12 more with the help of B.J. flowers and cig's with Marilyn

So today started out real nice....like the Hallmark moment kind of nice...let me rewind first, and say before that Hallmark moment I had a brief panic attack at what the day would hold...and this is simply because I happened to wake up in a puddle again...although this time the young man created more like one of the Great Lakes...and daddy was soaking wet too....somehow I managed to stay dry, and so it was at 4 am we had the changing of the sheets....

I only laugh for two reasons (a) he has a brand new custom big boy he ISN'T sleeping in and still is sleeping with mom and dad in a double bed (which reminds me, I need a bigger bed damnit) (b) he's been sitting on the potty at school...not for actual use, but more a homage to the Thinker or something, sitting with his puggy hand under his chin....and we haven't yet bought a little person potty so it is that diapers are still ruling this situation....

And you are probably asking yourself where is the humor in all that? Well, it's funny because if you can get a visual of all of us stacked in bed its quite entertaining given he's a drifter...and the potty thing is funny because I am left with a searing visual of Kenny Power wrapping a baby in a modified dish towel with duct tape....and I realize that diapers aren't that far a cry from this....

so it is I feared my day was going to go to piss in a sense...until my little bed wetter rolled over and kissed my cheeks and woke up to hug me tight....and other little minion actually manages to get dressed, teeth brushed and hair pulled back without screaming bloody murder...so so far so good.....then she's out the door with step dad to a Breakfast with Buddies sponsored by the HCE Dad's Club (yes, he's become one of those dads) and then a trip to the book fair....where he allows her free reign to buy what she wants, and manages to snag a book for the Maxx...

You have to understand the magnitude of this moment....from hurling insults, protests of authority and general malcontent toward her stepfather she is slowly showing signs that the exaggerated "i hate yous" are more for show, and that stolen moments like these are actually proof she doesn't mind him trying his hand at being dad....if even for a day of donuts and books...

So there they were, my two pig headed loves sharing a moment as father-daughters do while me and the other little piglet sang our way to school, and he waved a puggy peanut butter sticky hand bye-bye as I drove away to arrive at work and my wonderful flowers which for working on their 2nd day look SO AMAZING....I cannot tell you enough how these stupid little things are what make my life, my world....the newest drawings from my little Picasso Max, the little Post It notes my Shark leaves me with awkward hearts, and then the small arrangement of flowers I glance over every 15 minutes to take a whiff of....

What makes me a horribly evil person besides basking in the glow of being sent 'just because' flowers...is that every bitch in my office who has been throw-me-under-the-bus rude, condescending, and downright laughing at me to either my face or behind my back in the bathroom...well every time they walk by they can smell them too...and feel the need to comment or ask for the upteenth time who sent them and why...and they stare in disbelief at the idea that someone can make a gesture without an ulterior motive behind it....or that I didn't send them to myself...and I smile a little vindictive smirk and reply in a sugary sweet voice "why, doesn't your boyfriend/husband/insert noun here send you flowers for no reason?"

Take that blonde bitches....I may live in a shitty tiny cat crate of an apartment, I may drive an 8 year old wagon with 100,000 miles, I may not have a 4 ct glistening rock weighing down my enormous paw of a hand, and I might not have roll out of bed glistening skin....but I have flowers and you DON'T.


Maybe that's too evil...maybe a little too in your face ugly....but come on? It's like getting the bigger slice of cake when at a party or scratching that ticket and winning $50 when the $1 you paid for it with came out of the dryer....or it's like getting that promotion when you seemed like the least likely candidate....not that this has happened to me, but from what I am told by others...its a glorifying feeling...validation maybe even?

Don't get me wrong....I at one time too felt men only sent the obligatory flowers on birthdays, Valentine's and anniversaries because they were expected to.....until I watched my step dad, John, shower my mother with 'just because' flowers and plants, and little obscene cards with PG-13 rated Hallmark messages....leaving them in her sock drawer, her purse, her pillow, on the windshield of her care......A plant arrived every Friday for 2 months when they were dating just because...because he thought of her...because he missed her....because he loved her so much...and so it was I had someday hoped to arrive at the maturity level in a relationship that I too got  j.b. flowers....and not because the sender was expecting a b.j. afterwards....

Well, needless to say that shit didn't happen in my first marriage....unless a rice cooker is on par with a bouquet of flowers.....and so it was that when I started dating Marcus he too was not a romantic person....hell, I was lucky if he held my hand in public....but slowly and surely he's taken a cue from my step dad....and sometimes he surprises me with my own little PG-13 cards, and boxes of chocolates, and random Stems deliveries...

And it totally rocked my world....so going on a 2nd day I am feeling a little more hopeful and awesome at work...It also helps I am working some bad ass F*ck me pumps (insert dead music icon reference here) and a little pencil skirt...I could get used to this whole school marm look....and so it was that I decided I am fearless woman hear me roar, and so it is I am going to tackle those other 13 items I like about myself....and I wonder who was actually reading last night and realized it was 13 and not 12 like I wrote....just a little something to keep you on your toes....


so here it goes (see how that rhymes ?)

8.   my ability to talk to anyone about anything...or rather my ability to find a conversation starter with most walks of life meaning i can fit in at a cotillion, a hoe down, a BBQ, a fiesta with fajitas and a wake with a jig,...I have this ability to overcompensate for my nervousness and awkwardness and insecurity with filling the silence with incessant talking....and 9 out of 10 times it actually works, and someone I wouldn't otherwise have given 2 shits about is asking to hang out, grab coffee or exchange ideas or tasteless jokes...

9.  I could be totally slothful and steal the 4 my dear friend and mentor, Joe, posted on my previous entry, but that is cheating and defeats the purpose of this exercise...so I like...my loyalty....I am not tooting my own horn when I tell you that I have a devout, almost sacred view on friendship and as such have made very few friends who share the same view...but somehow this also goes hand in hand with my propensity to hold a grudge against people who don't reciprocate the same amount of loyalty...which happens more often than you would think.... something about long term commitment to a snarky bitch like me seems to fall at the bottom of a lot of people's lists...

10.  my capacity for love...I need it, I crave it, I enjoy giving it freely and not in a hippy commune sleep with everybody kind of way...in spite of my terribly rough brick exterior I do actually have a some normal humanistic piece of me in there, buried kinda deep that screams for human contact, for the chance to show how much compassion, generosity and life I have to give...and this has only been exponentially compounded by my role as a mother...if there ever was a doubt I knew love, I surely know it now...

11.  my spontaneity....this sounds like an oxymoron given my need to control parts of my life when I have spent the majority of it not being in control at all...but the reality is I am a fly by the seat of my pants kinda of girl....I think I have gravitated in the past few years toward more control, more to-do lists, checklists and itineraries to add a sense of order to the chaos of nothingness...if that makes any sense...but I have my moments, and quite frankly I used to be one hell of a fucking fun gal...one moment sticks out the most in my mind....when I was dating Marcus at the beginning, there was a Friday when Charlotte was with her dad, and Marcus offhandedly and jokingly suggested I fly in for the weekend...two hours later I was checking my bags in at the gate, and 55 minutes later I was touching down in Harlingen.....I skipped off the plane and into the car where he announced we were going camping on the beach...a quick stop for beer, and a tent, and the next thing you know we had a bonfire going and the rest is history...I crave some spontaneity these days, but take it in the form of impromptu breakfasts for dinner, my "just because" flowers and crazy nights munching on chocolates and wine when I should be in bed...

12.  my laugh is something i adore...I always have....just because I am not some pretentious bitch who tries to be dainty, and because I don't put on airs and try to be something I'm not...nor is it loud and obnoxious and forced for show....if you can get a laugh out of me you will be met with a opportunity of a lifetime....it's a la Adele rolling in the deep genuine laugh that comes from my belly and makes my toes crinkle...It's a throaty rumble reminiscent of the heyday of sexy sultry smokers and drinkers...what can I say? I think I'm a brunette Marilyn...hell, I have her fucking measurements which nowadays constitutes over weight candidates for lipo or lap band...

13.  I am out of ideas...


So I made it to 12...this is a lot more difficult than I thought...and I need more time to think about it....and more cake to help that thinking along...

And for those of you who think that's a lame ass cop out for not completing something....you try coming up with 20 things worth liking about you? Not so easy, is it???

Pesky things like feeling and how 20 is really the new 8

So it's taken me a while to get back in the groove of things today...last night I left you on the verge of a sugar crash...and crash I did, right into the sack where I stayed apparently past my two alarms which I hit a resounding SNOOZE through....and so it was I started this little bit better day in slow mo...something about the headache from all the sugar in the icing, and then the dullness and monotony of my routine had me dragging ass today...although I wasn't too late with pelting the kids out of the car, but then again that damn train didn't help either....


And so it was I started today out with a heavy heart....heavy enough I might need two hands to carry it which is ridiculous given the state it's in which is that of a blackened,  dry and misshapen mass...

 But alas, I feel more than a case of the doldrums...and its way more complicated than the dribble I selectively share on here...that's not to discount or lessen anything I shared...quite the contrary...If I shared every thought, every memory, any and everything I felt relevant to comment on, the true shit of what's running through my head...well....your head would explode too....

let's face it...I put it out there, I divulge it all for the world to see on here from family dramadies complete with domestic violence to anecdotes from the ineptitude of my parenting...but rarely do I ever really truly get down to the nitty gritty of what I feel. And that's my major predicament today...that I feel...that I have this little nagging ache in my chest which is making it extremely difficult for me to breath...and all I can do is stifle a little choke...

