In Which a Bird Chases Me Into the Fridge

I'm renting the downstairs bedroom in my friends' house, blissful surcease from the nightmare my own house has become.   I'm very grateful to these friends -- without their love and support I wouldn't have been able to leave.  I would still be stuck in the madness, miserable and resentful and angry and guilty and frustrated and trapped and all the things.   So. Damn. Grateful. As we are fond of saying in my Facebook family.  I am grateful, really I am, to have this place and these friends.

But fuck me if they don't have a bird.   IN THE HOUSE.   They take it out of the cage and it sits on the dude's shoulders. And its wings go all fluttery and rustle-y and fuck if it doesn't start flapping all around the place and the next thing I know, I'm climbing in the fucking refrigerator.  I know I exaggerate sometimes but this time is not one of them.  I'm climbing in the fucking refrigerator and the dude is

either not noticing or pretending he doesn't and I'm all embarrassed and polite, like "oh, um I kinda have this bird phobia, really it's nothing -- no-- aaaah -- as the bird is swooping and diving all around the kitchen.  I try to pull the fridge door shut behind me.  "Really, it's no big thing really, I just -- aaaaah  -- okay."   I continue talking with my face nestled into the corner of the freezer.  I am seriously IN THE FRIDGE.

And maybe he's passive-aggressive or maybe he thinks I'm kidding or maybe he has Asperger's which isn't likely since he seems genuinely sensitive and receptive otherwise, but the thing with the bird is fucking freaking me out.  But he doesn't do anything to corral the bird which is mixing metaphors but fuck it, I'm in a weakened state. So I have to get out of there and head to my room and pray to all that is holy including Tom Fucking Cruise like in Ricky Fucking Bobby that the bird does not somehow follow me and fly into the room before I can shut the door like Tippi Fucking Hedren.  So of course I nee -- er, want a double klonopin with a beer back but the beer is -- wait for it -- in the refrigerator and I so very carelessly left it behind during my recent stay there.

So I wait at the door of my room, listening for sounds of the bird being put back in its cage and that dude who I have decided is neither passive-aggressive nor oblivious but downright sadistic going upstairs so that I can run back to the refrigerator, (my new vacation home) and retrieve a beer to wash down my evening klonopin (and before you get all up in my grill about drinking with my benzos let me assure  you that I have honed the craft of medicating myself to a fine art, having thirty years of practice as I do. And let me also tell you that skill comes in quite handy when I find myself in situations like the one I just described which takes place with the veepveepveep squeaky violin soundtrack that heralds the pivotal climax of most Hitchcock films, especially The Birds, a film that solidified my distrust of birds in general, and birds inside the house in particular.)

So, as much as I am enjoying the solitude and freedom from all the bullshit that has been my marriage for the last few years and the clusterfuck of the last few months that put it in the ICU, I do have moments like this time with the bird where I wonder if it's worth it, and other moments when I feel such homesickness and grief that I am this close to running over and slipping in the back door so that I'm in the kitchen making french toast and the coffee's ready when he gets up because I just want it all back to the normal that it never really was in the first place.

And now it's time to say "Namaste" as I often do at this point in the post, but I have to confess that I will have come back to write this part later when I edit it because I can't really see well enough to type at the moment because I'm crying pretty hard.

And there you have it.  Namaste, you stupid bird.  Hit the lights but leave the fridge door open because I might need to climb in there whether you're in your cage or not.

What Should Be a Duel Has Become a Soliliquy

You guys.  I have an appointment with a Family Law attorney tomorrow.  "Family Law" is a euphemism for "Divorce."  I don't want to be divorced, although being separated doesn't suck nearly as much as I thought it would.  Which is to say, "not at all."  And because Mr. K. doesn't appear to want to respond to my tour de force emails about our issues, I'm going to keep posting them, because goddamnit, they are good, heartfelt pieces of expository writing, and I need an "atta girl" right now like you would not even believe.  I think a "<drops mic>" at the end wouldn't be excessive.  But it's your call.

****************************************************************************************Dear Mr. K., 

I have some thoughts in response to your most recent email. 
 
As I have said before, your denial is a work of art.  

Regarding Troubled's "good, safe place:"  How are you satisfied?   Have you seen it yet?  What is the address?  As for the time off work, I thought that the very reason that you couldn't follow through on the agreement we made was because you *couldn't* take the time off work.  Once again, you were unable to say no, to insist that she wait, to set the limit and stick to it.  Once again you cast aside my wishes -- that you had agreed to -- rather than stand firm as you acknowledged was necessary to teach her the life skills she so desperately needs. You call me "suspicious and mistrustful" as though it were a character flaw, rather than a legitimate and understandable response to a questionable set of circumstances.  I'm surprised by your suggestion that I visit her in her new place so I could see for myself when you told me yourself that visitors weren't allowed,  This is one of the basic reasons that the whole story is so unbelievable.  But I will try to satisfy my curiosity if you give me her correct address.  

Regarding the car:  It is clear to me that you are not getting my emails, or not reading them, or not comprehending them. Other than to pay off the loan that the bank called due once they discovered it had been impounded, I will have nothing further to do with that car.  It is not registered to me, nor am I on the title.  Surrendering the car to an impound lot is a direct result of you ignoring my request that Juvie not be allowed to drive it.  As such, the entire matter is between you, Troubled, and Juvie, and I will take no part in its resolution. 

I find it incredibly ironic that you suggest I "be a parent" to my daughter, given your refusal to play that role at any point in these proceedings.    When Juvie was spending the night at our house without permission, and I wanted you to back me up and say "no" together, you did not.  When Troubled was failing classes and going to work high, and I wanted you to back me up and say "no" together, you did not.  When Juvie was driving our car, and I wanted you to back me up and say "no" together, you did not.  When Juvie was dealing drugs out of our house, and I wanted you to back me up and so "no" together, you did not.  When you refused to work with me to take control of the situation, you failed as a parent.  You failed as a husband.

