Twisted Pattycakes &/Or My Barbie Doll BFF

My insane BFF Pattycakes called again today.

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.

Showing My Ass Without Taking My Pants Down

My step-son and his family moved to a tiny hick town in southern Alabama a couple of years ago.  We visited this past winter and there is a single train track parallel to a highway and a variety of homes set across both sides of that road, ranging from shacks to showplaces. 

There are a million towns like it in the U.S., where it appears people decided to just drop houses in the middle of nowhere.  Perhaps they have some connection to  the dirty ass dollar store?  Maybe the gas station sells a slurpee flavor available nowhere else?  Who in the hell knows how we all end up where we do?

Well, on Facebook tonight my daughter-in-law wrote about a train accident.  She was standing in “McAlary’s Drugs” and the train hit a truck.  The way she said it though made me laugh, the reference to the non-chain drug store made me think of Mayberry RFD.  I didn’t write anything in reply the first time I saw it, but then I noticed it again and no one had commented so I did. 

I wrote something about how we used to leave our homes to go watch a big fire in the little podunk farming community I grew up in.  I LOL’d and stuck my tongue out.  I asked at the end, “How is the driver?”

Not TWO minutes later my daughter-in-law’s sister posts, “Praying for the teens hit by the train.”  She includes the article with these huge pictures of two 20-year old’s, a man and a woman, one flown out by helicopter and the other ejected from the vehicle.  They tried to beat it.

I woke up this morning screaming that I didn’t want to get out of bed and I ended the day screaming when I couldn’t delete that stupid comment of mine any faster than my fingers could move.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the heinous bitch I am considering blocking (but haven’t yet because she is such a fucking train wreck) posted about being addicted to purchasing “fine art.”  She let us all know she bought a “full-size bronze knight” today.  The only way that’s a good idea is if this transvestite-looking horror wears the costume.

Oh, I know I sound like the wickedest rotten soul that exists on the planet.  But there are certain things that push me to the land of no return.  Braggarts bring out the beast in me.  She comes right out and writes things about what a wonderful person she is . . . when it’s not even true!  Seriously, it’s not. 

I am so jealous of people with self-confidence.  So often it’s completely undeserved.  It’s a gift given during childhood by loving parents and I missed that freaking boat.  But sometimes this belief in one’s self is so out of touch with reality I have to wonder if it’s really a favor.  We’ve had presidents I wouldn’t trust to snake my toilet, but their mother’s convinced them they’re incredible.

That’s when I really lose it, when she writes things about her kid that make it clear she believes her daughter is better than everyone else’s, the most beautiful, the brightest, the wisest, the deepest.  She’s convinced the girl it’s true, to the point where this 13-year old gives philosophical advice to adults, like her father is the Dalai Lama instead of in a mental hospital attempting to avoid his selfish wife.

It’s possible I’ll regret it some day, but I will never talk up my own children if it means implying I love them more than anyone else loves theirs.  How do some not get it that everyone loves their own child as if they were the most special monkey ever born at the zoo?

Of course the question that arises is whether I am cheating my own children by not pumping them up like hot air balloons, no matter the consequence to anyone else.

I know I should go ahead and erase this woman, this shit, from my life.  But it’s so hard to walk away from someone who would purchase a full-size bronze knight.  You just don’t meet total assholes like her every day.

Please don’t ever think I don’t see the ways in which I am my own asshole, although I’m sure I’ve missed a few.

* * * * *

I went to a training today for the new job.  What is it with ”teachers” who think they need to do something cutesie for grown adults instead of just teaching and letting us out the door as quickly as possible?  If there are two hours worth of material, do not pretend the class is worthy of four.

For an hour I was grouped with 4 other women and forced to do a craft project while other groups planned 2-minute dramatic presentations and song & dance routines.  We had to somehow display “the essence of being a behavioral assistant.”

There is no fucking purpose to such a thing.  I don’t even think groups make a lot of sense when you’re dealing with 7th graders.  It’s always bullshit.  One kid does all the work.  No one learns a damned thing.

It’s not all that different with adults.  One person’s personality is always stronger than the rest.  Women tend to get offended when you don’t agree with their suggestions, so anything at all has to be accepted or feelings get hurt and the one who disagrees becomes the asshole of the group.  Since it’s all pointless, who the fuck cares?

I wanted to call 9-1-1 and report that I was being held hostage along with 25 others.  “Yes, hello?  I’m here for a training and they won’t give me my orientation certificate if I don’t do a craft project with four other grown women.  We’re using markers and glue.  Please send a SWAT team.”

At least it was better than the CPR class where I had to touch dirty ass dolls that had been caressed by thousands of other peeps who no doubt failed to wash their hands after peeing during a break.

I thought I would fall on the floor and have to be revived when one of the other students, an older woman, asked the nurse educator “Have you ever given anyone CPR?”  The reply was, “Yes, but only in a hospital setting.”  The questions continued: “Did they survive?”  Reply: “Yes, some did.”  Question: “How did it feel?”

This is where I feel my personality splitting, my outer persona giggling and smiling and trying to be helpful, making comments like “I’m sure when the adrenaline kicks in you could get a man to the floor!”

My inner personality, the one I usually keep hidden at all costs, is screaming all kinds of obscenities: “How the fuck do you think it feels to revive someone you moron?!  Are you seriously so wimpy you couldn’t pull a person onto the floor if they were dying otherwise?  If so, you should go out to the roof and jump, you worthless piece of shit.”

* * * *

Just one single day I would love to be completely honest, to be care-free about showing my ass.  Everybody has a dream, this one is mine.

 

Twisted Job Interview &/or I Hate Pretending I’d Hire Myself

Oh, I present so nicely at an interview with my toothy midwestern smile & expensive highlights & thick silver rings.  My laugh is pleasant and I make comments that clearly show empathy for how difficult the interviewer’s job must be.  After all, I did hire a chick to replace me once and she was an absolute disaster. 

(Her name was Jameelah and she changed all the computer file names for multiple appellate death penalty cases, with a brief due the following week.  Then she quit.  The attorney nearly had a nervous breakdown.  Clearly, I am not personnel material.)

* * * * *

But let’s put it out there right from the start, I hate sitting in an interview pretending like I’m an employer’s dream, because it’s the rare job I’d ever hire myself for.  What can I really say that’s genuine?  “You’re taking a big chance here and I really appreciate it, I’m completely unreliable, totally unpredictable and even I consider myself a royal pain in the ass.”  Then maybe we could laugh together and have a shot of tequila.

There are a multitude of qualities that make me say such a thing with utter conviction:

(1) I rarely succeed at doing anything I don’t really want to do & quite often people want you to do such total shit.  Yes, I cleaned houses for a while and I was great at it, I remember being on my hands and knees with my head in some bitches toilet.  But later that day I did masturbate on her bed. 

I am laughing like crazy as I write this, knowing I should never admit to such a thing but fuck it.  The ultimate in passive-aggression.  But then I was also caught by a co-worker doing the same thing in a restroom stall at work on third-shift in a NYC law firm, so maybe it’s more about needing a better hobby.

(2) My moods are like a crazy, bumpy wooden rollercoaster ride.  Admittedly, it’s exciting.  You never know if I will show up on time, or at all.  You will hear entertaining tales of broken limbs, dead relatives and endless car problems, all explaining why it’s not my fault I am a complete loser.  You may call my home and I will say “This isn’t Pam, this is Pam’s sister.  But I can give her a message!”  in a friendly, melodious voice.  (One ballsy supervisor said, “Pam, I know this is you.”)

Or I might quit in the middle of a shift, like the day I tried dish-washing in a college residence hall or the night I left tables of customers wondering, “Where is that damned waitress?”  Oh, it was one of the most freeing experiences of my life.  I hated that fucked up job with people leaving me quarters for tips!

Granted, I sucked.  I can’t remember shit, my hearing is shot.  It can be difficult for me to serve my own children, let alone strangers.  I am amazed by people who put 3 complete meals on a table for the little buggers.  I mean, what the fuck, take a break!  Like everything else, I blame my lack of real nurturing qualities on my mother, but who the fuck wants to go down that muddy road again?  Not me! 

In my head I am the most nurturing person on the freaking planet!  I am so loving!  I am so giving!  It’s in translating those thoughts into action that the snags of reality occur.

As my beloved author Augusten Burroughs is so often quoted saying from his book Magical Thinking:

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” 

(3) I expect to be paid highly, very highly, for things like my spelling ability and knowledge of current events, even though those qualities are worthless.  I don’t like cooking, filing, copying, or being ordered around by anyone  . . . unless it’s a great looking man who laughs at my jokes.  Like my dentist.  I would definitely boil him up a pot of ramen noodles for, say, $25.  I would even pour it in a bowl.  But because of the increase in gas prices I would want mileage.  See, that’s where my current events knowledge comes in handy.  If I wasn’t paying close attention I could have lost out in that transaction.

(4) I have a superiority complex infused with low self-esteem.  In other words, being my boss can be a nightmare.  I will nearly always believe I am smarter than my supervisor, but can’t handle the responsibility that comes with a position of authority.  I am a big fat pussy who thinks mean thoughts.  Luckily, people like me anyway because I tend to say those thoughts out loud and then laugh at myself and say how stupid I am.  It is my saving grace, the realization that my thoughts are insane and the ability to admit it. 

