Band-Aid Finally Pulls It's Collective Head Out Of It's Collective Ass

Has anyone noticed that Band-Aids were, for most of their history, supposed to be flesh colored, but that color was only if you were a white person. Oh, yes. Then they came out with "sheer" Band-Aids, which was great if you were still white, since the sticky part was sheer but the bandage itself was still *cough* "flesh" colored.



I'll be DAMNED if I didn't almost shit right on the floor in Target today when I saw THIS:



Sorry it's a little blurry, camera phones aren't the greatest, but STILL. It says, "Medium". The also now have "Light" (which has been their regular color since the beginning) and even a "Dark" color as well.

I went to the BAND-AID website, but golly gee whiz, I couldn't see a single mention of their brand new, "Hey, we aren't racist!" Band-Aids. Not in New Products, not in The Brand-Aid Brand Timeline, not even in their list of products at all. If I hadn't taken a picture with my phone, I couldn't even prove to you that they exist.

Well, here's a damn cookie, Band-Aid, for finally getting on board and recognizing there ARE other colors of skin out there! You might notice the cookie is old and decrepit, just like your stupid oversight of most of the population.

a feast of joy

"As a blind man feels when he finds a pearl in a dustbin, so am I amazed by the miracles of awakening rising in my consciousness. It is the nectar of immortality that delivers us from death, the treasure that lifts us from death, the treasure that lifts us above poverty into the wealth of giving to life, the tree that gives shade to us when we roam about scorched by life, the bridge that takes us across the stormy river of life, the cool moon of compassion that calms our mind when it is agitated, the fun that dispels darkness, the butter made from the milk of kindness by churning it with the dharma. It is a feast of joy to which all are invited."

-adapted from the Bodhicharyavatara by Shantideva

From "Teachings of the Buddha," edited by Jack Kornfield, 1993.



"

I love the smell of:

rain

wet dirt

salt water in the air

fallen leaves being crushed underfoot

fresh baked anything (ok, nearly anything)

a clean house

clean clothes

sandlewood

amber

my son

my husband (I like to nap on his pillow while he's gone)

steamed brown rice

coffee (but I can't drink it)

cigarette smoke, from far away (not up close)

fresh cut grass

puppy bellies

hot chocolate

oranges (but I can't eat them, either)

lemons

fresh basil

garlic

the absolute lack of smell right after it snows heavily

vanilla

stargazer lilies (I'm allergic, but it's SO worth it)

that roasted nut stand in the mall (oh lordy)

a cup of tea

my grandma (Estee Lauder perfume and cigarettes, even though she quit smoking years ago, I swear the two smells are combined in my head)

BBQ's (is it hickory? charcoal? I don't know)

a new book

my (fantasy) hero!

It is so very rare that I manage to develop a serious Hollywood crush. And this one managed to completely sneak up on me and just smack me upside the head: I won't leave you hanging. It's Tom Welling, who plays Clark Kent in Smallville.


Oh dear, oh dear. I didn't even know, until one night when we were watching the show and Clark grinned that goofy grin of his and I realized I was grinning back at the TV set, completely unable to stop myself. Some idiot part of my brain was saying, "Look, Jill! He's smiling at YOU!"



I felt compelled to immediately bust myself and told Jack what happened, and he laughed. But now it's just out of control. He grins on the show and I'm like butter. He does something heroic and my heart skips a beat. He makes out with another girl and I'm all, "Back off, bitch, he's mine!"



Those dreamy eyes, that handsome farm boy physique, oooh, I love you Thursday nights! Tell me, honestly, would this look not make you feel a little weak in the knees?



Oh, somebody bring me a glass of ice water and dump it in my lap. On second thought, make it a bucket. And fill it with Tom Welling, please.

ps) He's married now (as am I!), but I did a google search and found out that for a brief period of time he lived a mere hour and half from where I did! Oh, we could have gone to school together! I would have only been robbing the cradle a little bit...

lessons in parenting

We've been having a hell of a time with my son lately. So much so that I've gotten to the point of having panic attacks that start around noon and don't end till he goes to bed. You see, by noon I know it's simply a few more hours till he comes home from school.

Now don't get me wrong, his presence is not what bothers me. It's the problems he's having at school that are driving me batshit. So when he walks in the door, I literally have a list of things that I make sure he does, in order, to prevent total chaos. One of them is to ask him, "Did you bring home all of your homework?" Because if not, I have to drive him back up to his school, pronto, before they lock all the doors and he can't get in. The teacher told us at the beginning of the year to not allow kids to get away with this more than a few times, but then again, I also think she is a teacher that doesn't believe in ADD. As in, doesn't believe it exists.

Up until recently, I hadn't realized what a huge problem it was going to be, the ADD, that is. Then my son hit puberty and all hell seems to have broken loose. One small example is the previously mentioned homework. I will ask him, "Did you bring it all home?" He will nod, smile and tell me yes. I have learned to ask him again, "Are you SURE?" to which he will nod more emphatically. An hour later, he will suddenly realize that he does NOT in fact have all his homework and I'm either right in the middle of making dinner or whatever, and could scream that he's making me rush to try to beat the school doors being locked. I ASKED him. Repeatedly. The problem, we are discovering, is that he simply says whatever the correct answer SHOULD be, whether or not it is actually true. And he believes it, because he didn't bother to check. And for a few weeks, I have wanted to kick my own sons ass on a regular basis, because this kinda-sorta-lying thing extends to everything.

I tried to explain it to him. I said, "What if every day I made you some dinner that you hated, but every day when you asked me what was for dinner, I smiled at you and said, 'Macaroni and cheese!' but then served you something you hated instead. Day after day. How would that make you feel?" He screwed up his face at the sheer travesty of his most beloved food being switched with some nameless food-terror and said, "That would suck." "Yes," I said, "Yes, it would. And that is how I feel when you tell me you have your homework and you don't. All you have to do is actually THINK, actually CHECK to see that it's there, but instead you give me the answer that you know I want to hear, whether or not it's actually true. Then, when the time comes to face up to the fact that it is indeed not true, you say you're sorry. Ok. So what if I did that with the macaroni and cheese? What if every day I told you what you wanted to hear, but still fed you something you didn't like, and when you were disappointed I said, 'Oh, sorry.' Would you believe I was sorry?" He said most decidedly, "No." I nodded. "Right. That's how I feel about you not having your homework and telling me you did. It's not outright lying, but it's lying by OMISSION. All you have to do is check. But you don't even bother, do you?" So now the rule is: prove it. He has to check and show it to me, too. "

My husband sent me this article about kids with ADD and lying, and like all good parenting advice, it made me feel like the worlds worst mother. I had been doing everything wrong, it seemed like. On top of that one, he sent me this article on how to be a better parent, also related to parents who have ADD kids. I think that was the one that made me actually cry.

ADD and ADHD is tricky as hell! As I told Jack, "How am I supposed to be able to tell the difference between what is an inescapable ADD characteristic and what is simply lazy bullshit on his part? I feel like a lot of the stuff these things say is telling us to just lower the bar, lower our expectations, let him get away with murder and blame it on the ADD!" But I am learning, slowly, what the difference actually is.

