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.

More on Leonard.

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.

A healthy dose of maturity.

Alagasco hates poor people, and Ms. Little over there ain't nothing but a puppet for The Man. Damn the man, save the empire!!!

Fuck 'em.

Perhaps I'll bring a better attitude tomorrow. But don't be holding your breath.

2008.

I'm pretty sure some crazy stuff is about to blow up around me and Jason pretty soon. It's all a crazy mess, the result of mistakes we've made recently concerning Kane and Jude. I'll have a lot, A LOT more to say on this in the next few weeks if things calm down that quickly.

As the year rambles to a close I am left thinking about what an awful period of my life this has been, how awful it's been for me and how awful I, in turn, have made it for everybody around me.

I am so lucky to be surrounded by people who empathise, sympathise, keep caring, persevere, who understand that a lot of this is bigger than me, bigger than my heart can take, bigger than my TEENY, TINY BRAIN can comprehend. I need a lot of help sometimes, and thank jeez there are people around me who want to give it to me. I don't know where I would be now if it weren't for you guys. I would NOT be at work in a good job, listening to Elvis Costello, thinking how we will make it through this. I would probably be one of those people who is always, ALWAYS over on the far side of the bar at the Plaza, drinking and not talking or making eye contact with anyone, only thinking quietly about the shambles his life has become.

Lucky for you guys I'm still sending texts and emails and making phone calls about OH GOD THE DEPRAVITY and FUCK ALL BOLLOCKS CRAZY PEOPLE and OH HOLY SHIT I'M GOING TO DIE, I'M GOING TO DIE RIGHT NOW, BUT NOT BEFORE I HAVE ONE MORE NATURAL LIGHT WITH YOU RIGHT NOW BE THERE IN A MINUTE.

Y'all are so damn lucky I'm around, because your life would probably be so boring without me in it.

Seriously, though, every year I sort of momentarily consider New Year's resolutions and I usually move on without making any because, SHIT, this life is so unpredictable and bizarre I just never feel like I can live up to resolutions. This year, I have considered it carefully and I think I want to resolve to be more fierce, more steadfast, more calm, steady, sure. I have this tendency to be super paranoid, to start thinking weird things are going on or to second-guess decisions, and looking back on this year makes me realize that I am frequently right or at least not totally off. I resolve to listen to myself a little more closely, to stop being so hard on myself, to stop telling myself that I'm wrong, stupid, crazy, so automatically. I resolve to remember that I can make it through anything. I resolve to listen to my instincts and to feel less like I need to bend against my gut reactions.

I resolve to stand up for myself loudly, clearly, make myself heard if anyone fucks with me, my marriage, my family the way some people have this year. I will not take any more of this quietly, will not walk away without PUNCHING SOME BITCH IN THE FACE, at least metaphorically. Maybe what I could do, you know, to help the economy, is pay a homeless guy to punch you in the face and I'll stand by with my Martin guitar and play More Than Nothing by the Vindictives. WHATEVER. I do not care what this says about me, I do not care what impression this gives, just know that you got off easy this time and it will not happen again.

Tired of hearing about it? No you're not. Shut up.

Those of you who take such good care of me, who worry about me and help so much, you all sort of mesh together and form a nice soft place for me to fall, and I love you for it. Y'all all come over here and sit on mama's lap and I'll pour you a bourbon and sing Crimson and Clover quietly in your ear. You know who you are. Thank you.

Bulldoodle.

I tell you, things just continue to get crazier and crazier around here.

I haven't heard back from my job people yet; they said it would take five days to get the background check back and that was on Wednesday.

Jason's ex-wife is trying once again to squeeze some money out of us, and now she's trying to talk him into commiting tax fraud in order to get it. These people beat all, I have to say. She still seems to think that we should give her half of our stimulus check that we got this year, as well as child support for May, June, and July, and Jason can just "claim the kids on your taxes again this year" and pay what we "owe" out of it.

