fucked up and wife who kept the house clean and food on the table. And suddenly, while I was laying there thinking all of this, I realized two things that hadn't fully occurred to me before: 1) I am not afraid of dying, and 2) I want to live.

I can't fully express what this realization meant to me. It probably all sounds trite and stupid, but this is a big fucking deal. Up until just a few months ago, I have been stuck in a dense fog for several years, one that I couldn't see out of and that gave me the feeling that no one could see into it. Now that fog has cleared just enough for me to see that it does not matter one bit. That fog makes no difference to me any more. I don't know how long this life will last but I am going to live it for however long I'm allotted, and I don't know what heaven and the great hereafter will be like, I don't know if I'll be able to hang around with all these people I love so much. I don't know if I'll be able to kiss Jason's face and smell Reed's hair, so I better do it now.

This isn't to say that I will never be sad again, never waste a day feeling sorry for myself, never let life get me down again, because I know that I will. BUT NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE EFFORT, PEOPLE. I am bringing it. So just look out.

Cleaning out my text messages.

2009-06-29T08:37:00.001-05:00

- Oh my God! I hope you partied with pork at City Stages!

- Shole is. We have been tipsy since noon. I washed my hairs.

- Oh vodka. You my only friend.

- Evil baby! Hillbilly baby!

- I love your couch/why don't you have a pool?

- We can tell you about usufructuary, riparian and littoral water rights. Fun! Can you shoot me?

- I just realized I haven't washed my hair since last Saturday. My scalp be itchin.

- I just bought a 32 ounce Dr. Pepper and I still don't think it's gonna be enough.

- Lelaina really should have worn a bra with her doily dress.

- I was thinking a crossbow, but any port in a storm!

One sentence for each year of my life for my 30th birthday, which is tomorrow:

2009-06-26T08:09:00.006-05:00

0-1: I am born.

1-2: We move from Shreveport, Louisiana to Centerville, Alabama because my dad is tired of running an Omelette Shoppe.

2-3: I have my first crush on a boy named Kenneth, and I call him "Nuff".

3-4: We move from Centerville back to my parents' home town of Leeds, Alabama.

4-5: I play outside with the boy across the street named Beau; we share our first kiss and both come down with strep throat.

5-6: I hate going to school because I'd rather just hang out with my mom all day; we watch Charlotte's Web at school and it traumatizes me.

6-7: My friend Kasie and I sneak down to the creek during recess and stay too long and get left outside, resulting in our both being paddled by the principal.

7-8: I get in trouble in school because the boy next to me keeps taking my pencil from me and I argue with him to give it back to me.

8-9: I start having pretty severe acne, and the kids at school call me "pizza face".

9-10: My teacher is Mrs. Dawson who is one of my favorite teachers ever; she reads us The Hobbit aloud.

10-11: My teacher is Mrs. English, my least favorite teacher I will ever have; she says things like "social sturdies", "dunkey", and "pyahcil" (social studies, donkey, and pencil) and makes us carry all of our books home if we get into trouble.

11-12: I start junior high at a different school and don't know anyone except for a few people who travel from Leeds to Gresham as well; I have my first boyfriend who I am afraid to kiss.

12-13: I stay at the new school even though my best friend goes back to Leeds; it ain't that great.

13-14: I go back to Leeds for eighth grade and meet the girl who will be one of my best friends for the next several years, the girl who taught me how to act like an idiot in front of large groups of people.

14-15: I go to Shades Valley R.L.C. for ninth grade, where they stress independence and self-discipline; I am good at the independence, not so much the self-discipline.

15-16: I lose my virginity to a guy who has pressured the hell out of me to do so.

16-17: I drive a manual shift truck and am best friends with a girl who will eventually overdose on Oxycontin.

17-18: I break up with my boyfriend to be with a girl who tried desperately to convince me that I'm gay; alas, I will not be convinced.

18-19: I am engaged to my tiny Italian boyfriend; we fight A LOT.

19-20: I break up with my tiny Italian boyfriend so's I can drink A LOT.

20-21: My friends and I have discovered a few bars that we can go to even though we're not 21, so we take a whole lot of advantage of it.

