As a 20-year old Criminal Justice major at Illinois State University I needed a job.

I’d previously been a grocery store check-out clerk, made pizzas at Monical’s, built sandwiches at Subconscious Submarine Shoppe, sorted through filthy return bottles for homeless guys at a 7-11 and volunteered at Skipworth Juvenile Detention Center in Eugene, Oregon, where I got scabies and did strip searches and learned to say, “Bend over.”

This was the sparkling resume’ that scored me a Juvenile Advocate position with the McLean County Probation Department.  It’s like a Big Brother/Big Sister progam but with the oversight of a probation officer and the court.  A judge orders the number of hours spent together per week.  The pay was maybe $10/hour, great for 1980.

It was not the only time a dipsh*t would be placed in a position of authority for which they were completely undeserving.

Jamie Snow was 15.  I was told before hand that he’d already been given two prior advocates, one male and one female.  They’d shown up at his door and he’d convinced them somehow that it wasn’t going to happen.

I appeared at Jamie’s trailer, met his father and off we went.  He tells me now that he opened up to the possibility that maybe this could work when I said, “Look, we’re just supposed to hang out together and I get paid.  I’ll even give you half the money.”  I don’t remember details but it sounds like something I’d have done.

Long story short, Jamie and I spent 15 or more hours per week together for over a year before  I moved to California and lost touch.

But during that year we had some crazy times together, a lot of fun, and he tells me now that I may have been the best friend he ever had.  It’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

We went to concerts.  I did his homework occasionally.  He was with me when I opened my car door into traffic and had it ripped off by a passing vehicle.  I let him drive my brand new red car with a clutch after he swore he knew how to drive a stick shift (he did not).  He laughs like mad when he tells me about the look on my face when he began to grind the gears repetitively to excess.

I also worked in a runaway home at that time and Jamie was placed there occasionally due to problems at home.  One night I was working the midnight shift and had fallen asleep watching TV when a man entered the dark room and began attacking me, trying to put his hands inside my clothes while on top of me.  When I began screaming the huge, drunk man ran.  While I was calling 9-1-1, Jamie was the one who caught him trying to sneak back in a bathroom window and chased him away with a baseball bat.

Jamie was not someone who opened up easily or complained about his home life and I still don’t know many details.  Most of what we did together was laugh.  Sometimes you just click with someone and it’s so easy.  I wish now that I’d perhaps taken the job a little more seriously, although Jamie claims it would not have worked that way.

Fast forward 30 years and I looked for Jamie on Facebook but instead found a news article in the Bloomington Pantagraph.  He has been in Stateville Prison in Joliet, Illinois for 15 years on a sentence of life without parole.  He was found guilty of the gas station robbery and murder of an 18-year old named Bill Little for a net profit of $30.

I immediately wrote him a letter.  In the first return correspondence he told me he was innocent.  To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really care one way or the other.

My naivete died a slow death during my time as a counselor in a federal halfway house, during my stint as a probation officer.  My allegiance to dysfunction and excuses had lessened after marrying a Chief of Police and wondering if he’d be shot in the back of the head while eating lunch one day like an officer in a nearby town.

I just wanted Jamie to know I still cared about him.  In our correspondence I became aware that this kid I adored had sometimes gone years without a phone call or a visit.

Ironically, we met in the exact same visiting room he’d gone to see his dad in as a little boy.  Dad did time for burglary, the same thing Jamie was in trouble for as a teenager.

Please note: the personality of a burglar is the opposite of someone who commits an armed robbery and murder during daylight on a major busy roadway.

It took me less than an hour to realize Jamie was telling the truth in his letters.  He was home with his family that Easter during the murder of Billy Little.  Anyone who takes the time to objectively look at the details of the case comes to the same conclusion.

He’d gotten his act together after having five kids and moved to Florida, had his own business as a tree surgeon.  Nearly ten years after the murder from more than a thousand miles away, Jamie was charged with a crime he didn’t commit.  It didn’t matter that he’d passed a polygraph exam.

The awful details can be found at www.FreeJamieSnow.com

It’s a classic nightmare.  Jamie’s record made him an easy target.

He was provided with a public defender who’d just had a stroke.  They then brought in an assistant who has since been disbarred and imprisoned himself.  During that attorney’s trial he admitted to drinking more than 12 hours a day and having a mental illness.

In Jamie’s most recent appeal he was again denied an Evidentiary Hearing even as one of the 3-man panel, Judge Knecht, questioned the prosecutor as to how this could have resulted in a proper defense.

