Wednesday Night is alright.

Oh happy day today... Wednesday night is my favorite night of TV. Top Chef - Miami and America's Next Top Model. And they say I'm not an intellect... eh-ha! To quote the recap on Television Without Pity in regard to ANTM, "Sometimes I think this show is just a dream I had." And this is what I have to look forward to tonight: "The girls move into the house. Heather has some problems with the social interactions, and Binaca says some fighting words to Lisa, who will likely lap-dance her to death." BP wonders why I'm so agreeable about him playing cards on Weds evening and this is why. I can't get all into it if he's sitting beside me on the couch rolling his eyes.

I just read that the Phil Spector trial is in its 11th day of jury deliberations. Okay. There's dumb. Then there's CALIFORNIA JURY DUMB. For crying out loud. I have only vaguely followed it and can say with all confidence that I'd be the trigger man if it was decided to just take the little weird guy behind the barn and shoot him. Or should I say, "Witness him unexpectedly killing himself" as his supposed victim did (in the home of someone she'd never met until that evening, with said man's gun, while wearing her purse on her shoulder, with someone witnesses testified constantly threatened to kill people standing by, while a driver looked on poised to call 9-1-1 to report, "My boss killed someone"). Oh, it's sickening. Come back with a guilty verdict already.

The letter not worth sending.

For 3 years now a friend of mine has been involved with a married man. As we head to the close of year 3, I find myself utterly exhausted from it whereas she is still as passionate, emotional, melodramatic and stupid as she was day 1. Here's what I want to say but won't.

Dear Manic-depressive, unstable mess:

Last night while you wept to me on the phone, I sat and ate tuna casserole and giggled and smiled at my 9-month old also eating tuna casserole and evidently loving it. I held the phone receiver away so (heaven forbid) you could not hear signs of my life in the background. (Yeah, I noted your comment about how when people sound joyful you want to vomit.) I used to give you my full attention, but come on! The presses don't stop for me when this shit happens anymore. Here's why: It always happens. I can't count the number of occasions you have interrupted with your self-absorbed and reckless whining. And if something's not happening, it just happened, is going to happen, might happen, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam (with emphasis on the nauseam). It's as plain as the nose on your face: you're addicted to drama; you like being distraught; someone has misinformed you that "other woman" is synonymous with martyr; and - oh yeah - you're wasting your life and mine... so from now on I'm just going to sit and eat my casserole.

Why are you so lonely? Why is every conversation littered with Oh, I'm so lonely? If you haven't figured it out - giving up a man who might not have been "him" but who loved you, created children with you, and best of all didn't demean and debase you, splitting up week-to-week custody of your children (and constantly proclaiming you have nothing to live for despite said children), taking a low-pay-no-reward job so you could be in closer proximity to "him", alienating family and friends, hooking up with others on the side because of your loneliness but allowing them to humiliate you, too... these could all be factors in your loneliness. But also think about this: Grown ups do get lonely. Conversely, some adults long for loneliness (just one Sunday morning of loneliness, please!). The difference is we don't have the luxury of whining. Guess it's true what they say - adulthood ain't for sissies.

I can't make you love yourself. And God knows I'm done trying. So how about this? Can we agree you'll stop sending me links to You Tube videos of some overwrought country singer glorifying being the other woman *(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIyxkZod2cM) and writing in the subject line, "This is me in a nutshell." Can you stop asking me every time I answer the phone (1,2, 3 times a day), "Have you got a second?" (Because YOU DO NOT CARE IF I DON'T!) Can you stop injecting my life in the last 20 seconds of our conversations because I'm not stupid? (By the way, can we agree I'm not stupid? I may have one particularly stupid friend but that doesn't - in fact - make me stupid?) Can we stop philosophizing on how "his" wife could be so stupid to take him back? (<- Honestly it makes me feel more sorry for you than anything else does to hear you describing yourself in her without even realizing it! When is THAT light bulb going to go off?) Can you please quit pretending anything that happens is surprising? Why does it throw you so off guard to repeat the same cycle again and again? For Christ's sake - even cockroaches get when the lights go on they need to scurry!