See...it's this nagging feeling only a parent, more so a mother can understand, when someone tells you there is something wrong with your child...something is less than extraordinary...less than normal...less. An abnormality. Something that makes your stomach do flip flops, makes your heart skip a beat, makes you question every time you skipped your prenatal, the time you ate a sushi roll when 3 months along...hell, leaving you wondering if its the sex you had while pregnant to the lotion you rubbed on your growing stretch marks to the option for that epidural to the exposure to t.v. to early when singing along with Plaza Sesamo is something you should have avoided..it becomes so important to pinpoint that one contributing factor that could be the root of all this because it means you are less likely to blame yourself.....

at least that's the plan Stan until you realize it IS you and all you can do is over analyze and dissect everything you've done to alter  your genetic material, the quality of genes you passed on and in essence the quality of what and who you are.

It's depressing...it's heart wrenching, stomach retching...it's migraine inducing and I haven't even started criticizing the contributing genes of my husband...fuck, I've only made it to my Senior year of high school and already i can see how I screwed my children over....that being said, I also must take a step back and realize there are things far more serious that many parents cope with on a daily basis....I am sure some of you would have used the term "far worse" than "far serious", but I personally would find that insulting, degrading and completely fucking harsh when speaking of one's child....

I mean there are things like having a child with Down's Syndrome, an inoperable tumor, kidney failure, half a brain....things that are far more grave and serious than a speech delay, but not something I call worse...worse implies a negative connotation to the entire existence of that child and while I am not a Bible thumping/toting/preaching its God's Will type...I know that regardless, that is someone's child...that regardless of the odds, regardless of the deck stacked against them with survival rates, and quality of life speeches...it's this thing you would only grasp if a parent, a aunt or uncle, a grandparent...

It's holding this human being, this living, breathing life in your arms, and realizing your heart is overwhelmed with the love you have for them....that it doesn't matter at that moment if they won't walk, talk, grow up to be "normal" , that they don't fit into the charts of growth and development....it's that fact they are part of you...that at this moment you are holding a life you are responsible for and its the feeling of compassion and humanity that swells your heart and for that one moment they are just your child. Not the special needs child, not the riding the short yellow bus child...not the ARD's and wheelchairs or speech therapists and behavior therapists....its the fact they are just a child...that their love is one that can never be matched, never be comparable by a spouse, a lover, a friend, a brother....its so much more than that....its if that if there ever is a God, a higher power, some level of spirituality that you haven't experienced....well this is it....

I could probably do a more articulate job of describing it if I could just make you a play list of feeling, touching music to listen to while reading this...but if you get the gist that's all that matters. Essentially its this: no amount of abnormalities will change exactly how much I love my children.  And while I feel like a brick has used to pummel my head right now, I know its not the end of the world. It's life. And I have to deal with this the same way I did when it was Charlotte...all the therapy, and testing and special ed...and now we cannot even get her to shut up....

It's just a defeating feeling and helplessness that I know there is a voice in there bursting to get out, to free itself and yell to the world, Hey I'm Max....it's just I want him to find that voice now before it gets drowned out in the screams and door slamming of a teenage sister...

So I turn my attention as a distraction to the task at hand....finding 20 things I like aka tolerate about myself...and here it goes:

1.  I personally love my snarkiness...I used to have faster, wittier comebacks, but burning a number of brain cells can slow you down some...

2.  I love my breasts....I would be lying if I said I hated them...I complain about back aches and stretch marks, not being able to find clothes that fit...yada yada, blah blah blah...it's all bullshit. I love them without a fucking doubt. They are the best accessory to any outfit, they are the reason my husband asked for my number and how cool is it to be a walking milk machine for your kids? Especially when you're broke and formula is an arm and a leg....plus its the only way I feel real feminine...

3. My smile. When I used to be thinner I had a kick ass smile because it wasn't lost in the double chin/waddle thing going on...but it's still pretty cool and highlights my cheek bones...

4. My didactic memory...it used to be scary eery creepy like dead on...as the aforementioned burned brain cells, you can imagine how its slowed down...but hand to Allah...I can read almost anything and recall it....mainly historical references or little useless facts...its not something useful like that dorkie kid on Criminal Minds or anything...although I went through a fascination period with serial killers and can literally recite verbatim the top 10 list and all their MO and facts...

5.  I love being a mom...it's the best role yet, the most important, the most fulfilling and comes with the most bad ass shit I can get away with...when else can you walk into Kroger or Target in sweats with o bra and flip flops with milk stains, and tomato sauce splatter and just sigh and say...the kids..and it is all forgiven. Or better yet when you get to play with Legos and Barbies and dress up and have tea with teddy bears, and it's cool because you're a parent.......Plus, its means lots and lots of cool craft projects, Science Fair stuff, PTA, and party planning...all things which tap into my creative side...which segues into #6

6.  My creative mind...it runs the gamut of painting, sketching, photography, crafty glue gun type stuff and last but not least my writing....not that I am saying its outstanding Picasso, Martha Stewart or Hemingway shit...but I should have my own show...on the SyFy channel or something..


7. My feet..I take pride in my pedicures, pride in how they look, and pride in my obscene collection of shoes...I have foot model quality feet...and yes, I realize its one of the top 5 fetishes...and it still doesn't deter me...my feet are FUCKING BEAUTIFULLY AWESOME!!!

ok..I am working on the other 13 and may need a little input....I just cannot seem to list anything POSITIVE and that is the whole point behind this exercise...to realize there are good things about me, reasons to love myself, for others to love me and most of all, so I don't spend the rest of my life underestimating the worth I have on this miserable little planet...

That's it for now...I have an episode of Eastbound and Down to catch up on, and kiddos to bathe, and a  nice fuzzy spot on the couch right smack dab next to one of the few people who gets me...or at least pretends to pretty well....

and this is evident by the surprise I got at work...just because....just because my week started out for shit...

A quick slice with a box of Tampax for dessert...

It seems my bio rhythmic cycles are off...could be the meat I keep trying to flush out of my system...it could be the extremely suck ass Monday that for all intents and purposes was a Monday in every sense of the word....or maybe its the fact I'm PMS'ing and there isn't any more chocolate in the house and the thought of devouring Max's birthday cake makes me want to start weeping....because I know if left with a fork in the dark I would eat the whole thing...because it's just been one of those days...

It started with the realization I hate, despise, completely LOATHE my job....its not just the fact that what I do leaves me with absolutely no emotional or spiritual fulfillment....its more that I stomach all that because who doesn't hate their job? and get paid fucking jack squat....just enough to keep myself afloat, food on the table, and the creditors at bay...but never enough to get them off my back, never enough to save in the event I get the wild crazy hair to tell my boss to shove it....or finally get my CTS fixed in my hands....or for the four walls and little patch of grass that doesn't come with numbers on the door, and keys to mailboxes, but sidewalks and swings, and an actual separate dining room from the living room....

I want I want I want I want....and it all takes money, and it all takes time, and those are two things I don't have much of...I mean...I'm burned out, and it hit me today more than anything that I need more than this....if I only knew what THIS was I could go forward....instead I am stuck...

And that only pissed me off more....then came more annoying emails, more phone calls....followed by the phone call...the one that left me sitting and weeping because I realize somehow I fucked up both my kids....that somehow both have suffered from speech and articulation delays...and not on the count of not being smart....two children with some of the most amazingly advanced motor skills who struggle with so much difficulty to get out a sentence...Charlotte 6 years ago, and now my Maxx...and it makes me wonder what kind of fucked up genetic material I am working with....maybe I'm just looking for a scapegoat, but it still doesn't help me...or them...and so it is I wiped the snot off the end of my nose and called the Center for Hearing and Speech to book the first available appointment.... 

After a few deep breaths and some inner monologue...I swiveled around my chair and went back to the daily droning of the click click of my keyboard....and I couldn't shake this feeling of deeper and deeper down in the dumps gloom..so it was with the aid of a banana and a cup of Joe that I started to feel a little better....

So much better in fact that I have decided to take a challenge from my best friend, Danielle...one of my biggest supporters, and fiercest friends, she's been a much needed constant during the last year and is always nagging me (in a good way of course) about how much I underestimate myself....so it was today, when I was beginning to slink into abysmal Twinkies and ho-ho induced coma, she gave me the long distance foot up my ass and challenged me to come up with 20 things I like about myself...

I jumped at this for two reasons A) she didn't specify whether or not I could repeat the answers...and B) there was no clarification that it had to be personality...

this isn't going to be very long because quite frankly...I have run out of shit to say, run out of shit to think about, and run out of steam....and what little I have left I am going to have to save for the 20 things I am going to try and force out of my brain...stay tuned tomorrow morning to see how I do...

so this is going to be short and sweet...and probably because I couldn't help myself and snuck into to the kitchen to snag a piece of cake after all...I managed to not eat it all, but the red icing is motherfucker to get off my fingers.....because I have to go rest my pretty big head (aha! there's one) so that I can see how many I can actually get...

so I bid you adieu, buenos noches..

A serving of flesh eating citizens and bouncy castles of tension....

So it's Sunday night with 10:14pm on Sunday, and I'm catching bits and pieces of Zombieland while posting this....from what little I have managed to pay attention to it's totally worth an OnDemand night....and can I just say wtf is Woody Harrelson? Dorian Gray? I mean the man is pushing what, 50, and he doesn't look a day older than 35....But God if Bill Murray isn't aging like a SOB....not quite the days of Stars and Stripes....