Even the officer at the scene of the original crime, Jeff Pelo, is currently in prison.  More than a dozen witnesses at the original trial, many with criminal convictions of their own, have recanted their original testimony in sworn affidavits.

There is no physical evidence, only eyewitness testimony from a man who chose someone other than Jamie in a physical line-up the week after the crime, even with Jamie standing right there.  He did not name Jamie as the perpetrator until 8 years after the fact, 8 years in which he heard Jamie’s name repeated in the media and by investigators determined to clear this case.  These same investigators gave that witness’s name and number to the victim’s mother.  Even he asked them during an interview, “Why would you do that?”

This witness also did not pick Jamie’s face out of a photo book in the week after the case, but nearly 10 years later testified “I could never forget those eyes.”  This faulty testimony has put Jamie Snow behind bars with a sentence of life without parole.  It is nearly impossible to prove yourself innocent from behind bars.

My friend Jamie is so incredibly smart and funny and loving.  He once wrestled an alligator but he’s never shot anyone.  The funny smartass I knew at 15 has grown into a better man than most I meet on the street and he’s done it all on his own.

Jamie’s case is represented by the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project.  His attorney says she’s in this until he’s released.

After 15 years hope is difficult to maintain when dealing with a justice system that is so incredibly unjust.

My mother and sister live in Kentucky and were just six hours away, so I went for just a day.  Miraculously, my mother never fails to outdo herself.

After spending time with the children I sat at the dining room table with her.  Her failings aside, there is never a time I don’t feel guilty for being a relatively horrible daughter.

For instance, she filled my trunk up with Christmas gifts.  I did not give her one.  I felt better after opening a few boxes, specifically one with a t-shirt that displayed a very large pink pig and the words “Road Hog.”  You may ask, “WTF?”  And I will tell you I have no idea.

So I asked her on Facebook, “Mom, what’s the deal with the t-shirt?”

Her reply: “Oh, I was going to give that to your nephew, but I thought you’d be the one who’d have the nerve to wear it!”

I did not follow up and ask, “Why would I want to?”

Second box: Gigantic automatic air freshener with 3 refills.

While I was at Mom’s house I observed my sister nearly get shot in the eye with a ridiculously powerful burst of spray from a similar model.  Since my mother has five dogs she has MORE THAN A DOZEN of these things on at all times in her home.  They make me gag in combination with the nasty ass smell she’s attempting to disguise.

Are we sensing a theme here?  (1) Pig shirt, (2) air fresheners.

My daughter got a donut maker and a separate cupcake maker.  My mother, always one to promote obesity and overeating.

Rachel’s comment was, “Wow!  Grandma plays favorites!  I love her!”  She also got a Kindle Fire.

I then proceeded to open two hardcover books I did not care to read, but it was nice of her to send them (?)

My husband got a $100 gift card to Home Depot.  Nice!

I got a Christmas ornament made out of some kind of recycled metal and

a set of sheets intended for people who sweat a lot.

Now that I’ve thought about it I no longer feel guilty whatsoever.

* * * * *

Anyway, back to the subject at hand . . .

We were sitting at the dining room table and I asked my mother if she’d ever had the rather dark mole on her face looked at by a dermatologist.  She said, “I’ve been planning on going because I have this other thing” . . .

As she continues speaking she lifts her shirt and then her bra along with her right breast.

She shows me the skin underneath, not at my request.

I am face to face with something the size of a small pancake, grayish and mottled in color.  It appears to be molding around the edges, cracked and bloody in places.

She continues: “I have this other thing here that needs to be looked at, I’ve been treating it with

WART REMOVER.”

And then she kind of crinkles up her nose and says:

“It smells bad.”

I gag on the words, “Oh my God, Mom!  What is it?”

In a downplayed tone of voice: “Oh, I don’t know.  I had it once before and they cut it off.”

I ask in amazement and disgust, “You didn’t ask what it was?!”

My sister thinks it’s from all that sweating under those large boobs with no air flow.  Moist and murky.

* * * * *

I hate being such a big complaining pussy, but are you fucking kidding me?

Tell me about forgiveness and God and your belief in honoring thy parents when your mother has a mushroom under her right tit.

It was f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g.

My daughter has seemed distant lately and perhaps that is why I maniacally ran across the hallway and jumped in bed with her.  She has a perfectly purple room, a fantastically soft mattress, and

had no qualms about sleeping in my bed for something like 9 years.

At various times she peed on me and my brand new pillow-top mattress, barfed all over, and insisted on putting me in the middle with absolutely no concern for my cloying claustrophobia.