For example: my son has repeatedly gotten into trouble for locking his door and playing his Gameboy on a school night. (NOT allowed!) The other night, I caught him with it again. After I had taken it away, told him why, and shoved it onto a shelf so high he had to do some mighty dangerous acrobatics to get it back down. But that he did. And when I confronted him with it, he lied to my face.

My husband came in and very calmly starting talking to him about lying, and finally my son said something that made me walk out the room in a complete and utter fury: "I just can't help myself! I know it's there and it's like it calls out to me! I wish I could stop myself but I can't!" I told Jack later it took everything I had to walk away and not just smack the Stupid Monkey right out of him. How many times have I been violated by someone who just "couldn't help himself"? Shit.

Jack talked to him and finally came out, asked me to calm down and explained that the Gameboy was just an obsession, and that once I had said I would just take it away, my son actually expressed relief. Well, that's what Jack said.

I don't know. It's so hard, because I had the same damn shit wrong with me when I was a kid and guess what? Too bad, so sad, I just had a shitty childhood because of it. When my mom sent me to a shrink and they recommended "pharmacological intervention" (I will never forget that damn paper), did any occur? No. Too bad, so sad, my parents had already made up their minds that I was a bad seed and there was no help for me, it seems. Jack's point is that THAT is the exact problem. They set me up for total failure by not recognizing the problem and actually helping me. They just punished me, told me I was a horrible failure and an embarrassment to them. Our relationship to this day? Totally sketchy. Do I want to do that to my son? Of course not. But it still feels like I'm lowering the bar. It's grinding a clutch out, trying to switch gears. So far I've managed to stop screaming. That's not much, but I'm getting there.

And every day that he arrives home from school is a very tense situation, while I ask him the questions I know I have to ask, even though part of my head is just screaming, "WHAT THE FUCK? HOW IS HE EVER GOING TO LEARN TO TAKE CARE OF HIS DAMN SELF?!" It seems like he was growing more independent, and now suddenly he's more dependent. I have to take all these freaking baby steps with him, and try not to lose my shit when he just fucks up over and over and over again...

One of those articles says being a parent of a kid with ADD is hard work. I would like to award that person with my own personal Understatement Of The Year Award.

Take a bow, you crazy understater, you!

a potentially brief intermission?

It's that delicate balancing on the high wire time of month again- the dreaded week before my period. I bring this up because those of you new readers may not be aware that this is the time I am most...(let's not mince words, shall we?) insane.

That is to say, this is the week in which my monthly migraine suddenly appears, and the doc who referred me to a neurologist hasn't gotten back to me about when that might be yet, so I'm guessing it won't be soon enough to ward this one off. *sigh*

I've got a lot of stressful shit on my mind, and so I am very consciously working on staying as balanced as possible. I'm watching the birds on my porch. I'm reading (ok, re-reading Terry Pratchett books) so help me stay calm, amused, and not obsess about negative bullshit. I may spend the weekend actually putting all of my photographs into an album, although that may be too emotional and have to wait. The trick for me is to stay balanced and not allow myself to veer off into Negativeland. For someone with a wicked chemical imbalance, and hormone swings the equivalent of The Jolly Green Giant's backyard swing set, that is no small task.

Thus is it that I am not sure what to write about, since writing is a delicious and prickly matter for me, kind of like eating a kiwi with the skin still on. So for the moment, I may just take a short break, or I might write a freaking novel twenty minutes from now. I really just don't know. But know that I am here, and doing my damnedest to maintain stability for both my husband and son (not to mention myself), and that's more important to me than keeping you amused (and occasionally horrified). I'll see if I can whip up something lighthearted or find the time and balance to write regardless of what feels like an incoming hurricane. But if I just seem erratic this week, you'll know why.

Never fear. The storm always passes, and I'll be back.

MY birds

My birds are back. It makes me happy.

First I noticed the mourning doves cooing. They usually don't, and I will have to research if that is just a mating thing they do or if they've just finally grown so accustomed to my porch that they are now cooing on it, I don't know. I do know that I throw seeds all over the deck, because mourning doves are ground feeders, and I love them and want them around.

Then I noticed the cardinal. It's definitely the male, not the female one that I grew so absurdly fond of last year, with her adorable little, "Cheep Cheep!" sound. I'm still waiting for her.

Next it was the crows, the little bastards. Oh, I like them fine, it's just that they're LOUD and they tend to be bullies, trying to fend off the other birds from the feeders, the feeders that they themselves are too large to actually perch on but that doesn't stop them from standing on one foot and bending awkwardly down to eat out of it. That and they shit EVERYWHERE. I don't know what their deal is with that. Blech.

I've seen the robins out front. They don't visit the feeders, I'm guessing they are ground feeders as well? And perhaps only like bugs? I don't know. But they are the quintessential sign of spring, and even though I do NOT want the summer to arrive, it's damn near impossible to think dark thoughts while looking at a robin's fluffy breast.

I think some of the finches may be back, too, although they flit so fast it may be wishful thinking on my part.

The thing that makes me sad about it all is that we're planning on moving to another place this summer, and then what? I've been trying to figure out how to put a psychic homing device for birds on my deck, so they know to switch locations. I feel as if I am abandoning them.

I'm so freaking sentimental....

why I have so few actual friends

"Do not choose bad friends.
Do not choose persons of low habits.
Select good friends. Be discriminating.
Choose the best."

-Dhammapada 78

Now, that's just cool.

OMG OMG OMG shut up.

I am personally of the opinion that Britney Spears can do whatever the hell she wants to with her hair.

Sinead O'Conner was wickedly hot and crazy as batshit, but brilliant in a way that Britney lacks. Still, so what if she shaved her head? All the power to her, I say.

survival of the species

This morning my son and I were watching some nature show and I was explaining to him the concept of "survival of the fittest". I started to think about how humans don't really have that same kind of problem, and how it's actually not to our benefit. So what does one do, as a human who is wired to be a humanitarian, to take care of its fellow humans, but who also sees the logic of the animal kingdom's way of working that out?

What about welfare, to which I have been privy to at bad points during my unexpected trip into single motherhood? What about food stamps, which I used during that period in which I moved four hundred miles from home and couldn't seem to pull myself out of the blackest depression I had known, without which I would have starved? Would I have survived without the help of a system that is built to help the people who drag humanity down? I have been that person. Would I have survived, or merely turned into the hyena, stealing and scraping by on others' bounty?

Survival of the fittest, for the human race, also includes survival of the smartest. In includes survival of the most creative, and even survival of those born into either wealth or poverty. It includes those born into birth defects, those born into chemical imbalances, those born into countries without adequate medical care, and even those born into countries with adequate medical care but still without insurance to cover that medical care.

How many humans would die off, hypothetically? Would it end world hunger, albeit gruesomely? Would it end the overwhelming need for fossil fuels and the ruination of the planets resources? Would we still fight for oil if our numbers were severely decreased?

To put it bluntly, are we too smart and too generous for our own good? There are no lions and tigers picking out our weakest, the ill, the unfit. We have doctors and humanitarian organizations to take care of us as a whole. Our illnesses get passed down from generation to generation because we are kept alive, regardless of mutated chromosomes or what have you.