As far as finances go, you need to understand that it's not just "your paycheck" and I am not "in charge of it." When we agreed years ago how vital it was to have a parent at home rather than to have strangers raise our children at daycare, you understood how that decision would affect our finances.  You would earn the income that we would need to create and sustain a home for our family.   If that arrangement was unacceptable to you, you should have made that known, and offered one of your own.

You want to create separate bank accounts but what you don't understand is there is no extra money to divide, nor any to keep from one another.  All of our income goes toward our house, our children and their needs.  It's almost painfully ironic that you want to separate the assets now, given the spending you have done on unnecessary things like bail, warrants, and cash deposits on phantom living quarters. As far as "big ticket" items go, I'm not sure what you mean.  As I told you before, the big ticket items this month were property taxes and PreMed's tuition, in addition to the mortgage, which is a big ticket item every month.  Believe me when I say that beyond that, there is nothing left to spend, and nothing to spend it on. 
 
The "olive branch" you claim to have extended is merely a refusal to examine the events of the last several months. If I reject it, there must be something wrong with me.  It is easier to assign me character flaws than to do the difficult work of exploring your own issues.  How you can possibly expect us to "let bygones be bygones" is ludicrous.   When you decide to take a look at how your drinking and denial have brought our family to the brink, maybe we can begin to take some small steps towards healing for all of us.   Even though it seems unlikely,  I look forward to that day with hope.  

Editing My Yelling

I love a good email fight.  I think I'm much better at them than regular yelling because I have time to edit.  You can't really edit yelling.  Kind of defeats the purpose.  Anyway, it's rude to post someone else's email so I won't post the one my gee-I-really-regret-it-but-I-think-I-have-to-accept-it-about-to-be-ex wrote.   I'll just post my response to it.   And I should put "Kablammo" at the end but I think it'll ruin it from a stylistic standpoint so if you would all just mentally add "Kablammo" after you're finished reading it, that'd be swell.  

(ahem)

Dear Mr. K.,

I remember that time you're describing a bit differently.  I remember it as the time when Troubled was living in the back of a car in the rain because that's what she chose.  When the police were taking statements because of choices she made and you did nothing to discourage.   When I was not proclaiming your cowardice to the world, but lamenting an intolerable situation to two of my only friends.  When poppyseed tea was flowing because children who were trying to act like adults and failing miserably were making horrible mistakes.

Maybe you broke because you were starting to get a glimmer of how I have felt for the last six months and the six before that and before that and before that.  Helpless and frustrated and diminished.  Everything I had predicted and protested -- watching it all happen exactly as I had feared and worse.

Maybe you broke because you were starting to realize how your inaction and indulgence had led you to this point.  Your refusal to work with me, to set a plan and stick to it, to set limits for your child, to encourage her to learn from her mistakes instead of swooping in to rescue her.  Maybe you were starting to see how truly damaging that turned out to be.

And I fervently hope that maybe, just maybe, you were starting to see how your drinking and denial were catching up with you, and that nothing could really be made right until you dealt with that.

Because if any of that were true, then maybe, just maybe, there might be something worth salvaging in this marriage.  But I suspect that you are nowhere near ready to acknowledge the truth in anything I've just described. In which case, as you say, it's maddening and pointless to continue.

I don't need a few days to reflect.  I've been doing my reflecting.  I've been searching my soul for ways to forgive you but I always come back to the anger and the betrayal and the drinking and the denial.  I stayed with you in what I feel were truly dark times, through two hospitalizations for a disease that is clearly alcohol-related, when it was so apparent that you needed help, that you had to quit drinking and yet you could not. You admitted as much in the same breath as you denied that the doctor had told you that you should. 

If there is anything in this marriage worth salvaging, it's going to have to start with that.  I guess that's something for you to reflect on.  Let me know what you decide.

Who Are You?

This little trope was making the blog-rounds a while back, and I was fortunate to be tagged.  I haven't really had much time to write a post lately, what with leaving my husband and regaining my sanity and learning to "tough-love" my daughter without people thinking I'm a monster (like I give a fuck, well, yeah, I desperately give a fuck).  But I digress.  

Anyway.  Here are some questions, the answers to which will make a blog post, which I definitely need right now.  The things I'm thinking about these days are too complicated and take too much focus and it's all I can do to keep getting up at dawn and race around doing everythingeverythingeverything because it's tax season oh and did I mention I left home and my daughter ran off to live with her boyfriend in a rusted-out Caddy?  

So.  Um.  Yeah.

1.  Where were you born?  

In a hospital.  I can't say any more than that.  You guys really can't know anything about me.  It's in the terms of my contract with Witness Protection.

2.  Were you named after someone?    

My paternal grandmother.  Right down to the middle name.  So that I had to have "II" after my name before I got married.  I am not fucking kidding.

3.  How many children do you have?  

Three.  Well.  Four, I guess.  Emotional age?  I’m gonna go with four.

4.  How many pets? 

There are two dogs whom I love more than I love most people and I am very fortunate to be the human that they have.

5.  What's the worst injury you ever sustained?  

A broken heart?  No.  No real injuries of any kind.  No real physical ones.  YOU know.

6.  Do you have any special talents?  

When I'm not curled up under my bed in the fetal position, I am the funniest, smartest and best writer in the known universe.  I mean, you know, no.

7.  Favorite thing to bake?   

Brownies.  Do not leave me alone with that pan.

8.  Favorite food?  

God.  Everything.   Pick a continent.  Any continent.  I like food from there (hey, melted snow is water and I love water).  But put Brussels sprouts on my plate and I will bitchslap you into the middle of next week.