But she’s 14 and I now realize it was hallucinatory and irrational to think she’d treat me similarly & be happy to see me.  Instead she began screaming

“GET OUT!  GET OUT!”

You’d think that I, a woman who could not bear her own mother even before the onset of puberty, would understand the complexities involved.

But somewhere in my pea brain I thought it would be different if I (1) bent over backwards and stuck my head up my ass and (2) didn’t kill her when she said “Santa might get you great presents too if you were nicer to him like I am” and (3) tried to be the opposite of my own mother whenever humanly possible.

At first I thought she must be joking.  It was asking for trouble when I told her it was perfectly normal for children to sleep with their mothers.

I most assuredly never should have brought up my son and said I was sad he no longer holds my hand when we travel in the car together, never lays his little head on my right thigh as we drive along.

I was laughing but it only gave her more ammunition.

“He’s 26, Mom!  If my boyfriend held his mother’s hand I’d break up with him!” 

As for cuddling, “It’s not normal! 

It’s weird!  Only kids with cancer cuddle with their mothers!”

And this is how she wins every single time, she makes me laugh.  I had to admit she had a point as I imagined my own mother climbing into my bed and immediately wanted to remove the image from my brain with a pitchfork.

Truly, even the word “cuddle” makes me nauseous.

Clearly, I’m conflicted.

* * * * *

The same thing happened with my son at Christmas, individuation slapping me in the face.  I told him I thought we should talk more often since it’s maybe only once a month.

He agreed, but then got confused and said “Well, I don’t think EVERY DAY!  Ha ha ha!!!  None of my friends talk to their parents DAILY.  I think maybe GIRLS do that!” 

We were in the car and his body language told me if we’d been on solid ground he’d probably have started to run in mad man fashion, just to shake off even the idea.

* * * * *

But seriously, this parenting thing is such bullshit!  It’s all about abandonment and desertion, it’s heart crushing nonsense.  Why would anyone choose to do this to themselves, even look forward to it?

I thought I was so superior to the moms who used daycare even on their days off.

It seemed like devoting my life to the little fuckers was so incredibly unselfish and madonna-like.

* * * * *

There is no Dr. Spock of adult parenting.

In reality, my children are relatively lovely people.  I was using them to hide from the world, living through them so I didn’t have to make a life for myself and risk failure.  This is why I’m so discombobulated.

When they behave normally it makes me realize the full extent of my brain damage.

I’m pretty certain this has something to do with the fact that I always thought if I lost my mother in a clothing store she wouldn’t bother to look for me.  I was forced to individuate before I was ready.  So I had this idea that if I just loved them my children would want to be with me always, making monkey bread and hanging out in my kangaroo pouch.

My ideal family, the one I thought I wanted, is really a co-dependent cluster f*ck.

Every once in a while I will wake up and schedule myself and/or my daughter for 12 classes and 7 appointments that reach far into the future.  But most days I do nothing.

So last week I purchased 30 days worth of Isagenix to try and get my eating on track.  I had the option of ordering 11 days worth, but went all the way.  What could I have been thinking?

The lovely & extremely thin woman who is my “counselor” has provided me with all kinds of directions.  Oh my do I dislike being directed.  Tell me I have to eat a certain thing and not to eat other certain things and you will find me at 7-11.

Although I’m mostly harming myself this way, I slip into child mode and hide the fact that I’m cheating.  I find great joy in “getting over” on . . . who?  Me, myself and I.

Nothing really brings me more joy than lying to my husband.  He apologized last night for making chicken & mashed potatoes because he assumed I could not eat the meal.

Oh.my.God did that ever tickle me.  I’d just had a Slurpee, an ice cream bar and a package of donuts.  I thanked him for the chicken as I surreptitiously slipped mashed potatoes and gravy into the bowl.

Today I am following the fasting procedures, now that I’ve made it clear I have choices and options and “You’re not my mother!  You can’t tell me what to do!”

I just read a great book entitled: “You are Not so Smart.”

Clearly, this is true.

Lately I’ve been letting the phone ring without answering.

Her last voicemail: “WHATAYA DOIN?  GIVEN YUR HUZBAN A BLOWJOB?” followed by raucous throaty laughter.

* * * * *

She had a visitor recently and although the woman seemed absolutely lovely there was just . . . something . . . that didn’t sit right.  So Patricia, with her usual down played intelligence and beyond the norm street smartz, tricked the woman into giving her a last name after the chick called a second and third time asking for help finding employment.