And finally - when you choose to be with someone who abandoned you a decade earlier at your life's most vulnerable moment and he has a pregnant wife and two children, is an alcoholic, doesn't have a steady job, lives in a trailer, has Hepatitis, is in to you for 20k, and he seems hellbent on outdoing himself in that inhumane category, just admit you're going to take whatever he plans on handing you and spare the rest of us any hope you'll wake the hell up.

I could write this for the rest of the day and still not have scratched the surface. The problem is the meter for this is (well and definitely) up. I suppose it's of no real concern to you that our friendship is, too...

Ahhhh...

Okay, so... all that purging has left me little energy for more. I know I owe Blu & M an 8-fact blog cause I got tagged. I'll get to it! I'll get to it! It's just that right now I've had my fill of introspection.

Long time no write.

My blog has become my foul-weathered friend! I've had a great couple of weeks that seem only worthy of gratuitous mention (it's been a great couple of weeks - hooray!) and some mega-rage floating around in me that I gotta purge. But first...

Today at 5:30 we're "interviewing" a babysitter/mother's helper. I say interviewing but I think we basically want to make sure she's not wearing an ankle bracelet or that she doesn't give away anything subtle to set off red flags (such as expressing an undeniable hatred for babies, dogs, and/or "the man"). Let's put it this way - we're interviewing her Tuesday and we've already arranged for her to babysit Thursday. She'd have to want to screw this up. By the way, having never really paid a babysitter, when she told me $12/hour I really considered taking her job and giving her mine.

Baby i is getting her first tooth. We knew she'd be pretty wimpy about it so it's no surprise really. But her preferred distance from me lately is cheek-on-cheek. This makes things like going to the bathroom difficult and other things that I can do without but would like to do pretty impossible. Yesterday we spent the day me sitting indian-style holding her while she stood with her cheek against mine whining. The 20 minute morning nap and the 45 minute afternoon nap (while I ran to pick the dog up from the groomers) sure helped rejuvinate me though. I don't know how many teeth exactly we have to go but it's a daunting amount for sure.

F is going through this phase where he treats me like a second-class citizen. I could literally be standing one foot away from him (take this morning for example!) and he doesn't HEAR ME or respond. Everything I say is met with exasperation and impertinence. I didn't think I'd ever want to be on a power trip with my own children but boyfriend is about to get the BECAUSE I RULE OVER YOU & THIS HOUSEHOLD screaming diatribe where I pound my fists and spit all over him. We need to go to our separate corners for awhile. But then he does sweet things like hug his sister and try to calm her down when she falls over and bonks her head on the hardwood floor (oops) and he just seems so sweet... Is it possible we BOTH have split personalities?

I'm already over F's teacher and she hasn't done (much of) anything to us. Really... in your email to the parents welcoming everyone back after track-out do you have to mention that everyone was "talking quite a bit"??? Ick. Ick. It was all I could do not to "accidentally" reply to all saying, "Imagine that... a bunch of 8 year-olds talking a lot..." I'm not humoring her this year. She's got my child flapping yap and all and not only do I not care if he talks in her class I'm glad he's talking there for a flipping change and not here.

See. Told you I had rage.

10 years = a bad ass kitchen appliance.

I'm glad I'm married to someone who doesn't think it's weird I ordered my OWN anniversary present, sent him the email receipt with a note of thanks, and doesn't bat an eye that it's a kitchen appliance. Not only doesn't he think it's weird, I think he's really grateful (hence, sort of a present for the both of us... See how that works?). And I scored a bargain (although to him, I'm sure, it was outrageous). Anyway, say hello to...

We'll call it "The-only-thing-standing-between-me-and-the-Barefoot-Contessa." If she ends up working out for me, we'll call her 'Tessa for short. If not, that bitch is going right back to Amazon.

I'm trying to stop speaking in analogies/metaphors/I need to brush up on my English. Man it's really getting out of control. I can't have the most basic exchange without one popping up. Example: (See - I'm sort of doing it again)...

Someone: Hi.
Me: Oh, hi.
Someone: Did you see that bird?
Me: I did see that bird. The way it swooped by me I thought I was about to be flattened by a big truck.
Someone: ((blank stare))
Me: What? Didn't you think it was loud? Why are you looking at me with your eyes so vacant like an apartment left empty in the middle of the night?

