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Sunday, February 26, 2012

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...






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