Anyway-short attention span be damned....it's late and while I am breaking curfew to post this as well as finish up 2 loads of laundry before the start of another week, let's do a recap of this past one...and all the uncomfortable moments that ensued...

When I last left off I was criticizing basic parent-child relationships and it made me take a closer look at the one I am doing my damnedest to right with my own offspring....starting with the birthday I pulled off for Mr. Maxx, hiccups and non-hiccups and all.....

So, I managed Friday to run during lunch and pickup the last of the ribbon I needed which I then painstakingly cut and assembled into the pit crew passes, hit up his school at 3:30 pm to pass out cake balls to the kiddos, AND treat him to a nice Chinese dinner...for some reason he is utterly fascinated by the fish tank they have at the Hunan on I-10....although Char was upset they didn't sing him 'Happy Birthday' or do something ridiculous like Los Cucos or something.....the mental picture of the staff with sombreros was actually quite humorous...albeit tasteless and culturally insensitive...

Then our night continued with Shark and me shaping, cutting and painting the fondant checkers, mountains and cacti....and so it was with my organized Costco bags filled with party supplies I hit the sack before what I anticipated being a long and tiring day....

Wakey wakey, eggs and bacy came at 6:00 am when the birthday boy decided he wanted to bounce on top of my liver...and so I began the day with my rug rats and some hot french toast, a kind of calm before the storm....before we picked up the balloons, assembled the cake at Mom's and made our way to pick up the party trays....

And then hit the Beltway which I am not an avid user so it took some phone calls back and forth to John to master our heading, and away we went...narrowly missing the destination....

But we made it, and so the crazy partying started.....first up: the bouncy inflatable room...

Let me preface this by saying I have never seen the fascination with Joy Jumps or inflatable  castles or slides or whatever of the like....something reminiscent of the now band ball pits of fast food places with poopy presents left behind by screaming, snotty toddlers, the urban legends of dirty needles, and just the grease of slimy balls never sanitized by drone worker pimply pubescent slackers of America....

Well, I was wrong....these things are like crack! Addictive.  They are also fun as hell...I mean I friggin' loved it! God knows Max and Charlotte did.....never mind the fact that barely anyone was there, and they were the only 2 kids....they had an entire room the size of my damn apartment to run and squeal and play to their hearts content...and did they...

By the time the hour in that room was up, a few stragglers had made it in, and I was beginning to panic because half the people who bothered to RSVP weren't there, and part of me held out hope the ones who hadn't RSVP'd would surprise us and show up....which if you think there is some moment where they do...well I hate to ruin the story, they don't....

So it was we hit the arcade room, and air hockey, pool and video games ensued....at this point I realize the rift between my sister, my biological father and I is greater than I thought...the pictures are proof enough and I try to make amends by congratulating her on something that while I cannot disclose yet, is a HUMONGOUS feat for her and another notch on her kick ass in law school and take names belt....and it falls on deaf ears and while I know I haven't done a legitimate thing wrong, I begin to realize that I never meant as much to them as they did to me....

Or maybe it's my obsessive nature, and inability to come to terms with the fact that I am not a likable person, for family, for friends....for the neighbor I pass every morning and don't say hello to...and not because he throws his empty beer cans on my patio, but because I just cannot be bothered...

Whatever the case maybe, humility stings like a motherfucker and I am left with the proverbial welts to show for it....a bruised ego and pride, and the feeling that I am utterly alone in the world....and so thus is my reason for throwing myself even more wholeheartedly into motherhood...

 The fact that I shared an awkward and forced hug and moment of civility with my brother-in-law who truly despises me even as he leaned in for a close up didn't help...and I was left with an aching and bitter heart ache....and I hadn't even had the spicy wings yet...

so I slapped on my fake perma grin and beared it through all the way to the final hour in the food room where we noshed on what was left on party platters, and got ready for cake and presents....and it was at that moment when I looked around at the people who had bothered to come, from the friend who has unconditionally weathered 5 bus transfers to be there for me from lunch to parties where he is burdened with camera duty and cleanup to the couple who were familiar faces from last year and probably saved their Elmo hats to the non judgmental girl who despite all my crazy emails, wrecked friendships and pushing away marked her calendar in December, and the two friends of my sister I am now happy to claim as my own, my Mom and John who every moment like this thanks me for making him a grandpa, another hat he fits into so graceful and wholeheartedly, and even my aloof and skeptical father and sister......all these people had ventured out in the gloomy grey wind and stood beaming with their might I say nifty little VIP passes swinging around their necks..it was then that I realized I have to let go of the past, and that while I may not be a traditional parent or even a traditional person....I am going to make every attempt to get over things...I mean I had to, this is my son's big day, and here he was poking his finger in the cake, and I was busy worrying about how the pictures were going to turn out, the ridiculous fact 1/3 of those who were supposed to be there were, and whether my own family was talking shit about me....how fucking selfish can I be?

Pretty goddamn selfish apparently because I spent the rest of the day, the night and part of htis morning giving two craps worth about people who don't give a shit about me...so why should I about them?  I mean the red sticky fingers that encircled my neck when he jumped on his Cars Tryke were proof positive enough that my getting up everyday, my late nights with a glue gun, my painstaking, tongue sticking out, bunched up face icing cupcakes, the soft pitter patter in my chest when I look at the two people on this entire planet who love me unconditionally....well, it made me realize that's all that matters...

It's easier said than done....and as a truly important lifesaver aka my best friend asked me recently...why do I keep underestimating my abilities? Why is it I always second guess myself? Why do I constantly put myself down?

Why? Because the crap people say about you, to you, to their friends, to their neighbors, coworkers, inlaws is easier to believe than the good...and when most of that shit comes from blood...well it cuts a little deeper, stings a little more especially with the years worth of Morton that seems to be thrown in the wound...

or maybe I stole that from a movie...I know Julia says it post coitous, but I am no hooker, not heart of gold and def not ever stayed at the Beverly Wilshire....but at the same time....I get it...

I get how families start to turn dysfunctional....I get how years of repressed anger, anxiety and overall animosity can turn simple things like a 2 year olds birthday party into a friggin act of Congress complete with timed entrances and mapped out escape plans...and that is not a life I signed up for when I was thrown into having my own....I mean fuck, I don't want to be an episode of Jerry Springer any longer and quite honestly if it means I cut out all those who make it so then that's what I'll do..cuz its easier since I cannot cut myself out...at least not unless I take out life insurance first...besides, even if I secretly obssess everyday what their doing in their life, whether they ever think about me, and if they hurt as much as I do (I'd be lying if I said I didn't..not so far as I cyber stalk them or drive past their houses) who needs to be a glutton for punishment?  Doesn't a normal person live on the premise they would rather be alone than surrounded by people who disliek them, loathe them, mock them? I mean it equates being alone any way....it just means less postage and invitations next year...

I guess I am running off a whole lifetime of crap slinging...and so it is that I realized what an awesome birthday I threw for my little man, what a awesome big sister Charlotte was turning out to be....and how much I hope I learn to deal with shit...so much so that I am going to throw in a cliche of a motivational moment...

here it goes:

 [insert religious/spiritual/political/icon entity here]

grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference...


Well, I'm 29 and have the wisdom of a snotty bratty whiny 5 year old who is overdue for an ass spanking and a nap....and so it is that I turn my back on the past, on this week and look towards the future...which  shortly will include my ass folding laundry I might just be lazy enough NOT to put up right away...we refer to it as "living out of the basket days" in our house...and so I hope that I don't have more posts of weepy tales from childhoods long buried in the rubble that I left behind of my past....and post more humorous and raunchy tales of the funny anecdotes of my adventures in parenting...

for now I leave you with these realizations:

1. I am not perfect, never claimed to be, and never fucking want to be.

2. I love my family. Each and every one of them and it is because of this I can acknowledge and accept the good and the bad. I don't have to like them, talk to them or even see them....I  could bitch some more and tell you other horendous shit my father has done or my sister has said, but the fact remains somewhere in that dysfunction is a lot of memories I wouldn't trade for anything, and I cannot escape the fact they play a huge role in those memories.....and for that I will be eternally grateful....but this is my story this time around, and the memories I am making now don't and won't have them in starring roles...

3. I have a tremendous load to learn about myself, my children, the world and my role in it for them....I don't want to be someone they bitch about later, who makes their kids sweat balls as grownups, and who look for my approval even when they know it doesn't matter....I don't want to be their friend, but I want them to confide in me....and I want them to understand that sometimes blood isn't thicker than water...and that's ok.

4. I don't have a lot of friends...hell, I could probably count on both hands the friends I have versus the "friends" I have...and it's beginning to be ok. It's a fact I am not a easily likable person, and as most of my immediate family will vouch, I make it impossible to love me, impossible to liek, and even more impossible to stomach me...which of course means Marcus is a saint who deserves a gold star for sticking by this long...

5.  Zombieland was bad fucking ass, and the following flick, Grindhouse looks lame as hell so I guess that's a sign I need to turn in....besides the fact this post doesn't quite have that 'oh snap' feeling I usually get...but then maybe this weekend wasn't a bunch of 'oh snaps' but more a very much needed bitch slap of reality to redirect me on where i need to be headed....and I am still clueless where but wherever it is will not include over zealous and over the top planning of events, uncomfortable moments with estranged people, and most of all, not more jaded, pesimistic Elizabitch....


here's hoping i wake up tomorrow on the right side of the bed...and that I take a step in the right direction by putting up that dman laundry tonight...

besides, something tells me I don't want to hear about it in the morning...






