Heartburn and other minor annoyances....

Yeah, I don't know where this heartburn is coming from tonight. It has been a long day. Most of them feel much longer that the twenty-four hours that they actually are. I didn't really do much other than tend to the boy. It's harder lately because of the weather. If we can't get outside. then we have to find some place to go, usually the mall or somewhere with a playland. I am really burned out on the latter. 

It seems like physical ailment night for me. The heartburn, then some really nasty joint pain in my fingers. I am not old enough to feel this bad. If I could sleep it would probably help matters, but I feel really antsy.

I wish there was a device that could actually record your thoughts. I have had a couple of topics floating around my head but by the time I get to sit down and do anything....POOF! GONE! It's very frustrating. Not just the forgetting but the whole lack of time and energy that I have anymore. 


I don't know what to do. I am really discontent. I shudder to even say that because people misconstrue what I am saying. Then, I get a bunch of lectures about gratitude and whatnot. Wonderful. My life...now with 25% more aggravation. You should laugh at that, it is meant to be funny.

Bloody hell my hand is throbbing. No injury, just something weird going on. I couldn't find the Tylenol or whatever it is we have, so I am left with affirmations. Don't laugh, it works...most of the time...but it sometimes takes a bit longer. I could sleep it off if I could get to sleep. 


Wow, that was a bunch of wasted time, wasn't it?

There's not a line that goes here that rhymes with anything

The old across the street view in Spring.

Trying to blog while playing FrontierVille and streaming radio was giving my machine the fits, so I am now listening to sounds of rolling thunder. It's rather distant at the moment. I can hear faint strains of neighbors talking too. Thankfully whoever had the yappy dog out has had the decency to let it in. Dog knew the storm was headed this way. Woohoo, more rain to try and find a place to go in my water logged backyard. No kidding, I let my son swim in our new pond earlier. It's about knee high on him in spots. He loved every minute of it. I enjoyed it also, especially the part where he found an old Swiffer on the back patio and would shout "Rocket!" as he launched it into the water.

Getting closer...I can't see any lightning, but maybe it's just a matter of my curtain not being drawn enough. But I can hear the rain starting up. Not subtle at all...

My other half is away on a business trip. This is the third time since we've been married that he has had to be away overnight. However, it's the first time it has ever been for more than one night. It is weird to not have him here. He is supposed to call but he's in Central Time and last I heard they were off to dinner and beignets. It's after ten here, I don't know that I'll make it much longer seeing as I have to get up with the boy who doesn't know what sleep in means.

I've not really been in a good place lately. It's hard to explain. I do think my friend, Pat, is onto something with the sensitivity.  I think the weather is causing my atypical migraines to respond atypically. I don't really know with everything that is going on is it migraine? Tension? Sinus? Hangover? I tend to discount the migraine idea because when I was first diagnosed my only headache was the so-called rebound headache which only happened after some really fun ocular issues.  That really hasn't been the case lately, just some excruciating, intractable pain. Nice. I could make a doctor's appointment, but I don't really want to spend the money. Sure, I am already paying for the insurance, and it has been a longtime since I have seen Dr. Hottie, but given my history, he'll just offer me what ever it was I used to take and see me in three months.

When I get headaches, I often find myself thinking of the movie Pi. It is a good movie if you give it a chance. I like me some Darren Aronofsky. It's not happy, fuzzy escapism but it is always good nonetheless. I have not yet had a chance to see Black Swan, but I am sure that when I finally do it will be every bit of dark and wonderful that I expect from ol' Darren.

It seems like I can't say what I feel without people jumping on me for some reason or another. You know what, I do not feel happy lately and I do not know what to do about it because it's complicated. It isn't anything that anyone did or didn't do. It really isn't like that at all. It isn't that I lack gratitude or any number of other things I have been accused of. Again, it's complicated. I have things that I feel drawn to, and I would like to accomplish. I feel very unaccomplished. I don't feel like for all of my time here that I have anything to show for it. I feel like a shitty mother most days. And outside of that, fairly icky most days.

It's not like I want to set the world on fire or cure cancer or anything like. I get to the end of a day and I feel like I have so much left to do, but then conversely I feel like I have wasted time. I keep hearing that service sets the soul free but I have yet to find service that doesn't lead to more encumbrance. How could one person get so many things wrong?

Although there are those who would argue to the contrary, I don't really have much to offer the world. I have read and heard things that talk about if you have a strong inclination toward something that you need to explore it. Face what scares you head on and grab it by the horns. Set intentions. Make it so Number One.  Yada Yada Yada, Bullshit. Total Bullshit.