I thank my second grade teacher for this quality.  She wrote something on my report card about the fact that I would always honestly admit to my part in whatever misbehavior was going on.  It occurred to me, “You mean you can actually be rewarded for doing something wrong if you just apologize afterwards?”  This gave me tremendous freedom to continue to be a little shit.  Thank you, Mrs. Johnson.  It has taken me far in life.

* * * * *

So, anyway, I had this job interview today in a group home for girls, most who come directly from hospitalization, and I am positive I will not be hired.  The reason is I did something so incredibly dumb, I sat back and told Rodneisha all about myself. 

Oh, yes, I admitted I quit my last job and was re-hired 4 times.  I told her I can easily be intimidated and I curse a lot.  Although I did lie and say I can control it.  Fortunately I did not mention my obsession-like fear of bed bugs.  But I did admit my daughter is homeschooled.  Oh, that one is a doozy.  I might as well have said I believe in UFO’s and spend my weekends digging for gold in grocery dumpsters.

* * * * *

It’s a serious job.  I told her I have experience with many of the things these girls are going through and I do: the loss of a parent at a young age, inappropriate sexual shit, anger at the world, abandonment and PTSD.  (God only knows, I scream every time a family member walks unexpectedly around a corner, I cannot dry my hair without being freaked out by my own daughter.)

I told her I think a sense of humor can diffuse situations and it’s my preferred style.  But I doubt they’re looking to hire a comedian.  When I told her I’ve had lots of people die and so I consider it a success when everyone is alive at the end of the day she probably thought my standards were low.  Then when she asked me how I would handle aggression and I admitted I would rather sneak in cookies for the girls than restrain them it may have sealed my fate.

I’m not against holding children to keep them from hurting themselves or someone else, but I’ve seen where restraint can be overdone.  It can be contagious.  (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it’s a way of taking a child down to the floor and holding their legs with your legs and their arms with your arms, like a controlling hug, as they try to fight their way out.  You can easily be hurt, children have been seriously injured and even died on rare occasions.  It’s commonly used with psychiatric disorders.)

I’m not big on discipline, even though I know there are occasions where it is absolutely necessary, particularly with certain types of children.  I know the rules must be followed or it can be disastrous.

But at my advanced age, 50 instead of 25, I feel motherly toward women in their 20′s and 30′s, let alone teenagers.  It’s no longer a competitive female thing, it’s about looking back and seeing why they should take it easy on themselves because they’re doing the best they can in this moment. 

For this line of work, though, that sounds like enabling.  These little chicks are going to have it rough for a long time and they have to be able to make it on their own.  Coddling is probably the wrong way to go.

I’ve even seen it happen with my niece.  The more love I show her, the more angry she becomes with her mother, the more she realizes how cheated she’s been.  Yesterday my sister screamed at her, “Call Pammy!  Tell her all about it, I know you tell her everything!” 

God forbid the dysfunctional chicks of the world were just loved and adored by their own mothers.  But then there wouldn’t be any dysfunctional chicks.  It would just fuck up everything.  There would be no whores.  Men couldn’t get blow jobs as easily from chicks begging for attention.  Tremendous self-esteem increase, lots of high-falutin bitches.  Think of the titty bar industry!  Lots of complications from that stupid idea.

Lord only knows, hiring me to work with twisted people is quite an oxymoron.  Yet, in this instance, I might be highly qualified.

The Twisted Bitch Blogs

I must begin blogging again or my head will explode and psychedelic shit will cover the surface of the earth.

There is no other way to take the pressure off my brain unless a doctor drills a hole, something like you might see at www.popthatzit.com .  I recommend clicking that link only if you have dermatological instincts which make you desire to remove the enormous yellow blemish of a stranger on a city bus, which I happen to possess.

Since it’s been a while since updating this blog I shall provide a quick synopsis:

1.) Unable to say much about my mother or sister since I haven’t spoken with either, even though yesterday was my mother’s 70th birthday. The fact that my sister allowed her boyfriend back into the house after he made comments about my niece’s breasts sickens me.

Add to that my mother’s input, telling my niece that she’s had more cocks than most farmhouse hens, and I hope you understand why I’m rotten enough to block both of them from Facebook, which is really my only communication with the outside world.

2.) My glucose levels reached a new high of 500 today thanks to fucking Girl Scout cookies. I will not be buying any next year, thank you very much.  It’s a constant struggle and I am loopy over it.

3.) My son is still living in San Diego and has A GIRLFRIEND.  I haven’t actually met her, but I love her.  I hope they get married and live happily ever after.  She is a Gemini, her birthday only two days after mine, and she likes me.  I must admit that pretty much my only criteria for liking you is that you like me.  But she’s funny, too.  He has been wonderfully successful in every other way, so why did I worry about who he would bring home?  I should have known.

4.) My daughter is now two inches taller than me and twenty pounds heavier.  I am not happy about the second part of that sentence.  We joined a gym, took a yoga class, and with her butt in my face I heard a loud putt and we ran out of that damned class, convulsing with laughter.  It turns out I do not like yoga.  I don’t like anyone bossing me around.  I certainly don’t like anyone telling me to get on the floor, then stand up, then get on the floor again.  Fuck that shit.  It completely sucks.

5.) Still in New Jersey but planning to put the house on the market and move, quite a frightening proposition.  I’ve come to the conclusion I never should have gotten married, never should have had children.  But since the children are wonderful I’ll keep them.  The absolute certainty is I never should have stopped working, earning my own money, having a life of my own.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the economy sucks ass and getting a job is nearly impossible now, though I continue to look.  I watched a show about millionaires giving money away last night and when a soup kitchen was highlighted and many, many toothless people were on the screen, I began imagining an entirely independent Pam.  I am such a fucking pussy about things like shiny teeth and properly highlighted hair.

As always, I would love your thoughts and comments.  I’m going to start updating daily, I swear I am.  Comments will help make it happen.

Pamajama

Dancing Girls

Everything I believed at 25 and 35 and 45 has been turned upside down & twisted around.  Nothing is as it seemed: not my marriage, not my family, not the mistaken belief that Mel Gibson was an attractive & reasonable man with an adorable sense of humor.

Last week at a freaking Jonas Brothers concert it happened again.  WTF?

* * * * *

Immediately upon confirmation of the pregnancy resulting in my daughter, before I even knew she was a girl, I began shrieking “Oh my God, she’ll be huge & have an enormous head like your sons!“ (I am mortified by this reaction because it’s too much like my mother saying, “No, we can’t name her Tina because she’ll be fat and they’ll call her Tiny.“)

I was speaking to my husband in such a shrill panic-stricken voice because I’d suddenly visualized his two boys from a prior marriage.  It occurred to me that they were born to a woman far more petite than I, yet still look like cousins to Moe & Curly of  The Three Stooges.  How could adding my oxen comparable DNA to the mix end in a more feminine result?  Better yet, how did I not think of such a thing beforehand?

It’s how I am, histrionic & over-stated, catastrophic thinking after the fact.  It’s a way to get what I want but dispose of the responsibility.  I can’t make a decision to save my life, so I accidentally on purpose end up where I want to be.  It’s a dangerous way to live.  You don’t notice yourself edging toward the cliff until BOOM.

I was desperate for another child, 37 years old, and it had to be a girl.  It had taken me a lifetime to determine I could do the mother/daughter relationship again.  It didn’t feel like I had a choice.  Hormones are big screaming loony bitches.  Just say yes. 

My son was 11 & fully entrenched as an only child.  I was concerned about the possibility of having a child with Downs Syndrome.  A sibling was already a step down from a pony or a four-wheeler; one who needed anything extra seemed way too unfair.  I might not be able to drive my beloved prince the 3 blocks to school daily.  So I went to a pre-natal specialist & did what was possible to make sure this would be

a convenient child.

They should have tested me instead.  It’s comical that I believed a chromosomal difference would be more twisted or troublesome than what already exists in my family.

* * * * *

The infant we watched reach her little hand out in utero, as she tried to grab the needle during the amnio screening, turns 13 in two weeks.  I took her to a Jonas Brothers concert last Monday and we sat with 5 of her friends.

She is different than her brother.  She puts up with my quirks a little (maybe a lot) more than he did.  In truth, though, I am trying to be less obnoxious, less funny at her expense, less loud, because I realize the consequences of being myself this time around.  He beat my rough edges with a hammer.

Still there are similarities between them.  There are also things I won’t stop doing.  I can’t stop breathing just to please my children.  I’ve tried.  The end result:

“MOM, stop it, you’re turning blue!  It’s embarrassing, get off the floor!”

There are times when Rachel wants my personality to disappear, like that of an Alzheimer’s patient or a victim of too many shocks in a psychiatric hospital.  It happens most often when I (1) sing off-key and (2) laugh too loud or (3) get drunk & accidentally kiss a woman with a moustache good-bye on New Year’s Eve or (4) dance at a Jonas Brothers Concert.  Her eyes begin to roll like marbles.  The huffing & puffing sound like that of a veteran glue sniffer.

Last night was perfect, though.  She ended up sitting in the next row down.  I was between two other girls who were not the least bit embarrassed by my inappropriate joy & inexcusable happiness, since we share no DNA.

Even better yet were the two chicks in front of Rachel.  Right from the start neither appeared at all self-conscious, something it took me 35 years to even approach.  They were dancing with each other, bubbling over with excitement, never stopped smiling.  They were totally my dream dates and of course both had Downs Syndrome. 