9.  Would you bungee jump?  

In the words of Woody Allen, "Not even if it would help the space program."

10.  What is the first thing you notice about people?  

Whether they like me.  I can spot that a mile away.

11.  When was the last time you cried? 

ZOMFG DO YOU LIKE KNOW ME AT ALL YES I'M YELLING

12.  Any current worries? 

see above

13.  Name 3 drinks you drink regularly.

Coffee.

Vodka.

Coke Zero.  

14.  What's your favorite book? 

Mine.  As soon as I write it.

15.  Would you like to be a pirate?   

What kind of stupid question is that?  Isn't this a job interview?

16.  Favorite smells?  

TOP OF THE BABY'S HEAD YES I'M YELLING AGAIN

17.  Why do you blog?

Because there are a lot of people talking in my head and if I write down some of what they say, they seem calmer overall.  Plus I love to make you guys laugh or at least go -- whoa, that bitch be cray.  Funny.  But cray.

18.  What song do you want played at your funeral?

Wow.  I never thought about it.  Put that on my bucket list.  I'm really going to have to cross that one off, though, or it's going to be awfully quiet up in that bitch.

19.  What is your favorite thing about yourself?

"My sense of humor. It's gotten me through lots of hard times throughout my life, I'm seriously my own best friend...I can make myself laugh better than any of my friends."  My friend It's Cool To Be OCD wrote that in his version of this blog post.  So I'd like to thank him for saving me the time.  ME TOO GUESS WHAT YELLING YEAH YOU KNOW ME

20.  Favorite hobby?

I used to have hobbies.  Now I have Facebook.  Draw your own conclusions.

(Meh.  I do have hobbies.  I love music.  I like to run with my dogs.  I like to swim.  I like to go camping.  For serious.)

21.  Name something you've done, you never thought you would do?

I've left my husband.  I never thought I would do that in a million years.  Which is pretty silly because who lives long enough to find out what they would do in a million years?  That's just crazy talk, pure and simple.

22.  What do you look for in a friend? 

If you could scratch my back, right  . .  THERE . . .  that'd be peachy.   I’m sorry.  You were saying?

23.  Favorite fun things to do?

I love live music.  But I hate crowds.  So I like little supper clubs and jazz bars and if the Black Keys would drop in one day here at the office, I wouldn't say no to a little impromptu concert.

24.  Pet peeves? 

ZOMFG DO YOU LIKE KNOW ME AT ALL THERE'S THAT CAPS LOCK AGAIN

25.  What's the last thing that made you laugh? 

What's the last thing that *didn't* make me laugh is a fairer question.

Now you.  If you're a blogger that reads my blog, consider yourself tagged. 

And now we wait.  

NNITO

Irony.  Being so grateful for a bed in a room with a door to close that I'm up half the night writing about it.  Living out of a suitcase teaches you a lot about gratitude.  Grateful that I even have clothes to worry about.  Pushing aside the hangers in someone else's closet.  Carving out a little space for me.  I have a friend who says it all the time.   "So. Damn. Grateful."

She's leaving home, bye bye

Details.  Trying to manage all the details.  Remember to pick up some razors, don't leave the laptop charger this time.   Focusing on meaningless details to keep the real issues out of sight.  She left her husband.  She left her husband.  She tries the phrase on, looks at it with a critical eye, puts it back on the rack.  She left her husband, yes, she did, but what she really did is say a resounding "no more" to her husband and her daughter and the chaos and the condescension and the manipulation and the denial.   

Soon I will write about the events that preceded my departure.  I rarely get the chance to write at the moment.  It's tax season, which means I am working 15 hour days, 6 days a week.   I have time to play on Facebook, seconds at a time. but the chunks of time it takes to really work out what I like to think are well-written pieces just don't come easily lately.  And when they do, they are devoted to doing laundry and repacking my suitcase, connecting with friends and getting validation, running with my dog (sneaking back in the house to spring him, first thing on Sunday mornings, when it's unlikely that the slackers who have invaded my home will be awake to catch me), "dating" my son and sharing small hard-won blocks of his undivided attention.  NNITO, which if you GTS ("Google that shit,") or LMGTFY (Let me Google that for you)], you will find is an acronym for "not necessarily in that order."

Make me one with everything

Once I stopped in an espresso bar that starts with "S" and rhymes with "Starbucks," and after she had prepared my halfcafgrandesoyvanillalatte, the barista handed it over and said "All the decisions we've made in our lives have led us to this moment."   And only the fear of getting burned by steamed soy milk kept me from dropping that motherfucker and falling over from that psychic bolt from the blue.  

More soon, I hope.  If it makes a difference.  You have told me it does.  And sometimes I believe you.  Namaste, Nutjobs.  LYLAS.   And shit.

Namaste, New Year

If you've been reading my blog, you will know that . . . .

[Ed. Note:  God, I hate blogs that start out that way.  So much wrong with that.  It's like the vaguely passive-aggressive Facebook status intended to sound the alarm to friends and neighbors that SOMETHING IS WRONG!  But what it is, only certain traders very close to the inside will recognize or understand.  The rest of you can just wait at the door for details.  Even better, form a group to speculate.  Don't forget to start rumors.

Also, "If you've been reading my blog, you will know that . . . ." implies that many people don't read the blog but show up from time to time and want to know what the fuck is going on.  And while that's annoying, that's not what it means, either.

Seriously, all I mean is that I have been writing about some difficult issues in my life (for a change - lol).  And I have another installment of the story to share.  If you want to flip back a few months to catch up, we'll wait.  But if not, it's all good.]