I am not just saying that. Oh, I would do so much service work if I could but as it is it just leaves me more frustrated. I don't really have any one to drop my son on with, so if I find an opportunity that I can bring him along with, I just feel really frazzled by the end of my time. He is a very active, very inquisitive kid, wouldn't have it any other way....except when I want to have some valuable adult time.

I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know how to express myself in a way that doesn't alienate the very people I am trying to get close to.  I have nothing even close to a Midas touch, seems like everything I touch turns to something quite less desirable than gold.

I am a mess. Total mess. I mean fuck all, I lost it a church yesterday when the opening song was "Morning Has Broken" because it was sung at my dad's funeral and I am fairly certain that if ever there was proof of this God rumor that everyone is talking about, well that's just the icing on the ol' cake.

I miss my dad. Deeply and in ways I could have ever imagined, Some days, I look at Boogie and I think of how my dad would have reacted and I just can't help but think that Boogie got shafted. I don;t know if it is because I was jacked up on meds for post-partum depression or if it is pushing my own needs aside to attend to my daughter who needed something or someone...thousands of dollars later I am honestly not sure...after dad passed. I do not think I ever really truly mourned and it's a hard place to be because at this point, I think everyone expects that I would be "over it".

The crux of my problem is that I feel very, very alone, I reach out to people in meaningful ways and do not make connections. I walk around every day wondering what the hell is wrong with me because people rebuff my acts of kindness.  Some days, I feel like I have overstayed my welcome.

Whatever. I am going to bed.

\

$2.99 for a bottle of wine

We sometimes go up to T&C just to walk some energy off the boy. I noticed $2.99 wine at Trader Joes, and it turns out it's actually not bad. I can't remember the name of it, and I'm too lazy to walk back to the kitchen. Sangiovese or something like that, I might just have to go stock up. I'm sure I could find the money for a case by shake out the couch cushions.

MGD - Extreme Close-up July 4, 2006

The whole $2.99 for a bottle of wine, now also has me thinking of Howling Maggie, a band you've probably never heard of, that has a great song called 'Alcohol' and a slightly more expensive '$3.99' song on their Honeysuckle Strange album. I saw them on a few occasions in my ill-spent youth but then I spent my freshman year in Columbus so that's cheating. But anyway that's my randomness for the moment...



I could do a whole alcohol soaked blogged. I certainly can think of a number of songs that are either directly about sloshy times or that make me think of previous good times. And then that would lead me down a path of tellin' tales that are dear to me, like my first taste of straight Jager with my bros on my birthday. Both of them said it tasted like nasty feet smell but I drank it anyway. That was such a great night. We are soo due for a good going out like that again. Or staying in, I don't care either way. I don't see enough of my bros sometimes, but that's just the way it goes I guess.

I am feeling slightly better since last time I wrote. But only very slightly. I am not the only one who is feeling so out of sorts. It doesn't make things better. Worse actually. My other half is usually the positive uplifting one, and for him to be feeling some of the same doubts and whatnot that I am. I dunno, it is what it is but it's rough.

I suppose I am entirely naive about the world despite my worldliness. I guess I still like to believe in fairy tales and happily ever afters. I hate feeling so cynical about the world, but for the most part that's the only face the world has ever shown me. Seriously, a conversation earlier tonight has me wondering if there is any goodness left in the world. Is it remotely possible for two reasonably intelligent hardworking people to get anywhere anymore? We've done okay, but not as well as we anticipated. Perhaps that would explain why it has taken us this long to start seriously freaking about the things normal people freak out about right away when they lose a job.

Another thought tonight, is that the modern holy grail is a work at home job. Seems reasonable enough, because in my experience there are plenty of things that could easily and effectively be done outside of an office. I am probably wrong...hell, I am always wrong and I have the disciplinary write ups to prove it. Several weeks ago, when R & I were both pretty hotly searching, racing almost to find a job, he sent me a lead that I followed. It all seemed reasonable, and certainly less of a pain in the ass than other things I have gotten myself involved in. I gave up over-thinking for Lent, so perhaps that's really where the problem lies, but at face this looked like a good thing. But tonight, my two scheduled appointments didn't show up on the live webcast that they were supposed to. Now, it wouldn't be so bad, but for the past week I have steadily had no shows for these events. If people aren't following through there, then I eventually will not get paid because I get paid. I knew that going in, and it's my own damn fault for being so over-confident.