It’s not like Patty has a manufacturing business or owns fruit fields.  She’s unemployed herself, after collapsing a lung pushing a garbage cart through a home for the aged.  Yes, this 98-pounder man-handled an enormous plastic bin to the point where she punctured her own right lung.  The girl has a heart the size of the moon.

Anyway, since this unknown prior woman came to visit with her boyfriend’s pal, a dude who’d just recently been released from government custody, Patty searched her on the state website.  Lo and behold, she was in prison for the attempted murder of her husband, an ex-police officer.  How did she do it?  Poison.

She received a miniscule 5 years for putting anti-freeze in his drinks and cyanide in his food “on a number of occasions.”  She supposedly considered suicide but decided punishing her husband was a better idea.  You know someone is pissed when their preferred method of your demise is watching you writhe on the floor for 30 minutes before your eyes go dark.

My favorite part is the neighbor: “She was a little ditsy but didn’t seem like the type . . . always smiling.”

No shit!  The smile should have been the tip off.  I only trust someone who’s exhibiting annoyance with the world.

Patty got the woman back on the phone and said she’d come close to finding her a job when she called the mayor, but the mayor wanted to know “ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?  SHE JUST GOT OUT OF PRISON FOR ATTEMPTED MANSLAUGHTER.”

I almost forgot the best part, when she told the woman: “Do me a favor, don’t be fixing me any drinks!”

* * * * *

I kept listening.

She mentioned a woman I met once before, Debbie.

‘That bitch is fucking everybody!  She’s almost 50 years old and still posting Facebook self portraits taken in the bathroom.  Jesus Christ, pay attention.

At least keep the toilet out of the shot!” 

“Can you believe it, she went to Atlantic City and picked up some guy down there, slept with him.  The next morning he gives her money for a cab ride home!”

I told her, “You got fucked twice!”

* * * * *

But what’s really got her going is a certified letter that insists she show up in court or a warrant for her arrest will be filed.  Why?  Because she called 9-1-1 five years ago when she heard a commotion across the street behind her house.  Someone was in the process of being robbed and having his throat slit.

She recalls testifying: “You gotta look at the judge when you curse.”

The attorney asked her what she heard: “Gimme your money you fucking spic.”  Uproarious laughter follows.  Testimony lasted two days.  Worst of all, she couldn’t smoke during the breaks.

“They took me in this little room.  The officer said, “You can’t smoke in here.”  I was like WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Now the accused, a scary looking man with an enormous rap sheet, dread locks and a neck tattoo, is asking for a new trial and she has to testify AGAIN.  She says, “No fucking way will I ever call again unless it’s a loved one.  I don’t give a shit what happens!”

Then she ends the call like she always does, ever since she lost her son:

“Call me!  Let’s do lunch.  I love ya!”

* * * * *

There are people in this world you will spend oodles of time with and yet they add nothing to your life.  But there may be one who catches your attention returning to school with kindergarteners from the circus when she says:

“This was a great trip for these lil’ motherfuckers, wasn’t it?”

Do not pass go.  Do not look straight ahead and pretend you didn’t hear her.

Immediately strike up a conversation and say: “Did I really hear you say you have five kids?”

You will never regret it.

Ofukme.

I wish it was just the gym.

I hate the sound of my own thoughts. 

R.E.P.E.T.I.T.I.V.E.

I’m actually shocked that other people can’t read them, that they can misread me.

Especially people who are constantly with me cause it seems like I’m screaming.

It’s so much worse now that my husband is retired.

Now he’s just here, staring off into . . . something.  I’m not sure what.

When we go places he sits in the back of the car like we picked him up at a retirement home and are taking him out for an early bird special.

I don’t know where he carries his disengagable testicles.

I’m a limousine driver with a 14-year old sidekick and her father.

It’s just weird.

What kind of man gives up all control & sits in the back seat by choice?

Worse yet, what kind of woman is married to him?

This was never what I wanted.

My mom married men who were powerless against her anger, who jumped to make her happy.

I swore I would never be with one of their ilk yet here I find myself.

Life is so fucking cyclical.

We’re all stuck on a demonic merry-go-round and I want off.

So what can I change?

1. The lies are killing me.  I need to get real.  No matter what.

2. I need to move physically.  I’m a fucking potato.

3. I need to eat like a non-suicidal person with a functioning brain.

4. I need to make a schedule and follow it and stop being a loser.

5. I need to take responsibility, blame me and only me.

6. I need to stop being 16 and do things that aren’t fun.

7. I need to stop being an asshole.

8. I need to pack my shit up and move.

9. I need money and a job.

I have lots of ideas: memoirs, non-fiction books, internet marketing, websites, e-books.