If you've been reading my blog, you will know that I am working on solving two serious and interconnected problems  in my family at the moment.  Mr. K.'s drinking, a chronic problem, has escalated again, testing my courage and strength.  Is this the time I stand up and demand action?  Insist on change?  Give no quarter?  Stay tuned.

The other problem is that my daughter Troubled's journey of self-discovery has stalled in a very sketch part of town.  Her boyfriend, "The Juvie," is a three-time offender who has aged out of the foster care system and into my home.  While Troubled works and goes to school, The Juvie does nothing except deal pot out of a mini-fridge he has installed in Troubled's room.  The situation that began over five months ago with "Please, Mom, can he stay here for a few days while he finds a place to live?" has devolved, as all situations will if left unaddressed, to "I want him out by New Year's or I am calling the cops."

As a reader commented recently on Facebook:  "This used to be a fun page until you went all Maury Povich."

Indeed.

Since I last wrote, I laid down the law on a few matters.  I would leave and take our son, The Gamer, with me if any of the following conditions weren't met.

1.  Mr. K. was to remain sober.
2.  Troubled was not to get high or to come home high. 
3.  The Juvie was not to remain in our home overnight.  

Mr. K. had already learned that I was serious about this.   The Gamer and I had overnight bags stored in my car.  I had only broken them out once, but it had gotten his attention.  

Yesterday, I got up and saw that Condition No. 3 had not been met, so I left immediately to stay at Galpal's, an unbelievably supportive friend, one of the scant handful I have IRL.  I let Mr. K.  know that I would come home when The Juvie was gone.  For good.

Mr. K. texted me yesterday afternoon to say that Troubled and The Juvie were packing up.  My other daughter,  PreMed, gave me the status when she got home.  Troubled left with The Juvie, but a lot of her clothes are still here.  I take that as a good sign.  I hope she'll be back often.  We have tuition to pay, books and software and school supplies to buy.  If she thinks we are giving up on her, she is sadly mistaken.  

I'm sitting here with the lock guy rekeying the locks.  Troubled can have a new key. We will take it back, though, if we discover that The Juvie or any of his loser friends, family, or *customers* (fml) have been in the house when we weren't there. 

So yeah.  We did it.  Troubled will say that we kicked her out, but we all know better.  We kicked him out and she chose to join him.  All in all, a devastatingly difficult week. But major progress.  

That's what happened.  Those are the objective details.   But here's what's really happening.  My heart is heavy.  My stomach is in knots.  A rocky relationship with Troubled is broken, possibly beyond repair.  But I have my house back and a little of my self-respect back and now I can turn my attention to other problems that have to be addressed.  For example, my marriage.   I'm lightening up on Mr. K. for now. This was huge, and he is taking it hard. I'm not going to press on the drinking for a little while, at least. He didn't drink yesterday that I know of. But it is not my job to know.  One thing at a time.  Now where did I put that link to the Al-Anon schedule?

Listen up.  You'll want to get a hanky for this next part, if you don't have one already.  (If you're anything like me, you probably always have one stuffed up your sleeve like that old lady piano teacher you used to admire, fear and loathe all in the same feeling.)  Anyway.  Thing is.  Point being.  Some severely difficult and ridiculously challenging things happened around here this year.  And I really couldn't have done it without you.  People say that all the time.  But I really do believe it's true.  Without this space to work through everything and check it out with you and get your validation and support, I really don't think I would have had the courage to make any of these changes.      

So with that, I'll close, as I often do, with "Namaste."  Namaste, Nutjobs.  Namaste, Troubled.  Namaste, Mr. K, and Gamer, and PreMed.  

Namaste, New Year.  Take that.  Hiiiii-yah!  <drops mic>

Frank Sinatra Can Kiss My Rosy Red Ass

Once upon a time there was a young woman who fell in love with a young man who liked Frank Sinatra in a hipster-ish "oh look at me, how clever and anachronistic I am" kind of way.  She loved him and he loved Frank Sinatra, so she saved up her money and scalped some tickets to surprise the young man for his birthday.  They went to see Frank Sinatra put on a show with a bunch of aging femme fatales wearing mink stoles and bright red lipstick and their husbands wearing tasseled loafers and English Leather.  

And it was all very ironic and adorable.  And time passed.  Periodically during the twenty years that passed, the young man would get out his Frank Sinatra CDs and wax nostalgic about a time before he was born.  And the young woman would murmur and nod uncertainly at the young man's range of musical appreciation.  From the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Dvorak and back.  Via Frank Sinatra.

And then the years of drinking that the young man had done turned him in to an old man.  An old man who put Frank Sinatra on his iPad and lay in bed for hours at night with the music so loud you could hear it across the room leaking from the earbuds.  With his eyes closed and a beatific smile on his face, bobbing his head up and down. So happy.  And so pathetic in his sappy happiness.

The young woman, now a "mature" woman, lay down next to the old man tripping out on Frank Sinatra and tapped him on the shoulder to tell him that the music was too loud.   Adding to the lengthening list of things she is dislikes about him, he is growing deaf.  He is gradually and inexorably descending into geezerhood.  He snores, he farts, he wears his bathrobe all day, then grows chilly and jacks up the heat rather than getting dressed.   He makes endless cups of tea that he lets get cold while he lies on the couch and lets the chaos of the household swirl around him unnoticed.

The mature woman calls to the old man.  "Honey?  Honey?"  He continues to lead the Nelson Riddle arrangement of the strings that accompany Ol' Blue Eyes.  She shakes his shoulder.  "The music's too loud, I can hear it across the room,  you should turn it down, you're going to hurt your ears."  She speaks to him as though speaking to a child.  As so many people do, he is becoming more childlike as he ages.  And more childish, too, it seems, because at her touch he sits bolt upright and yanks the earbuds away.  "What do you want?"  he growls.  He sets the iPad down on the bedside table.  He is clearly quite angry.  "I'm sorry," she says, as she always does.  "It's just that the music was so loud, I thought it must be hurting your eardrums."  She can see she has completely fucked up.  Of course he was enjoying himself, having a moment, transported in his nostalgia to a place and time before he was born.  And now she has ruined it.  