I dunno, maybe it's because I skipped the warm market step. You know, that's where some of the other day's outburst came from. I don't quite feel like I have a warm market. I have felt that way for a very long time. When I was in my last few quarters in college, I went to more than a few interviews at various insurance and low-level financial planning firms that talked about developing my warm market as I built my book of business. I obviously never took those jobs. I could never see how I could. I don't have a big close family where I have names and numbers and actual relationships with people who might share one or more allele with me. Again, it is what it is, I am just as much to blame for that as they are I guess. Some people I can't mend a fence with, it's completely un-Christian of me, but then I never claimed to be Christian. (I really don't identify that way, and it's complicated so unless you come bearing a communion we can discuss it over, don't even try because you will wear out before I do...just sayin'.)

So is the whole world an illusion? Is there really no concrete reality? If nothing is real, if everyone's perception is reality then what pray tell is the "point" of all this? And if everything is pre-determined as part of God's infinite plan, then isn't my dissatisfaction with our current situation actually dissatisfaction with God's Divine plan? I've pretty much been Sisyphus for the better part of the last 15 years. I keep pushing this stupid rock thinking that it's just a little bit further and everything will be better if I can just get it up to that ledge. While I have been working on this my daughter came into chat me up, and that hurts because I am sitting here having to tell her that I honestly do not know if we can get her a gold pass. A gold pass that she wouldn't even probably want if her friend didn't already have one. I guess there is something to leaching off the system and never taking responsibility for your own self, you can afford luxuries. Maybe that's where R & I have gone wrong, we are wired for pulling our own weight and tightening our bootstraps to make things happen. Maybe we should have said fuck five months ago and trudged down to ye old "job center" and picked up a smorgasbord of government assistance. Then we could both let ourselves go...

We don't even want to be dirty, filthy rich or anything. We don't wanna be gangsta and drive pimp cars. We just want to be comfortable. We want to take care of our kids, and help them out with college as much as possible. Maybe people don't realize but J has some pretty big aspirations. The other day she told me that she didn't think that prom was a big deal because she was pretty sure that at some point in her life she was going to be invited to a presidential ball. She has been talking a lot about law school lately, which is great. It totally suits her. If you have never had the privilege of arguing something as mundane as lunch with her you are truly missing out. I honestly used to have a hard time punishing her for things because she would present such compelling, and sometimes valid, arguments in her defense. I have a little saved up for her, but not enough to get her through the places she dreams about. Not enough to keep her from become all jaded and weather-worn like me.

Some people would say just keep on keeping on. Or quote ol' Dorie's "Just keep swimming." It's not that easy though. Swimming is a very tiring activity. If it wasn't there is no way, that any of us who've ever spent time in the basement at Portage could have actually ever slept. I mean seriously, if you keep planting a garden and nothing grows, you eventually give up, right?

Give up. I don't think I know the exact meaning of the phrase. I always reassess and regroup and carry on. Maybe that's my biggest fault...maybe actually giving up and giving in is something that I should consider.

All of this has me thinking of Nirvana's "Dumb". Well, kind of, I don't so much think that I am dumb as I do think that I have bought into an unsustainable American Dream. What ever course laid out for me by this so-called divine plan has never involved anything less than sheer agony and heartache. What is the point of being a fighter if there is never any payout? Seriously, fuck me for passing up every less than ideal thing because I thought there was something "better".

See, I told you that it was a pretty good cheap wine :)


There is no other way to end this than with Local H.


So tired of spinning my wheel, I wonder when I will ever know what success taste like.

Normal is Just a Setting on the Dryer...

From Normal is Just a Setting on the Dryer: And Other Lessons from the Real, Real World by Adair Lara

I picked this little book up at the youth book sale at church. Lots of little witticisms, enjoyable little read. This page I love. I originally scanned it because I was going to put it on FaceBook and tag a few people who also might find it bitter-sweetly humorous. I decided against it, mostly because the rules and mores of social networking never seem to apply to me and people end up pissed off or otherwise offended.

What is it about me? It has always seemed to be this way, I fucking hate it. I can be sitting in a room of people who are having conversation about baseball and when I join the conversation...it stops. And that's when I can join a conversation. A lot times, I don't even have anything to add. All my working years, it would seem that inevitably I would end up working with the designer purse and manicure set, and there is nothing wrong with that except that I have no interest and will never be able to wrap my head around spending more that I make on a purse that's just going to get dirty anyway. So, since I never knew when anything was on sale or who did the best acrylic tips, I said nothing which always seems to be construed as snobbery.

This is exactly why those years are filled with trouble. I can only ever be who I am. I can only ever come to you from where I am. It's a hard place to be. I know through personal contact and the grapevine that most of the people that I would have tagged know exactly what I mean. But to expound upon that makes me sound like Charlie Sheen. There, did you see it? Right there in that sentence...expound. I have to work not to use the words that most people have struggle to use. Which means that people don't understand me, because well, like this guy says:

If that makes no sense, all I can say to ye is get thee to Idiocracy and it will all become clear.