This was not the first time the thought has occurred to me: “I am such a dickhead.”  The paradox kicks my ass.

I’m not ridiculous enough to believe it’s all buttered biscuits & birthday cake.   But there is a yin & yang factor and I cringe at my own ignorance.

I Think Bad Thoughts About My Dentist &/or Germy Kitty-Cat Butts

I’ve always had ugly dentists.  

In high school my sister and I used to purposely go to Steak ‘n Shake and eat burgers with onions before check-ups.  Dr. Hauserman’s breath was just awful, so we wanted to re-pay the favor.  (In retrospect, the man put fillings in my mouth that would survive a nuclear attack.)  I still remember his thick glasses and big yellow incisors bearing down upon me.

Who knew I would actually care about messing up the schedule of a tooth specialist if he happened to be great looking, like the new guy that bought the practice of my former dude (who was obese & had a stomach that made it necessary he extend his arms fully to do the job.)

My normal sleep hours are something like 5-11 a.m.  So when I have to be somewhere at 9 or 10 or 11 (or even 1) it can be a problem.  I am late & miss appointments so often it’s embarrassing.

I missed a big appointment last week, a double or maybe triple time slot for 9 a.m.  These people do not play. 

Can you imagine, after calling our house and my cell phone, his receptionist (with a heavy German accent) called my husband at work to track me down?  Did he do the right thing and say I’d been checked into rehab for drug addiction or maybe placed in jail for assault of a child, something that would allow me to maintain a semblance of self-respect? 

No!  He told them I was . . .

HOME IN BED AFTER A LATE NIGHT!  THAT I’M “A HEAVY SLEEPER!”

Yes, I know it’s true, but come on!  I didn’t even hear the phone ring until 12:45.  Help me out here!

This new dentist looks like he should have his own show on VH-1 or Bravo or maybe even MTV.  When he comes at me from above it’s kinda dreamy.  This is potentially the answer for all dental phobics.  The fantasy gets a little fucked up when his assistant appears out of the corner of my eye with a big plastic face mask, what could be a freaky S&M prop.  Other than that . . .

Even with his intimidating good looks, I say stupid things because I figure

WTF?  It’s a short life!

I told him the only thing more embarrassing than having him in my mouth is having my proctologist in my ass.  Really and truly, though, I’m not sure that’s accurate.  I hate my teeth.  In general I’m pretty grossed out by (1) saliva, (2) bad breath, (3) spitting, and (4) mouth germs.  Really, ALL OF IT!  The whole french kissing thing is over-rated when you put it under a microscope.  It’s the catalyst for a freakish acid trip, combine enough tongue, tartar and gingivitis and I could jump out a fucking window.

On the other hand, I’ve never been up close and personal with my own rectum.  Don’t they all look pretty much alike?  I mean, some chicks have GREAT freaking teeth!  There is no f’ing way their butt holes are somehow spectacular.  I simply refuse to believe it.  Don’t forget, I’ve had a succcessful hemorrhoidectomy.  My ass is quite up to par, thank you very much.

I couldn’t even allow him to give me nitrous oxide when he ripped a 30-year old cap out of my face with a crowbar because I remember being completely inappropriate the single time I had the stuff.  And the oral surgeon wasn’t even attractive!  I had such an urge to reach out and touch. 

If I went with the gas I would really do it this time. 

Pathetic!

* * * * *

Friday I had a regular doctor’s appointment at 2 p.m., one of the least favorite things I ever force myself to do, even though I absolutely adore the negative, unhappy, miserable fat man who told me yesterday he thinks maybe he should start smoking dope to deal with the stupid people surrounding him.  Yes, that’s my doc. 

I’ve stopped going to the gynecologist because I can, there are no prescriptions to fill.  But my general practitioner is a different story.  I tried to stop that too, but someone mentioned if you don’t continue taking thyroid medication you can drop dead. 

Oh bother!

The highlight was peeing in a cup.  Normally I don’t have to do this, but I guess the whole sugar testing/diabetic thing is supposed to be taken seriously.  I couldn’t even figure out the mechanics of what I was to do, so I had to ask for help.  “Where are the bottles?  What do you want me to do?  Where should I put it?”  So embarrassing. 

I managed to pee all over my hand and began laughing out loud behind the closed door.  Here I have my hand in the toilet trying to catch the flow, I can’t bear the idea that my skin might actually touch the porcelain, and so of course it does.  I wash my hands like an OCD wackjob.  Then I notice the pen I’m supposed to use to write my name on the outside of the bottle.  It has a paper flag attached about 5 inches wide, with the word P-E-N scrawled on it.

Seriously, I’m supposed to TOUCH THAT THING?  How many other people peed in cups and chose to use the pen BEFORE washing their hands?  I want to puke! 

How is it that doctor’s offices tend to be such petri dishes, something so clear to me but evidently not to the medical personnel working in them?  It’s like the toys in the waiting room!  When my kids went to touch those things I’d scream with the intensity of a woman watching her toddler stick her finger in the butt-hole of a mangy kitty-cat at the park.

I’d taken a Xanax before the appointment and it gave me the ability to use that pee-wadden pen, then wash my hands once again before I used my sleeve to twist the door handle and escape my nightmare.

* * * * *

So how was your day?

Perfectly Attuned to Twisted Humor

I love nothing more than saying inappropriate things to my pre-teen and getting her eyes to light up in abject fascination.  Will it make her a stable adult human being when it’s all said and done?  I have no freaking idea. 

It’s like being the teacher in the 2-year-old room at the nursery and using lesson plans that include surreptitiously scratching their little noses with their longest digit.  “Listen, kids, if Grandma won’t let you watch that 6th hour of TV when she babysits, here’s what you do.”

It seems to me that having fun with your mother has got to be a step up from having a tight-ass rule your life, dampen your spirit and bore you to tears.  Certainly there’s got to be a middle ground, but that’s not my strong suit.  Neither is singing all the correct words to any song and damned if my bitchy little chick doesn’t mock me unmercifully for that.  So I need to keep her on her toes.

On April Fool’s Day I was desperate to find a prank at 4 a.m., as too many years have passed without observing what is no doubt the best American holiday of all.  My husband was asleep in bed, my daughter and I downstairs in the hallway after brushing our teeth.  She wanted to know if we were going to a scheduled activity the following day.  (Not that we ever make it since we stay up till 4 a.m.)

I knew the plans had been canceled for other adult (boring ass) reasons and figured I’d been handed an April Fool’s Day gift.  Unfortunately, coming from the midwest I have a shit load of rich black dirt in my frontal lobe (after years of detasseling corn at ungodly hours of the morning, which I’m sure is why I still refuse to get up at a decent hour). 

The end result is I am a plodding thinker, related to the mule family.  But in this instance I had to think fast, which does not always end up with the best result.  (It is why I cannot be expected to order meals from snarky waiters in New York City.)

Now don’t get pissed at me, all up on your high horse, but I told her someone died.  She’s a fan of horror films and scary stories, believing herself a descendant from the makers of  “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Saw.”  She loves to pretend that she has testicles the size of basketballs, even though it’s so completely untrue. 

But when her guinea pig died she acted sad for a minute and then asked “Can I poke it with a stick?”  I mean, come on, this is a kid you can f*ck with just a little bit.

The alleged dead person in question is not a close friend nor family member.  (I do have ethical standards.)  It’s another mom, someone who teaches in the co-op we attend.  I said she’d been . . .  killed in a car accident. 

Rachel replied “Really?” and looked at me with those beautifully naive eyes of hers.  I hesitated a moment and then said, “Well, I didn’t want to upset you.  Are you okay?”  Her heartless reply: “Yeah, I guess so.”  So that’s when I jumped in with, “Aww, it’s a lie . . .  April Fool’s!”

She began screaming and laughing and chasing me through the house as I cackled with joyous abandon. 

Her father woke up and began shouting, “What?  What?”  For the most part we just ignored him, as this has become kind of a common occurrence here in the middle of the night.  I think she told him the next day.  Yet he still fell for it when I told him I’d cut myself with a knife and would he please bring home bandage materials from the pharmacy after he purchased his White Castle dinner.

Emergency preparedness is his bag and he immediately began re-thinking his plans and insisted he could not go to White Castle as his wife bled to death at home on the kitchen floor.  Then I began hearing the “Clink, clink, clink” of his brain waves and, just as he was about to get it on his own, I said the obligatory line: “APRIL FOOL’S.” 

I think it’s actually the 3rd time I’ve used that kind of thing with him, once including a ketchup prop.  The favorite was when I made Rachel run outside and scream, “Mommy’s not moving!  She changed that light bulb in the bathroom that she asked you to change last week and she fell off the chair!”  He came in to find me appropriately splayed out on the bathroom floor waiting for a chalk outline.  If only I hadn’t started to laugh.  The guilt ploy was such a bonus.

As I write this I am trying to figure out how I can get downstairs to the plastic wrap, bring it up and cover the toilet seat, so that when he gets up he splatters pee all over himself.  It’s a gag I’ve been wanting to pull for the longest time. 

Well, that and cover the entire door frame with the stuff.  In my mind’s eye he would bounce off it like a trampoline.  I’m guessing it has to be a little more complicated than my visualization.  Complications bore me tremendously, so IXNAY on that idea.  It would be easier just to bring an ice cube upstairs and place it in the midst of his underarm hair.  No lie, I would probably break his nose if he did something like that to me, yet he would not even get angry if I did it to him.