I

The "Ohms" of Inner Peace...found with the price tag of plastic surgery to give me a new chin...

Good morning world, bonjour, guten morgen, buenos dias, dobrye ootra,  a how-do-you-do and all that jazz...etc etc etc.....glad we all made it through the night to wake up on this wonderfully hopeful Thursday...which I read on CultureMap Houston is National Margarita Day.....wonder if that's anything like Cinco De Mayo which really isn't a holiday per se, but used as a damn good excuse by many a binge drinkers to overindulge and then reek of Bull Blasters with greasy hair plastered to your head, and sweat glistening on your brow while downing Powerade or Pedialite at work come tomorrow....Either way, its a holiday I won't be partaking in for a number of reasons, not the least of which is A) I am SUPER snotty picky about who and how my margaritas are made B) I have work tomorrow and a 2 year old's party to finish planning C) the pesky 2 year old at the center of aforementioned party.

I know I am falling into the cycle of procrastination...it seems I am perfecting the art, and the week of non blogging and last minute birthday preparations is proof positive.....It's ridiculous the amount of planners, calendars, alarms, PDA filled memos, Blackberry alerts I have for the reminders in my life....and yet they obviously don't mean jack shit...

Before I jump into the digression of over the top planning of birthdays and the creative shit I scare even myself with....let's go back the beginning...and not in utero where bauble head got her start, but the last blog....let's see, where did I leave off?   Oh, yeah, that's right. Humiliatingly personal confessions which may shed my family is a seedy, nasty light...but its facts, and them don't lie...

On a serious note though, back where I left off a couple of days ago with my over share of life....and homes from my past that seem to be crumbling....I want to start by saying I am overwhelmed and completely humbled so many of you, whoever the fuck you are, who have felt moved enough to read it, to tell others to read it, and who make me check my blog counter obsessively to see the daily tally...unless it's the same asshole reading it over and over and then...well thank you too all the same....

The reality is I don't know what the hell I am doing, who I am doing it for or even why....I know I said I knew why, who, but somewhere along this road I have changed course and am now filled with a feverish need to just let everything inside me pour out. Regardless of how you perceive me, whether you approve or not, whether it's out there, lost in the infinite world of cyber space long after I am gone...the Google searches of the world beware...I don't give a fuck. This is what I need...Why I don't know. Maybe it's because I fired my therapist because I need to save that money for things like toilet paper, and toothpaste and school supplies and dance lessons....Maybe it's because there isn't a million secondary voices weighing in, but one single silent nod to what I have to say. A nod that acknowledges whatever I am writing is worth reading at least once....

So, when I left you I had paid homage to my mother for all that she has given me, taught me which if you didn't manage to gather from that whole long ass piece, was the ability to survive exists in us all....It is not a question of whether we can or will....It is a question of whether we will CHOOSE to or not. That's what makes a person. That's what makes me not cringe because I know I have nothing to be ashamed of because I have chosen to survive all that.....

That isn't to say the road wasn't paved to hell a long time ago, but Saint Peter seems to have given me an application and is muddling over my entrance through those pearly gates....but with lots of fuckers who love me, support me, and some totally legit and cool references there may be hope yet....

I want to clarify that some may refer to what I wrote as "my version", but then this is the same person who spent 2 years denying he had an affair that I caught him having at age 11 IN OUR HOUSE and calling me a liar, a bitch, a cunt....all things I accept now, but at the tender age of 11 is crippling emotionally....The delightfully charming thing abut my DNA dad as I like to call him when being particularly cunt like, is that he has this rare ability to strike me to the core with his heartless and completely crude criticisms so much so that I would take his fucking short squat foot having come through that door right up my ass....and yet I still crave his approval, his affection, holding out hope upon hope he will someday have an ephinany, his moment of clarity, and right some wrongs....

Sadly, it took me a quarter of my life to realize that this isn't the case, and he will die miserable and alone...save for my sister who finds him so pathetically excusable she will be the only one to vouch for him at the end....And even as I write this scathing and horribly degrading analyzing of my familial dynamic, I recognize that part of me that is inherently rooted in him...being his daughter and all we share genetic chromosomes....but its more than that...its rooted in my traits, my personality....the demons in me I fight every single fucking day, and its hard....it makes life exhausting and there are days I wish I could forget him so easily...but even as I close my eyes to try....it is his eyelashes I can squint through and still see his face....it's his chin that my tears drip off of into a puddle on my lap....it's his forehead I scrunch into perma CroMagnum....it's his gray hairs creeping up in my hair line....

Most of all its his hands I stare at as I type this...hands that can be so quick to strike, to destroy others through their rage....and yet I know they have the ability to create so many amazing things, and most of all the compassion to love freely and unconditionally....


So why is that all these things escaped him in this life? Will they in the next? Am I ultimately a product of him as well, and while I weigh the good, the bad and incredibly two-bag ugly I have seen in my life, can I deny that part of me that is him, and only claim my mother?

Before you jump on the gender band wagon or even taboo hushed battered woman rant, this is not either one of those...ok, maybe a little of the latter...but it's not even about that....its deeper rooted than that by far....its that I don't sympathize any more with my mother, but empathize because I stand outside of myself and watch this portion of her life that later mirrored a rushed year of mine with frantic soul searching through allowing anyone and anything to dictate my life through casual meaningless sex, drinking and drugging...ok, so my mom's a square and the drug thing isn't a factor nor is the sex....but I came from a home where a man slugging you was more acceptable than him cheating....ok, maybe that's too harsh, and until I was in the same situation, I have no idea what my mother's thought processes for staying were..but at 11 can you blame me for being devistatingly angry with her? For wanting to hate her as much as I did him?

Well, that feeling abated quickly when our lives as a nuclear unit ended.....and I grew up to live my own fucked up fairy tale complete with heartless and soulless men who were really cowards in goons clothing, using their muscle to make up for the inability to ever possess the capacity to love someone other than themselves...and I chose just as my mother did that day with her sledgehammer to put a stop to it....but for me it came in the form of my selfish sister, step-father, Hanks and a U-Haul...and surprisingly my father...my dad...the man who hates me because I am so much like my mother that to look at me repulses him as I have been told....well, he stood by and slung my shit into that U-Haul faster than you can imagine....with the clothes on my back and my Shark, he handed me $100 and told me to take care of myself and to live a better life than that...

so was he really telling me live a life unlike his own? To do better than he did? To not end up with another man like him?

Who the fuck knows....I was just surprised my cheap ass father gave me money instead of a soap box speech....

So I guess what this really long wrap up of loose ends from my prior tale is a pondering on how it is we can all be such horrible human beings, so destructive in our lives, and in that one moment of compassion albeit the only one the man ever has had with me, that you can keep me dangling on like a worm on the hook for more moments like that to come? How is it that I have and will spend my lifetime waiting for another moment like that and have accepted that moment will never come....and yet I still wait for it? 

And this is what Charlotte has to look forward to with her own useless father...the constant waiting for those a-ha moments where the light in his eyes isn't because of whatever substance he just snorted or smoked....
And it's a wait I don't want her wasting her life on....

Another a lighter, less depressing note....I managed to finish everything except ordering food...there's that procrastination thing again....and some shit for the cake.....but other than that, I have to say regardless of my husband's complaints of going overboard, this year I rocked it out of the park...I mean Maxx's 2nd will take the cake....and it may not be something he will remember later....but its something I love to do because quite honestly at this point, its all I can do, its all I am good at...

Being a aging, foul-mouthed cunt who is dabbling in parenting because I managed to fuck up every other part of my life, and am proud to say I survived, I got the holey, blood stained t-shirt, and I have painted and decoupaged the shit out of it myself....

So....it is with this I send you in peace this lovely day.....I seem to have gained back some of that wonderful inner peace stuff I have been managing to find all along...do you know they sell it at CVS in the form of King Size Hershey bars? ..here's to hoping it sticks...hopefully this will be a reminder why I keep searching for it...because what life is worth living without a moment of it???

An ode to the woman whose womb I escaped from...and the fact she never shoved me back in to ask for a refund....

It's been quite a number of days since my last entry....and while I wish I could say a ton of crap has happened or at the least some life altering event such as a unbelievable Lotto win or certain individuals being hit by a moving car or my boss giving every employee a paid vacation...sadly, alas, this isn't even close to the truth...which is I was too tired, too drained from last week to think of anything worth writing about Friday, and then Saturday came complete with ass numbing, crack of dawn car ride to BCS for the biological's supervised visit...and so it is that I am fitting this one in between work on my desk and now cold cups of coffee because the woman suffering from hot flashes hasn't figured out it's 68 in the office and there's this wonderful little pill called hormones...and believe me it helps....

Friday was blah, and then Saturday was...well if you have lived or visited Bryan-College Station you can understand the loss for words....at least this time I had my mamma with me and so it was that she and Maxx and I found ways to pass the time...from meeting with my attorney to lunch at this quaint little dive called the Feedbarn (don't knock it yet...best damn hamburgers for that town...although they have nothing on Langford's) complete with awkward run-ins with has been friends who were too humiliated to call you back because they thought they were better than you, yet you're the one who made it out, and driving around aimlessly through neighborhoods of my past...and ending with a wet, cold splash day at the park, me barefoot and Max bundled up...