What does this mean for the future of mankind, I wonder?

we are the walrus, coo coo ka choo

I noticed after writing about how pissed off I was at Jack the other day, I got a lot of comments and e-mails defending him and all of mankind. It irritated me at the time, but now it's just silly.

You see, it seemed to be mainly from men. I can only guess since they wanted to write anonymously (sigh), but most (I assume it's actually ALL) of what I received was pretty clearly from guys who felt like I was some crazy bitch in need of a reality check.

Personally, I'm a big fan of reality checks, and I appreciate them. And in this case, I'd like to return the favor. You see, I feel as if some people got the impression that this outpouring of unbridled anger was something common for me, or that perhaps I treat my husband as if he is my own personal bitch.

In reality, he has worked hard at getting me to actually stand up to him, because when we first got together I was altogether broken. If he raised his voice I would cower or just cry, never saying a word. It drove him absolutely batty. He would beseech me, "TALK! Stop staring at the wall with that blank look on your face! You have an opinion, SAY IT!" But years of abuse had taken their toll and I didn't dare reveal anything beneath the poker faced expression he grew to understand was actually my "I am so upset I am shutting down now. Please try again later," face.

We've been together for almost three years now, and it's taken most of that time for me to learn to say anything back to him when I'm upset. Because of that, my anger the other day was actually a very good sign, and not only that, it's nothing he isn't aware of. Like I said, he reads the blog when he feels like it. He mostly just checks in to see about the administration aspect of it, or to check out the comments other guys leave about how hot his wife is, and he'll laugh a throaty, "I'm the fucking man" laugh. (It took me awhile to realize that he LIKES it when I post hot pictures, because he likes knowing other men covet what he has. That was a revelation for me.)

But I digress. The fact is, Jack is no less a traumatized freakazoid than I am. I don't talk about his trauma and his past because it is not my story to tell. If he wished to tell it, he would. The fact is, he has managed to come through his own trials much better than I have, and although he would probably be the first to tell you that I've had a lot more of them, that doesn't negate that some of his have been rather awful. However, he seems to be rather balanced, whereas I am like a weeble wobble that is still trying to figure out where my center is.

Where we are the same is in the ways that our minds actually work. He's just as neurotic and obsessive compulsive as I am, just in different ways, and he's anxious but not to the extent I am. He has his own tweaks and quirks, I assure you. They are... not small. And as he frequently tells me, "I knew what I signed up for," meaning I've been nothing but straightforward with him about my loony tunes moments. If anything, I was MORE than honest, I actively tried to scare him away, I confess. I wasn't ready to try to be in another relationship, and pinning me down was no easy task.

For my birthday, I asked him to write something for me. That was what I wanted. I wanted his words. And I think they clearly define how it is that we work together:

"For Jill's birthday, she will be receiving several gifts. This is the first. I am not accustomed to writing for pleasure; you will please excuse my awkward hand.

Jill is a magical creature. This is said by every man of his love, but herein it is the most lucid of truths. She is kind, but devilish. She knows my mind and provides for my needs in a manner which is nearly telepathic. Her suggestions are of the clearest utility, never failing to appreciate fine social nuance.

At a company dinner, Jill is decorum itself. Under the cover of darkness, she is a begging, throbbing mess. Her transitional nature is ever graceful, as both aspects are her true self. Although she is sometimes deceived to the contrary, she is the most spiritually balanced woman I have ever known, due in large part to this wholeness of character.

When I found Jill, she was timid and uncertain. She had spent years ruling a house which she shared with her young son and a weak-minded alcoholic whom she loved with the shadow of her love for her alcoholic father. She ruled because she was forced to, but the arrangement had poisoned her. Jill's strength is born of subtle interactions. To make her hold a rod is to make the wind swing an axe. Free from that burden, she blossoms.

Jill, you are my dearest one. On this day, the day of your birth, know that I see you. I see you as you are, and as you are becoming. You are mine."

He understands me, and he's not in need of defense from ME, I assure you.



Really. It's a new thing.

In the past, we've even come up with safe words for me to use when he's just overwhelming me with his total manliness. Which he totally does. Still. Sometimes he just will not shut the hell up, either.

The man has trained me, TRAINED me to learn how to be more assertive, but that doesn't mean I'm good at it yet. Sometimes I downright suck ass at it, quite frankly, but I'm getting there. And that's what the other day was about. I had something I needed to express and get off my chest, he was being aggressively dominating, and it pissed me the fuck off. And so I blogged it.

He called me a little while later with the cutest freaking picture I've ever seen. It was a picture of his face, taken with his camera phone, looking very sad with his lip all pooched out and everything, and he apologized for the argument we got in earlier. When we spoke, I told him that I could not pretend to be happy. That reminds me of the bad old days before him, I explained, where I was with abusive assholes and had to put on the happy face for the sake of my child and anyone else who happened to be looking. I'm a terrible actress, I told him. Besides, what I was upset about that morning was a temporary thing. I just wanted to get it out before my son woke up, and just cry it out and be done with it, but he had to be a big butthead and try to tell me to stop crying and stop feeling the way I felt. So, I told him, "I blogged you. It's mean. I was really mad."

His response? "I'm sure I deserved every bit of it, baby. I'm sorry." I told him that other men were writing in to stand up for him and take me to task, and he kind of laughed but thought that was odd. And considering all the angles, it is odd.

Sometimes people argue. That doesn't mean they aren't two peas in the same crazy pod. And by lunchtime, it was already over.

Oh look, there he is, calling me now...and I'm off to post another hot nudey shot and then make my man his dinner.

You sillyheads.

it's those little things that mean so much

Or in this case, the lack of little things.

My breasts have been swollen and aching all week. That was just fine last week, when I was on my period. But this week is NOT my period, and my tits have no reason to be making such complaints, or to be looking so cute, either!

For those of you wondering why I seemed so utterly freaked out this past week, wonder no more: I was horrified that Yours Truly might have inadvertently gotten knocked up. I'm on the pill. I've been on it for years, but still...99% effective still means 1% ineffective, right? And I'm like clockwork, thanks to birth control pills, so this weird last period was utterly bizarre. My breasts ached for weeks, I had that freak migraine that started the day OF my period, not the week before like usual, my cramps were horrible, and then when my period was supposed to be over...it wasn't. And my tits still hurt. And were swollen. And....oh fuck.

I ran off to the store and finally took Ye Olde Piss Test, and was happy to discover ONE pink line and not TWO. But first I had to sit Jack down and prep him. You see, if it came out positive, I wanted to be sure we were on the same page. For me, it all boils down to something very simple: I'm on a pile of medications right now, for anxiety, for pain, for ADD. The first few weeks in the womb is when the brain stem forms, and my body is no place for anyone to be forming a brain stem right now, ok? I don't even want to be in here, it's painful, dammit. But I would not allow a child that I brought into this world to have a start like that, it goes against every fiber of my moral being to do that. They could end up with serious, and I mean SERIOUS birth defects. I wouldn't knowingly wish that on anyone.