* * * * *

So I went to find the plastic wrap and we only have pink and purple.  The pink is now tightly wrapped across the top of the toilet.  I really, really, really hope Rachel does not get up and have to pee in the next two hours.

My Twisted Pseudo Brother-In-Law ~ One Sick F*ck

My sister’s boyfriend is so unattractive it’s hard to describe accurately.  It’s not that I hold that against him, it’s the fact that he thinks he’s hot that bothers me.  He combs his hair into this crazy David Cassidy style, wears gold chains on both neck and wrist, has massive Harley tats on his saggy, sallow, unmuscled skin, trims his fu manchu facial hair but doesn’t bathe.  He’s about 5’7″ and wears thick, dirty glasses.

You’d think he would be a little more understated & self-flagellating, considering that he’s still married to his fourth wife and on federal probation for the back child support he owes in 3 different states.  I had no idea this was even possible.  The amazing thing is that he found 3 women to sleep with him, let alone carry his seed.  The amount he must pay per month is about equal to what he makes in salary, sometimes more.  Yes, he’s a catch.  He and my sister are “engaged,” which I also think is a little tacky when it happens before the divorce.  She has no intention of marrying him, but did get his name tattooed on her ankle.  She seemed happy when she told me, “You can hardly read it.”

My husband is a lone wolf.  He does not have male friends who call and he does not sit in bars with pals.  (He might be much better off if he did.)  The only place Ray is really comfortable is in a bowling alley, where the reason for social contact is all about the ball, the reason to touch one another is all about the hand slapping.  Mike is a needy, social butterfly, who reminds me of a guy who works in a bowling alley setting pins & cleaning up beer bottles.  (These two are a match made in heaven.)

So Ray was kind of tickled when Mike started sending him daily texts that said, “Are you stel comin her [sic] ?”  [Translation: "Are you still coming here?"]  Some said things that essentially meant “Save me.”  After all, his boss is my mother.  He called and asked Ray for advice on handling my niece, asked him how he handled step-parenting my son.  (The one way in which my sister & I are completely alike is in the fact that you should protect your balls before making a single negative remark regarding our children, even if what you’re saying is true.)  We once mistakenly got involved in sending those ridiculous e-mail forwards of very bad jokes & nude body parts, but it got so out of hand with this creepy fucker that it was kinda scary.

My brother has told me great stories about fucking with Mike’s (soft like a bad potato) head.  There is no one I know who enjoys the psychological games you can play with a dimwit more than Scott.  I have always shared those stories with my husband, gasping with laughter.  The one time I didn’t think it was funny was when Scott called and told me that Mike had asked my sister if it was okay if he shouted ”Pam” during orgasm.  I still remember exactly where I was standing as I had to think it all through and eventually realize in this instance I was the dimwit.  Motherfucker got me for a minute!

Scott very nearly convinced Mike that our step-father drilled a hole in a wall and was watching my sister shower.  This was as payback for Mike’s continued repetitive statement: “Well, guess I’ll go home now and fuck yer sister.”  I’ve begged Scott to say, “I did her first & better,” but he won’t.  I also asked him to punch Mike in the face, but he wouldn’t do that either.  When we found out that Mom stayed in the house to watch the kids one evening & Mike came home & found her in his bed, the goofs were never ending.  Ray even joined in on the mother-in-law stuff.

The misspellings in the texts Mike wrote endeared him to both of us. We hooted in incredulity.  I was starting to really enjoy the guy!  As we drove there I actually said, “The only one I’m looking forward to seeing is Mike.”  That lasted all of 30 seconds.

It’s hard to describe my interactions with this guy because he’s like something from planet Venus.  I think he believes I owe him some huge amount of respect because he’s my sister’s man, or because he was part of the decision for her to take custody of her grandchildren.  Clearly, he expects me to be impressed by the rings he’s bought her, purchased in a pawn shop.  I know this because he often says, “Look at yer sister’s finger!  See what I gawt her?!”  I was unaware previously that you can only “trade up” at a pawn shop, but now I know.  This is not to knock used jewelry, just sayin’.

When you grow up with sick fucks you get a special gift for reading them.  I can walk into a room and immediately know who’s the freak of the bunch.  Well, it’s Mike.  This guy is a little Napoleon.  I think he stares at his dick in a mirror and is just so impressed & amazed that he has one that he thinks you should be impressed by it, too.  His vibe tells me there is a part of him who thinks I must be attracted to him, aren’t all women?  So he is constantly annoyed with me, confused by my actions, since I seem to (1) give him no respect and (2) laugh at him and (3) am so clearly just waiting for the dude to go away.  Yet he keeps waiting for me to stick out my tongue and beg to blow him.  That’s the kind of shit that goes on in this guy’s brain, I just know it.  Don’t ask me how, I just do.

My biggest issue is with his behavior around and toward the children.  When the big dog started nipping at my 4-year old niece’s dress flying in the breeze as she played on the new swingset Easter morning, Mike ran down the deck and began beating it with his fists.  He hasn’t bothered actually training the dog to behave properly.  The 2-year old stood looking at him from the deck, with a quizzical look on her face, like “Who the fuck punches a dog, you dumbass?”  He came back up on the deck and said something ridiculous about how he should have taken his rings off first.  It would sound stupid even without the southern accent that makes the words sound like I’ve been hitting the prescription drugs a little too hard.

Dogs are one thing, kids are another.  He knows that I’ve made mention previously about the fact that he should not be laying a hand on them.  So he intentionally will say things in my presence like “If you get out of that bed one more time I will beat your ass.”  Then he looks at me, just daring me to say something like “You fucking maggot, if I ever see you touch him I’ll crush your worthless, disgusting ball sack until it looks like you spilled a strawberry margarita down your pants.” 

Instead I am silent.  I follow the child into the bedroom, rock them to sleep & annoy the fuck out of the heartless bitches that are my family members, people who think you can spoil a child who’s already spent part of their life in foster care, a child whose father is in prison.

One day Mike will disappear.  The only thing I can do is laugh at him while he’s here.

If I was perfect myself, it would be a different story.  So many days I’ve been kinder to strangers on the street than I’ve been to my own son or daughter behind closed doors.  It’s easy to forget that fact, way more comfortable.

Mike was adopted.  When his brother moved out of the house, his mother told him his brother had died.  Somehow he later discovered it wasn’t true.  What kind of sick shit must he have grown up with, if this is just one example?

Life is so weird, no one gets out alive.

Twisted Update On My Mother &/or Eek!

I grew up in Illinois.  During my senior year of college Mom introduced me to the derelict & useless motherfucker who would become her third husband.  She followed him to his home state of Kentucky, a place she often spoke of with abject disgust during my childhood.  Her imaginary competition, my step-father’s ex-wife, lived there & she believed it her job to eviscerate every detail of my step-sibling’s mother, including the geography upon which she maintained a home.  People in Kentucky were the stupidest people alive.

Mom has lived there ever since.  She doesn’t even get the joke.  (It’s just one of the many schizophrenic ways in which she took the basic tenets of our screaming mimi childhood and said, “Oops, changed my mind.”)

I’ve previously mentioned my first meeting with the man who would become my step-daddy, a devilish character straight from the 70′s tv program Hee-Haw.  We had lunch in a pizza place and he drank a pitcher of beer as he grew louder and louder, telling a story about how black men can fuck white women all night long.  Theoretically, white men cannot.  It’s all because black men have a lower body temperature.  I shit you not.  Mom sat at the table like a cheshire cat, the pussy who’d won the contest for finding the biggest dick.  No doubt, she was correct.

There have been times when I’ve considered the possibility that I should think of him in a kinder light since he does, after all, live with the biggest bitch in all the world.  He is mean to her because that’s what she likes, it’s the only way to control her nastiness.  But when I hear the stories of his cruelty it’s impossible to forgive him, even with that IQ of 38.

Quick bio: One of 14 children, grew up on dirt floors, no running water.  Stabbed by his sister in the back with a 10-inch kitchen knife, just missed his black heart.  Previously married to 300-pound Marlena, has 2 morbidly obese sons.  He is a bean pole with alcoholic dreams even when he’s not drinking.  Alcohol only intensifies his moronic flights of fantasy. 

Speaks in a manner that would have you believe his tongue is too big for his mouth, with a southern accent that is hillbilly extraordinaire.  Makes you go “HUH?”  Baptist minister for a short time, found all the parts of the Bible that support racism, homicide & treating your wife like shit.  Claimed to various family members (not me) he killed the black man who slept with Marlena before their divorce, plus that man’s wife (she was inconveniently present).  [Interesting side note: Marlena's mother and my mother's father developed a romantic relationship and lived together for 10 years before being killed in a car accident in 2004.]

Mom and the jackass divorced a few years ago but still live together. Long story.  He’s the only one evil enough that the stress of being with her hasn’t killed him yet.  For 20 years I never visited, not once. 

Every time they came to see me something awful would happen and I would remember why there are allowable exceptions to the overblown dogma that you love your parents no matter what.  So I don’t say it, I never write it, I don’t feel it.  It’s the one thing I never fake, the only way I’ve been completely true to myself.  

Then my sister moved to Kentucky with the promise of a job in Mom’s company (an entity which should be named Puppetmaster, Inc.)  She began as a truck driver, but then a year ago her 3 grandchildren arrived, straight from foster care.  Now sis works in the office with Mom, they’re together what seems like 18 hours a day.  Next, my niece got out of prison & headed in that direction to be with her babies.  My step-brother Scott is only an hour away.  

