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.

Yesterday was my 29th birthday, and guess what I got? Foreclosure.

It's been a damn long time since we've been able to pay the mortgage, so it's not like it's a complete surprise. It's just that every payday, the money is gone before we get it, paying the daycare and the power and the loans etc. So here we are.

This weekend we start moving stuff into my mom's house.

On children's programming.

So Bunnytown is one of Reed's new favorite shows, and I think it's okay. We have been inundated with the Wiggles for the last several months, which I resisted for along time because of this atrocity right here.



I first saw this when I worked at a daycare in 2001. I was all "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS TRIPE THAT THESE KIDS ARE BEGGING TO WATCH? OH MY GOD. WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE I WAS WATCHING THE WALTONS AND YELLOW SUBMARINE." After a couple hundred days of watching the Wiggles, I now don't find them atrocious at all. I actually walk around singing several of their songs, and I occasionally look forward to watching them with Reed. I know that's all against God's plan and all, my wanting to watch stuff WITH him instead of utilizing random children's television to babysit him while I have my gin and a cigarette, but I've always gone against the grain. I tried to find one of my favorite songs they sing, the bricklayer song, but I found this beauty right here.



I am new to the Bunnytown stuff, so when I searched and found the following video I decided to post it because it is so similar to a certain someone's bedtime around here. We go through this almost every night of the week.

I'll need a matching helmet for my scooter.

It's a big weekend at work- we have several weddings on Saturday and a big in-house event on Sunday, so everyone is a little crazy here. I've gotten to the point at work where I despise my job, despise most of the people I work with. I start out on the defense in the morning, and it can only go downhill from there. I think I want to work in Leeds and drive a Vespa. I would be cute on a Vespa. I could get a sidecar for Reed. And Jason. Jason and Reed can be my bitches.

Reed has entered some kind of sudden-death terrible twos stage without warning any of us first. He can be as happy as can be and will suddenly be writhing on the floor screaming, red-faced, saying no to any suggestion we make (and I try everything- popsicles, trips to the store, toys, movies and tv, sandwiches, cashews, gold monkeys, EVERYTHING). It is got Jason and me both on edge.

I am showing my jewelry to a local boutique on Thursday and have high hopes. Here's to optimism.

If anyone is interested in reading my article that was in the July issue of Lipstick magazine, just click here, scroll down, and click on "Top 10".

My birthday is Friday, and we're going to celebrate it Saturday, but I need suggestions. Karaoke? Bar? Restaurant? Kristi's house (would that be okay, Kristi?)?

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!"

Do you realize?

Originally uploaded by buffpuff

Last was we saw the Flaming Lips at City Stages. It was interesting and VERY, VERY LONG.

Today I managed to meet a deadline that I had started to think was a lost cause. Yay for small victories.

I have leads on several really good opportunities, and I'm trying to make myself follow them, even though most days I'm proud of myself if I manage to get out of bed in the morning. It's a stressful time right now, and I'm not handling it all very well. The nausea and flight instinct are mounting, getting bigger and badder and less ignorable.

I think we've made a pretty big decision, a huge one in fact, but I'm not going to go into detail yet. I will in the next couple of weeks- just not yet. You have no idea how badly I want to come here and write every single detail of every single aspect of my life, to tell you every feeling and fear and joy that crosses my mind, to list every moment of every day. But for one thing you don't want to read about what I had for lunch or how it made my toots smell. Secondly, some things need to be finalized before I get on here tirading about 'em.

Just know, anyone who may be reading this and thinking they in charge, WE MAKING THE DECISION. Jason and I have a life here; we're adults, and we've been doing a great job at some of the most important things in life. Now it's time to reevaluate for everyone's own good. And that's what we're doing.

"Happiness is when you really feel good with somebody..."

Well, things are changing all the time- feelings, opinions, options, desires, pleasures, pains, illnesses, favorites, irritations- and I can't keep up. I am trying to just breathe and eat Rolaids and pretend our lives are normal and calm.

Tonight I am going to see Al Green- surely all I need is a little love and happiness...

Sheboygan.

Holy moly, this life is a hard one. Today I just can't seem to wake up. My head has been hurting, and my eyelids have been drooping pretty much all day. It just seems like there is too much, too much to do, too much to think about, too much to talk about, too many phone calls to make.

We saw our lawyer again today. We can expect a court date in the next few weeks. I still can't believe that she is pushing this, that she wants to go to court and talk in front of all those people about her personal business. But hey, if she's ready, I definitely am. Nerve-wracking, expensive, necessary. I have to say that I'm glad we have actual legal counsel and aren't relying on random internet crap as our source of information. JUST SAYING.

This, work, marriage, money, cars, kids, it's enough to really make a person turn it all over to God. And Natural Light. God and Natural Light can get me through it.

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.

Well, blow me down.

Well, for goodness sakes, Kane and Jude's mom has decided that the kids need their father, and that they don't really want to change things around, so maybe things ought to just stay the way they are.

So right now I am marveling at the wonders of the human brain, and being thankful that she either got some sense or got distracted. WHATEVER. Luckily our lawyer has already filed, so we can get it all in writing pretty quickly.

I am working on another article for Lipstick, and I'm hoping I can write for them frequently. Gas prices, among other things, are making me really weigh the worth of driving to Homewood every day for a job at which I make so little money; I realized yesterday that it costs $8 every day for me to get to work and back. Add to that the $95 a week we pay for Reed to go to daycare just so I can work, and it makes $135 a week. Subtract that from my weekly pay and I'm left with $140- I am making $140 a week after those expenses, expenses I wouldn't have if I didn't work. I am having trouble thinking "AND IT'S TOTALLY WORTH IT." I mean, I don't exactly love my experience there, and most people don't like their jobs, but I work somewhere where my boss throws boxes at me.

Anyways, it's just something to think about.

Cleaning out my text messages...

- Bottletree. Soul dj. No cover.

- Victoria Beckham has a two million dollar vibrator. It's solid platinum with a diamond-encrusted base and a 16 karat diamond necklace which begs the question- a necklace? Really?

- I just got blatantly and obviously hit on by a middle aged Greek dude who sounded like Balkie and looked like my uncle. FAIL.

- I bought a vest last night. I'm not sure what's become of me but I love it.

- Side bun is our band name.

- Out the side doe, with the other hootchies.

- Watch Fox 6 news to see my ass selling flowers.

- I love seeing rich ladies jogging in Mountain Brook, almost falling over from all the Prozac.

- Oo, yur like the sun, chasin all the rain away.

- Want to come watch me cry, drink, and make cufflinks?

- I just got off work and am driving through a monsoon. I'll call you when I find out if we are going to make it.

*And yes, the idea to post these came from Miss Sara.