I look at job sites.

I rotate it all in my head, never getting anywhere.

I get overwhelmed and do nothing.

I bake monkey bread and fall asleep.

For example, one of the very few things I love to do is care for babies before they can walk, talk or think for themselves.  I have this skewed image of myself as Aunt Jemima, a loving, caring baby mama.  Reality: I am happy to hold the baby, caress it, love it, speak sweetly to it, as long as it gazes into my eyes like a retarded deer.

The moment said infant does not appear to like me I go on the defensive.  I begin to notice negative qualities previously ignored, cradle cap and ear wax.  If the child continues to reject my love & affection I eventually forget I ever had a positive thought about that unappreciative, ugly baby.

When looking for positions caring for infants there are usually other complications, like older children.  Can I care for older children?  Yes.  But quite often parents who pay upwards of $15/hour for childcare want things like “occasional preparation of meals, bathing and help with homework.”  Those words freak me out as if I was being asked to install power in a nuclear plant.

Feeding people makes my head spin like a barn in a twister.  ”Good” parents think their children should be fed well, like on plates, at a table with healthy food.  I can’t even come close to pulling that off all at once.  No doubt one of the little tykes would dislike cheese or tomato sauce or meat.  I would be expected to express love and understanding and I can’t do that.  I have friends with picky kids and I’m tempted to throw them in my dryer and see if a few spins would teach them the beauty of sandwich crust.

Yes, I could make microwaveable macaroni & cheese, although sometimes measuring the water and perfecting the time is a problem.  Real meals stress me out.  And 3 times a day?!  I just don’t want to do it.  The expectations are too high.  The mess is too big.  The children are too needy.

Baths are like dusting, they’re only going to be dirty again tomorrow.  The kids cry when you poke them in the eye with the shampoo bottle or empty it over their heads while they’re screaming.  I get anxious and tired and want to drown myself in the sink.

The last time I gave my great nieces and nephews a bath they acted as if I was putting them in a pot to boil.  They kept crying “Waa, waa, waa.”  Self fulfilling prophecy. I used a wash cloth a little too roughly and before you knew it one of them was bleeding.  Seriously, are you fucking kidding me, kids are not supposed to bleed that easily.  Mine never did and that’s no doubt a good thing.

Cleaning someone else’s house while watching their children?  Oh my, I never did that in my own home.  You need to take a breather while they’re napping, even if it’s for five hours.  They might not sleep again for ages.  Also, I saw a story once about a kid drowning in a mop bucket and have PTSD.

I become completely depressed visualizing the drama of a child with reflux and what would no doubt happen when I forgot the rule about never laying the child flat on his or her back.  Calling for an ambulance, doing CPR, those are the kinds of things that call for an emergency trip to Dairy Queen on the way to the hospital.

* * * * *

Eventually I’m forced to say “fuck it” and move on to the legal area. I’ve been a secretary and word processor for attorneys in the past.  Except I always found placement in places where expectations were relatively low, which made me look unrealistically good.  Those kinds of positions don’t just come your way out of the blue.  You need either a spectacularly lazy lawyer who doesn’t really care what’s going on in the office or one with low self-esteem who takes on the boring tasks himself.

I imagine my employers asking me questions like, “Seriously, you were a legal secretary for how many years?  In what country?”  I imagine people pointing and laughing at my inability to make charts.  It’s not that I couldn’t eventually learn how, I just don’t want to make charts.  A little bitch inside my head thinks charts are for serfs.

If anything mentioned in the advertisement leads me to believe I’ll have to do menial labor, like make copies, that’s kind of a deal breaker.  I had one job where I had to make thousands of copies and got horrible paper cuts.  So now I go to the extreme and imagine that all jobs involving a copy maching will leave me standing in front of it for hours per day.

It’s just another ridiculous reason to skip to the next ad.

* * * * *

Sometimes I peruse the counselor listings.  I have no training as a counselor but I’ve always thought I would make a good one.  Except for the fact that I hate it when people complain repetitively and to a great extent crying freaks me out.

After an hour or so I’m down to dribs and drabs.

I begin looking at driver positions and things in the human services field.

But taxi drivers deal with vomit and in my OCD brain all strangers have bedbugs.

I would sell my plasma but am diabetic.

Employment is complicated.