The house we grew up in now belongs to my deceased brother’s girlfriend, so home base in Illinois is gone.  I’m the one who pushed for her to have it.  Fuck me.

* * * * *

This Easter was my fourth trip down, my daughter’s second, my husband’s first.  Rachel hates it, Ray thinks he might want to move there.  He loves bowling alleys, is entertained by goofy people.  She would push the button on a nuke if it meant she never had to go again.  (She did have more fun with the kids this time & would assist me in kidnapping the baby.   She does lust after my sister’s unbelievable array of snack foods.)

I purposely avoid speaking much with Mom before making these trips cause just hearing her voice could talk me out of visiting.  But I decided to be nice this trip and took her not only an Easter bag of candy (since food is her heroin & she is more immature than the 2-year old), but also showed up with a box of the most delightful cupcakes you’ve ever seen. 

She even found a way to complain ABOUT CUPCAKES.  She kept mentioning how “grainy” they tasted, as she ate four over two days.  These things were as heavy as leather shoes, my niece kept saying she didn’t think she could eat a whole one (even though I thought that was utter bullshit).  Mom is a determined eater.  No matter the taste or calorie content or that the balloon procedure she had to reduce the size of her stomach sometimes makes her throw up.  My brother and I learned from the best.  I don’t know how in the hell my sister escaped . . . the cigarettes I suppose.

* * * * *

Mom only kept our house clean as children because her second husband, Scott’s father, was a clean freak.  He had such OCD he would wash himself to the point of being pink.  He died when I was 18 and in college.  I soon thereafter went across the country for 6 months.  Upon return it blew my mind to see that Mom’s cleanliness was only a chameleon-like reaction to him.  Perhaps it would have been better if husband #3 had the same affliction.  He does not.

She doesn’t even bathe regularly, doesn’t wash her hair too often.  Her house is such a disaster I cannot imagine anyone ever living in it again.  This is not because it’s not a nice house, it’s because of the damage her five-plus dogs have done. 

When I absconded with photo albums last time, the bottom one was her wedding pics and it was damp from dog urine.  Niiiiice, Mom.  If one of her kids had pissed on her shit she’d have killed us.  Supposedly the dogs are more loving, however, which makes them forgiveable.  Whatever.  You get what you give.  She says the dogs don’t judge her, they don’t ever say she’s fat.  I think they’re smarter than that.

* * * * *

Since my husband is famous for downplaying any & every event (which is good in the instance of Viet Nam and serious car crashes, both of which he’s handled quite well), I use him as my tester.  I’m known to be a bit dramatic, so I send him into situations and ask for his take.  It lets me know if I’m based in reality at all or if, as my astrologer tells me, I’m living in fantasyland 24/7.

When Mom came over to my sister’s Easter morning she brought her biggest, oldest male Boxer, named after the Stephen King character Cujo.  This dog is the father of my sister’s big dog, Socks, who is only barely 2 years old and just feeling his oats (or licking his balls).  As my sister knew would happen, Socks didn’t handle it well at all when another male entered his territory.  She had evidently warned Mom previously not to do such stupid shit, but Mom’s hobby is stupid shit, it’s part of her bone marrow.

So in the middle of Easter morn, pastel colors, small children, coffee on the deck & love in the air, Socks sunk his teeth into Cujo’s neck and splashed dog blood across the canvas.  My sister handles it all so well, as my niece and I and the kids are running for the front yard so as to avoid the cacophony of screaming canines.  Sis kind of gets off on being right.  She considers herself a little bit of a dog whisperer.  She doesn’t control them at all, but she sort of talks to them.  She loves to say “I told you so.”  For her it was a win.

Mom just kind of acts like it’s no big deal that we’re moving into Michael Vick territory on a peaceful holiday Sunday.  I convince her she should put the dog in the car and take it home, sending my husband along for the ride so he can see her dog house.  Sometimes it amazes me that he will do anything I suggest, doesn’t even question it.  So off they go.

After they left it struck me, the story I’d heard about Mom’s Chrysler 300.  I felt kind of bad that I’d set him up for something I wouldn’t have wanted to do myself, namely get in that fucking car.  I mean, it’s beside the point that Mom’s vehicles are always filthy and covered in dirt and dog hair.  She travels with a companion at all times and people don’t much like her.  She has decided she doesn’t like people either, I think as a response.  (If she told me one more time, “I don’t have time for that god damn Facebook,” I might have said, “Mom, you have no friends, why would you like something that highlights that fact?”)

So when Ray returned I apologized.  I asked him about the trip, namely “Was I exaggerating?”  His reply made me cringe, cause part of me wanted him to say “Yes, Pam, your mother is normal and I can’t believe you tell such lies about that sweet old woman!”  Instead he said, “Oh, it was exactly as you described it.”  Fuck.

I asked, “Did she put her seat belt on, so it wouldn’t ding continuously with you in the car?”  He said, “No, she didn’t.  It dinged the entire way.  That didn’t really bother me as much though as that enormous dog’s head so near my face.”  I’d forgotten that he’d be traveling with Cujo, who I’m sure was annoyed that Ray had taken his spot in the front seat.

I asked what he thought of the house.  He was kind of tickled by the way all five dogs followed Mom as she gave the tour, but he was pretty grossed out by the intensity of the smell in her bedroom.  The dogs all sleep with her.  He noted that the laminate flooring she’s putting down upstairs won’t do so well with the damp wood left to rot underneath. 

He got the giggles, like a guy remembering an acid trip, when describing the mangy cocker spaniel peeing on a throw rug as Mom & he watched.  His amazement wasn’t so much that this old dog was evacuating her kidneys in plain sight, more that he expected Mom to do something about it & instead she stepped over it & kept right on with the tour.  When they reached the living room he saw multiple puddles, both wet & dry.  At that point it all came together and made a psychedelic kind of sense.

(When I visited the following day the same dog peed on the indoor/outdoor carpeting in the sun room.  She didn’t clean that up either.)

He mentioned that the room Mom had built onto the house as an office didn’t seem to be very sturdy, he wondered who would build such a thing without putting the proper supports on underneath.  These are the kinds of details that escape me as I look at things like senior pictures and the heirloom pieces Mom is constantly pointing out, stuff that doesn’t mean shit to my sister or I.  I’m just fascinated that it all means so much to her, how physical things are more important than people in her fucked up head.

For instance, she brought a refrigerator from Illinois to Kentucky, a relic that is so dirty and old I wouldn’t want to touch it, let alone keep food in it.  She keeps it in the garage.  That’s how it got so filthy.  My grandparents never would have had anything in such disgusting condition.

Ray mentioned the garage.  He stated that there was so much dog food and bird seed in there that it’s no wonder about the

mice.

See, Mom mentioned that she’s had problems with rodents this past winter.  She had a few mice in her house.  I have no freaking idea how they escaped the dogs.  Then one day she got into her car and noticed a really bad smell.  When mom notices something with those horribly abused olfactory senses of hers, you know it’s fucking atrocious. 

So she went out to the shop and asked the guys there to find what she assumed was a dead mouse in the car.  Amazingly, people are willing to do these kinds of chores for her.  They found the dead mouse.

But they also found a nest of live mice.  They were living inside the $30,000 Chrysler 300.  Let me reiterate, in case your mind could not wrap itself around that last sentence: my mother had mice living in her car.

When she told the story, Mom really didn’t make it out to be a big deal.  Shit happens.  When you own 5 dogs & are an insatiable overeater it happens a lot.

* * * * *

When we stopped by to say good-bye I noted a dead mole, shredded & hairy, lying on the cement apron at her home’s entryway.  A gift from her best friends.  Mom said she’d already put it in the garbage can 3 times and they continued to retrieve it.  (Some of these dogs are as tall as men.)

Now, I know I can be dramatic and take things too far in my distorted brain.  I think about Legionnaire’s disease.  I think about snorting a mist of rodent turds when the air conditioner is turned on the first hot day of summer.  I find myself wondering what lives in Mom’s bed after the dogs run through fields and lick their balls and then her neck.

Not only do I never want to ride in that car again, I think it was incredibly insensitive that the doctor didn’t do a c-section & instead forced me to travel through her nasty ass vagina.

* * * * *

The woman is intelligent in odd ways. 

She told me how stubborn I was as a child & said I’m crazy to think she could have changed a single one of my decisions.  She’s big on the idea that my perceptions of her were created to escape my own responsibility. 

Her theory seems plausible until it gets fucked up remembering that if she tried to change my mind it would have been through violence, the way she accomplished everything: making dinner, carrying in groceries, cleaning the house.  Either she thinks the whole loving mother routine is for pussies or she’s just incapable.  Probably both. 

Still it jarred my reality.  I would so prefer to remember myself as a tough little bitch and not her victim.  She’s not the only one who’s said things that make me wonder about the huge blanks in my memory.  Pieces of me got lost along the way.  She’s probably right, I’m too sensitive & need to toughen up.  

Except for the part about the furry creatures.  No fucking way.

Twisted Lives Are So Much Better Shared

It’s common knowledge among people who know me in real life that I ask a lot of freaking questions.  We’re not talking friendly chit-chat, it’s more like invasive interrogation lobbed at your head like a racquetball.  The more information you provide, the faster I think of things I want to know, subject areas I want to delve into further.  There is never enough time.