And lets not forget the infamous blue pen that leaked out all over Mom's cashmere sweater..which led to her changing mid drive down Briarcrest into the only spare clothing in the car....a worn, blue jean shirt of Marcus'...it would have been funnier if it had been something like Shark's "Justin Bieber Girl" shirt or a Hooters shirt....understand even it this last part is for public viewing, I have the type of mom who would wet herself with laughter, and explode into giggles if this were the case....hell, she and I would probably find it so hilarious we'd have taken pictures...she is just cool like that....

See, these trips aren't even dreaded anymore because of the pointless reason behind them which for those of you who don't know is so my worthless ex can spend 6 hours lurking and watching like some anorexic meth addicted looking scarecrow from teh sidelines as my daughter is taken care of by his parents and college aged sister....the few times he chooses to interact its through the script or urging of his parents..probably the whole time wondering when the next time he can get high is, justiftying why he doesn't have a job and doesn't plan on getting one, and why he cannot if asked tell you a single fucking thing about his daughter...not about the person she is, who she likes, what she reads, her fears, her wants, her favorite fucking color for Christ's sake...which is pink by the way, and probably for punsihment for all my past sins because i loathe pink....

No,  its also become the bane of my existence because I have now for the past few months had to make the trek alone...and given my unstable and dysfunctional relationship wtih my father...well you can see why its difficult to find things to do in a town where I no lonher have roots..its difficult enough for a couple of  hours, try a whole 6!!!

Any way...there's this saying..a quotation from someone famous...I could tell you it a number of years ago, like say 10th grade before I began burning brains cells...and so I can only recall bits and pieces...but its something about never being able to go home again...

Well ain't that the truth.   It isn't just the fact that the town itself has spread eagled out to engulf acres upon acres of more land, chewing up the trees and spitting them back out in the form of restaurants, mini malls, gas stations, Costco's and Wal-Mart's. Which the town has a total of 5, count them 5!  I guess its one of those white small town mecca things...like the urbanites calling to Whole Foods or something...

Anyway....it's more than anything that every landmark I had a deeply rooted emotional investment with significance to the people and events in my life...well they aren't fucking recognizable, and I guess that's why I hate, loathe, wish to avoid this place at all costs...and then I begin to realize I am unrecognizable as well, and its this loss of identity and the failture to secure or find my identity in my present state that leaves a bitter taste on my tongue.

It starts with the childhood home I was born in that is now falling down around its foundation complete with wethering paint chips and buckling warped shutters...and descends even further with the house where my sister was born, and its tacky white painted stucco and torn fence with beer can strewn yard....

I drove past the hospital I was born with its moss colored grim stuck to the stucco and portico of  the building with its shabby faded sign...and I am reminded of the tiny onesie bearing "Born at St. Joseph's Hospital" on my Unger teddy bear tucked in Charlotte's toy box at home, and the matching one I have from her birth at the same hospital in her baby book and so it is my heart feels achey...and a little worn...

Then it was that we went past the park I wasted my parents money on my first wedding...which went from a pristine historical landmark to a seedy derelict vagrant and crack head filled stomping ground....is the irony lost on anyone who attended that wedding and watched silently from the sidelines as my joke of a  marriage deteriorated ? show of hands? that's what I thought...very much like art imitating life, buildings imitate life...
or parks in this case....

and so it was we proceeded to drive past my old house on Ashburn Ave...the house that would represent our demise as a family with two parents, and rebirth of our family with a mother who had found her voice, her place in the world and realizing it wasn't and didn't need to be next to the prick from her wedding pictures who decided that other prick came before his family....hell, we share DNA and I cannot deny he is my father, but that doesn't mean I have to claim him, feel sorry for him or make excuses because he sucked ass as a husband and even more later as a father...and all because he cannot commit to a wife, commit to a family because it would mean for one nano second puttign someone first besides himself..amazing my sister, one of the most brilliant and beautiful woman I have ever met inherited this trait and if she has any crippling flaw it is this..the inability to live in a world that does not revolve around her...thank god she's on the pill.....

And so it was this sad, sad little house that at one time bore the holes punched in doors, and walls echoing the screams and cries of a cowering woman with a little bit of paint, love, painful back breaking sweat and not just from the day laborers but us as well and badass pansy wallpaper like the pansies in the newly blossoming flowerbeds and state of the art appliances didn't just go from drab to fab....it went from broken to whole....with the few months it took my mother to find that voice which she used to scream at the top of her lungs that she was still standing, to start living life for her, for us, for something better than what he left us with...well all it took was a sledge hammer in the hands of someone opressed for that many years, and the possibilities are endless.....except for that goddamn door. 

This door was to the master bath, and for 8 years bore a hole on the lower half of the door that was the exact size and shape of my father's work boots....result of a night of anger over some trivial and no doubt on purpose argument so he could exert his feelings of inadequacy on my mother's face, the furniture, hell the dishes which dwindled to some hodge podge set....that night for whatever reason she tried to get away...and so it was that my sister and I, so used to the lullabies of domestic violence, were disturbed by this fight enough to wake up. And he became so filled with rage, so furious his children would see this side of him (of course discounting the fact we heard it for months, years through the closed doors)....well he came after her while she held us. And thus a mass exodus to the bathroom occurred, and that motherfucker because I cannot describe a man who is that much of a piece of shit with any other noun or pronoun or obscenity to tell you the truth that would be such a coward, so scared of being less of  man even with a 57 inch neck to make his own children cower..well he attempted to get her through the door......

We spent the night curled up in the tub of my parents bathroom with my mother guarding the door, and so it was that the fucking door was the one thing my mother wouldn't let the contractor replace....she swore it was to stay at all costs as a reminder as to how bad it could get, and how bad we weren't going to let it get....fuck, it was her way of making us stronger, to suck up the hardships and stomach it. Deal with it. To not ever ever let anyone take you back there. To choose to go back there.

Kind of a AA chip for an alcoholic or a picture of a fat chick for a recovering over eater....whatever you pick to compare...it was that....and so much more...

Even the day we stood on the porch and said good-bye to the house, touching its newly fresh paint, and lovingly staring at the vast 1 acre lot complete with Rockwell type children's fort and playground, the foundation hadn't changed, that door was still there...

and maybe it was such that when we sat there Saturday staring at the cracked paint, the splintered boards, the fence long gone, the trees dying, the brick wall torn down, and the pansies ripped from their beds....maybe it was as we sat crying in vain, that we realized that as much as we have changed, as much as we have been made over again and again, our foundations are the same...

And not in a bad way....maybe that bruised and sore woman is there to remind herself how bad it can be...much like that door we all bear holes...they are different shapes, different sizes..and they are caused by different things...but we can paint, we can patch, we can redecorate and it isn't trying to escape...

None of these homes, these places are a way for us to escape what we were, are, am....they're just reminders of what was once before, what was, what has been, what will be....so philosophical I can sound comparing my life, my trials and tribulations to that of a bunch of home renovations....but that is in essence what we were, are, sitting there in the cold blistering wind, rain pouring down, peering through the windshield wipers at a an existence that seemed so fucking long ago..but not long ago for those memories, equally good and equally bad to come flowing back...

From lazy summer days picking dewberries from the bushes in the back part of the lot, zooming around on the riding lawnmower...shoving my sister from the top of the fort, cats with pants (whole another story involving the sweetest tabby on Earth and my sister's baby doll clothes), 6 Doberman puppies galloping around the yard.....the crack in the door way at night as we watched silently to make sure our mother was ok...the woman whose husband didn't give a shit about her car being fixed and so it was that in flash flood water she loaded her kids in a Red Flier wagon complete with heavy raincoats and galoshes and pulled us all the way to school....to bra's on the outside of sweaters at Pizza Hut, late Friday nights on the couch with cheese dip, Christmas trees people were too lazy to take down turning them into Easter trees,  piano music trickling out the window in the breeze on a beautiful spring day.....

 A fact I cringe to share, and rarely do unless I'm paying you $150 a session to pour out and analyze my soul or my mom who holds me hand when I retell it, admit it...just as she did Saturday....but as I stare at that house I am reminded that from the day my father left until my mother married John I slept in her room, either in bed with her or on the floor in a sleeping bag because I couldn't sleep in a quiet house. I couldn't fall asleep because of there was no screaming, no fist pounding on tabletops, walls, flesh....and so it was I was a smooth, bitchy, bad ass cunt at school, and came home to the confines of those four walls to cower like a baby from a past I know is my foundation...but it isn't what fills the rooms of who I am....

What I am trying to say in this weak and tepid attempt at a metaphor is that for me these places, these poignant reminders of where I come from, my roots if you will, may change, may be painted a different color, may be knocked down and rebuilt....but the foundation is still there....I am still here....that little cowering girl is still there, but Saturday she chose to hold her mother's hand, and rather than runaway from her past, she embraces it. She cries, she laughs, she rolls with the punches....

She realizes that its life, and something tells me I have one hell of a life left in me if I can still be here standing, cracks and all.....I cannot tell you what kind of house I will be, what kind of structure...I shatter like glass, I can crumble like bricks, I can catch fire and combust like wood.....hell, I could be some crazy odd looking house with naked hippy fairy statues in the garden, and wind chimes on the porch which when the wind blows sounds like the tinkling of a piano of a beautiful spring day....and I don't mow the grass for weeks on end, and I never, never have matching furniture....But I am still standing, and that's all the matters..


And so it was with a maudlin heart I picked up Charlotte, and as we drove back I glanced into the rear view mirror and prayed that I was building a foundation strong enough to help her stand...like my mother built for me....

Bauble head dolls, unemployment candidates and perverts whipping it out....what is the world coming to?