21-22: I calm down quite a bit, discover the me that I want to be, and fall in love with a high school senior.

22-23: I take the high school senior's virginity without nearly as much pressuring as I required to lose my own; I meet Lindsey who will become one of my closest friends.

23-24: I fall madly in love with Jason and break up with the de-virginized, formerly-high school senior and realize how badly I miss my childhood best friend.

24-25: Jason and I get married, beginning what is now 5 1/2 years of wonderful, terrifying, scary, excruciating, exhilarating life.

25-26: I am let go from a part-time retail job for asking off to study for college courses after being told "If you ever have studying that you need to do just ask, because college should be your priority"; I also find out that I'm pregnant.

26-27: I have a baby; it is nuts.

27-28: I spiral into the worst depression I have ever experienced; I am fired for this blog, and subsequently take one of the most interesting, high energy jobs I've ever had with the worst, most horrifying, soul-crushing, rude, heinous boss I've ever dealt with.

28-29: Jason and I have become photographers, and I start making jewelry; Kane and Jude's mom begins the process of becoming the most difficult, scary, mean, uncaring person I've ever had to deal with personally.

29-30: I am fired from another job; I finally begin to get a grip on my depression and anxiety after starting the first job I've ever had where I feel valued and appreciated.

30-31: Holy fuck, what's going to happen this year? Can somebody at least warn me if it's going to be really awesome or really terrible?

Come show your love to your hoes at our 30th birthday party (Kristi, Lindsey, and myself) at Stealth Arts, June 27th, 8 pm. I may even be drunk by 10, hungover by 1, and drunk again by 3. Come place bets.

2009-06-25T08:22:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered why I am the way that I am? Ever wondered what's going on in my head? Well, read this. This right here is going on in my head at least a few times a week.

Some notes on City Stages 2009 in list-form:

2009-06-23T08:22:00.006-05:00

1. Alabama, what the crap with the hot? I went to City Stages last year and it was hot, BUT NOT THIS HOT. Good Lord, with the sun and the sweating and the sun.

2. Styx: Rocked my socks right off my body. I actually wasn't wearing socks because, I might not have mentioned, IT WAS HOT, but these guys still knocked my metaphorical socks off. Thank goodness these guys still tour and thank goodness we went to see them, because they were on top of things.

3. Plain White T's: Pretty decent for some young, pretty white guys. There were lots of moms with their kids and their $5 pizzas, and lots of screaming young women. But the band was impressively tight and together. And one of them was wearing a plain, white t.

4. Indigo Girls: I still love you after all these years, and you ladies still got it. I love the diversity of the crowd of fans who love you: black, white, gay, straight, girls, boys, old, and young.

5. Eric Hutchinson: Refreshingly honest, real music from a talented guy who clearly loves what he's doing. But, dude, don't wear a suit in Alabama at an outdoor festival in June. It was giving me pains just to look at you in all that material. We met him after the show and I said, "You clearly didn't know what you were getting in to when you got dressed today." He laughed and said, "Naw, naw, always fashion first!" That right there is a Yankee for you.

6. Jonny Lang: This guy has been amazing me for over ten years, and Saturday was no exception. He brings the authentic, searing, heart-wrenching blues of an old, hardened, jaded man in the form of a 27-year-old dude. Jonny plays the guitar like no one I've ever seen in person, furious and heated and unstoppable, uncontrollable, and he sings as if his body is somehow channeling the voices of some of the greatest musicians in history.

7. Guster: You guys are one of my very favorite bands, and I am so glad I saw you, grateful that you came, and just a tad proud of myself for managing to come to your show alone. You played the Airport Song, the first Guster song I ever heard, and you played Red Oyster Cult, one of my favorite songs ever. You guys are just so much fun and I couldn't wipe the huge, goofy grin off of my face the whole time I was listening.

8. Young Jeezy: This guy pulled the biggest crowd that I witnessed at City Stages. I have to admit that I don't know his music, although Chris, upon learning that I would be going to see Young Jeezy, did an impressive impression of his collaboration with Akon and then immediately sat down at his computer to download the song. Seriously, the audience was packed in like sardines and everyone started getting restless when he was late coming onstage; there were some fights and some tense moments but when Young Jeezy took the stage the crowd got lost in dancing and bouncing and couldn't be bothered with being mad any more.