There are embarrassing things and then there are tragedies.  I don’t even know what to call the incident that happened yesterday, but I can’t let it go by without telling you about it, although you may never read me again afterwards.  But that’s okay.

Only once in my life have I had a similar experience, and that was during childbirth.  I don’t think you can compare the two, really.  I mean, if you bear down and push hard enough while having a baby, lots of women poop on the table.  It just happens.  No one talks about it much.  Needless to say, if you’ve never gone through the experience, do not eat huge meals before labor.  Your medical staff will be so incredibly appreciative.

* * * * *

After gaining about 20 pounds I stopped insulin shots and began attempting to control my food intake.  But it’s kind of messed with my gastrointestinal system because I’m all over the place.  Sometimes I eat a salad for the day, other times I just eat.  All day.

Three days ago I had a can of pork and beans at around 9 pm.  Two days ago I had a salad around midnight, nothing else.

Yesterday I’d been out all day and had coffee left in a cup from the morning, I drank some of it while driving down the Garden State Parkway.  And suddenly I felt a rumbling in my stomach.  Ugh.  But I knew there was a rest stop ahead so I hit the gas.

Driving 80 mph I see the sign “5 miles ahead” and panic is setting in.  I’m starting to talk to myself.

It has never taken longer to go 5 miles.

Mind you, I’m dressed in camo pants and a black sweatshirt, because this 51-year old woman thinks she’s a fucking ninja.  I don’t know what in the hell is wrong with me, but I can’t act normal.  Between the outfit and the fact that I was talking to myself it would have appeared I was (a) part of a SWAT team or (b) schizophrenic.

In fact, my mind was beginning to shatter.

Four miles, three, two, one, and I’m entering the parking lot but just can’t imagine how I’ll make it into the building.  Of course there are no parking spots available up close.

As it turned out, that was a good thing.

I stand up and immediately began to shit myself.  It’s one of those things where you just can’t believe it’s happening.  You’ve worried about it, considered the possibility in the past.  Maybe even come close, thrown away a pair of underwear once or twice.

But completely evacuated your ass as if you just drank Drano, while standing in a parking lot at Exit 98 in Wall, NJ?  Nope, I didn’t see this in my future.

More shit ended up in the inside of my camo pants, my shoes, and the parking lot than did before my fucking colonoscopy.

It gets better.

I headed for my trunk to get paper towels, thinking I could stem the tide, so to speak.  There was no longer any possibility of entering the rest stop unless I wanted people to point and scream.

But my body had just gotten started with its’ complete and total betrayal of me, the inner me, the part that kept thinking “This can’t be happening.”

Then I looked down and behind.  It appeared a mounted policeman had let his horse shit in this particular parking lot.

The consistency of human shit appears different when it’s not properly contained.

And at the most humiliating moment of my entire life . . .

I looked directly into the eyes of a black man dressed in a maintenance uniform, about 8 cars away.

He had a broom and a big ass dustpan and a bemused, entertained, knowing expression which told me he’d seen the whole show.

I backed out of the parking lot like a blind woman in a Batmobile.  If that man had looked into my dirty sullied soul for another single moment I’d surely have died.

And then I had to drive all the way home with shit in my shoe.

* * * * *

The smell blew my mind, the part that hadn’t already shattered.  It seemed so much worse than usual.  Or maybe we never usually get that close to it?  And baby I was in it, fucking smothered in it.

I pulled into my driveway, lifted my leg, and shit fell onto my floor mat.  It was like a fucking Stephen King novel.

Naked below the waist, I stood in the driveway and hosed myself down.  It snowed here last week and the water was a little icy but maybe shock had already set in.

It was at that point the phone rang and I tried to explain why I couldn’t talk, something about spilling a cup of coffee all over the car.

Yes, I lied.  Cause, you know, people tend to think bad thoughts about you when you shit yourself.

I began to stutter.  The fear is never completely gone, it’s always there, at least the memory of it.

Such a crazy time it was, pregnant at 25 by a guy with this new disease I’d barely heard of but knew could kill me.  A disease I couldn’t talk about because people would run, shun, shy away, freak out, even those in the medical profession.  I had to keep it to myself and make life and death decisions and still go to work every day even though it felt like my world was ending.

I chose to keep the baby.  I chose to stay with the man.  I wasn’t brave, more like fearless.  I didn’t know enough to make informed decisions.

I was tested once, twice, three times, four, sure my luck was eventually going to run out.  But it didn’t happen that way.