She tries to placate him.  "Go ahead, put it back on, I didn't mean you had to stop listening."  And as always, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," in an endless apologetic litany.  "No," he says. "Never mind.  Forget it."  He gets out his puzzle book.  He won't exonerate her by resuming his private concert.    She turns away, gets out her book and begins to read.  She stares past the words on the page, lost in bewilderment.  When had her life become like this, how did her marriage grow so diseased?  The years pass, and like lava, the discontent seeps, then spreads.  She is married to an old man she doesn't respect because he likes Frank Sinatra, not ironically, not as a hipster, but for real.  

The message she hears when he listens to his music is this:   This is who I am, this is who I have become, someone you don't like and didn't sign on for and can't understand how you came to be saddled with.  And you are trapped. 

And in reply the message she thinks is this:    Fuck that noise.  Fuck you  and your iPad and your earbuds and your pouting and your drinking and your denial.   Kiss my rosy red ass.  You and Frank Sinatra both.

I Am Invisible. I Am Inaudible.

I did not want this boy to stay here and I said so.   I said it in a whisper.  I said it in a scream.  I said it in a calm voice. I said it in a trembling voice.  I wrote it.  I sang it.  I texted it.  I posted it.  I tweeted it.   I did not want this boy to stay here and I said so.

And yet.  He stays. Today he got a package addressed to him.  Here.  This is now his address.  This boy that I said I did not want to stay here.   Now gets mail here.  I did not want this boy to stay here and I said so.

And yet.  He stays. Today I was taking out the recycling and found a cut-down box that once held a mini-fridge.   I can't even bring myself to look because I know the mini-fridge is in my daughter's room. This boy that I said I did not want to stay here.  Now shares a mini-fridge with my daughter in her room.  I did not want this boy to stay here and I said so.

And yet.  He stays.  I am not comfortable with him here, I said.  It is not good idea for our daughter and her boyfriend to live together in our house, I said.   I have the right to say who gets to live here and who does not, I said.  But I was overruled by nothing.  By the nothing that was said when I said what I said.

I said I did not want this boy to stay here.  And he said nothing.  I said if this boy were to stay here, he would have to sleep on the couch.  And he said nothing.  I said I didn't want this boy to smoke pot here.  And he said nothing.  I said I didn't want this boy to drive our car.  And he said nothing.  I ranted and raved and shook my fists.  I ranted and raved and stomped my feet.   

And he said nothing.

I am invisible, inaudible.  My rage makes me shrink to nothing to fit inside the nothing that he says.  

"I am not listening to you because you are yelling.  I do not respect you because you cannot contain your anger."  That is something that he says.

"I am yelling because you are not listening to me.  I cannot contain my anger because you do not respect me."  That is something that I say.

There is a boy living in my daughter's room with her in my house and I said I did not want him to and no one is saying anything and no one is listening to me and no one respects me. 

I do an invisible dance with my fists and my stomping feet.   I sing an inaudible song with my whisper voice, my scream voice, my calm voice, my trembling voice.  I did not want this boy to stay here and I said so.  And yet.  He stays.

Shit's Gettin' Real. Yo.

I walked out on my husband today. 

He's an alcoholic.  He's completely in denial.  As far as he's concerned, there is nothing wrong with him or our family. As far as he's concerned, any problems that I see are merely my own distorted perception.  This has been going on for years.  Decades.  He's a dysfunctional alcoholic who manipulates my children against me.

We bring the lights up on a bedroom with at least four piles of puppy shit on the floor.  The horrified mother has begun to clean it all up.  The rest of the family is absorbed in other things.  The mother begins a tirade that includes a torrent of f-bombs.   The woman's young adult daughter gets up and comes wandering into the scene.  

Daughter:  What are you so angry about?  Calm down.  Jesus.

Mother:  <insert swears as you see fit>  It was irresponsible to get a puppy when you work and go to school all day.  It was disrespectful not to get my permission first.  You don't care for the puppy, you don't supervise her, she is not being housetrained.  I am happy to take on that role and care for the puppy.  But if I do, she becomes my puppy and I will take over her care and training.  <turns to husband>  Is there NOTHING you care to offer by way of support in all this?  <the way she says it implies that this is a conflict she has been struggling with for a long time>   

Father:  <silence>

Daughter:   God, mom, I just got up. Can you wait until I have some coffee before you begin screaming at me?

Father:  <stage whisper>  I know. I got a raft of it yesterday morning. 
The two share an exaggerated eyeroll

<scene>

So I left. Quietly and under the pretense of going to the gym. I did go to the gym, but then I went to my friend's house and talked and cried all day and got my resolve together.

Then I came back.  I came back to take care of my son.  I came back because this is my home.  I came back because I live here. The rest of them can go fuck themselves. I will come here after work for a bit to check in with my son, make sure he's done his homework, make sure he has clean clothes and something for lunch the next day.  I will sign the permission slips and make sure the band uniform is complete for concert night.   If he wants to and can be ready in time, I can drop him off at school on my way to work. I am figuring out where I will sleep. Maybe here. Maybe somewhere else on nights when I feel especially angry and need to detach.

When I got back, I told my son that if the puppy shits in his room, he is sadly going to have to handle it himself. If he doesn't like that, he needs to talk to his sister about it, and make her do it. Essentially he should keep the door to his room shut. He is on board.