Besides that, we're not hoping to conceive anyway. My other rule of thumb (besides being an incredibly healthy vessel, like I was for my son) is to consciously conceive. Although my son's father is possibly the asshat to end all asshats, the fact is that I had known I would get pregnant that night, and I had informed him, "Hey, if we have sex right now, I WILL get pregnant, do you understand? Do you WANT to have a baby?" He said yes, but later recanted that and told me he was just hoping that having a child would help him settle down and stop being such an asshat. I know, it's a brilliant reason to have a child, isn't it? Like I said, he's an asshat. But his stupidity aside, I knew what I was doing, I did it consciously, and I have stayed true to that decision ever since. I would much rather decide ahead of time and walk into parenthood knowingly than to look at Jack and say, "Whoops! Guess what? You're gonna be a daddy!" No thank you.

So now I'm on week three of Why Do My Boobies Hurt? and I even took the test again this morning, just to be damn sure. Same thing. Hmph. I talked to my shrink about it this morning. You see, we had done an EMDR session last week about my poor body image, in particular, my rather severe angst about having small breasts. I told her that I think her EMDR business is making my boobs grow, and she laughed. So did I. I wasn't entirely kidding, though. I mean, the mind has power over the body, right? So, why not?

I told her I also had some weird dream last night about getting a boob job, and that's a long story, but suffice to sum it up by saying I woke up from the pain of the surgery in my dream to realize that no, that's just my weird owwy tits. Go figure.

Hey, body? Just so we're clear...I'm like, totally cool with you deciding to grow breasts at the sweet tender age of thirty-two, ok? Just, uh...don't scare me like that. Not cool. Totally not cool.

one pissed off bitch

Damn it. I'm stressed out, pissed off and miserable, and every time I try to get some sense of support or understanding from my husband lately, instead I get a whole shitload of attitude and condemnation. This morning was just one long argument about how I'm constantly negative, my negativity is wearing him down, and how he basically wants me to shut the fuck up. I'm depressing, I'm morbid, I'm...hello? What the fuck is your problem?

Instead of being able to have a shoulder to cry on, I got anger, resentment, and judgment. It's as if I never smile, never crack a joke, never emotionally support my incredibly moody husband. It was as if he just magically forgot every moment in which anything nice has occurred, any time that I've been happy and silly and fun, and basically told me I'm a fucking chain around his neck that's weighing him down. He can't deal with my stress, he's got enough of his own. Which I find fascinating, since I deal with his all the damn time.

When he's stressed out and interrupts me while I'm reading, watching TV, whatever, I just drop what I'm doing and be there for him. Yah, even when I'm stressed out myself.

It's not like Jack doesn't usually be my rock, just all of sudden he's pissed off at me for being stressed out because by golly, HE'S stressed out. And suddenly I'm a black hole of misery and despair, just because I woke up and starting crying this morning. I was in a lot of pain, I hadn't slept for shit, and the situation with my son (who seems to have taken a flying leap of the cliff of puberty) just seems to be getting worse and worse. Jack doesn't have to deal with the constant meetings, letters, e-mails and phone calls from the teacher. He's not dealing with the nurse calling to tell him that the little guy is in the clinic with made up ailments and he doesn't have to drop everything and drive up to the school a few times a week just to try to straighten out the latest pile of bullshit. He's not meeting with the principal. He's not taking him to the doctors to try to figure out what the fuck is going on.

Yesterday I got in a very heated confrontation with the teacher after school, when my son once again forgot some homework, even after I went to pick him up at school, made him check to see he had everything, he had to run back to grab something, then we got home to discover he forgot something else and went back again. I was ready to explode, and that's when the teacher walked in to snap at me about how he couldn't take a book home. I told her, "I know" and she tried to snatch the fucking thing out of my hand, but I just slid it into his desk. I wanted to smash her in the fucking face with it for being such a continual cunt. That was when I discovered my son was lying AGAIN about the assignment and turned around to go back home AGAIN. It seems like, in a matter of weeks, my child has turned from a sweet loving little creature into a surly little asshole, and it's breaking my heart.

And Jack, why Jack simply cannot grasp WHY on EARTH I would feel like my world is coming to an end. He cannot tolerate my morbid outlook on the situation, the utter despair and hopelessness I feel about something that I'm constantly juggling around to try to keep from spinning completely out of control, while at the same time trying to shield HIS moody ass from the worst of it. Apparently, I need to adjust my fucking attitude.

It's not that I'm upset, he tells me, it's the expressions of hopelessness that piss him off. I don't know how he expected me to respond to that, or how he thought I SHOULD respond to that, but, "How the hell should I feel? He hasn't even really HIT puberty yet! Think of the next few years!!!" was not the correct answer.

I felt, in essence, that my usual darling husband was telling me to shut the fuck up and just pretend like everything is happy. I feel that way because that is the essence of what he asked me to do this morning. Ok. *twitch*

My son gets up, I act happy. He eats breakfast, I act happy. And Jack? Jack is all buzzing around me being sweet and syrupy and making these grand expressions of love and support. All I could think was, "Fucking PLEASE spare me this FAKE ASS SHIT!" I just wanted to smack him.

He wants me to PRETEND everything is ok, so he can pretend everything is ok, and that's going to make everything ok HOW exactly? Will that change a thing with my son's shitass behavior? Jack thinks so. Jack thinks if we just express our love for him then everything is going to turn out ok. To an extent, he's right. But that's not my point. My point was that when I was feeling down and out, he told me my crappy attitude was too much for him to bear and he wasn't having any of it. But if I act fake and happy, he's totally ok with that. Because at least I'm TRYING, he said.

Trying what, pray tell? Trying to pretend like I'm happy when I'm not? There's an aspiration. I did that for most of my life, thank you, and that didn't turn out so well, so forgive me if I don't buy the fucking Happy Ticket and jump on board the Pretend Train. The way I see it, there's a REAL problem and I have REAL feelings about them, and if they happen to be really morbid, then deal with it. If you want to help, then actually be useful and try to help me see a brighter future that I currently do not see, but do NOT just tell me I'm a giant pain in your butt and be an asshole to me.

I don't like people being aggressive assholes any more than he likes people being morbid and depressed.

When he's morbid and depressed I try to help him see answers he may not have thought of, and if there isn't one that suits him, well so be it. I tried. Jack, however, seems to see that my shooting down his ideas is an end all be all sign of total annihilation and that somehow makes him forget every moment I've ever been happy, so therefore I must be a horrible blob of angst that must be treated like crap, and that is the magical key to transformation.

You know what's really amazing? I pretended to be happy and guess what? I DON'T FEEL BETTER. No. I know. It's amazing. Instead I feel like my husband doesn't even understand me at all, doesn't have any memory of me ever being any other way. (His words this morning, and I quote, "I seem to remember a time, a long time ago, when you were happy." Um, like yesterday, you fucking asshat? Or is that too long ago for you to remember?)

Why am I pissed off? Other than feeling like I just got kicked when I'm already down? Oh, no wait. That's it. Because you kicked me while I was down.

What the fuck ever, you know it all arrogant asshole.

