L-I-V-I-N.

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.