But I'm not as bad as my friend G. I'm considering an intervention. She has this awful habit of saying, "You know what I mean?" and I mean she USES IT A LOT. (Yes, of course I'm going to give an example!!! Heck, I'll even use the scenario from above!)

G: Hi.
Me: Oh, hi.
G: That was a bird. Do you know what I mean?
Me: I know! I saw it. It came out of nowhere like the time that fraudulent credit card bill arrived in my mailbox.
G: That was totally weird when that happened to you. You know what I mean?
Me: Er... yes.

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I'm currently auditioning to be the replacement friend of one of my neighbors down the street. Her best friend & neighbor is moving back to Idaho and she's considering me for the role of new friend. I've had two call-backs and it's really getting close, I think. Our first date resulted in us being in the same bar of a couple who walked the 10ft. to the outdoor patio to have monkey sex in front of all of us. The second was more subdued but we stayed out later and I think I really made her laugh. I hope she doesn't think I ramble too much and cite too many examples.

Out of the loop and then in...

We were so relieved that 3rd grade was going to pass us by without us knowing what - if anything - was going on. No notes home daily, no signs of anything to be worried about until... we went to Open House last night and were asked to schedule a Parent/Teacher conference because F has to be "redirected" a lot. (We were - of course - the only parents this was asked of...) It's grown really tiresome. But, it is what it is... We get to sit through another meeting with another teacher where we're told he's "bouncy, energetic, talkative, inattentive, doesn't understand consequences, can't sit still, bothers his classmates, talks out, acts without thinking, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. But he's really smart." I don't know how many more creative ways I can come up with to say, "Yeah. WE KNOW." Sigh... And frankly, I don't know how many more creative ways I can come up with to say to F, "GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER."

So last night was spent dragging out the arsenal of checklist, rules, lectures, pleas for him to confide in us (Is there anything we can do to help you? Is there something you need? Tell us how we can help you!), and guilt (How do you think this makes US feel?). ADHD just isn't for sissies. I'd have never believed until I had a child with it how insipid and tireless it really is. I'd have been the parent going, "Why can't they control their child?!" What about if the child is really well-meaning but persistently disabled?! And what about the weird guilt from making him accountable when you're not sure he should be... why isn't he trying? Is he trying? Why are things getting worse as he gets older not better?

There really aren't words. It makes me want to hang my head and cry.

All the things left to do...

I was carrying in the giant dictionary book/contraption I was conned into buying in a mall parking lot yesterday. It's a picture dictionary (for kids, obviously) and out of nowhere it hit me, We still have to go through the whole learn-letters-learn-to-read-this-is-an-apple thing with baby i. When you have children so far apart in age (8 years!) you apparently not only forget what you've been through but what you yet to go through. I'm not saying I'm not up for it (and what choice do I have, really?) it's just that it's daunting.

A friend of mine brilliantly described one of her issues as hair Dismorphia. I'm afraid I have the opposite problem. I think my hair looks okay and then I see a picture and I think, Oh Christ... this is what I look like? So I proceed to get it cut into layers (I think this was a mistake of proportions to teach other mistakes a lesson), continue to go to someone who obviously drinks before she gets to work for color, and in general look like I have a mushroom on my head. It's twisted when you hope for a disorder that ultimately means things are better than you think!

On that subject... so I never told BP about my blog because a) he'd make fun of me b) I didn't want him to make fun of me and c) he'd relentlessly bring in bits of it into every conversation ("That's not what you said on your blog!" or "Oh, are you gonna go write about this in your blog?" or "Go ask your friends in your comments section of your blog to feel sorry for you..." etc). I'm not saying he's mean. He just goes out of his way to get his OWN laughs. So, he finds out I have a blog (Thanks, Kevin... :)) and I told him why I never told him about it ("I didn't want you to make fun of me.") and he agrees! I said, "I'll give you the URL but you won't even really read it anyway!" He agrees again. Conversation closed. So - ... the hell? He knows his wife has what amounts to a public diary and he passes on the chance to read it? I know he hates to read and all... but really?

Next week I have to go in for the new two days a month in the office I agreed upon. You'd think I'd be dreading it. Nope. I can't wait to have nowhere to go but a desk for eight hours. Nothing to do but sit. I'll work some, too, but mostly I'll be sitting facing forward quietly minding my own business and loving every single second of it.

Practicing Embedding Slideshows.