For anyone feeling like leaving me a comment about how I'm being a bitch, I'm aware, thanks. It's called venting. If you ALSO feel like kicking me while I'm already down, please let me know so I can grow a dick for you to suck. Is that clear enough? Good.

it's that time again...

Prepare for a schizophrenic combination of cuteness and bitterness. This is a holiday that brings out the loving jaded bitch in me. You just never know.

So far today my husband woke up to find a kiddie Valentine's Day card wedged in the keyboard. It's Superman, and it says, "Have No Fear, Valentine's Day Is Here!" on which I wrote, "OMG PUPPIES! I (heart) U!"

Jack is not a fan of Valentine's Day. Neither am I. I spent years with assholes that managed to annihilate it for me, but I've decided they shall not rule my future. So I'm bringing Valentine's Day back, super-dork-style.

When Jack left for work, he found a napkin sitting on his steering wheel. It simply said, "LISTEN- this is what you do to me." As soon as he turned on the car, I had a song queued up already on his stereo. It's Weird Al's song "You Make Me" off of the Even Worse album.

"You make me wanna slam my head against the wall
You make me do the limbo
You make me wanna buy a Slurpee at the mall
You make me watch the Gong Show
There's really something kinda strange about you, baby, but I can't exactly seem to put my finger on it

You make me
You make me
You make me
That's what you do to me

You make me wanna hide a weasel in my shorts
You make me wanna phone home
You make me wanna write a dozen book reports
Then pack myself in Styrofoam
Sometimes you make me want to build a model of the Eiffel Tower out of Belgian waffles

You make me
You make me
You make me
That's what you do to me

(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what, what you do to me

You make me wanna hang out in a trailer park
Then take my hamster to the beach
You make me wanna do my laundry in the dark
And use the recommended bleach
When I'm with you I don't know whether I should study neurosurgery or go to see the Care Bears movie

You make me
You make me
You make me
That's what you do to me

(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what, what you do to me

That's what you do to me
That's what you do to me
That's what you do to me
You make me wanna break the laws of time and space
You make me wanna eat pork
You make me wanna staple bagels to my face
Then remove 'em with a pitchfork
You know there's something quite unusual about you but I can't exactly seem to put my finger on it

You make me
You make me
You make me
That's what you do to me

(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what, what you do to me

(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what you do-do-do-do-do to me

(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what you do
(You make me) That's what you do to me"

What other bizarre antics await him? What bizarre antics await, you, the reader? You just never can tell. It's Valentine's Day. It's retarded. It's adorable. So am I. Deal with it.

nurse calm in the face of leaping organs

When I was younger I wanted kids. Tons of them. Maybe ten. I wanted to live on a big farm and we would all sit around the living room at night playing music and singing together while eating our homemade bread and jam.

It came as some surprise to me to realize that I am not cut out for multiple children and the patience required to manage them. Hell, some days I think I'm not even cut out to deal with ONE.

Last week I went on a field trip with my sons class. The whole experience was rather wretched, although the occasion itself was pleasant. By that I mean, the field trip itself would have been just peachy if only there weren't all those KIDS there. Really. It was really hard to watch my mouth and not tell kids on the bus to "sit your ass down, now!" or "shut the hell up, no one wants to hear your screaming, you freaking maniac!" These things, I'm fairly certain, would not have been smiled upon by the teachers. *cough*

Then today I got a call from the nurse at school. I don't know how she manages to do this, but she somehow emits a constant aura of peaceful concern. She looks harried sometimes, to be sure, but on the whole she just seems to float with the water and never really be bothered by anything. Today this magical woman managed to call me and very calmly, without a note of sarcastic disbelief, inform me that my son is in the clinic because, "his stomach feels like it's jumping."

"Jumping." I said this as a dull fact, not as a question, just a what-the-fuck-will-he-come-up-with-next-I-am-not-holding-my-breath-to-find-out fact. "His stomach feels like it is jumping." It took all my restraint to not say, "What the bloody hell does that MEAN? ARGH!?!?!" Instead I said, "Um. Ok. I...don't know what he means by that, do you?" She informed me that she did not, and asked if I would like to speak with him. I said that I did.

He got on the phone and sounded fine, other than his usual theatrical style of speaking when there is the slightest possibility that something might be wrong. I asked him if he had any other symptoms. I asked him if he felt like he's going to throw up. I asked him if it felt like a muscle spasm. Nope, nope, nope. Finally I told him, "Look, I don't know WHAT is wrong with you. I do not comprehend how your stomach could jump. Please put the nurse back on." She came back and I told her I hadn't the faintest idea what the deal was, and she said he didn't seem to be having any other symptoms nor did he seem ill in any way. I told her to send him back to class and that I would come up there for lunch, which was fifteen minutes away.

I did, and he and I talked. His stomach was still "jumping". I asked him if there was anything big going on at school, maybe a big test? He said yes, and his buddy at the table nodded gravely, then stretched his arms out to signify just how huge the test was. I nodded.

"I think you're just nervous from your test," I told him. "You know, that butterflies in the stomach thing? That's why they call it that. It feels like a bunch of little wings are fluttering around in your stomach. Does that sound about right?" My son looked at me with an expression of slow realization, somewhere between a dawning of understanding and an expression of "Holy shit, so THAT'S it!" I told him to just calm down, the test was over, and get on with his day. We ate lunch and he left to go back to class, cheerful once more.

The question that is still eating at me is: how does that nurse manage to call a parent and say, "Your son says it feels like his stomach is jumping" without any sarcasm or laughter, pity or even a sigh? What is that woman made of that I am obviously not?

I wonder.

a sci fi quandary

Ok, really, it's not hard to amuse me with two of my sci-fi favorites mashed together.

And to clarify, Picard: he should DEFINITELY be condemned, not left alone. He tends not to stay put. Trust me on this one. Let's just say I know the guy. He's a bad egg, that one.

learning the meaning of restraint...

(The link already appears to be obsolete, but maybe it will come around... I don't know.)

THIS is a brilliant example of why I am as adamant about my child's behavior. And for the record, my son tried shit like that when he was really little. I had no qualms about wrapping one leg around his legs, one arm around both his arms, and the other arm around his mouth. Oh, it pissed him off, you bet your sweet ass, but I wouldn't move until he stopped that shit, and he learned not to ever do it again. Other parents stared at me like I was crazy, but I would just look up and say, "Hey- it works." And it did. If he couldn't learn restraint, I would teach him the meaning of it.

Puberty: And A Good Time Was Not Had By All.

My son, being an only child, should clue you in to something very important about my parenting skills:

I've never done this before.

Therefore, when my son suddenly takes a flying leap off of the cliff of puberty, I'm left dumbfounded. I thought I still had a few years left. He's nine. He'll be ten soon. Sure, kids mature earlier these days. Ok, he got his first set of teeth at four months, not eight like they said. All right, he came out a ten pound behemoth and hasn't stopped growing yet. Yah, his baby teeth are all gone, and according to the dentist that looked at his X-rays last week, he has the teeth of a twelve year old. Maybe those brand new pants that I bought him two months ago are now floods and he hasn't even had a chance to wear a single stinkin' hole in them, but PUBERTY? Already?