9. Lynyrd Skynyrd: These guys had the most crowded pit at City Stages (the pit is the media area between the stage and the crowd). There were probably 20 of us jostling for photos and video. It was dark and loud and tight and HOT, hothothot. But man, this band loves what they do; they bring the energy and the love and the excitement. They look great and sound great, and I'm glad that I stuck around to see them in spite of how tired and worn out I was. Also did I mention it was hot?

More on Leonard.

2009-06-22T08:12:00.001-05:00

Leonard Peltier's parole hearing has been moved from July 27th to July 28th.

I believe the last day to sign the petition is June 26th, so please, please do so soon.

Any letters of support must be received by July 1st, so please send some. For a sample letter, go here and click on "July 28th Parole Hearing" on the left.

To read more about Leonard you can go to his website, his defense committee's website, or his Wikipedia article. The documentary film Incident At Oglala is fascinating and informative and is available from Netflix.

Leonard Peltier is an old man who has spent 32 years in prison for a crime that I whole-heartedly believe that he did not commit. I know that if you research it, if you look into this and see the evidence, you will know too that he didn't do the crimes for which he has served 32 years in prison. He has children and grandchildren who miss him, faces he's only seen through glass and never kissed or touched. He has illnesses that are being neglected by the prison officials who are charged with his care. Please read about him, sign the petition, and send a letter.

So, yeah.

2009-06-21T23:51:00.002-05:00

Originally uploaded by buffpuff

I just photographed one of my top-4 favorite bands ever.

And I also photographed Young Jeezy and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Go take a look.

City Stages.

2009-06-19T08:17:00.000-05:00

Lindsey and I will be covering City Stages for al.com this weekend, and I'm very excited about it- Lindsey does write-ups and video, and I do photographs and severe inebriation.

I am particularly excited about the Indigo Girls, Jonny Lang, Guster, and the Pine Hill Haints.

Here's to being ridiculously sweaty and being tossed about by thousands of people!

Karaoke and appendectomies.

2009-06-18T08:17:00.001-05:00

Holy cow, this past weekend was pretty nutty. Kane had an emergency appendectomy, I karaoked Shania Twain's Any Man of Mine, and Lindsey got hit on by a 23 year old. I AM SO TIRED.

Lindsey and I went out Saturday night and bar-hopped a bit and ended up at an all-night karaoke joint we have been known to frequent in the past. Of course we stayed out too late and arrived home to Kane power-puking in the bathroom with the door open. Jason got up and was like, "Oh, yeah, he's been puking."

The next morning as I was just about to expire from the hangover, Jason informed me that he was taking Kane to the emergency room because he was having some cramps that could indicate appendicitis. He called a couple of hours later and said it wasn't his appendix, it was just a stomach virus, and they were giving him nausea medicine and fluids. He called a couple of hours after that and said Kane was still cramping so they were taking blood and running tests and giving him an iv because he was so dehydrated. They eventually did an x-ray and discovered that Kane's appendix isn't situated in the normal place and woops! it WAS his appendix, he DID in fact have appendicitis and oh yeah, they needed to remove his appendix.

I would also like to point out, because it is just so predictable, that while Kane and Jason and Jude arrived at the hospital around 10:00 am, and Kane was finally wheeled into surgery around 5:30 pm, Kane's wonder-mom didn't show up at the hospital until 6 pm. The only reason I want to point this out is that it is just indicative of the kind of shit she pulls that makes me go WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE?

But all is well; Kane was in and out of surgery very quickly and everything went fine and he's recovering. I would also like to say that after the surgery, still high on the anesthesia, Kane was quietly resting in his bed and then would randomly spout lines from the Office ("What kind of bear is best?"). So funny.

It was just nutty, a nutty day and a nutty chain of events, and I'm glad everything is okay.

2009-06-16T08:18:00.006-05:00

Jude,

Today you are ten.

This means that you have spent six and one-half years WORKING ON MY NERVES. I would like to say that I'm kidding, but I think we both know that I'm not.