* * * * *

Now I know the chance of transferring the H-IV infection through a single episode of heterosexual unprotected sex is 1 to 2 women in 1,000.  I know that I probably saved my own life by saying no the one and only time it really counted, when I refused to have anal sex, bluntly, loudly, definitively.

Say it loud, say it proud, don’t touch my ass.

I saved my kid’s life, too.

When I think of what other women went through, those who found themselves positive, discovered their children were positive, I could dry heave with sorrow and terror.

* * * * *

I kept this secret for so many years.  It didn’t even seem like a choice.

I’ve had some difficult things to get through, like every human being on the planet, but man have I been blessed.  I won the lottery of life.  The good by far outweighs the bad.

I would lose 1,000 parents rather than a child.  I would take a million fucked up mothers over finding out my baby was going to die from AIDS.  There is no comparison.

Some of the things that happened were scary and humiliating and sad.  But in the end I walked away with the most wonderful bouncing baby boy, who never gave me a moment of trouble, who has lived a charmed life as if protected by angels.

I have no doubt they are his father and his uncle, funny, bright, charismatic, beautiful men who made the simple mistake of putting needles in their arms to dull life’s pain, to catch what was once a random irresponsible high and became a life sentence.

They were behind me during his graduation from graduate school.  I swear I heard them laughing like excited boys, saying “Look at him!  You did good, Bub.”

It was all so worth it.  I need to remember all the ways in which I have been the luckiest bitch on the planet and forget the rest.

Peter’s comment on yesterday’s blog entry follows:

I read this last night and I’ve been contemplating how to comment ever since.  I keep coming back to the same answer each time.  I hope what I have to say doesn’t come across too abrasive, because it comes from the heart and I want nothing but the best for you.

I had a revelation not too long ago.  Monsters aren’t born; they’re created.  They didn’t want to be monsters.  Life led them down a path to monster-hood.  That doesn’t make it ok for them to be monsters, but it does help me to understand how they got to where they are.

If I can’t forgive a monster, at least I have somewhat of an understand of the monster.  Instead of hating the monsters I can pity them.  This in no way makes the actions of a monster ok.  No one deserves to suffer at the hands of a monster.

All monsters need help. Some need to be detained from society, but we need to learn from all of them. Instead of punishing monsters we need to treat them and work toward preventing others from being created in the first place. This is coming from a recovering monster.

Comedy, humor and satire are still great outlets for the performer and the audience, but hate only hurts the hater.  I ran into a quote recently that would work well here: “Bitterness and Resentment are like taking poison then waiting for the OTHER person to die”.

I love you Pam.  Take care.  (((((HUGS)))))

* * * * *

Peter, you are THE BEST for continuing to read my drivel and leave comments, this one in particular.  I especially love your line about monsters, although I can’t imagine you as one.

How interesting that we had a family drama today that resulted in my speaking with my mother for about an hour just within the last few minutes, before I knew your comment was here.  As I spoke with her I found myself thinking about how civil our conversations usually are, which is not how I ever sound when I write about her.

Although I’m angry and vent it here, there has rarely been a time when I didn’t at least give my mother basic respect, probably even deference.  I do feel sorry for her and that kicks my ass most of all.  First I had to have this woman as my mother and then suffer the mixed emotions of pity and guilt and disgust.

I agree with everything you said 1,000% and I use this philosophy in my daily life with everyone I know.  I make all kinds of what others call “excuses” for people, and I think of it as my way of understanding why people do what they do and act the way they do.

My niece, for instance . . . I will never blame her more than 50% for what has happened with her children because I believe she was not given what she needed as a chld and the opportunity to bond with her children was stolen from her when she went to prison.  Yes, she chose to take drugs, but it was as a result of pain that she didn’t choose. She became her nuclear family’s scapegoat.

My sister, I do the same for.  She was never given the love and attention from others that I received and it didn’t allow her to give my niece what she needed because she never got it herself.

I psychoanalyze myself, my children, my friends, my loved ones and always have a reason why we do what we do.  For at least half my life ”To know all is to forgive all” has been my motto. I did it with people I had on my probation caseload.  I am TOO MUCH this way quite often.  I can be ridiculously co-dependent.  Except when it comes to my mother.

I can remember a time when I loved her.  I remember crying when I would go to my father’s for the weekend and had to leave her.  I remember watching her put on makeup and admiring her in the mirror as she told me if she ever died I’d have to put it on for her so she’d look good in the casket (what the fuck?).  I was about 7 then.

I remember a car accident and a bicycle accident where she was the person who took charge once she got there.  I remember thinking I was glad she was so forceful and that she wasn’t crazy when bad things happened.  Suddenly she would morph into a person who handled emergencies so well.