I ignored my husband.  Last night we had a long talk about how his drinking is going to kill him.  A couple of weeks ago, he was hospitalized for the second time with acute pancreatitis, in his case, a disease directly related to alcohol abuse.  His doctor told him that he had to stop drinking.  Anything.  Ever.  During the course of our conversation, however, he let me know that that's not what the doctor had said at all.  And that he will drink a little every once in a while because he can do what he wants and it won't be a problem.  Which means that he will drink four or five shots of whiskey as he has done EVERY NIGHT FOR THIRTY-FIVE YEARS and it will make him deathly ill and it will be a huge problem.

Okay, I said.  If it won't be a problem, then I won't have to worry about you washing down some Ambien with your drink and I won't have to listen for you stumbling around the house and embarrassing everyone and falling down in the bathroom so hard that you BREAK THE TOILET TANK.  And I won't have to take your sorry ass to Urgent Care when you get so sick that you are doubled over and cannot drive. I am glad to know that it won't be a problem because doing those things was getting really exhausting.  

Tomorrow I am going to my first Al-Anon meeting. (Well, not really my first.  My first as a spouse.  The other meetings I went to were as a daughter.)  Then I am calling an attorney.

My dysfunctional alcoholic husband is manipulating my children against me and destroying himself and our home and I will not allow myself to be sucked into this madness.  

Namaste, Nutjobs.  Let's do this thing.

The Stupid Blanket That I Hate

Scratchy red wool.  Some kind of plaid.  Royal-Stewart-Tartan-MacCallen-Something.   My dad sent it years ago for Christmas.  And because of that, the blanket is traumatic.  No matter how many times you wash it, it smells like anger and tastes like cigar smoke and sounds like opera.   The blanket sounds like opera.  Yes.  

It is The Stupid Blanket That I Hate.  

The Stupid Blanket That I Hate vies for a spot on the bed with The Beautiful Duvet That I Love:  Smooth, sleek, lightweight, shades of lovely blue.  It smells of fresh air and sunshine.  It doesn't sound like opera.  It doesn't sound like anything at all.  But if it did, it would be the ocean or gentle rainfall or something soothing.  Not opera.

My husband loves The Stupid Blanket That I Hate.  He doesn't know that I hate The Stupid Blanket That I Hate.  But he likes it and it makes him happy.  He doesn't understand that it's wrong for the room and wrong for my head.  He doesn't know how The Stupid Blanket That I Hate holds me in its thrall.  And so he drags it out every fall like clockwork and throws it over the bed on top of the The Beautiful Duvet That I Love.  So that when I look at the bed I am transported back to my childhood full of choking cigar smoke, raging temper tantrums, diagramless crossword puzzles (can you imagine?) and opera.

I try different ways of dealing with The Stupid Blanket That I Hate.  When I make the bed, I fold it in half lengthwise and line it up on his side of the bed, covering it with The Beautiful Duvet That I Love, arranging the pillows meticulously to make sure that there is not one single centimeter showing.  At night I get into bed gingerly, lest I pull back The Beautiful Duvet That I Love and see The Stupid Blanket That I Hate.  When my husband comes to bed, I try very hard not to notice that The Stupid Blanket That I Hate is showing on his side.  And then I snuggle under the Beautiful Duvet That I Love with my back to my husband and  . . . well, you know.

The way that I have set up this scenario is an awesome piece of passive-aggression, if I do say so myself.  The Stupid Blanket That I Hate reminds me of growing up unhappy and scared with my angry family in a house filled with cigar smoke and opera leaking out of the windows.  And I get to blame my husband every time I look at it.   He doesn't love me enough to see that, because I hate The Stupid Blanket That I Hate, he should hate it too and offer to help me get rid of it because HE LOVES ME THAT MUCH.  But I guess he doesn't.  Le sigh.


Sometimes I think that I am being ridiculous and I should just get rid of The Stupid Blanket That I Hate.  Just ball up that bad boy in a Hefty Cinch Sak, toss it in the hatchback and off we go to Goodwill.  But I'm not a monster.  My husband likes that damn blanket and I can't help but see it as a metaphor for our marriage.  I'm not willing to throw it away, even as unhappy as it makes me.  I'll keep it around for his sake, but only if I can hide it and not have to see it or deal with it.   Just like all the little issues you develop over the course of twenty years of marriage. You can deal with it.  As long as you have a Beautiful Duvet That You Love to balance out The Stupid Blanket That You Hate.  That doesn't smell like anger and taste like cigar smoke and sound like opera.  No matter how many times you wash it.

The Quest For Banana Coffeecake

We had to get up early to get the replacement retainer fitted because he had lost the last one so long ago and had either forgotten to tell me or been too afraid to tell me and we were both in denial about it.   Now he needed to be fitted with a replacement retainer because it had been months since he had actually worn it and his teeth were slipping.  You might want to console me and say it's not my fault, but it is.  Everything is my fault.  Not a pity party.  Just stating facts.

I drag him out of bed at the usual time ("But Mom, it's a late day!") to get the new retainer fitted.  I have to miss work to do stuff like this.  Before, I could always just drop everything and make it happen.    But now I have to take half-days off and miss meetings and deadlines and let my work-team down because my family-team's needs come first.  I resent them for needing me.  And then I feel guilty for resenting them.

We slam our doors shut and I start the car.  He looks at me sideways with a sleepy eyeroll.  I can tell he hasn't bathed or changed his clothes, but I don't say anything.  I'm a horrible mom.   But not always.  Sometimes I'm a mean mom.  Sometimes I insist on chores and homework and personal hygiene.  A mean mom and a good parent.  Sometimes I'm a nice mom and a horrible parent.  Really what I am is a tired mom who is kind of nice and kind of mean and kind of horrible and kind of not.

