I got the job! I start on Monday. I am grateful and thankful. It's basically a desk job with a lot of benefits and paid holidays, so hopefully I'll love it.

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?

So I have just this morning accepted a job offer. I hesitate to feel totally comfortable about it because now they're starting a background check which "may include a credit check". I've missed job opportunities before because I have terrible credit, whichs is mostly due to my losing my job at the college and then losing my last job at the flower shop.

There is so much drama in the world right now, and so much drama in my life. Besides the daily grind- being unemployed, begging for jobs, being in foreclosure, being in collection with most of our debts, having no money, etc.- there is a lot going on right now, enough that I have trouble keeping up with everything and everyone and how I'm supposed to handle all of it.

I don't get a lot of good rest these days. I'm usually thinking, worrying, calculating; my brain doesn't stop long enough to really be calm. Maybe soon. Maybe I'll get this job and we can all find a little peace.

Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?

I just got done with a job interview. I'm feeling pretty good about it. This is the third job interview I've had since I left my last job, the third job interview I've had in three-and-a-half months of being unemployed, of actively seeking employment. It's certainly the best interview I've had in a while; I felt competent and the fellows who interviewed me were enthusiastic. At one point my interviewer said, "So you're not currently employed. So I guess you could start.." I interrupted, "TOMORROW." They got a laugh out of it. Little do they know that I've been eating cans of black beans for months. At least I like black beans, so it's not that bad.

I sold two items on my Etsy this morning. GOOD THINGS ARE HAPPENING, PEOPLE. Today I'm looking up, for a change.

Coming soon: wedding photos, positivity, and good news, let's hope.

Two is just as sad as one; it's the loneliest number since the number one.

Yesterday was the second birthday of this blog.

This has been a really good year, where "good" equals "didn't kill myself", "learned how to ignore murderous impulses", "tuned out the writhing fits", or "drank during the day".

I really have learned a lot about myself; unfortunately a lot of the avenues that got me to that knowledge involve things I don't like to write about here. You know how I very rarely write about my marriage except to make jokes about how Jason must be high to be able to deal with me? That's because I love my marriage, love my husband, and Jason does not want to read on the internet about how his snoring makes me want to shove all his dirty socks up his nose. So I don't write about it.



Suffice it to say that my marriage has survived- it is just like life, or raising kids, or going to work, or doing heroine. It can be excruciating, but that doesn't mean you'd be better off without it.

Reed is a little boy.



His school has just started requiring all the students except infants to wear uniforms. He wore his new "golf-ball shirt" (a golf shirt) to school with khaki shorts for the first time this morning, and Jason said he was very grown-up, very serious about his shirt, walked by himself to the door and kept smoothing the shirt and picking off lint balls. He'll be three in three months. I can't even comprehend it.

This past year has been a really hard one in the Jason's Ex-Wife arena. She decided that the kids should move back in with her and her husband whom she met in the psych ward. Then she decided that the kids need their father and therefore ought to stay with us. Then she decided that we should go back the original divorce agreement. Then she decided that we ought to pay her backed child support for the three years that the kids were living with us. Then she decided that she wouldn't be providing any transport for her kids any more; if we want to see them we must pick them up from her apartment and then drop them off at her apartment. Then she informed us that we were not to contact her ever and if we had questions or concerns we would call her husband. Then "someone" left some bizarre comments on my blog posing as Mark Dutton, an attorney. Then she dropped it and decided that we don't have to pay backed child support. Then she started contacting us again even though she expressly said that she would not be in contact with us any further.

Confused? TAKE A NUMBER, BUDDY.

Jason and I have given in to the Evil Lord Wal-Mart- we sincerely refused to shop there for the longest time, but my most recent bought with unemployment has reduced us to shopping there. It is three minutes up the road and everything is slightly cheaper than my one true love, Target.

That's another thing that's happened in the past year: I lost my job. AGAIN. I didn't write much about it because it is at once humiliating, terrifying, hilarious, sad. There's really not that much to it. I dealt with a lady throwing boxes at me and screaming the f-word for a year and a half, and I dealt with her Event Coordinator asking me how big my husband's penis is, and then she fired me for staying home with my kid when he was sick. The world is a balanced place, eh?

I've been writing and getting published in Lipstick Magazine, which is fabulous. I've also been making a lot of jewelry that I'm really proud of.



My good friend John moved back from New Orleans.



I have a couple of projects in the works, including a redesign of this blog. We've worked on it some, but then we found some booze so the blog is on the back-burner for a minute. I've been talking with Jason and some friends about starting a magazine, as well as something exciting involving being drunk and making videos.

More on that later. Aren't you excited?

I have arrived.

This week I am just trying to stay calm as our situation gets worse and worse. I am still applying for jobs, still following leads, still "knocking on doors." THANKS, DAD.

I applied for unemployment last week. It took me two months and about 45 impotent job applications to get to this point. Hello, point. I'm here.

To do:

- Deposit our stimulus check which was as slow as Christmas getting here, but will probably be gone by the end of the week.

- Laundry, housework, etc.

- Decide what to wear for an interview tomorrow for a job that is literally about four minutes away from where I live.

- Start picking out my scooter for when I have said job and can drive a scooter to work. Also choose matching helmet.

- Start brainstorming a good gang name for when Jason and I both have scooters and ride them around. Shop for leather jackets to have gang name embroidered on.