Some people like it, some are offended and hate it.  I’ve been asked if I’m a newspaper reporter or a member of a crime-fighting squad.  Personally, I would love it if someone showed such interest in me.  If memory serves correctly it happened just once and we were at the local Italian American Club during a repast.  The experience brought me to tears at several points, not because I was unhappy about it or the memories too painful to rehash, but because it made me realize how seldom anyone ever has shown such interest in my life. 

This blog entry talks about it a bit: The Twisted State of Conversation.  I think I was actually grateful.

It’s not that people avoid asking questions due to disinterest, they don’t ask because of some reserved belief that other people’s business is not their business.  It’s just not true.  We’re all experiencing similar funky shit cause we’re all living life.  Of course one has the right at any point to refuse to discuss themselves and that’s perfectly fine.  But from my study of human nature (mostly in bowling alleys) it seems that people are desperate to be heard and I like to think I’m providing a service.

Recently it’s come slamming into my awareness that everyone has a story, bar none, and often the story is so much more than you could ever imagine it would be.  My own life has been full of unexpected twists and turns, often hinging upon the mother I grade ‘F’ for “Fucking Failure.”  But in the long run, compared to most, I should receive a ‘W’ for “Whiner.”  It’s a difficult thing to acknowledge, a little embarrassing, but inescapable.

* * * * *

This conclusion has been cemented through my re-connection with several old classmates, due to the wonders of mighty Facebook.  Our farm town held only 3,000 people.  There were about 100 students per class.  We spent 8 hours or more per day in cramped desks, listening to boring teachers, for 10 or more years.  It seemed to me that I was the only person in the entire school who went home to crazyville.  30 years later I come to find out I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Unshared drama surrounded us all.

When I think of our attention focused on some idiotic historical figure or other, instead of sharing experiences and focusing on solutions to problems and comfort in numbers, it makes me want to puke.

From just three conversations I walk away with my mind unhinged.

* * * * *

First, it was Robbie, who lived two doors down Guthrie Street.  A cute boy in the class ahead of me, I don’t know if he & I ever had much of a conversation as children.  He was quiet, low-key, never one to look for attention from anyone.  (All traits I’m fascinated by since I was pretty much the opposite.)  I remember being told Robbie was adopted & then his mother discovered she was pregnant.   I’ve always loved this story, like something out of a fairy tale proving God is real.  You know, be a loving person and in return your dreams will all come true.  (I mean I know it doesn’t always work out like that, but even I get one positive thought per year.)

When we talked recently he told me he’s tried to find his birthparents, come close, but can’t quite pull together the final details.  He’s even written to one of my favorite TV shows that find people, but was turned away.  He raised 3 kids on his own after his first young wife died suddenly.  The outgoing, funny brother who was my age is long deceased from a car accident.  No one escapes untouched, but some are mauled so much worse.

All that’s enough on its’ own, but for me the ultimate piece of the story is that Robbie . . .

is psychic. 

As in he seriously believes when he walks into a room he can read the thoughts of others & has to block them out or would lose his mind.  (Holy shit.)  I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven, that’s how interesting I found this subject.  Fuck American History, to hell with Geometry, tell me more about what you’re hearing inside your head.

* * * * *

Next was Gary, a tall, blonde, farm boy adonis.  He was in school musicals, a star, the perfectly popular American athlete.  His smile had a fucking sparkle to it, that kind of guy.  We were not part of the same social scene, to say the least.  When he friended me I was confused.  In a million years I wouldn’t have expected to connect with him, but boy was I wrong.  He is one of the sweetest, most loving, emotionally present people I’ve ever met. 

So when he told me he needed intensive psychological treatment for serious depression after his divorce, I couldn’t have been more surprised.  As it turns out, women are not the only people with feelings.  Shazam!  (I knew that.)  Even guys who drive trucks & appear to have the world by the balls.  Fifteen years divorced, he has never re-married.

Several phone calls since our first connection, I wasn’t shocked to hear that Gary is currently in love with a Filipino girl he met on Matchmaker.com.  He’s met her whole family on-line.  They call him “Steven Segal.”  His heart is huge and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make life easier for this woman and her daughter, even her extended family.  I hope it works out.

* * * * *

Third, I was most blown away by Susie.  She was someone I probably barely looked at in junior high, I seriously doubt if I gave her the time of day because that’s the kind of little bitch I was & still can be.  I believe she moved away in high school, purposely got pregnant at 15 & married to get away from her mother.  (Sometimes it seems like I just have to give away a little of my own shit to find out where the bodies are buried for someone else.)  This woman now looks barely 40, yet she has 2 grown children, several grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren.  Susie’s mom beat the crap out of her daily.  But that’s not the crazy part.

It’s bad enough in person, but in an instant message my typing speed completely overwhelms the victim.  I asked Susie, “Did you have any siblings?”  She mentioned her two sisters.  Then she said, “Oh, and I have a full brother who’s six years older than me, who I just met a few years ago.”  So I asked how that was possible. 

“Well, Mom and Dad left him in a bar when he was a baby and some people picked him up and took him home.  He was raised in a nearby town and we never knew he existed till my sister found his birth certificate.  Mom finally came clean cause she knew she was dying.  She called me home from Florida to tell me about him.”  I was stunned. 

As it turns out, the ”adoptive” family never did anything officially, just raised the boy.  When I asked if he was a ward of the state she said, “Oh no, back then they didn’t bother with stuff like that.  He’s still really angry at my mom, even though I keep telling him he was lucky he didn’t grow up with her.”

Then came the clincher: “They did the same thing to me, left me in the bar, but somebody brought me back.”

Here was this person I never spent a single moment being nice to during all the years I knew her. 

* * * * *

It brings tears to my eyes now, just thinking of how different it could have been for all of us.  Knowing you’re not the only one in a fucked up situation is probably the most healing possible scenario.  The secret causes the shame & that’s the most harmful piece of all.

We learn about fables and calculus and insects.  Children have gym class and recess and foreign language.  But so little time is ever put into human interaction and kindness, or how important it is to understand that everyone has a story, each person is deserving of our respect and attention, & the listener is the lucky one.  (Even when it’s the hot chick who makes other women jealous cause they don’t know she’s so miserable she can’t stand it, or the ugly ass man who would entertain you for hours with his humor if only you were willing to even look his way.)

It would make it just that much easier if we were aware right from the start that none of us are alone in this shit.

I’m So Surprised When People Allow Me Near Their Children

Recently we joined a co-op.  Families gather once a week from 9-3.  Unlike myself, the proactive, responsible mothers choose a topic in which they have some level of expertise, a subject both educational & entertaining.  Then they teach a class and “cooperatively” share their knowledge.  At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.  (Two families have already dropped out, leaving people in the lurch a bit.)

My position?  I’m on the cleaning crew.

A smattering of the folks involved include: a multi-talented polymer clay artist, an attorney, a ridiculously fit & flexible yoga master, an amazingly down to earth woman who earned her doctorate working on an AIDS vaccine, and a breast-feeding  guidance counselor (who was actually Roxanne’s first wedding client after her internet-ordination as a minister).  I so completely love it when I’ve pigeon-holed someone as a regular moron & then discover they’re not, in the process confirming  I truly am a jackass.

Even in my position sterilizing the nursery I must fight the devilish urge to shirk my duties.  Who would ever know if I really bleached the fingerprints & spit off tiny toys  

 . . . .  or not?

My 12-year old’s courseload is on the heavy side: Art, Yoga, Cooking (vegetarian cuisine which disgusts her to a place where I believe she wants to bring contraband beef jerky in her pockets and gnaw on pork chops during breaks), Lunch & Science.

I am a horrible person.

I do not kid myself, my awareness continues to grow in leaps and bounds.  I have oodles of knowledge about things of no importance (pop culture, obscure spellings, bizarre news items), and practically none in intellectual pursuits (mention Shakespeare or another haughty author held in high regard by academicians & my eyes roll to the back of my head.  However, I read everything Truman Capote ever wrote & would be happy to lead a discourse on ”In Cold Blood.”)

Most of all my lazy & belligerent attitude spells disaster.  “Commitment phobic” downplays what happens once I’m locked into even the things I WANT to do.  The 9 a.m. arrival time is nearly equivalent to asking me to snake your toilet or re-attach a severed limb.  My students would eventually be found playing near double yellow lines or hanging in the tops of trees. 

After years of fighting my own nature, I no longer volunteer to jump from cliffs or corral children whose parents may be standing nearby.  I have control issues that flash like the lights on a patrol car and the standard for reasonable behavior falls across such an enormous continuum. 

I am reminded of hated classmates when a child believes they are more adorable, intellectually gifted &/or worthy of special treatment than all others, as no doubt convinced by a self-absorbed mother.  Even worse is when the aforementioned parent is present & ignores behavior that would have been included in the script for “Problem Child” if only the writers had better imagination.

Coming from a dysfunctional wack-a-doodle family, it seems I have what some consider a heavy hand, unreachable standards, & ridiculous expectations.  Like I want the kids to decline from eating boogers (no matter how tasty or protein deprived) & never, ever, emit a high-pitched scream without accompaniment of a rodent or splintered bone (spiders are not rodents & gleeful best friends do not have pediatric orthopedic surgeons).  I’ll agree, my margin for error is slim.