Let me start out today by thanking each and every one of you who make the time to read this thing, to bug the shit out of your friends to read it too, and to shower me with delightful ego inflating compliments..making my head WAY bigger than genetics already dictated it is..I mean like think bauble head doll proportions...seriously, if you know me personally you know I cannot fit into a standard baseball hat, straw hat, knit hat...hell, any hat....and now it's going to be difficult to walk around and not trip over it...but I am not going to complain...it gives me the warm fuzzies I guess people with souls would call feelings, and then there's the fact you motivate me to come up with enticing stuff everyday...and that makes my head and brain hurt in a good way....

But obviously it wasn't motivation enough to get off my ass and write yesterday, but Big Brother was back, and my hands were tied and not in a semi erotic good way either...

No, it was the shackles of corporate America calling for me....and with Morcheeba blasting out my eardrums, I settled into the robotic mode of diligent employee and pounded away in my cubie. My own one woman army of conforming worker...Stalin would be so proud.....(and that's an attempt at semi political humor without starting a debate or the use of the cliche comparison of Hitler or something)

So it was that I was catching up on all things left undone from Valentine's Day, and Hoovering down my Dove chocolates left in my car to find at 7:30 am with a cute card tucked underneath....Man true to my own heart, hubby #2 knew to wait until the candy was discounted even it it meant getting his lazy ass up on his one day off and hauling it to CVS at 6:00 am to get the biggest Dove container he could....all joking aside, being able to exchange cards that read "I am not sick of you yet" and so forth...well, I don't know if its the passionate, rip your clothes off and bend you over kinda of heat and love we had when dating or the soul mate weeping stuff of Blockbuster or Red Box sagas like the Notebook, Up Close and Personal or Ghost....but it is something I cannot describe, and it works for us....

Take if  you will for a second that I am some jumbled, fucked up, chewed on puzzle that you bought at Salvation Army, and you get me home and some of the corner pieces are missing. And we all know there is no point in even starting the puzzle if you don't have the corner pieces because they help form your shape and act as a guide as to how the rest of the pieces will be mapped out...well, Domino...he's my anchor, my corner piece....and it took a TON of mismatched and not quite good fits to find that one piece, battered and a little moth eaten, torn and a little faded, to help all the pieces fall into place that make up me...to help the mommy, the wife, the Elizabeth, the crazy woman who runs out in a baggy t-shirts in bare feet to remind him how much of a dick he was that morning followed by a kitty litter breath kiss fall into place...and that place is here, its there, its anywhere I want it to be, and he holds my hand, and keeps his damn mouth shut, and that works for us....he's my missing piece....

So, that being said,  I managed to Hoover the whole box....some could say faster than you can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch, but I was hungry, and the inner fat girl was coming out under stress....so I was jamming out and kicking ass at work, and for one moment I wasn't worrying about all the little non entities who can be a hemorrhoid on my ass...such as ex husband/sperm donor, the bill man, the tax man, the cake not baked for Max's party, the guilt of eating beef,  the stack of laundry which today toppled over and damn near killed the dog....

No, for one moment my blood pressure was level...and I wasn't too constipated at the moment coming off a plant diet to indulge in the sin of carnivorous snacks....no, I was experiencing that thing Max likes to call "Po" which is inner peace....and I felt like I had a huge kung fu grip on life, and all these rants, all the fucking lunatic streams of outrageousness were a way to get it out without exploding too much..

This isn't to say that twenty-two minutes later when I got off the phone with the AG's office I wasn't right back where I started....something about finding out your daughter's father could only manage to hold down a job he uprooted himself over 2.5 hrs for a total of 6, COUNT THEM 6 weeks.....well, you can understand the slew of profanities even the Spanish speaking plant woman had to turn her head because pissed off transcends any language barrier.....I am sure if you stood on a street corner in Japan and screamed "MOTHERF*CKER " at the top of your lungs....well someone would understand...and not because you shoved some asshole out in traffic before you did it either....

And it was that my head in the clouds, outer body experience of peace, serenity and euphoric chocolate endorphin releasing highs came crashing to a grinding halt, and I hit the Earth...and realized once again I cannot escape truly blatant residual reminders of my fucked up past...

And it was that with a heavy bleeding heart I picked up my Shark from the bus stop and as I drove back to my office where she would quietly, head bent and brow furrowed with her cute retro glasses color and finish her math, I wondered what I could do to make up for the fact I had the worst judgment 10 years ago in who I gave my heart, my body, my life to....how is it I could be so careless for something so fleeting...and believe me it was...and for what? For Charlotte, I know that is the most obvious answer, because I remind myself she is the best thing her father and I will have ever done with our lives...but what about all the sticky mess left to deal with? It's not as if we are going to accomplish anything More noble than raising her the best we, let me correct myself, I can.

Let's face it, some washed up, bipolar trust fund baby with no social skills  (and as we can see due to recent developments, job skills), and a sober former drug addict who has issues with men and confusing, distrustful relationships with other women are not your prime candidates for finding a cure for AIDS or cancer or performing ground breaking research for sustainable renewable resources to battle malnutrition and hunger over the globe..fuck, we're Lucky if we can handle not fucking up our daughter...and this is my biggest fear...

This daily pain, this serving I swallow without fail of humble pie to ensure I function, I make it through one more day and do the best, the healthiest things for her....and pray to whatever God hasn't abandoned or given up hope on my salvation yet, that she turns out to be twice the person I am...I aim higher than that, but I don't tell her because I don't want to be one of those parents who sets unrealistic expectations and find my anorexic, Aderall snorting, blow job giving daughter spiraling out of control and pregnant....and that wasn't me personally,  but a amalgamation of all the PSA or made for T.V. Lifetime Network movies I could think of...

I am sure a lot of kids out there are just as fucked up, just as twisted, just as screwed with parents like us or worse who didn't stand a chance to begin with....but it's what she does with those twisted, dark feelings of disappointment or desire that I worry about and something tells me I don't have the brass balls it takes to deal with the answer if I don't like it.....

But there I go being all Debbie Downer, and what kind of bitch would I be that I already have written her off? I mean I know there's always the greater chance it will be something good...or less self destructive than my haunting past...I mean here I went from snorting 8 balls to popping out  kids complete with birth plans, wagons, grandma panties, and pot roasts....

But I don't want her to settle for the half life I have now...and its half because I wasted the good portion of the first half whining about the shaft I got from my father, the teasing and taunts at school, and the waaa waaa waaa's of what didn't go my way......


And so it was I smoothed her blonde beautiful hair, and kissed the tip of her freckled nose....and looked in her deep deep need there own pool man blue eyes...and I told her she could have the last chocolate from my Dove box....because it was the last heart....

And she was the start, the beginning of mine.....



OK. So that maybe seem to some like a corny and lame ass way to end it, but what more is there to say? Want to hear about how I came home to a note on my door from management that some pervert was reported to have gotten out of his car, directly in front of my complex and gate, and "fondle" himself in front of the junior high bus riders waiting? A mere 15 minutes AFTER my Shark hopped on her bus???  And the Spring Branch Police are looking into..I will show you looking...directly in the end of 9mm

Or how bout how I may be the only person who is already over Whitney Houston's tragic and self induced demise? I mean really people.."Crack is whack! I make too much money..." you're right, Ms. Houston....the $40 dollars is way too cheap versus the $100 baggies of coke and balloons of heroin or outrageous doctor bills to buy people off for scripts....Can we say Michael all over again and move on?


Or how bout how I have cramps and the Naproxen isn't cutting it today? And I think I need to go buy some Tampax at CVS during lunch?

If the shit before all this wasn't to your liking or up to snuff...then I don't know what to tell you....Its the goddamn box of Dove this fat girl ate...the chocolate is making me delirious and mushy....I have this weird tightening in my chest, and the doctor tells me its something called love...

Cupid's arrow pierced my tear duct...and my melting 1/2 off chocolate heart

Oh where oh where oh where do I begin?  Well, lets start with last Friday and just bring you up to speed to where it's 5:34 pm and I am the ONLY FUCKING person still here at work....and what's worse is I was off today and I got sucked back in....but that's me jumping ahead of myself...

Let me go back to the beginning....Friday I managed to haul ass at 1:00pm to get some really fabulous sugar cookies...try Memorial Bakery if you're too goddamn lazy to cook some or don't want to burn down your house/apartment/domicile......so, there I was parking in a handicap spot to dash in to get my cookies, all 180 hearts in alternating pink and red sugar sprinkles....and I comeback out to get in and get the nastiest look from I swear hand to God the oldest recipient of Botox I have ever seen....I mean have you ever seen this really awful B-rated movie with John Candy, Chevy Chase and Demi Moore called Nothing But Trouble? Well if you haven't your lucky, and if you have slip me the name of your opthamologist and how much that cornea transplant ran you.....

Anyway, in the movie John Candy plays a series of grotesque familial members in some backwoods town...think Chainsaw Massacre but with a ha-ha slap stick humor kinda way...if that's possible...so there patriarch of the family is a nasty, liver spotted, skin so thin you can see the pulsing brain matter with a little greasy comb over of white hair....well there I was been chastised by the same guy! I mean even the hair...and what makes this whole long diarrhea of useless information even that more hilarious....is that he took a full 10 minutes to make his cane hobbling way into the $125,000 AMG package Mercedes in the handicap spot next to me....

so after my eyeballing ass chewing, I got back into my car and within minutes was at HCE, cookies in hand, bad ass on time....fast forward some surreal conversations with some actually decent parents who aren't part of the blonde Stepford sorority either, I felt like I had won a gold star or at the least had managed to weasel my way in effectively to pass myself off as a normal parent....little did they know it took all the self discipline I had not to say fuck or damn or shit or crap...and to make sure my clothing covered my tattoos, and my makeup wasn't smeared, and my hair....well it was humid and my hair was screwed from the beginning, but I guess the 80's puff is coming back....