The reality is that our lawyer reassured us months ago that they aren't entitled to any of the stimulus money no matter how hard she tries to make it seem like she is. The kids lived with us in May, so even if we were supposed to be paying child support for some of the summer it wouldn't be for May. If a judge orders us to pay child support for June and July I will totally jump on board BUT I AM NOT DEALING WITH ANY OF THIS UNDER-THE-TABLE, JUST-BETWEEN-US BULLSHIT FROM TWO CRAZY PEOPLE WHO ARE UNPREDICTABLE, GREEDY, RUDE, AND SCHEMING.

As far as the tax stuff, she's been frauding social security for several years and she knows that if we end up in court that will come up, so I figure she's just trying to come up with a way to get Jason in trouble, too. SUCK IT, FOLKS. I've said it before, I'll say it again, and last week I said it to a 22-year-old dude who works at Citifinancial: You cannot squeeze blood from a turnip. If you haven't made the intellectual leap yet, what I'm saying is we currently have $45 in the bank and exactly one week before we'll be getting any more money.

We have no money. There is no money. You aren't getting any money.

We will continue paying child support just like we have been since August, the month that SHE chose for us to start paying child support again. But anything else will have to be settled by our lawyers and a judge in court.

Mark: comments?

Making your way in the world today takes everything you got.

This birthday was about half great and half shitty, with great being against all odds. My attitude and emotional status have been all over the place lately, from grief, shame, humiliation, and regret to optimism, happiness, and hope to rage and spitefulness.

We got our letter of foreclosure Saturday morning. I worried about it all day, and then went out for birthday dinner with several friends, and then headed back to Kristi and Chris' new place to drink birthday beer. It was nice to spend time with everybody; most of my favorite people were there.

I think living at my mom's house isn't the end of the world. It is one of those things that will work eventually, but will start out kind of stressful and uncomfortable.

I've been talking with the mortgage company today, and I think we have some options, some possibility of avoiding the foreclosure, which I am taking steps to move towards. I do feel like we can't possibly pay for the house, and whether the bank forecloses or we get out of the woods and then hand them the keys, we are going to have to get out. I wrote a long letter of hardship to send the mortgage company and realized we aren't irresponsible, we aren't bad people, this isn't all our faults. These past two years have been really, awfully hard; it's been one bad thing after another, including insurance disasters, plumbing disasters, employment disasters, custody and ex-wife disasters. The end result has been that the amount of money Jason and I bring in to the house has dwindled lower and lower, and the amount of money we need to be sending out has risen higher and higher. Unfortunately we just can't reconcile the two. Add to that the fact that Jason and I are both totally, absolutely stressed out 24 hours a day, and you got the recipe for a hot mess.

Things with Kane and Jude's mom is pretty much at a standstill. Jason occasionally gets text messages from her asking for money. I would like for her to know that as soon as she figures out how to squeeze blood from a turnip, she should give me a call. Or a text. Whatever.

My best impression of what will send me to an early grave:

"MONEY MONEY MONEY! I WANT SOME MONEY! GIVE ME SOME MONEY! YOU PAY FOR IT! I WON'T PAY FOR IT! WHY WOULD I PAY FOR IT WHEN I CAN JUST SIT HERE AND SAY THAT I WON'T?! I WANT TO NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN AND GET PAID FOR IT! YOU TAKE 'EM AND AS LONG AS YOU'RE COMING BY YOU CAN JUST DROP OFF THAT CHECK! WHY WOULD I PAY FOR THEIR CLOTHES OR SUPPLIES OR FOOD?! WHERE IS MY GOD-DAMNED MONEY?! I'M GOING TO GET THERE LATE BUT WHEN I PULL UP YOU HAVE MY MONEY READY! MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY!"

Ah, how quickly the tide turns.

SO THIS HAS BEEN A FUN EVENING.

Kane and Jude's step-dad called Jason at work and ranted erratically about all kinds of random crap, including that Jason blackmailed his ex-wife for money, that we have the kids "livin' three to a room", that Jason is just trying to get child support, that he would never harm Jason's children, and so on and so forth. Jason asked to talk to the kids' mother, and was told "she's in the kitchen cooking with the kids" (it was 9:30 at the time). It only took us about fifteen phone calls to finally get an answer, and it was step-daddy again, who then told me that he had done nothing but help Jason out, and that their mom was in the shower. Turns out that was a lie as well, because when she finally called Jason she told him she was putting the kids to bed. She went on to say that she wasn't prepared to sign anything right now, and that the kids should just go ahead and move back with them and go to school where they live.