My first memory of you is you hiding behind Jason's legs because you were too embarrassed to meet me. My next memories of you are of how willing you were to hold my hand and sit in my lap, how close we became so quickly. I never could figure out if you were just that starved for female attention or if you just liked the idea of pissing off your mom. And what I'm saying here is that you have always been a person who liked to piss people off, but originally you chose to use me to piss others off instead of just going right for pissing me off. That's what kind of smart little bugger you are.

Jude, you are one of the most difficult, stubborn boys I have ever known, and that is saying a lot because I've known drug-users and alcoholics, womanizers and habitual liars, narcissistic pricks and fellows who were totally out of touch with reality, and you are more difficult than any of them. In some ways this is a compliment, but mostly this is just me saying OH WOULD YOU JUST GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK ALREADY. We have butted heads on more than once occasion, from the subject of sticking your hands down into the Brita pitcher (WHY do you need to put your hands INSIDE of it, anyways?) to licking the knife before putting it BACK IN the jar of peanut butter to whether or not to pick up your socks and whether it's okay to wear the same shirt seven days in a row when you have used that shirt to wipe jelly off the counter. IF I LIVE TO SEE YOU GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL IT WILL BE A GODDAMNED MIRACLE, last night your actions took me to the point in which I hit myself in the head with a gallon of milk, who's to say that next time it won't be a rubber mallet instead of a large dairy product.

When you were little you would lie in bed until midnight or one in the morning making car noises and monster noises and explosion noises and sticking your feet and hands in the air, ANYTHING to PLEASE GOD STAY AWAKE JUST FIVE MORE MINUTES.

You would also drink icees until you threw up blue. We've moved on from that to a constant "Can I have an apple? Can I have some chips? Can I have a banana? Can I have a popsicle? Can I have a fried egg? Can I have some Coke? Can I have a sandwich? What's for dinner?"

Dude, I don't have a clue what you're going to do when you grow up- BMX biking? Professional skateboarding? The newest member of the wonderful team that stars in Jackass? And when I say that, I'm not calling you a jackass; the stuff they do on that show is the kind of shit that you declare is the awesomest, the sickest, the most insanely crazy cool shit you've ever seen. You begged for the poster out of my Misfits cd and lately you've been asking questions about the Ramones and listening to Green Day on the iPod: your future is fuck-all, I cannot begin to divine what kind of person you will be as you get older, smarter, and more daring. You are the PUNK ROCKINEST, sneering little ne'erdowell that I've ever known, except for that little foray into chick flicks and Britney Spears, but we'll just forget about that.

I know that we haven't always gotten along, and I know that you've been disappointed by my lack of cool-stepmomness and my overabundance of YOU'LL DO WHAT I TELL YOU. I have sometimes worried that when you're a grown-up you will look back on all of this and hate me for being so tough on you. I am hoping that instead what Lindsey has said is true: that you will look back on this and love me for caring, for trying to teach you about manners and morality and sympathy and empathy, that you will realize that, while I could have been cooler and more laid-back and more worried about pleasing you, I chose the tougher route which was to give a shit about what kind of person you would end up being. I have high expectations of you and I am not afraid to let you know about it because, otherwise, how will you ever have high expectations of yourself? You cannot fool me into thinking that it is too hard for you to clean your room or pick up your socks or put your dishes into the dishwasher, just like you cannot fool me into thinking it's unfair for you to have to share with your brothers or give your dad a chance to do something other than kissing your butt 24 hours a day.

That sucks, right? THAT IS THE ONLY WAY I KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH YOU WITHOUT GIVING YOU A KNUCKLE SANDWICH AND HAVING YOU FITTED FOR A MUZZLE. You just sit down and be thankful that you haven't quite pushed me that far yet. And also don't forget to change your shorts. GAH.

Because the world doesn't have enough haikus, yo! Here are a few more.

2009-06-15T08:12:00.005-05:00

Some haikus about my life lately:

I've been feeling crap-
tacular these days, for sure
Lobotomy-ho!

My throat hurts but lo!
Hot tea makes me pee too much.
Looks like beer it is.

Looking forward to
turning 30, not afraid
of the rickets. Ha!

Jason, your kid is
going to kill me, I fear.
Tell them to suck it.