All this brings me to where as the neglectful and forgetful parent I am whose brain got left in some store along with the coupons I painstakingly cut out and never got to use, I had promised Shark 3 weeks ago she could have a friend over....back track a little to Thursday night when said child's grandmother called to solidify plans and I was up shit creek without a paddle...I couldn't very well tell her no, but I also wasn't mentally or physically prepared for night of loud screams, giggling, and planned activity director modeness....

so there I was at 4 pm with two 9 year olds, one who is only apparently used to drinking Mountain Dew....or almond milk because she's lactose intolerant and one who for a brief brief moment thought I was her hero because I was able to be like other moms.....this is not to imply I am one of those "funny" moms who turns out to drown her kids or chop their arms off or who spends all Saturday in bed weeping or walking around barefoot in the snow or talking to herself...I am not bipolar or manic or crazy...a little OCD for someone so disorganized, a little tacky and vulgar, and I am high strung and suffer from high blood pressure...but I am not one of those moms....

I just don't look or act or am able to give her all the things other moms are....I wish I got to wake up everyday and use phrases like 'whoopsie daisies' or 'golly gosh' or something sunshiny and bright and rainbowish...I wish I lived in a huge white house and didn't work and could play tennis and bake cookies and be decked out in Ann Taylor everyday of the week...

But what fun would that be? I sure would miss my old gnarly pj pants held together with safety pins and the t-shirt so holy it looks like I was used for target practice...and the design is so faded its a soft gray blur...

So it was with this one wonderful proud moment that Charlotte, her friend and I made our way home with pizzas and milk (because by God she can drink H2O as an alternative to soda of the hills of Arkansas) and enjoyed a evening of movies, Xbox (btw-I kicked their asses at Dance Central) and then the quiet snores of two very very tired kids..

The quiet didn't last long and so it was Saturday I attempted to battle the cold with 3 kids by myself, and made my way to the Houston Health Museum...which has turned out to be boring on the list of most boring...save for the Star Wars exhibit and maybe the 3d movie thing...it sucked ass...even Maxx wanted to bang his head on the wall and he had kicked that habit a week ago.....But it was free with our membership and saved me the $40 and change it would be for the Children's Museum...and quieter and less chance of me leaving behind a  kid that wasn't mine...because with my luck I can never lose the ones I have...

Then after depositing her at home, I spent the rest of the afternoon curled up on the couch vegging to the land of Narnia and a coughing phlegmy boy which segued into Sunday with a sick 2 year old at Memorial Hermann West because the wait at Texas Children's would have been 4 hours.....

Don't ask me what the bill was...I haven't gotten it yet....but steroids, a breathing treatment, and chest films later and I find out my little googly bear is on the verge of pneumonia and we are sent on our way with a script for amoxicillin....

So there I was on Monday starting another fun filled week of office antics when I got the call at 3:38 pm that he was running a fever of 103 at school and I needed to get him....for those of you familiar with school guidelines or have kids yourself....you know this means there is a dreaded 24 hr wait until they can return...and dreaded because it means using that PTO day or sick day that while you still have, everyone and their dog feels the need to bitch about behind your back because it inevitably means one of them must do your work....

well maybe is some far off land of raises, and bonuses, and fucking salaries that hardworking, ass busting people deserve, but not here in this place we call America...no here in the corporate world, regardless of laws or OSHA or pesky things like the EEOC or Labor Board, Big Brother still is watching, and still counting his stack of hundreds before he slips it in his pocket and leaves at 4pm...and so it was I was going to be working from home...

so here I was today, Valentine's Day no less, waking up and throwing on a Jack Daniel's t-shirt, a pair of 2 day wear jeans, and some tennis and making a beeline out the door...without makeup but I remembered a clean bra and deodorant....and my kids...

First up was pitching Charlotte out of the car...and next stop was dry cleaners before I made my way into work....amazing how it is that all this and having a sick kid to stay home with and I STILL made it in before others...gotta love how that works...so there I was with Maxx running around and stealing freshly baked cookies from our lobby, gathering all printed orders and emails I would need to work from home, and this is the moment that everyone decides their gonna be nice to me....

from the co-worker whose basically set out to make my life a living hell until she can get me fired to the woman who barely will say ten words to me because she's too lazy or fat to walk to my cubicle...

and here I have then offering to do my work for me or deign to grace me with their physical presence...of course in reality I know this is so they can see if Maxx looks as sick as I claim him to be, and thank goodness for me he chose that moment to hock a loogey of phlegm on my desk next to his cookie....

Of course this is all following is loud and completely articulate declaration upon seeing my desktop image..."shit, that's Elmo."....of course I tried to play it off as shoot, but as luck would have it the office queen so sassy point out "Girllll, we ALL heard what that was and it wasn't shoot."....

Snap!

So, back home I ventured to where I pounded away and plowed through orders only to look over and see him pull out every toy he could possibly reach and even some he couldn't, and I threw my hands up and cried....

I cried because its one week until his birthday and party and quite honestly, I don't know what the fuck I need and haven't gotten. I cried because I know every day the pile of crap for me to do at work gets higher and higher and I never say no. For fear of losing my job, and while I don't get paid enough to ever save, and sometimes have to steal toilet paper from my parents, I still stay. I cried because March 7th is growing near and I know he thinks the farce of mediation will only make me weaker...and it kills me he is right. I cried because my apartment is messy and covered with toys, and I have stacks of laundry undone, and a bathroom I could have been cleaning today...and then I cry harder because I live in a 1200 sq foot apartment and pray someday I have a house. I cried because I don't want my daughter and son to grow up to the only patch of grass they play on is also where our dog shits when we walk her....I cried because I cannot lose the last 25 lbs I need to and it hit me I don't care. I cried because its Valentine's Day and we don't ever have a romantic day....not even on ordinary days. I cried because my sister won't talk to me because of some manipulation on my sperm donor dad's part, and she's too stupid, too self righteous or too proud or all three to even contact me...so chicken shit my brother-in-law who thinks I'm some white trash ignoramus baby making machine calls to RSVP for my kids party...shows what the fuck he knows, I check the 'other' box so its half breed trash to you, dickhead.

I cried because its payday and its all gone. I cried because I am beginning to lose footing on the hamster wheel of life, and the sawdust chips in my cage look awfully soft and comfy. I cried because I want my kids to make better choices, and I cried harder than ever because they don't realize what I go through everyday for what little I can give them.

And most of all I cried because I don't really have jack shit to cry about that we all don't have to cry about.   I mean its Valentine's Day, I am not single to partake in the Mile of Meat or speed dating, I have someone warm and alive in my bed, I have little hand print Valentines on my fridge, and melted M&M's in my hands...I have my health for now, and I my favorite pair of jeans finally fit AGAIN! I have a job which I guess is better than none because something tells me my parents would notice that much t.p. missing...and I don't have to feign a trip to Costco to make sure my kids get a nutritious meal off samples....

I wiped the snot off my nose, and laid down with my exhausted Madd Maxx and watched me some Sesame Street which Snoop Dog guest starred as a dinosaurs voice, and fell asleep to the sound of Elmo's getting email from Ernie....

And it was during this quasi 1/2 hr nap I realized it could be worse....I woke up. That's a start. I may not be dining on a 5 course 4 star meal tonight with a bottle of wine and some peace a quiet from kids..but at least I have someone to share a "what-if" meal like that with and I have those pesky kids....granted that it is a point to be argued since they are an acquired want...but if you ever think you would be a lousy parent...think again. Unless you're a felon or drug addict or hear voices or dismember animals in your backyard...then your definitely not parent material according to CPS and probably at least 20 other federal law enforcement agencies...but seriously, I never thought in a million years I would be where I am now, have the people in my life who care about me...

I mean I thought I'd be dead by 30 or at the very least in my 10th stint in rehab...I never thought ahead in life because I didn't think I had a life worth living and it didn't bother me until I managed to fill that life with people who are worth living for....

So that's where I am going to spend my Valentine's Day....be the last one to leave at work, but only because I have an amazing husband who is that understanding that my work ethic is important even if I get paid peanuts...or maybe that sick of my shit that he needs a break from my constant nagging and he and the kids are hooping and hollering at a little fiesta because mom's not home? Either way its the same thing...he's put up with my crap this long, Charlotte hasn't stabbed me in my sleep and Maxx...well he stopped bagging his head and talks in complete sentences...complete with obscenities and all...so today is a good day. 

Hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?  Besides, it's Valentines Day, and you know what that means....loads and loads of marked down chocolate at CVS come tomorrow so I have something to look forward to....besides, this means I can leave cryptic weird quotations on Post-Its all throughout the office for my co-workers tomorrow...

A Wilde take on my life and spit roasted guinea pigs...

Who else woke up this morning and wanted to ask "wtf" with the weather? I mean really? Mother Nature needs to decide if she's gonna be cold or hot, muggy or dry?  I mean is this her version of ovulation and then menses? Or is the weather all wacked out because she's hit menopause and with the hot flashes and lack of hormones cannot decide if she's coming or going???