It would be one thing if it were visible, but it's not. No, I've seen him naked, coming out of the shower recently, and there's nothing to tell me that he isn't still a kid, if you catch all the implied meanings there.

There's nothing to see. It's all attitude.

Him locking himself in the bathroom for long periods of time, locking himself in his room for long periods of time, and him spending hours pouring over the sex book I got him where a pretty good clue. A few times he came out of his room, cheeks red as could be, to inform me he was "studying" the book. When I got him a box of tissues (as a kind male reader suggested) and informed him in no uncertain terms what they were for, he insisted that he would, OF COURSE, also be using them to blow his nose. Of course. In a week, that box is gone. I can't get my child to blow his freaking nose without bodily dragging him to the bathroom to do it. Come on.

That sudden about face was hard enough. My husband and I spending hours every night talking about it, even arguing about the subtleties of parenting and our different approaches, that was hard. That was emotionally taxing, to say the least. And then I was dealing with the heartbreak of hearing the apron strings being broken with a resounding *TWANG* *TWANG* *TWANG* every moment I was awake. My little boy, my baby, was about to disappear, right before my eyes. The cuddles, the kisses, the little barnacle that I couldn't shake off of me was quickly becoming a boy locked in his room, doing...."stuff". I cried myself to sleep one night, with one thought running over and over in my mind, "I'm losing my baby..."

That was bad. What happened next was worse. And strangely, I'm not sure I can even describe how it started, or when.

We've noticed, in recent weeks or maybe even months, that the little guy has been getting more assertive. There's been some smart ass back talk, some scathing sarcasm, and even a few shouted retorts when being accused of something. I've caught him in some omitted lying, you know, just leaving out the parts that didn't suit him to tell. He's begun to give us nasty little looks that he claims he is completely unaware of, and gives us the waterworks when we come down on him for giving us the scowl of death that teenagers have nailed so perfectly.

But he's NINE. Nine. Nine!

And then it just blew up. I don't know exactly why, it seemed like everything just came together in one massive explosion, but it could be that the explosion was actually just ME. He came home from school the other day, and I caught him in one lie after another. It was absolutely infuriating, those big doe eyes looking up at me and me knowing damn well that he was just trying to manipulate me like I was some kind of dumb asshole that was just a minor inconvenience to him getting his way. And that was when I snapped.

There was an entire of afternoon spent discussing, yelling, and most of it was just me crying. It seemed like nothing I said to him was getting through, not at all. Even when I explained what was horrible to say but was nonetheless the truth, "You're acting just like your father."

Don't think me heartless, it's true. I explained it to him, "Your father doesn't tell the truth, he tells people whatever he thinks they want to hear so that he can get his way, and he does it because it's EASY. It's much harder to admit the truth, especially if there are consequences, and you seemed to have picked up this trait, no matter how hard I have tried to make sure you never did. Lying just to get out of a tight spot is always a bad plan, because it makes you weak. You never learn to stand up for your own actions, take responsibility, or even how to tell people no. You just slide through life, failing at everything because there are repercussions to lying. You have to keep DOING it so you don't get caught. Sooner or later you lose yourself in the lies, and you are nothing. No one. You're just a liar. Is that what you want to be?"

He gave me a rather convincing speech about how he was going to do better and he wants to be a good person, and I left it at that. Within two hours, he asked me if he could watch The Simpsons. I just looked at him. "Is your homework done?" I asked, knowing damn well it wasn't, because one of the things he had to do involved me quizzing him and I had to sign the piece of paper even, to prove that I did it and he didn't just cheat. He looked at me and smiled. "Yep! All done!"

Oh. My blood boiled.

I asked him about that particular assignment, and he made this transparent thoughtful expression, then said, "Oooooh, yah. I forgot about that one..." It was an obvious lie. I asked him about the rest of his homework. "What about your math? Is that done?" He looked at me and nodded with great certainty, which was also transparent. "Really?" I said. "Are you SURE about that?" He paused. "Well, I'm almost 99% certain..." he trailed off. I glared at him and told him, "Go do your math homework, do NOT come out of your room until it's done, and then we'll do the rest of it. GOODBYE."

He left the room and I burst into tears. What happened to that "I'll be a better person" speech? Oh...right. A lie. He's such a freaking liar he can't even be trusted to say he'll improve. It was like listening to an alcoholic say they'll quit drinking. Yah.

Almost an hour later, he emerged with the math homework. You know, the stuff he was 99% certain was already done.

Now, to be clear, he always does his homework at the kitchen table, and I sit right next him and help him out when he needs it. But that day, that day was just too much. I couldn't even look at him, afraid I might just smack the shit out of his little face for being such an ass.

The night wore on, getting worse and worse. I sobbed for hours, my husband vainly tried to console me. "You don't understand!" I cried, "He's turning into his father! And..and...I COULDN'T FIX HIM EITHER!" The thought of my baby turning into the bastard that his dad is was just breaking my heart. My baby living the miserable rotten life that his father does was too much to bear. My husband tried, "We have time..." to be rebutted by my hysterical, "NO WE DON'T! THERE IS NO TIME! HE HAS TO BE FIXED, NOW!!!" I told him that this lying and not caring are the acts of a nine year old sociopath. If I can't get through that shell and reach his heart, make him regain a sense of conscience, all is lost.

Dramatic? You might think so. I don't. That's how it happens. And I couldn't just go to bed knowing that my child might be a sociopath. I couldn't even eat. I was absolutely inconsolable.

Finally my husband and I both walked into his room together. My husband, in his big deep voice said, "YOU are a LIAR. SIT DOWN." My son sat, then proceeded to fiddle with the pillows on his bed, totally unconcerned. Jack asked him, "What are you thinking about?"

My son looked around, like it was just a pleasant conversation over tea and said, "Oh, I was just thinking about all the work I did at school today..."

WHAT?! I said, "Excuse me, you were just confronted with the fact that you are a liar, and that doesn't bother you? In fact, you care so little that you're just thinking about school work? That's a pile of fucking bullshit. STOP LYING!" He knows when Mom starts swearing and glaring, it's a very bad sign indeed. I do have a hell of a temper, but it also takes a hell of a lot to stir it up. He had managed to do so.

Jack said some things, I said some things, my son said some things that were utter bullshit. Finally I said, "Look. You care so much about animals that you won't eat them. You would cry if someone kicked a puppy. Yet you can lie and act horribly, knowing that your behavior is making your own mother miserable, and that's ok with you? You are breaking my heart, and that's ok? Am I less important than a fucking puppy? Do I mean nothing to you?"

He looked up, genuinely concerned. I went on.

"I've spent the last ten years of my life, MY life, taking care of you. It hasn't been easy, as a matter of fact it's been hard as hell. And I'm the only one who was willing to do it. Think about that. The last TEN YEARS of my life I could have been doing anything I wanted to, all kinds of fun stuff, but instead I have dedicated every minute of every day to making sure that YOU are taken care of, that YOU grow up to be happy. I could have just fucked off like your father did, but I chose to TAKE CARE OF YOU. And this is how you repay me? By becoming a lying little asshole of a person and breaking my heart? Is this what you want?"