I can't stop buying!
Anxiety makes me spend.
I need some more bling.

What the fuck, Prozac?
Where you been these past few months?
Don't do me like that.

"Holy fucking shit!"
my child exclaimed. I don't know
where he gets it from.

Kristi, Lindsey, Chris,
Jason and Duque and Reedy,
you my only friends.

Some things I am really in to right now:

2009-06-12T08:37:00.000-05:00

1. Flight of the Conchords and Mad Men: I have just watched season one of each of these shows. Flight of the Concords cracks me up; hilarious! Man Men makes me want to drink and smoke and wear pencil skirts and have huge titties. Both of these shows are great. Can't wait to move on to season two of each.

2. Hot sauce: Obvious, maybe, but I have been more of a jalapeno girl until the last couple of months. Now I am buying huge bottles of hot sauce and putting it on everything from Mexican food to veggies and rice. I probably really stink lately.

3. Tall wedge shoes: These are the shoes that I call my fall-down shoes, on account of I usually fall down when I wear them. I just can't get enough of them these days, so I have been wearing them and falling down all over the place- Kristi's driveway, Kristi's hallway, Base Camp...

4. Margaritas and other various mixed drinks: I got a recipe for a Moscow Mule from Birdie last week and subsequently had a pretty bad hangover on Saturday. Lindsey and I went out and had margaritas the weekend before, and subsequently I nearly died the next day.

5. My purple maxi dress from Old Navy: It's like wearing sexy, stylish pajamas. I feel cute and comfortable all at once.

6. Turning 30: I have to say, I am really excited about this one. Age and birthdays have never freaked me out, and this one is no exception. I can't wait until our big party.

Something I am not so in to: My recent inability to hold my liquor. Quite suddenly every time I drink, I am terribly ill the next day. This doesn't bode well for my desire to drink frequently.

2009-06-10T08:08:00.000-05:00

Happy 30th birthday, Kristi! Have fun at the Phish show! Spin once for me!

2009-06-09T08:13:00.004-05:00

Kane,

Today you turn 13.

This is probably the last time we'll ever speak since I'm moving into the bomb shelter until you turn 21, 'cause, dude, I don't want any part of what all is coming up.

I'm kidding. I am actually very excited about what is coming up, especially since you are suddenly very interested in watching The Office and that is so much more tolerable and interesting to me than Pokemon, or Yu Gi Oh, or Total Drama Island.

When I first met you, you were six years old, and in first grade. Your dad brought you into the store where we worked together, and he introduced us, and Jude hid behind his legs while you said, "Hello there, Buffy."

In the months following our meeting there were screaming contests (literally; this isn't a metaphor for a fight), swimming, sidewalk chalk drawings, Super Mario Brothers all-nighters, and tag games. We did a whole lot of stuff back in those days, mainly because your father and I didn't live together yet so we had to find cool stuff to do outside of the house.

We've had some tough times together as well. You had a lot of trouble understanding your mother's illness, how it kept her away from you so much when you were so young, and I had the simultaneous joy and guilt of being able to help you deal with that. I am very glad that I got to know you, got to sit up with you at night and help you through some rough nights, but I have to tell you it is very difficult to come up with a good answer to some of your questions, "why won't mom come home" or "why can't I go to my mom's house" or "can't she please just stay home with us tonight". All I ever knew to tell you was that she loves you, and she's working on it. I hope that was enough.

You are one of the smartest, brightest, most resilient kids I've ever known, and I can't even imagine what all lies ahead of you. You sure do like to talk so I might suggest a career in politics or lawyering. You clearly also combine with that talk-love a pinpoint accuracy in recalling detail, I can't even tell you how many episodes of Family Guy or The Simpsons that you have described to me, and I could tell that you didn't forget a thing because it would take the same amount of time for you to describe it to me as it would to actually sit down in front of the tv and watch the bloody show. HOLY GOD, MAN, you need to apply your talent for seven-hour oration to something besides shows I don't even like, I beg of you.