I seem to be on this string of bad days that I just can't shake. I try and look at it from the POV of a podcast I heard awhile back that counseled when you are working at something and you have days like this it's normal. It is just sort of the wake that you are creating with your activity disturbing your usually calm waters. (God, I wish I could talk like a normal person sometimes.) So, in trying to look at things from that perspective and pushing along I try to envision that the end result is going to be worth all this...

...but I am not really sure. I have a couple of irons in the proverbial fire right now. They both appeal to me for different reasons, and they actually once everything gets ramped up should fit together quite nicely. Assuming I don't have a complete nervous breakdown in the process. One of the distinct disabilities that I am facing is that over time, lack of positive response to communications on my part has wore me down, and I find myself somewhat sociaphobic. Or maybe it's just phonophobic combined with katagelophobia. Or maybe I am just plumb crazy.

I don't know the more I try to push through the more unbalanced I feel. The more I try to reach out, the more alone I feel. The more I just try and fake it 'til I make it, pretend that everything is as it should be, the more I can see that it is not.

I have a had an extraordinarily bad night tonight. nights like tonight make me question just about everything because despite my BEST effort all day, I got nothing but shit thrown at me from multiple directions. Days like today, make me really, really want to just throw in the towel. Okay, y'all win, I'll never amount to anything, I'm just a big loser like y've been saying behind my back for years. I'm serious. I am in some heavy duty line of wondering if I just haven't been delusional all these years thinking that I was going to be something...shrug, I can't even finish it.

Maybe my shit is all retarded...(no offense meant there, it's a quote.)

With tornado watches issued shortly before noon Sunday, for the areas including, the western region of my mental health and the northern portions of my ability to deal rationally with my disconcerted precarious emotional situation

It's been quite a week. I think that is why I have "Emotional Weather Report" by Tom Waits streaming through my head. Love me some Tom Waits. As a matter of fact, what sounds absolutely fantastic is to have a late night chill out with Tom and this adequate premixed Cosmopolitan I bought. Something very Alice's apartment circa the turn of the century, with laid back with no place to be, no one to impress, flowing drinks and ever increasing silliness.

The high school drama of earlier this week resolved nicely. Thanks God! I am pretty sure there is less drama in thirty seconds of Telemundo novellas than in high school.

I don't much remember most of the week, because so much happened and my brain is getting old. If not old, perhaps those white spots on my MRI have grown and they weren't really an old head injury.

I interrupt this blog to beg you to watch this!  


Started a starter for sourdough, that was exciting. Seriously, I can not describe the joy it has brought me this past couple days. It smelled awful this morning and couldn't have been happier. I can't wait to use it.

We went to the Dragon's season opener yesterday. Cold but enjoyable. Ran into some old friends, and that really put me in a good mood. Then, this couple came from nowhere and gave us tickets to seats, nice high seats on the first base side. I totally think it was one of those being in the flow sort of things, and I'm pretty grateful.

I have a lot on my mind, but there were a couple of things this week that have me holding back a bit. It takes all of my energy somedays to stay positive, to not be sucked into the dark side. There is always a primal way to react, and a right way. This week I have been feeling quite primal. I can't afford to be all aggro all the time. I don't really like it either, except that it is an unfortunately comfortable place. One incident this week really tipped the scale, and quickly ripped the sheath of my venomous tongue and prepared for the kill. Sigh, and then I stepped back and thought about what really bothered me about the situation. Truth be told, I was pissed off that despite a friendly warning people who would possibly be offended by something proceeded to read it anyway. Then, the same people, rather than adding anything substantive just did what people of that slant do best act like spoiled children, skirting the issue and disparaging someone they don't really know squat about. The whole thing just left me fuming about the sorry state of this society and fallible logic systems that people hold their whole life and NEVER challenge.

It had me wanted to compose a very intimate profile of myself and how I came to be this person I am now, but people like that don't care about facts. They wallow in their own arrogance and would know the truth about anything even if it bit them on their self-importance, pseudo-intellectual asses. I'm gonna stop before I ruin a perfectly good evening.

I think a shorter version of this whole thing would have simply been to type: "I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!" But where's the fun in that? 

A little Waits to take us out, and all will be well again...at least, well for two minutes and twenty-nine seconds:)

Sticks and stones and that old bullshit about words...

It really is complete nonsense that words don't or will never hurt me. Or anyone else for that matter. Anyone with half a soul has experienced the sting of off-handed, thought-less words BUT what's worse than that is those carefully chosen for points value utterances.