* * * * *

But occasionally the cosmos grabs your groin, twists and giggles.  At 11 p.m. last night I heard the voice message: “We need you to teach the “Numbers” class for 3-5 year olds.  No one else can do it.”  I was the only slacker with flexibility in my schedule even though “assisting” this week with “Letters” and “Poetry.”  My lackluster motivation has been completely ignored.

I never went to bed.  It was the only way to assure gremlins could not disconnect my weak link to punctuality.  The perfect combination: A hopped-up nutjob with a class full of moldable minds. 

Upon arrival I pulled out the items I brought for my curriculum.  Two “friends” began to laugh.  “Pam, they’re 3!” 

Okay, so I tempered my expectations once I noticed the adorable little chick with her finger in her nose to the knuckle.  I wanted to heave when I remembered the affection small children have for sharing their own germs.  But more than half the class looked like they’d stepped out of a Mary Poppins movie: perfect hair bows, striped knit dresses & bright tights.  My favorite pattern contained wiener dogs wearing sweaters.  I could not fight the cuteness quotient.

It was fun & it was exhausting.  A captive & appreciative audience is the stuff of my dreams (mostly prison scenarios with tremendously grateful muscle-bound bald men).

I could have told these kids they were frogs and made them hop.  Actually, I did make them hop.  Does it get better than that?  Oh, it does.  They laughed at my jokes, the way my 24-year old used to when he was a tiny little thing who believed my lies & distortions. 

They agreed that it’s not a good thing when your name is “Pam” and it rhymes with “ham.”

When we went around the table telling our names and ages, then counting and shouting it loud and proud, Besamela claimed she was eight.  We took it for granted she was telling the truth, even as her grandmother in the corner sputtered something about the veracity of her answer.  When I asked the class which cost more, sneakers or a laptop computer, it came to a 50/50 split decision.  No one asked for the correct answer, so I didn’t give them one.

At one point Dominic appeared a bit annoyed with the goofballs.  As an oldest child myself I could completely identify with his frustrations.  Emily’s little sister, Abbie, had trouble with her scissors but was happy after chopping up 30 paper towels I held taught while dodging her shaky weapon. 

If only I used that much patience when dealing with my own kids more often.

In a stroke of genius I’d thrown the tape measure in my bag as I ran out the garage door.  These excitable little doe-eyed moppets wanted their height measured, along with their hair and their eye sockets.  We measured feet and fingers and shoulders.  Could I do it twice?

It escapes me how belly buttons became part of  the mix (mostly 1-1.5 inches).

Most importantly, all children were alive and accounted for at the end of the day.  To my own amazement I didn’t swear a single time, not even at their mothers. 

I Prefer a Hooker with Hoof & Mouth Disease over a Positively Peppy Pollyanna

Even as a girl of 9 I recognized my own natural proclivities.  I have a snapshot memory of standing at our back door, gazing outside, thinking “I want to be good, I do God, but being bad is so much more fun.”  How did I get that idea in my warped little head?  What bad things had I done that gave me so much joy?  I know I didn’t begin masturbating until 10 or 11, hadn’t yet become a binge eater, didn’t even know how to play craps.

I was never brave enough to be openly defiant or obviously wicked because I was way too afraid of (1) my mother, (2) getting punched in the face and/or (3) going to prison.  I stayed with the only other option available, sly and sneaky.  It’s unsatisfying compared with an in your face “Fuck you!”  but still beats being a kiss ass.

My brother Scott once told my mom, “Say ‘when!’” as he poured her a glass of milk.  She didn’t say it.  He kept going as it hit the floor and probably her feet.  As far as I was concerned, his balls were a gargantuan work of art and I wanted to bow to their mastery. 

It’s possible that this is the event which pushed me to touch my boyfriend Richard’s testicles when I was 12, as we made out in the park across from the swimming pool.  I even named them.  I wouldn’t clean out a drain to save my own life until age 35 cause it was just too gross, but I would touch hairy nuts because I so totally wished I had a humongous pair.

For the most part I’m still a sneaky bitch.  I want people to like me, such an annoying trait.  Makes no sense, convincing other people that I’m milk white, vanilla, sweetness and light, when the peeps who prefer such tastes are not even the kind I like!   As I get older and the duct tape on my alter ego’s lips wears thin, the more my true self pops up unexpectedly.  I’ve muzzled the wrong voice, nearly forgotten how to be completely honest.

The most dangerous time of all for my wimpy fake front is when I’m writing.  I’m so fucking brave when face to face confrontation is just a conceptual problem facing future me.

Letters to the editor were my first fire bombs.  Standing on the school playground or sitting in a seat at a town council meeting, no doubt my lips held a goofy grin that begged to be under-estimated.  When my concerns were ignored or blown off I started writing letters.  I cannot exaggerate the power available to anyone willing to say the truth out loud.  God, does it ever piss people off.

* * * * *

Since I met my husband’s family, particularly his sister and her daughters, I’ve been aware that they would not be impressed with (1) my history, (2) my thought processes, (3) my refusal to behave like a proper wife, (4) my unorthodox parenting practices, (5) my enthusiastic use of foul language, or (6) my love of all things inappopriate.  None of that mattered when we saw them only 3 or 4 days a year.

I would yammer on ceaselessly, entertaining their mostly silent potato faces with endless nonsensical tales, curbing any potentially controversial or revealing subject material.  From all outward appearance, they loved me.  The girls are now grown and each has an infant son, the youngest is pregnant with #2.  Both now live in New Mexico. 

Daughter #1 has been a focus over the past decade, ranging from her perfect high school graduation, on to her perfect college career, her perfect job, her perfect wedding (that we were not invited to because it was held atop a mountain or some shit), and now her perfect child.  Daughter #2 has taken mostly a backseat, but her husband (#2) is also maddeningly wonderful, her life beyond magical and her son a blonde baby Jesus.

I pride myself on being able to see the good in everyone.  I would, however, prefer to seek it out than have it shoved down my throat.

* * * * *

Then came ~you might have guessed~ Facebook: the daily updates, the status lines, the multiple mother/daughter interactions put forth for the world to suckle that sickly sweet syrup straight from Aunt Jemima’s teat.

Along with my attraction to negativity is an aversion to enthusiastic, energetic, happy motherfuckers.  I wish upon these poor, naive fools just enough pain and misery that they may have a more realistic view of the world.

They remind me of girls I went to high school with, girls whose mothers did their hair and said “I love you, honey.”  The same girls with fathers who would one day walk them down the aisle, look lovingly into their eyes during the father/daughter dance and then leave them a fat inheritance.  Of course the bitches were smiling toothy grins like crackheads with a huge hidden stash!

The perfect storm: positive peeps who spout bullshit & a written form of communication.  All this time I’ve presented such a nice, happy front, like I’m living with the seven dwarves.  Then with just a few comments I expose myself as the bitch bringing the apple to Snow White.

It’s not even entirely me, it’s mostly them.  Consider a recent status line from Sister #1, who holds a master’s degree in geology:

“Dream job is coming up with the names for paint colors… What’s yours?”

And, God so help me it’s true, this was one of the responses:

“Following birds around in the forest all day to find out what they do in their spare time.”

And this (please note the affected spelling of ‘shoppe’):
“Owning a dog shoppe and leading doggy day hikes in the mountains. “

Commercial break necessary as I beat my head into the nearest wall in an attempt to empty my mind of these hideous images of goodness and light.  I mean, I wouldn’t even lead children on hikes unless it was to a candy store and they all had money in their pockets and promised to share it with me and the SHOPPE was down the block, a flat block with no hills.

Followed by this entry:

“. . . is puzzled.  N. took 2 90-minute naps today, with hardly a wimper going down or waking up (the norm is 2 60-minute naps with a few minutes of crying on either end).  Watch out everyone, I think the world may be coming to an end! =)”

And after months of restrained silence, my response (note false tone of sweetness & insincere use of ‘honey’:

“Oh honey, you take this stuff so seriously. I never could have told you in a single day what nap either kid took or for how long or possibly even where, although usually it was in my lap. “Schedule” is such an evil, evil word! So is “normal.” Eeeeyuch!”

Which initiated this obnoxious response:

“Aunt Pam – Fortunately, N. is MY child when it comes to scheduling and being organized… as much as any toddler is on a “schedule”, N. is! =) When he takes his 60-minute naps… they last 60 minutes plus/minus 2 minutes (literally, you could set your watch by it, it was amazing!).”

Oh no, she didn’t really say that did she?  Oh, yes, she did.  So my alter ego got involved and increased the smart ass factor (with an LOL to keep it breezy):

“LOL – Are there any graphs involved in all of this? A sun dial perhaps?”

And that’s when she came out with the fact that she’s clinically insane:

“Oh, there will be — graphs for sure!! (I’m an excel addict, any excuse I can use to organize my life in excel… right now I track exercise and how much water I drink in excel!)”

* * * * *

At about the same time her sister was writing this:

“I laid B. down an hour and 1/2 earlier than normal b/c I need him to wake up sooner today and he went right to bed!! He makes being a mom too easy (sometimes anyway!!)- Im super scared for the new baby though…”

You might be wondering, as I did, what is she scared about?  Well, she’s afraid this new one might be BAD.  The brilliant “Ashley,” who may be an expert on Dr. Phil (my educated guess) said:

“Just like the saying behind a good man is a good woman, well behind a good child is a good mommy!!! and I totally believe that!”

Michele, who gets her parenting tips from Oprah, agrees:

“i also agree with ashley. V. is the most laid back kid ever….its all about how you parent!”