Seriously, never stop expecting a lot from yourself, because you have the charisma and smarts to do a lot of interesting things with your life, and that kind of stuff almost never just falls into your lap: you have to work for a happy life, to enjoy your pursuits and have a happy family. Just like Gordy Ramey used to tell my mama: Remember who you are. Know that this life just gets harder and harder, all the time, and there will be moments when you think you will break, when you think it will never get easier. And I'm not here to tell you that it gets easier, because sometimes it doesn't. But it changes. Your feelings, the situations you're in, your desires, your goals, it all changes all the time, and no matter how hard it gets you can always come to your dad or me to talk about it, because we will always love you just as much, and we will always be your parents no matter how scary or unpredictable life gets.

Listen, I ain't your mama, have never been your mama and will never be your mama. But I do love you and want good things for you. I will always be there to talk or help in any way that I can. This fall you start eighth grade, and I am here to tell you that this stage of life is hard, hard for everyone, and the best thing I know to say about it is don't let them see you hurting, save the hurting for when you get home, and always be open to new friendships.

And no drinking or drugs until you're older. And no sex. Or girlfriends. Maybe you should just come straight home from school. And don't be talking to hussies on the phone, either. No HBO or Cinemax. And punch a motherfucker in the face if he fucks with you. But don't be a bully. Oh for God's sakes, I have to go; the bomb shelter is calling my name.

Also, totally unrelated to my vagina...

2009-06-08T16:11:00.002-05:00

Summer sale! Buy one, get one free at my Etsy shop!

Reed Daniel.

2009-06-08T10:11:00.000-05:00

I really enjoy reading birth stories like this one, and by "enjoy" I mean "panic and dry-heave". I realized that I hadn't ever talked about the day that Reed was born here.

I didn't go into labor naturally. About four or five days after my due date at an appointment with my doctor's office, an all-too-enthusiastic doctor told me he'd see if he could "get things going" since I was so late.

First let me say that I had one of those ridiculous experiences with an office full of rotating doctors and every time I went in I saw a different one so that I'd be "familiar" with all the doctors when I went into labor and just whoever could step in and catch the baby as it came flying out of my hoo-ha.

Next let me tell you what this fucking happy-ass guy did to me to "get things going": he put on a latex glove, stuck his hand into my yaya and "swooped" his fingers roughly about my cervix trying to "manually" open it up. I shit you not. This is not a joke. IT HURT LIKE A SON OF A BITCH and I very nearly levitated off the table with all the pain. Jason said he kind of wondered if he needed to punch that guy in the face, but somehow he refrained.

So the doctor tells me that I might see my mucus plug at some point and to call them if anything happens. Not a damn thing happened.

The next week at my appointment (now 10 days past my due date) the lady doing the ultrasound noticed that I suddenly didn't have very much amniotic fluid in there, and they did an exam and realized that I'd been leaking and holy cow! they better induce labor. Tomorrow. Tomorrow would be good.

So we went home and I hyperventilated a little and realized I really was not that interested in pushing a honey-baked ham-sized creature out of that particular orifice. Oh, I forgot to mention that when they did the ultrasound they estimated that the baby in there probably weighed anywhere from 9 to 10 pounds. In case any of you aren't familiar, that's an XL-sized baby, absolutely not what I ordered.

So we headed to the hospital and six the next morning and checked in and they started an iv of pitocin to get the labor going. For the first hour or so, nothing happened. Then all of a sudden THAT SHIT WORKED and I was writhing around on the bed in a whole lot of pain, the kind of pain that you can't talk through or think through and all you can do is imagine fire and bombs exploding and bright, searing light. So the nurse checked me out and found that I was still only dilated to about 1 or 2 centimeters and so they couldn't give me the epidural, but they could give me a shot of Demerol to help with the pain. I politely said, "Yes, that would be lovely." About five minutes later I was totally drunk and resting comfortably.

We watched tv and just generally rested until woops! those contractions started ripping and tearing through the Demerol. They checked me and I was at 3 centimeters so they called the anesthesiologist (Would you believe that I spelled "anesthesiologist" correctly? I just went ahead and spell-checked because I thought there was no way I had guessed it, but I totally did. That right there is a testament to my love for Dr. Carlson, the fellow who gave me my epidural.).