Anyway- after I pulled on my Wellies and fisherman's coat and grabbed my paddles, me and the crew rowed our way to school through the moronic jackasses speeding down Memorial and Voss.....and like a trooper my Shark put her hoodie up and jumped out to venture through the school gates....and I laughed my ass off at the 5th grader who was supposed to be on car pool monitor duty too engrossed in digging in his nose and ass simultaneously to help her with his umbrella....and Shark and I shared a moment of giggles as she stood dripping under the portico and I in the car...and all was right in the world once again....for now....

Next was the Max who as of today will have completed his first week of school....or schul...if you don't get the blue headed Will Ferrell reference..well, then you either don't have kids or you aren't as cool as you think you are.....

So there I deposited him with the other runny snot nosed little tots, and at least today he was delayed in his reaction....meaning it wasn't until I was in the actual car that I heard his shrieks....and then they stopped....here's fingers crossed that meant he was redirected by something and not from crashing his head into a cabinet....we've managed to go one week at school without his Metallica impersonation on chairs....I am beginning to think this is a party trick he saves for at home...or the grocery store...or the mall...or dinner at that fabulous Mediterranean place.....but then he hasn't done it at home in a while either....mmm....maybe there's a connection...

And so it was that I took off to my wonderful wonderful wonderful 8:30-5 with a little more pep in my step because today I get off a half day due to mommy PTA-Room Parent duties...and I'm more than ok with that because I'd rather be putting up with the anxiety, hives, and puffy dampy head of dog hair today from the rain and my $12 dollar Target knock off of being around Hunters Creek Cougars with their $5000 Vuitton's than being stuck in my pitiful cage aka cubicle, running my rat race....ok, so I more resemble a obsese guinea pig than rat, but hey, a rodent's a rodent! They both are a succulent delicacy somewhere....

Where I am going with this I really don't know today....what I do know is how surreal my life has become in the responsibilities that I have taken on with being a law abiding good Samaritan parent....it's strange to me even as I'm hauling ass around in a wagon, complete with those annoying cute cartoon stickers of stick figure families and pets that this is my life....PTA meetings, coffee at 6 am, dance lessons and school pockets and little finger paint pictures plastered on my fridge, and family portraits....what have I become?

What happened to that chain smoking, leather pants and tattooed with heavy eyeliner chick that was balls to the wall, middle finger in the air and all???

Well, she's still around sometimes, trapped in a frumpy housecoat and clogs, waving goodbye at the little girl on the bus or loading up on CapriSuns and Goldfish at Costco...you just can't see the tattoos hidden between the wrinkles and matronly clothes...and the leather pants are traded for the only slim size 1-(on second thought I won't post my size, but leave at that I am EXTREMELY close to leaving the doubles to hit the single digits...again) khakis...and the heavy eyeliner....well I am lucky if I remember to brush my teeth....

Some famous queen (and not the one with a tiara in England...unless there's someone with 5 o'clock shadow hitting the streets of London in drag) once said

               "One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead"

And that you illiterate uneducated morons is Oscar Wilde's take on it....and I am inclined to agree.....of course lets excuse the unbelievably and painful obvious irony coming from him....and just try and apply it to our lives....

Is that to mean that this life I am living with baked goods, and freshly cut grass and puppies and pot roasts isn't my real life? What is my real life? the one I follow or the one I choose to follow?

Fuck-my head hurts too much right now from attempting to pontificate and straying from my usual cookie cutter posts of profanities and low crass dick and fart jokes or references....but its true....


And thus I end today on a mildly amusing note because being serious and deep and all that shit isn't me....at least not in the way I just miserably failed..

So here's to the upcoming Valentine's day and all you women out there whose real lives aren't what you're living...at least not until we find one of these.....

if you were offended....well, you're either lying to yourself or to us...makes no difference...you know its the gospel truth. unless its the gender thing and just insert reference to female genitalia if need be.

Cinderella's fairytale with dumpster diving and a 5 foot dictator....

After my much needed bitch session yesterday, I went home to guzzle down said glass of wine...alas, no Gallo in the house so I settled for the $20 bottle of something I cannot pronounce....but only after I went through the motions of domesticated housewife....starting with picking up Goober #2 from his 3rd day of school...and for a moment my heart didn't feel so heavy as his sticky little fingers grabbed at his backpack and he lunged to wrap me in a baby gorilla hug....

The surreal twilight drive home was followed by being met by Goober #1 at the front door, indignant and pissed because I wasn't home earlier to help with her homework and she is emphatic "my STEP father" is not equipped to assist her with writing spelling words 5 times... mind you the biological father doesn't probably even know what grade she is in, much less how to help her study for spelling because he doesn't give a shit..but I refrain from very rudely pointing this out and instead am met with a long hiccuping rant down the hallway complete with door slamming wind....and all because when I had the nerve to ask why her step father couldn't help she broke into unintelligible sobs, and retreated to her room....

That's a battle I put on hold until I can come back with reinforcements....and God knows when that will be because I am at a loss as to what kind of reinforcements can wrangle and tame such a beast...how can someone so tiny be filled with SO MUCH rage and still manage to break my heart and soul with all her love? Christ...I am so unprepared...she is my Waterloo for fucking sake and I cannot die in exile because of the arsenic in the wallpaper.....

So I refocused my attention to the duties that come with the proverbial shackles of the apron, and thus I managed in a matter of 20 minutes to transform reheated leftovers into plates of perfection while my husband with the help of the Maxx, complete with little hammer and all, hung up the Kandinsky that has been sitting in the back room for 4 months.....love how I dropped the name of the artist and left out the parts where you find out its a framed reprint, mind you an EXPENSIVE frame, and I dove into our dumpster to get it because some jackass was too lazy to fit it in her car when she moved.....

So feeling a little more calm, a little sophisticated with our garbage art....we settled down to a quiet meal....well, what started out as a quiet meal until Shark emerged from her room to give her rating of my culinary skills or lack thereof....she was quite amusing with her loud-doth-protest-the meal-before-her-highness-routine....I mean if anything the kid is destined for drama classes in high school and maybe a career as a scream queen...

With the one kid retreating yet again to her room for a dramatic and overthetop crying fit, I turned my attention to the two sane males at the table and realized women can truly be crazy....or maybe not crazy but the hormones combined with being emotional and logical creatures I realized I was fucked since the day she was born....did I, did she ever have a chance of escaping the heartache, the hot salty tears, the desperate racking sobs that accompany disappointment, the anger, the fury, the thought patterns shooting a million miles a minute to understand how it is that the world can be the way it is....

Was the problem us, that we FEEL EVERYTHING ?

there is no simple or even complex way to verbalize the moment I had staring at my simple boys with their simple smiles other than they love her and me so much more because we aren't simple.....we are messy and complicated, and beautiful and a madness is coursing through our veins I can only describe as being a woman...as feeling the way only a woman can, as thinking the way only a woman can....as seeing the world in such a completely set of different eyes that no man can understand...and when they finally do they stare at us quietly as we  hiccup and gurgle with mascara streaming down like Rocky Raccoon and pass us tissues at exactly the right moment.....

Or pick up the exact flavor of ice cream that will erase all our troubles.....or give us that hug at the very moment we say we don't want it...because they knew even if we didn't want it, we need it....

Well, when a sudden silence filled the house, and then I watched as she slinked her way back in, he rose from the table and pulled out her chair, and asked her to finish her homework....

and so it was that he took the Madd Maxx and retreated to the bedroom, leaving me with 30 minutes of uninterrupted Charlotte time, her calmly finishing her homework and me asking her about school....now as any outsider might see it sounds like a bipolar dysfunctional family....who the fuck goes from one extreme to another in a matter of minutes?

Well, we do. And we aren't bipolar or at the very least we don't choose to be dysfunctional....we are just a family trying to hold it together from coming undone at the seams....and the seams are becoming a little tattered and need mending....

But that was for another day, and so I settle for the quiet, for the peacefulness, for the fighting to stop, if only for 30 minutes....

And so this storybook fairytale ends with the wicked stepfather falling asleep with the evil dwarf after a good book reading, and a unexpected and non self serving kiss from his Cinderella who skipped off to bed, and one where this old witch retreated to the front stoop for a much needed glass of Merlot and a cigarette....

shaking and unable to come to terms with the path my life has taken, I slowly took a drag, chased by a chug because I am not putting on airs that I have ever been a lady, and I sit...and stew...

And I realized something, sitting there in the dark, freezing my coat less nicotine puffing drunk self off....A) I remember why I quit smoking in the first place B) not wearing shoes was a bad idea and C) I cannot change the things beyond my control, and I need to accept that not matter what the outcome, I know what I am doing in this life is better than the alternative...

That days and nights like these test me beyond fucking belief....and even when I think I'll fail, I have to hold out hope that I won't....I have to believe in myself, in my Charlotte, in my Maxx, in that asshole I sleep next to who farts loudly at 2 am and forgets to replace the toilet paper....I have to believe we'll make it.....that today doesn't overshadow tomorrow or the next or the next....that the days we have like our Sunday, our visits to the zoo, our trips to the beach, the moments when we make a puppy pile on the bed and watch Mr. Popper's Penguins....those are the things that keep me going, that I instill my faith in that no matter what, things can only get better....

But for now, I sit here this morning, teary eyed and a little hungover, a little better, a little drained, and a little hopeful that maybe I am too jaded to realize that our storybook fairytale isn't a fairytale at all...but just a story whose ending remains unwritten....and its up to us goddamn it to write the ending....and I better make it fucking awesome.

So what will your ending be?