Genuine tears were flowing out of him by then. At last. I hit the nerve. Whatever walls he had built up around him that made him be able to excuse his own crappy behavior were broken through. I was in.

He was devastated. "I...I don't want to hurt you....I love you...."

I responded, "Than ACT like it."

He made more promises, how he would do better, how he wanted to be a good person, really, and I told him that talk is cheap, I need to see action. I then got him a snack, let him eat it in his room and get ready for bed. We kissed him goodnight, and he was very clingy and emotional, the complete opposite of the uncaring little bastard who I had witnessed all afternoon.

The next day we gave him a cheering little speech about it being a new day, and new him, a new chance to prove he was going to be the person he really wanted to be. And all day I was a wreck, terrified that he would come home and have reverted to being a little bastard.

But that didn't happen. He came home and was actually cheerful. Happy. I asked him how his day was and he said, "It was great! I got all my work done and got to work on (some project) with the other kids..." and went off about his successful day. He then hung up his coat without me asking, got himself a snack, sat himself down and started in on his homework at the table.

Will it stick? I think so. I hope so...

*sigh*

overload

I'm about three threads away from snapping. I am stressed the fuck out, and I'm exhausted. My last week seems to have consisted of a wicked period, a migraine, my son suddenly hitting puberty with the force of a Mack truck, endless calls and conversations about his behavior with his teacher, him, my shrink, and hours of bickering and snapping about it with Jack each night. I'm not sleeping much, and last night I actually cried myself to sleep. For real. Not cried and then felt better and fell asleep, but cried until I fell asleep crying.

Everything feels like chaos, although that may be the lack of sleep, I don't know. Jack has been like this rampaging bull in the china shop of my precariously perched sense of patience, and it seems to be precipitated by my sons newfound testosterone showing it's monstrous head, and Jack and the little guy just seem to feed off of each other, both growing angrier. I try to step in. That pisses Jack off more. Then we talk about it, fight about it, for hours and hours and I'm so goddamn tired of it all...

I feel like Jack should be the adult and calm the fuck down, what the fucking hell? He feels like the little guy shouldn't start giving him attitude (oh, and he IS), and he's got to nip that in the bud, quick. I ask him, "Yah, but can't you do that without yelling and being all agro (aggressive) back at him? How is that setting an example?" Jack gets pissed off and defensive, and I don't blame him. I'm basically saying, "Hey, this kid is coming into manhood and he's not doing in gracefully, yah, but you need to act like the adult and not ANOTHER pissed off ape child." I haven't said those exact words, but he knows that's what I mean. It seems like I'm constantly cutting him down for his own shitty behavior, because frankly, I can't handle two goddamn apes in my house. I want to take both of them and just bash their fucking heads together. It's hard enough trying to figure out what's going on with my son and how to best deal with that, I don't need an even louder and six foot one version of that stomping around and yelling, too. Jesus.



Today I spent most of my day on the field trip with my son. His teacher called and asked if I could go. I thought she just needed another chaperone, but when I got there one of the other parents that we are friends with asked me what was wrong, that the teacher had mentioned to HER that my son was having problems. How fucking uncool is that? What the fuck? Keep it to your damn self, bitch! I'm ready to yank him out and home school him, since no one seems to be able to grasp the puzzle that he is. It's not like I blame her for THAT, it's public school and she's got twenty other kids to worry about, too.

Throw that on top of my visit to my psychiatrist, where we talked about medications and I had a meltdown right then and there. I started crying, telling her, "I came in here two years ago in the hopes that a REAL psychiatrist could help me. (I had only been seeing a family doctor before.) I really thought, after two years of being here and being in therapy, too, I would have gotten somewhere, but I'm still having anxiety attacks, and all I hear about is how doctors don't want me on sedatives, yet every other freaking medicine I've tried doesn't work! What's left? Do I have any other options? Have we run out of medicines yet? Really? Why aren't I better? Is everyone with an anxiety disorder like this? What the hell?" I just want to give up and get a goddamn lobotomy, maybe THAT would help. I've jumped through every fucking hoop they've brought up, and nothing. I mean, I can leave my house now, ok. But you take away the sedatives, and I'm fucked. All I can do is just blindly hope that there is some cure out there that I don't fucking know of, and apparently neither does anyone else. From what I've read, 90% of PTSD cases never recover. They just don't. That's why I tried EMDR, it was supposed to be some miracle cure that worked specifically on PTSD, and so far I feel just as shitty as ever, and this latest bout of crap is just sending me right the fuck over the edge.

And I have to wonder about my kid, too. His meds don't seem to be working. He's better, yah, but still a flake. His teacher is bitching, he didn't make honor roll, and now this whole hormone thing? I could pull my fucking hair out. Are his meds even working? Or not? Are we supposed to play guinea pig with medicine on him, too? Are he and I just fucking mutants, unfixable mutants? What the fucking fuck?!

(long weepy pause) And there's so much more going on...just bullshit. Lots of fucking bullshit. I don't have time for any more bullshit, thank you.

"If it keeps on raining, levees going to break,
If it keeps on raining, levees going to break,
When the levee breaks I'll have no place to stay.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Lord, mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well...

Don't it make you feel bad
When you're trying to find your way home,
You dont know which way to go?"

.............................

"Crying wont help you, praying won't do you no good,
Now, crying wont help you, praying won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
All last night I sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin 'bout my baby and my happy home."...

~Led Zeppelin, When The Levee Breaks

whatevah!

I went to go get my hair cut this morning. The lady wasn't there. Specifically, the lights were on in the salon, but the door was locked. I peeked through the blinds and could see that no one was there, no one at all. I called the number on her business card and it went straight into a voice mail that told me she was "either with a customer or out on the floor". I don't know what the crap that means, but I don't care. I made an appointment. So I left her a message saying that I had an appointment, I was standing outside the locked door to her office, and asked her to call me back. I waited for a few minutes, then left. An hour later, I called again. Same thing: voice mail. Which is too bad for her, because I got the card from someone else, this was going to be the first time I ever saw her, but instead it will be the only time I ever got near her salon instead. I've got better things to do than get blown off by people.



Whateveh! Whatever! Screw you lady, I went home.

THAT time again

I thought I was going to get off easy this month and not have the usual PMS freaky shit, but no.

Thursday night I waited until after our two favorite shows of the evening (Smallville and Supernatural: sci-fi geeks can I get a witness?) and then decided I simply had to talk to Jack about the growing piles of shit in my head before our joint talk with my shrink the next day. There's been so much going on, so much I haven't even been able to keep up with blogging about it, for fucks sake. I mean, hells bells. That's a lot of crap. But I promised Jack that I would do my very best to keep my emotional chaos and stress levels down to a bare minimum for the time when he gets home from work. He works all day then comes home to me having a meltdown. It happens A LOT. I won't lie. I'm high maintenance, at least emotionally. A gold digger I am not, but a willing ear is far more valuable to me.