So guess what? Throughout my pregnancy, I was so worried about getting the epidural, about the pain involved with some fellow jamming a large needle into my spine, about how you can be paralyzed and blah blah blah. I am here to tell you: IF YOU ARE HAVING CONTRACTIONS, FOR-REAL-THOUGH CONTRACTIONS THAT MAKE YOU WANT TO HIT YOURSELF IN THE FACE WITH A HAMMER UNTIL YOU LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS, THE TINY PRICK OF THE NEEDLE GOING INTO YOUR BACK REALLY ISN'T THAT BIG OF A DEAL. I had to sit up in the bed and sit very, very still on account of you don't want him jamming it in sideways or in the wrong place or whatever, so of course I started having a really intense contraction right as he starting giving me the epidural. Sitting perfectly still during a contraction is very difficult, and I managed only because of the expected benefit of the drugs seeping into my spinal cord.

He finished and told me it would take a minute for the drugs to take effect, so in the meantime I had a couple more meaty contractions to entertain myself with. Then, suddenly, I felt so fucking good. I felt relaxed and unafraid and sleepy, and I laid my head back and dozed. I could still feel the contractions but instead of feeling like PAIN! they felt like pressure; I could feel the muscles in my body contracting, but it didn't hurt.

Basically the rest was just that, rest, until I reached 10 centimeters dilation and they got me to start pushing. Eventually Reed's heart rate got kind of erratic, so SNIP SNIP they did an episiotomy and got some forceps and tugged Reed out of there into this cruel, cruel world, away from the comfort of my hospitable uterus.

And then there he was, gooey and shiny, bruised from the forceps, uttering the tiniest, cutest shriek of FUCK NO, PLEASE CAN I GO BACK FOR JUST A WHILE LONGER. And then we were parents. I was a mama, and Reed was my son.

We should have moved into a neighborhood for the blind.

2009-06-05T08:29:00.003-05:00

Interesting story: my kid took a shit in the back yard yesterday.

I know, right?

He has recently really gotten a kick out of peeing in the back yard, and we occasionally let him, because what harm is it going to do? Besides him dropping trow in front of the neighbors in the FRONT yard, I see nothing bad that could happen. That DID happen, though, and it was pretty embarrassing, so we had to have this really fun talk about how you can't be showing your boy parts to random other people.

Anyways, yesterday when we got home from school he said he had to go use it and he wanted to use it outside. Jason kindly escorted him into the back yard, and after a few minutes wandered back into the kitchen- our back yard is completely enclosed by a high privacy fence, so Reed can be trusted alone back there for a few minutes at a time. After a couple of minutes I walked back there to find Reed, pants around his ankles and knees slightly bent, looking at me sheepishly. I asked him what he was doing, and he didn't reply. I asked again, and he smiled and said gleefully, "I'm POOPING!"

He then proceeded to squat. And poop.

I walked into the kitchen and told Jason, "Yeah, okay, your kid is taking a shit in the back yard."

He smiled and shook his head and said, "At least it's not in the front yard."

What dreams may come.

2009-06-04T08:29:00.002-05:00

Right, okay, so last night I dreamed that I was watching Paul Simon, John Candy, and Bob Hope perform together.

I also dreamed that I watched this guy resuscitate a drowned hamster.

What the? Wow. I am not even making this shit up.

2009-06-02T08:23:00.003-05:00

I do not know what is going on with my body these days, but I think something must be wrong. My eyes are really swollen and hot, and my throat hurts, and my nose is all stopped up. I am exhausted all the time, whether I get sleep or not. I am nauseated and I've thrown up a few times. I've been getting heartburn regularly when, until about two weeks ago, I had never had heartburn before in my life.

I don't know what's up, but it's starting to get difficult to function an a daily basis when I'm feeling this badly. I long to be in bed all the time, and I've spent the last two days literally falling asleep at my desk at work. It's all getting to be too much pretty quickly.

I'm taking my vitamins, I'm drinking water and hot tea, I'm walking the dog, resting, getting some sleep when I can.

Oh, yeah, that's another thing: I've had a lot of trouble sleeping lately.

Anyway, I'm falling apart at the seams, mouth-breathing and aching and writhing around. I'm just not really sure how to deal with all of this.