In a lot of ways I was a favored child in our household, probably just a step down from my brother.  Because I was the oldest, or maybe because I was a girl and no dummy, she knew I was judging her and not finding her satisfactory.  She wanted to be seen as superior.  She has never had female friends and didn’t know how to handle having a daughter.  I think the majority of her life she could only find intimacy through sex.  She passed that on to me but I was able to mature and grow past it for the most part.

My mother graduated 8th grade weighing 180 and she was extremely jealous of me when I developed into a teenager.  It has always been an issue.  But then my mother is jealous of everyone.

I think she was probably molested by my grandfather.  I found out this summer that he offered $1,000 cash to my step sister if she would spend the night with him.  She was a very young teenager when he did this.  He was an alcoholic during my childhood, sobering up after having bladder cancer in his 60′s.

I think he went off the rails when my uncle, my mother’s baby brother, died at age 3.  I think Mom was 5.

Grandpa made sexual references quite regularly, so much so that I bought him a subscription to Playboy when he turned 80.  Mom was his favorite.  My grandmother was practically disabled by the death of her baby on his 3rd birthday and had a stroke.  She became pregnant almost immediately with my aunt.  I’m sure Grandma was neurotic as hell with my mother, even though she was a wonderful grandmother.

So, as you can see, I do think about these things and try to understand.

But she let me down so big, Peter.  She’s not a stupid woman by any means, she is far smarter than I am and yet during my childhood her basest instincts were all that mattered.  Her new husband, her pornos, her dildos, her booze and pills.

I tried to explain to my daughter today what it was like to be a young girl living with a maniac, holding the phone, looking at the phone book, thinking there must be some unknown number inside it that I could call to reach someone who would come and take me away, protect me from her.  My childhood felt like it lasted 50 years.  As a pre-teen I wouldn’t ride my bike to any spot where I couldn’t see my house.  I thought if I got lost she woudn’t care enough to come and look for me.

In some ways, as an adult, she got worse.  She stopped bathing, she stopped taking care of herself, she stopped doing all the things she taught us were imperative.  As the daughter of a woman who does not take care of themelves cosmetically, who admits to having genital warts and allows herself to be in a position where men shave her vagina at a party, there is a piece of me as a female who is so mortified, so disgusted that this is what I come from that I can barely breathe when I think about it.  This from the woman who left my father to let him die alone, without his wife and children, so she could get some strange dick.

I guess I might be able to forgive that if she at least washed her hair (lol, sorry).  For God’s sake, she wore a swimsuit top to my niece’s 8th grade graduation.  This is an unforgivable fashion faux pas.

When my father died and she was all I had left she barely spoke of him, it was like he just disappeared.  There was no love in our house, only hatred.  She never told me she loved me throughout my childhood.  Never.  All throughout I watched other girls who had mothers that loved them, that cherished them.  Still do.  I’ve never been good with things that seem unfair.  A lot of those girls had fathers.

Yet I know people who had it so much worse and they are so much more forgiving.  She’s never apologized, she doesn’t think she did anything wrong.  Yet my daughter gagged when we entered her home due to the fact that she does not clean up after her dogs.  We had to step over dog turds and around piles of pee.

Long story short, I don’t know how to forgive her.  She is so crude and mean sometimes.  I bought my great nephew a pair of pink sandles when I visited last year cause that’s what he wanted.  He was 3 and has 2 sisters and liked pink.  She told me, “The only thing worse than a fag is a Mexican fag.”  She was saying this about her own great-grandson.

I found out this summer that she used to take my 3-year old step-sister in a corner and tell her how ugly she was.  My step-sister is a beautiful grown woman and still can’t imagine people think she’s attractive because my mother’s words ring in her ears.  It breaks my heart.

It’s more like a shatter, really.  She was able to alter the course of my life, to misshape my brain.  I can make adjustments but she caused permanent damage, invisible damage, that has left me feeling like an outsider, damaged goods, not good enough, my whole life.  It has hurt my children, my relationships, my siblings & other people I love in a multitude of ways.

* * * * *

Yet I had a lovely conversation on the phone with her tonight and didn’t call her a cunt even once.  I did not, however, say “I love you” and I’m pretty sure I never will.  I feel nauseated by the idea, like it would be the ultimate betrayal to my little girl self.  I need to be true to myself and if that means never letting go of the anger then so be it.  I deserved so much better.

Love,

Pamajama

L to R: Grandma, Penny, Dad, Me & Mom