My rambling point is that it's been hard on him, so we talked about it and came to the compromise that I would do what I could to be calm and cheerful when he came in the door, to the best of my abilities, just to let him decompress from a hard day. My computer geek is the manager of IT and software development where he works (I hope that was an accurate description, I don't really understand all the computer stuff) and that's a whole hell of a lot of shit to process, literally, before he comes home to me tweaking out about this that and the other. Shoo.

So I've been trying out different emotional management techniques, changing dinner time, even going so far as to buy an actual microwave. Don't laugh, I know it's ridiculous to most people, but I'm a fabulous cook and make most things by scratch. Well, I used to. Then when physical therapy started to exhaust me, I had to resort to easier things to cook. Then the bright idea of "microwave" occurred to me and lo and behold, my life is so much easier. We've even (cringe) switched to using paper plates and cups, just to cut down on the amount of dishes. I've been trying anything to figure out how to lower my OWN stress levels while I recuperate from physical therapy, and thus my own stress levels lowering help my husband lower his own. It's not easy to come home to a woman dealing with emotional trauma, extreme physical pain, and total exhaustion. By the time he gets here I've already used up what energy I had on getting my son to finish his homework and cleaning up the house, running the endless errands, etc. I have nothing left to give him, just need. And he is also burnt out by the end of the day. Hence the reworking of how things are done around the house.

The problem is, I'm still getting the hang of it and I didn't realize till Thursday night that I've been bottling all kinds of shit up in the process of "being calm" when he gets home. I have things I desperately want to talk about, but try to give him time to relax before I bring them up. What's ended up happening is that he is relaxed right about the same time that I'm ready to pass the fuck out, and I don't want to talk about any heavy shit right before bed. Hell no.

Knowing that we were going to be at the shrinks together on Friday, I felt I had to get some things out first. I like to boil the issues down to the essence before going in, instead of wasting our 45 minutes just trying to figure out what the problem actually IS. And so, I started to talk.

*smashes head on desk*

And I talked, and he talked, and it got more and more heated, and we ended up talking and arguing about stupid circular conversations for hours. I spent a large chunk of that crying. I was exhausted, but things were NOT settled and I couldn't just fall asleep (short of drugging myself with sedatives, which I'm not ok with, I'd rather actually communicate.) We finally went to bed at 1:30 A.M.

I should note here that my period started that same day...

I woke up at about 4 A.M. feeling like I was going to puke. I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. Within the hour, a full blown migraine had fried all the circuits of my brain and I woke Jack up by moaning and sobbing, trying to shove my hand into the front of my head.

I can't remember a migraine ever coming on so fast and furious, but that may have been because I was asleep through the beginning stages.

I had noticed some things that point towards it in the days before. I have trouble typing (I am still) because I write the wrong words, I write dyslexic, or I just can't think of a word or follow my own train of thought. I end up spending more time hitting the backspace key than any others. It's extremely frustrating and I end up writing something that I'm not happy with. It rambles (like this), and at the end I'm not even sure if I've made any sense. I leave tangents unfinished, hanging in mid air. It's just sloppy, and as a writer, it annoys me. So I don't write much at those times, but that sucks because it's when I need to write the most. I need to think things through, and I can't. It's incredibly frustrating.

Hence our argument Thursday night.

So I got up Friday morning with four hours of sleep, and tried to get out of bed. My head hurt so goddamn bad that I kept making a groaning-sobbing-strangled noise, because the pain was immense, but making any noise just made it worse. I got to the bathroom by jamming my fingers into my head and eyes, walking into walls and managed to pee. Jack got up and said, "Baby? Are you ok?" I tried to answer him but could barely talk. And I was confused, because we went to bed with the conversation somewhat calmed down, but hardly settled. I thought we were supposed to be pissed off at each other still, and so in my haze I couldn't understand why he was being so nice to me.

He helped me to the living room, where I sat down on the couch and continued stabbing my fingers into my head, trying to find some relief. Jack went to get me Motrin, although I'm not allowed to take it (ulcer), but it's the only thing that ever helps my migraines once they get to that point. And no, I've never tried REAL migraine meds. I'm talking to a doc later this month about that. He brought me crackers and water, the only thing I can usually get down in that state. As it was, I could only drink the water. Very dangerous- for me to take ibuprofen on an empty stomach is the equivalent of you eating thumbtacks, ok? Motrin eating a bloody hole in my stomach lining was the last thing I needed at that point, but too bad, so sad, there was nothing I could do.

Jack went and got our pillows, laid mine on the couch and his on the floor, where he laid down in the dark and reached his hand up to gently pet me. That was so sweet I could have cried except crying made my head explode like shrapnel. He asked if there was anything else he could do to help, and I managed to convey that my neck hurt, BAD. He sat up and started to rub my neck, but right away found a few points that felt like marbles under my skin. That was muscle. He dug his fingers in and I had to silently howl while trying to breath, because straining at all made my head worse.

He did that for an hour. It made my head feel MUCH better, although I'm sure the Motrin helped, but I didn't realize how hard he'd had to push to get those spots to let go until later. Even now the muscles leading from the base of my skull to my shoulders feel hideously bruised. I can barely touch them without flinching.

At some point I fell back asleep. Jack got the little monkey up, fed him breakfast, drove him to school, and did everything I usually do. I don't know what would have happened if Jack didn't have the day off. I really don't. After a while, I woke up, and tried to get up to pee. I got off the couch and made it three steps before collapsing onto the floor. Jack said, "Baby? Do you need me to help you?" I did, but for some reason I didn't want to admit it. I was, in all actuality, afraid I was going to puke on him. I made it to the bathroom, collapsed in front of the toilet, propped my head up so I could vomit and waited, panting and sweating. Nothing happened, and eventually I manged to get up, pee, and stumble into the bedroom and fall into bed.

A little while passed, then Jack came in to ask me if we were going to the shrinks or not. Our appointment was 30 minutes away...fuck. I told him yes, even though I did NOT want to go, because I thought it might be helpful for her to witness the PMS hell face to face. Me talking about it is one thing, her seeing me stumble down the hall and sob is another. So we went.

Strangely, I felt better as soon as we left the house. Something about the constant sensory input of a public environment kept knocking my hysterical train of thought off of it's tracks.

There's more, but I really am unable to type much more right now. Uh...we went to the shrinks, had a good talk, and I've been in some weird middle ground ever since. I'm not in agony, but I'm not ok, either. I'm all wonky. That's the best description I can give right now.

So...more soon. But for right now, I'm not quite fully present. Damn hormones.

Sith Bearing Dessert

Last night I came in from the grocery store and my son and husband both made strange comments at me. My son told me I looked really cool, my husband said I looked hot, like some kind of bad ass dark Jedi.

I was in a foul and shitty mood, no fault of theirs, so I just laughed to myself. The image, to me, was hilarious. With my black pants, black motorcycle boots, blood red shirt and scarf, and black cashmere coat with the super big hood pulled up, I suppose I did look pretty fierce, but I think the armfuls of grocery bags should have offset that easily enough.

I thought to myself, "It is no use, my son. You cannot resist the power of the strawberry shortcake I am about to prepare."

And I was right.