We get to the orthodontist. The Gamer signs in at the little desk and waits on the bench to be called.  I sit down in the waiting room, mentally slapping my forehead, as I always do, that I didn't bring something to do with me while I wait.  Nothing to do but flip through the ridiculous magazines, which I loathe, except classy ones like The Atlantic and Harpers.  Sitting with nothing to do makes me feel antsy and wasteful.  I should relish this kind of moment, but I never do.  I resolve to sit quietly and try to empty my mind.  Pffft.

The ortho comes out and says that they took the molds for the retainer but it won't be ready right away. Can we come back tomorrow and pick it up?  They don't seem to understand that I'm working now.  I can't just show up whenever the way I used to do.  No.  I took the morning off so let's do this thing.  Fine.  Come back in an hour and it will be ready.

Yes!  Mental fist pump.  I turn to The Gamer.  Just enough time to go out to breakfast.  We head to the car.

"Have you ever been to Mitch's Cafe?"  I say.  "No? You've never had the banana coffeecake?  Let's go remedy that right now."   I look at my watch.  Mitch's is all the way across town.   If we are efficient, we can get breakfast, return for the retainer and then get to school before the late day beginning bell at 9:30.  Challenge accepted.

But snags began conspiring against us.  I get stuck on a narrow street behind a garbage truck that wouldn't yield for several blocks.  I miss three lights in a row that were supposed to be timed together.  I forget where the turn for Mitch's was and have to double back, missing another light.  And so on.  Finally, one last light stands between us and the restaurant.  At the train tracks.  Dun dun.  Dun dun.  Did that sound like Law and Order?

The light turns yellow just as we approach it and then the clanging starts and the red lights flash and the gates start coming down to prevent dumbshits from getting stuck on the tracks and having to be rescued by Hancock which was a stupid movie but it's always fun to see Will Smith.

And guess what?  Little Miss Goodytwoshoes who won't allow herself to break the rules no matter how ridiculous because I. Always. Get. Caught. Always. pushes the pedal to the floor and races across the train tracks and crosses the double yellow line to slide into Mitch's Cafe's parking lot.  And immediately hear the siren of the cop car that was OF COURSE parked there lying in wait for dumb fucks like me to fuck up because they are TRYING to have a nice moment with their son who they have really not been there for because they started back to work just as seventh grade was beginning and without warning the kid had to suck it up and deal with life for himself so for the love of god could I just please take him to breakfast to have delicious banana coffeecake before we have to go back to retainers and school and work and just everything PLEASE?


Blinking back tears (surprise!), I roll down the window and wait for the officer to make his way up to our car.  I get the necessary papers together.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see The Gamer mentally rubbing his hands together with a sly smile on his face.   Even as the adrenaline-soaked thoughts tumble through my brain (I think I can do traffic school when's the last time I did that now show The Gamer how it's done if there's any chance I'll just get a warning no one ever just gets a warning only in the movies), I see him predicting what is going to happen next.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"  The officer peers into the car, sizing up what kind of reckless scofflaws he might be dealing with.  "Yes, I do, officer."  I take a deep breath.  "I sped up through the intersection at the train tracks which I have never done in the twenty years I have lived in this town because it is horribly dangerous but I'm taking my son to breakfast because we are waiting for his retainer to be made from the molds they took at the orthodontist's so that I can get him to school before the late day bell at 9:30."  I figure I'd better cover all the bases.  The right to remain silent be damned.  I have never invoked my right to remain silent in my almost half-century on the planet and I wasn't about to start now.

The officer stands back. "Surprised" is probably too strong a word.  "Non-plussed," maybe?  "License and registration," he growls.  I hand them over like the dutiful child I become in situations like this.  "I think you know what you did was not only illegal but dangerous.   I appreciate that you told me so right away.  It shows that you know you made a dumb mistake and you are pretty unlikely ever to do it again."  I am amazed at what it is beginning to sound like here. "I'm going to let you off with a warning."  (LET ME OFF WITH A WARNING DID YOU HEAR THAT THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING I scream inside my head).

"Thank you, officer," I hear my self saying in a calm and business-like manner.  "I really appreciate you not giving me a ticket.  I promise it will never happen again.  A stupid mistake and I really won't ever try that again."  I can practically *hear* my son's eyes rolling around in his head but I don't look at him, I won't look at him, not until the officer is gone and we are finally safe.

"Well," I finally say to him. "I think we have just had what is known as a 'teachable moment.'  What do you think the point was of what just happened?"

"That you can break the rules and get away with it," he says.

(Terrific, I think. Fantastic.)

"Well, I think the point was that the authorities look favorably on you if you acknowledge your mistakes.  Getting out in front of it is really important."

"Yeah, mom.  It's also called 'kissing ass' and you rocked that pretty hard."

I swing my head towards him in a kind of pleasant shock.  "You think I handled that well?"

"Hell's bells, Mom," he says.  They have such a delicious sense of irony, my kids.   "You talked your way out of a ticket.  No one ever really does that. Only in the movies.  It was awesome."

We head into the cafe for some delicious amazing motherfucking banana coffeecake.  We'll get the retainer and carry on with the day's routine but we had a moment.  This sometimes mean and sometimes nice and sometimes horrible but always tired and definitely well-intentioned mom and her grubby and vulnerable and hilarious son.   Had a moment.  For serious.  Hell's bells.

Heartbreak Hotel: A Study in Anxiety

I want to cry.  In fact, I have been crying off and on all day.  Mamas (and papas too, I suppose), don't let your kids grow up.   Because the day will come when they break your heart in ways you never even dreamed of.  And you know how they will do this?

The exact same way you did it to your parents.   And guess what?  You are going to feel like it is all your fault.  Just like they did.  Or maybe they didn't but they might have and how awful that must have felt because goddamnit I feel really awful right now so buckle up because I am going to tell you.