In short, they prove at every turn that they are totally unstable, unpredictable, and ABSOLUTELY OBLIVIOUS to the kids' welfare.


I will tell you people what I tell Reed when he acts like a ridiculous ass: Do you want a good fight? Because if you keep on like this, we're going to have a good fight.

"I still say that if you don't want to raise kids, DON'T HAVE THEM."

Man, this stuff with Kane and Jude is consuming me, has consumed me all day long.

If we make this change that their mom wants to make, they will be with her for every week day during the school year except for school holidays and every other weekend during the summer. The rest of the time they will be with us- every weekend during the school year, every holiday and day off from school, and all summer except for the every other weekend when they're at their mom's.

The reason that this is a big deal is this: Jason and I both HAVE TO work full time in order to afford our mortgage, our bills, our food, etc. We both work five days a week; sometimes Jason works six. I ALWAYS work Saturdays, and Jason ALWAYS works Saturdays and Sundays. We both work in retail, so we both always work during school breaks and holidays. At Christmas time, for example, we are off on Christmas day and that's it.

Kane and Jude's mom and and stepdad, on the other hand, DO NOT HAVE TO WORK. Neither of them work. At all. Period. EVERY DAY IS AN OFF-DAY. So when the kids stay with them on weekends and holidays and in the summer, they have the ability to go to movies, the McWane center, day trips; they go on vacations and camping trips and road trips. They have a brand new swimming pool at their brand new apartments where they go swimming every single day in the summertime. And they can all sleep as late as they want to, every single morning.

That's why this arrangement works out pretty well- we are on a fairly strict schedule, and Kane and Jude's school schedule just slides right into that schedule. We never go to the movies, we never go swimming; we very, very rarely go on vacation and when we do, it's a weekend at a friend's house a few hours away, not anything remotely exciting for a kid. At our house there are rules about bedtime and how much time can be spent watching television or playing video games; at their mom's house there are no such rules.

So if this swap happens, they will be at their mom's house for the school week, and then they'll be at our house on the weekend while Jason and I work and they do nothing but sit in the living room. I'm not exaggerating- there will be nothing for them to do. Then during their awesome-ass summer, they will stay with us for several ten-day stretches during which Jason and I will work, and they will sit on the couch. During all the excitement of spring break and Christmas vacation, they will sit on the couch while Jason and I work.

Granted Jason and I are home at night, which means most days we'll get our whole three-and-a-half hours with them before bedtime, during which they will watch television and play video games since that's the only time we allow it. We don't feel like we can move their bedtime back because besides the fact that THEY need the sleep, Reed, Jason, and I need the sleep, too. Their bedtime is just one step in a progression of steps every night that lead to Jason and I falling into bed.

This is all besides the one big flashing neon sign of a reason why I don't think this can work: I'm not convinced that Kane and Jude are old enough to be left home alone for eight or nine hour stretches for several days a week. When Jason told their mom that we didn't have anyone to keep them on those days, her answer was "You better work on getting those days off." Right. Jason will just phone on in that he's going to need to be off from May 28 until August 8 this summer. Thanks for the advice. Even if his employer would go right along with it, that would reduce his paychecks from 80 hours of pay to about 16. The good news is that we have all these piles of money all over the house that have been just DRIVING ME BATTY, and now we can finally put them to good use. Again, THANKS FOR THOSE JEWELS OF KNOWLEDGE, YOU SHINING EXAMPLE OF A PARENT, YOU.

This is all really just an big indicator of what I'd been fearing recently- that their mom is still, for the most part, mentally unstable and totally self-involved. And delusional. And assy.

So, we're exploring our legal options. I think two things are possible. Either someone will wave something shiny in front of her and this will all be forgotten, or it's going to get a lot uglier before it gets better. Right now I'm praying for the first and counting on the second.