There is an issue with some straight-up, old-fashioned bullying with my daughter. It's what's got me a little restless tonight. The perp isn't even someone she knows. It is some girl who from what has been shared with me has taken it upon herself to implicate my daughter and one of her friends in some dubious activity with the perp's NOW boyfriend. Regardless, the more I hear the more it sounds like yet another parent-less, godless child is in need of an attitude adjustment.

It is probably one of the worst feelings ever as a parent to be in this situation. It's like a built-in automatic fail that they never cover in any parenting book. I will do my job as parent and go through the proper channels and try to get resolution. I know that sometimes this backfires. I also know that the overpaid union thugs who present themselves as stern yet caring school personnel do whatever they can do to do as little as they can do to actually rectify the situation and draw it to a full resolution. It's not opinion. It's that I have been here before. I fought tooth and nail for my kid with a bunch of lazy-ass, half-wit teachers who wanted to put everything on me and my husband and suggest all sorts of ideas OTHER THAN facing the problem head on and mediating between my child, myself, and the other parents. In fact, every time myself or my husband attempted to help our kid get results, the counselors, teachers, et al would make EXCUSES for the little shits that were terrorizing our kid and NEVER considered confronting them.

So here we are...AGAIN!

What makes this so much damn harder for me is that I know what that is like. I know first hand the pain, the demoralization that comes with being targeted by someone for no good god-damned reason. I spent most of childhood being relentlessly picked on. For whatever reason, reasons I will never know probably, one day in about second or third grade, someone decided that I was 'it' and that never went away. I had friends, but you know what things were so completely horrible that I never really trusted anyone. I don't think I ever really got to know many of my friends on any level that would make them value me or my friendship. Actually, I shouldn't say think, I know. I try to connect, TRULY connect with my old friends and it just doesn't happen. Every bit of the way that I acted when I was a kid was a defense mechanism to protect me from all those allegedly unhurtful words.

I ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY VOWED THAT MY KIDS WOULD NEVER EVER HAVE TO FEEL THAT SORT OF PAIN. I know that I can not protect them from everything. I have covered every base that I could possibly think of to minimize that chances that some chromosomally deficient cretin could rear their ugly ego driven head. I feel so helpless. I feel like I have lost my daughter some days. Like from before and everything that happened and it's like she is punishing us because we couldn't stop it before so she has absolutely zero faith in our ability to take care of her.

What the fuck is wrong with people? Is it really that fucking hard to mind your own damn business and worry about your own damn self? The fact that I am an adult that fully understands the why, the abysmal self-esteem, the self-centeredness, the lack of any sort of spiritual center, the complete and total disregard for peace and love and the sanctity of human existence, does not make anything any easier bear.

I feel myself restraining myself from an old mode that I thought had been completely erased from my memory. It's part junkyard dog, part venomous evil, and 100% survival. I do not like this, and I am not going to be ruled by this. Those who can and do should pray, oh and pray hard...because like someone once told me,"You can take the girl out of Germantown, but you can't take Germantown out of the girl." And given the fact that I have been fully ready to throw down since I saw my baby huddled up in her bed at three in  the afternoon.

I regret that I didn't make the sacrifices that I might have had to make to send her to MVS. I was lulled into a false sense of security with the awesomeness of her elementary. I say that I might have had to make because I am looking at all of that now and seeing that private school or home-schooling was 100% feasible then, so maybe my bigger regret is that I didn't have the faith to follow through with the action.

Tonight, amidst everything, I thought of the Madonna song "Human Nature". I remember the first I heard it, saw the video and I really related...or at least grasped onto the line,"I'm not your bitch don't hang your shit on me." A difference between me and my girl that I am eternally thankful for is that--well, she is not like me in so far as her reactions and the thickness of her skin. My reaction to the actions around me was to become pretty aggressive myself. Good lord what a vicious cycle that never solved anything!  Anyway, I think that's why that line resonates with me. It seems that on some level when I was younger I did understand that whatever what happening didn't actually have anything to do with me. I couldn't wait to graduate because I knew that that their were bigger and better things for me, and dude I was not wrong. I don't want her waiting out her next three years of high school, though. I want her to enjoy every minute of every day and to "stay golden" for lack of anything original to say. I want her to know that she isn't anyone's bitch and that no one can really hang their shit on her unless she let's them And most importantly, that I love her. No matter how many times she says no or shuts the door or tunes me out or all of the other things that she does or doesn't . I love her and that will never change. And if I have learned anything from Harry Potter, it's that evil can't touch a mother's love.

I know that there is no perfect situation. I know that I can't make everything better. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let some one fuck with my kid. I have the luggage from that shop and it ain't pretty...