Right now I have three kids all breaking my heart, each in their own way.  I feel funny writing about them, because it's unfair to them that I write about them all over the internet.  I don't mention them by name but still.  Anyway, this hypothetical bipolar nutjob who pretends she's a big deal to some people she met on Facebook has three kids and each of them is tearing her up like you tear up the turf doing donuts on the football field in the drum major's Jeep for your senior prank.  How's that for anonymous?

Heartbreak No. 1:   19-yo daughter is in love with this kid who's been taken from his parents and put in foster care and been in juvie like three times and doesn't really have a place to live and it's not really clear to us wtf the story is but she loves him and we're not completely heartless to his plight but she has him stay over even though we said we didn't like it and I'm just so wracked up over this I can't get my breath.

Heartbreak No. 2:  17-yo daughter is getting ready to leave for college and the tears are streaming down my face as I type this because I'm the hypothetical bipolar nutjob from two paragraphs ago and I have no business even trying to live in the world, let alone raise kids who are going around breaking my heart over and over.  And sometimes it feels like this kid is the only thing standing between me and the cliff over which I would drive my car over which is a huge exaggeration because I would never do that but I might consider running away.

Heartbreak No. 3:  13-yo son is packing on the pounds and all he likes to do is play that card game Magic: the Gathering which is actually pretty okay with me if he would stop eating so much junk and maybe exercise a little more and who the hell can tell that to their kid but he also needs to pay a little more attention to his schoolwork because he is superbright but he is going to be mad at himself later on when he realizes that he got left behind because he wasn't motivated to do his best because his parents are still struggling with how to encourage him without making him fucking nuts.

So yeah that's my blog post and I'm just posting it without editing it NOT because I need advice (please don't give me any) but because I need to put it out there and please for the love of God understand that the run-on sentences are a stylistic device I'm using to show you how the thoughts are running through my head but you have to know that they are running even faster than this in fact swarming is actually a  better word and that's another reason I have to post this without editing it.

Namaste and thanks for reading if you even got this far because god knows it's hard to read this style of writing without editing the fuck out of it but as I may have mentioned I'm not going to so there you go.

Hope Or Something Like It: Hope 2012: A Blog Relay

Write about hope, they said.  It’s for the Olympics, they said.  It’ll be irreverent, and full of swears, I said.  That is why we selected you, they said.  Hold up.  Selected, you say?  I’ve been selected?  Moi?  All of a sudden I am on board.  Who could resist? I can spell “narcissistic” really well for a reason.  

What can I write about hope?

I was writing in my head about something else when this “hope” thing came along.  Could I get that writing to be about hope somehow and get my lazy ass off the hook?  Kill two blogs with one piece?  Because quite frankly, I don’t have much to say about hope these days.  

Truth be told, I was writing about being stuck in a downturn.  You may not see it, because like the foam on my soothing sweet vanilla lattes, when I’m sad I churn up a froth of humor and creativity.  But to be honest, I store that mirth and energy during the good times and ration it very carefully.  It needs to last.  To get me through the down times, like now.  

Is that hope?  Some day I might feel better and you guys would still be around to laugh with?  Whoa.  Back that puppy up.  Some day I might feel better?  That sounds hopeful.  I bet I will. I always have before.  But it feels pretty goddamn hopeless at times.  Will I ever be all the way better?  There is little hope of that.  That’s not how this works.  With a chronic illness, there is no “all better.”  There’s okay.  And not okay.  And great.  And horrible.

Today I am all over the map.  There’s rapid-cycling and then there’s completely chaotic.  I’ve been so anxious all day and then suddenly I’m crying.  Blindsided once again.  What is it about?  What is it ever about?   So many regrets. So much wasted promise. I'm just a lump of weak, lazy sloth. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.   

I need new meds. 

Dealing with this illness all of my adult life, you would think I’d have a better grasp on it by now.  But I’m continually amazed by every aspect of it.   Even at my worst, I know that I’d rather feel all these feelings than be numb.  Some of the treatments and medications I’ve been on made me numb, and it sucked.  So maybe that’s how I can tie the hope theme into this rambling piece of drivel.  I’d rather feel than not feel, even when feeling is overwhelming.  I don’t have a hope of being cured, but every day that I get out of bed is a hopeful one.  There are open windows, but I keep passing them, and that is hope.  And sharing this madness with you is hope for us all.

Namaste, good people who read my blog.  I always get teary at this point.  I think about how difficult it all is, for all of us, even for “normal” people.  People with a diagnosis at least get to play the crazy card.  I don’t know what all you normal fuckers have to pin your madness on.  You should work on developing a mental illness.  It’s so freeing.  

So I guess, after all, fuck yeah, I’m full of hope.  Hand to God. True story.  

Goddamnit.



***********************

Now, according to the sweet lady at Abandoning Pretense, I'm supposed to tag other blogs to challenge them to write a blog post about hope and then tag other bloggers to do the same.  I'm reluctant to do this because most of the bloggers I know are already challenged enough.  Here are the instructions, which I hate, because I love instructions, but no one else ever follows them and it pisses me off.  

Step 1: Write a blog post about hope & publish it on your blog.
Step 2: Invite one (or more!) bloggers to do the same. 
Step 3: Link to the person who recruited you (me, in this case) at the top of the post, and the people you're recruiting at the bottom of the post. 

Melanie Crutchfield will be holding "Closing Ceremonies" around August 10 and will gather up little snippets from people that wrote about hope, so make sure you link back to her as the originator of the relay.

Having said that, I'd like to challenge:  

Slice of Humble
Unconventional Wisdom
and
mediocrates

to write about hope before the Olympics are over.  And time is running out.  I don't know when those fuckers are over, but now that beach volleyball is done, the TV coverage will dwindle fo sho.