First, let me say I would like to take a horse whip after that fucking Ashley, who dare use the “behind a good man is a good woman” line.  Reading it again gives me convulsions. 

It was all going along so obnoxiously until the thread completely died when I mentioned:

“HAHAHAHA . . . I am hysterical over the people who think it’s all about how you parent. That’s so funny! I know wonderful moms who got kids with a variety of fantastical personalities, some who jump from high places and shave their heads and can get into things better than any locksmith.”

Hey, don’t judge me!  I left out  my sister-in-law whose daughter has her master’s in education and whose son spent time in Rikers Island and beats his pitbull on purpose to make it meaner.

I think my take on pre-natal vitamins, which were making her “SUPER SICK with HORRIBLE HEADACHES,” bothered them more.  (Are you fucking kidding me?  Why not add flecks of rat poison to your hot cereal?) 

After 12 replies I wrote the following and again was the last to jump in on the subject:

“I would never take anything that made me sick . . . but then I’m a baby like that.  And a brat.  I’m pretty sure they gave them to me with Rachel and I never took’em. Yeah, I know, practically child abuse, right? She might have weighed 16 pounds instead of just 10’11. She is a little slow with the multiplication tables though, but I figure she can always be a pole dancer. YES, I’m going to leave that line there. I’m in the middle of a midlife crisis and I’m going to start acting like a 70 year old woman who eats pickles in the street and wears purple and farts in the grocery store and blames the person next to her.”

Can you imagine not responding to such a heartfelt reply?

Meanwhile, I’m wasting my insight on a person who would post this bullshit:

“ATTENTION!!!!!!!  DO NOT JOIN THE GROUP CURRENTLY ON FACEBOOK WITH THE TITLE “BECOMING A FATHER OR MOTHER WAS THE GREATEST GIFT OF MY LIFE!”  THIS IS A GROUP CREATED BY PEDOPHILES WHOSE AIM IS TO ACCESS YOUR PHOTOS OF YOUR CHILDERN (sic)!!!  PLEASE ROTATE THIS POST TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK!!!!!!!!”

Which got the reply: “Great catch on that one, K.”

I need to return to my home planet as quickly as possible.

Finding My Twisted Voice, Did I Lose It In Farmville?

Somehow, somewhere, my written voice has been choked to death.  It was always a problem that I wrote and re-wrote to such a ridiculous extent, but now I don’t even begin. 

There seems to be a connection to Facebook, since I spend hours and hours looking at the page over at that idiotic site, the one where people say dumb shit in 12 words or less (or more commonly nothing at all). 

So what am I doing there?

I play games with fucking YOVILLE and FARMVILLE and MAFIA WARS, activities a person with an IQ of 50 could participate in as they dribble saliva down their chins and wait for the next institutional meal delivery to arrive at bedside.  As I do this stuff there is a constant running commentary in my brain, like an MTV highlight line, that says:

“I need to do something that makes money.  This is retarded. 

What the fuck is wrong with me?”

The answer is that this Facebook stuff is like crack for the masses, non-thinking hypnotic activities manufactured to put your mind in that subconscious zone most desired by advertisers.  Many of my fellow beloved bloggers are on Facebook and that makes it even easier to remain there, although I no longer read their blogs since I’m instead staring at an empty page appropriate for a monkey.  (Don’t get me wrong, I love monkeys.)

I miss reading blogs, at least some of them.  More than likely I need to weed my list down and then I wouldn’t be so overwhelmed by trying to keep up with too many.  We’re all a bunch of wordy motherfuckers and wading through 20 entries a day can overwhelm me to the point where I’m completely done in.  You’d think I’d dug 20 ditches instead of read 20,000 lines. 

How did people survive when they had to wash laundry by hand (often for families of 10 or so), hang it on lines (all that upper arm strength) and beat the evening’s meat with a hammer before coating it with some kind of crap meal and cooking it in a pan that later had to be scrubbed with a wire brush?

The worst part about Facebook is that everyone is so NICE and BORING there and not many people ever say anything politically incorrect or add much detail.  There are pages I visit where no one says anything at all.  What the fuck is that about?  Seriously, how is it possible that no one has something to say?  I ALWAYS HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!  Does that mean I’m the fucked up one?  When I start commenting on someone’s page it often seems I’ve taken it over completely (SO NOT COOL!). 

Most inane posts lack even a hint of creativity and contain either (1) game scores or (2) stuffed animals more appropriate for a nursery than a grown human being or (3) virtual beating hearts or (4) terroristic threats of the sort like this one:

“If you love your daughter like I love my daughter and you’re willing to say it (WHICH MOST PEOPLE WON’T BE WILLING TO BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT TRUE LOVING MOTHERS LIKE ME) then post this to your wall for 45 minutes.”

I want to gut the people who post that shit, one of whom is my sister-in-law.  Her daughter does it, too.  The worst are the religious posts.  Honest to God, she put this on her page last week:

“WITHOUT GOD… our week would be: Sinday, Mournday, Tearsday, Wasteday, Thirstday, Fightday, Shatterday, Seven days without God – Makes one Weak! (If you are not ashamed of God, post this to your status.)”

Seriously, I need a divorce just so I’m not related to anyone who could have posted such nonsensical drivel.

But I can’t escape it, even my niece recently wrote: 

“For all of you that aren’t too proud to say thank you to your moms for helping you be the great person you are today… please copy and paste to your profile!  I expect to see this many times on my page! Some people no longer have their Moms here to appreciate! (But we can still say THANKS for their love and support!!!  If you love your mother and are willing to acknowledge that she made you into the wonderful person you are today post this.  Most people will not have the nerve or heart to post such a thing.” 

Now, mind you, this is the girl who grew up to have 3 children before she turned 23, who began using crack at age 15, who went to prison and had her children all taken into foster care.  Ahem. 

Let’s get real, her mom made a few mistakes along the way, just sayin’.

Did she really think I would post such utter shit to MY FUCKING WALL?!  I pushed the limit by leaving a message saying I’d be checking my sister’s status line to see if she was thanking our mother yet for turning us into babbling nincompoops.  (I acknowledge the lack of personal responsibility in that statement because my psychologist insists I have to.  Yes, that would be the psychologist who has not fixed me yet.)

So today there is a viral thing going around that asks you to post a picture of a famous person you think you look like as your profile pic.  A woman I know peripherally has posted a very attractive blonde woman, who I do not recognize, as her photo.  SHE LOOKS NOTHING LIKE THIS CHICK!  Every time I see the photo I want to ask (1) Who is that? and (2) Are you fucking serious, that’s what you see when you look in the mirror? and (3)  Are you fucking kidding me?

How wacked out is it that I can’t stand myself for not writing what I want to write?  How do I find that fine line where I am honest but not so honest that no one will ever speak to me again? 

There are two voices in my head (the loudest ones).  One is saying, “Who died and made you God?”  The other is saying, “Just fucking do it you big fat pussy.” 

As I’ve already told you, I’m not a fan of religious messages.

Follow Your Heart, Aunt Rose &/or Home Alone – Edition 49

This entry and certain photos contained within are potentially offensive

& inappropriate for minors and/or the workplace.

For the last two plus months my pseudo sister-in-law Rose has been staying in my son’s basement bedroom (the size of a small apartment with queen-sized bed, wall-sized flat screen & laptop with wireless internet).  Although in the past decade she once lived in a motel paid for by the State of NJ, next door to the schizophrenic owner of  a dog that bit her, she still managed to complain incessantly about a musty odor that my ridiculously sensitive nose cannot smell.

She is my son’s aunt, his deceased father’s oldest sister, the craziest chick I’ve ever known.  She has no connection to my current husband or daughter (other than driving them nuts & assisting them in creating an unbreakable bond of misery that instigates great eye rolling & whispered complaints).  I have known her for 25 years & love her like the sister you think might have been secretly adopted.

After she had COMPLETELY demolished the room with such an incredible amount of pure crap that it seemed to have exploded from a magician’s trunk (she has a touch of the hoarder) we sent a cell phone picture of his room to Bobby in California.  From 3,000 miles he seemed almost excited, so thorougly entertained he was by the chaos & unease I’d brought into our little world.

How do I possibly describe her?  A heart the size of Montana and a mouth larger than Alaska.  I am so completely entertained & tortured by both.  Following her around, I stay two steps back to (1) jump up & down with glee at her unbelievable antics, talking to total strangers & saying outrageous shit and (2) cover my face & pretend I don’t know her as I groan out loud, twisting with a reflective shame that can’t handle it at all.

As the oldest of 8 children, mommy’s helper from the age of two, she is a worker bee, she makes things happen.  She is a f*cking force of nature.  However, supposedly her heart was broken when I used those words to describe her after 48 hours in our house.  This from a woman who once walked in and yelled, “Pam, you’re pregnant!  I had no idea!” as a comedic way of mocking my recent weight gain.

She talks . . . A LOT.  Sometimes it’s more entertaining than others.

* * * * *

I moved to North Carolina at her urging in 1985, made a cross country move with a 3 month old and her sick brother.  It was monumentally stupid.  We were there a week when she realized there was no way she could fulfill the promises of help made to entice our nightmare into hell.  It didn’t seem to really phase her as she told me, “Yeah, well.” 

Along those same lines were a few other episodes in our bizarre decades long connection.  She once cut my toddler son’s hair while I was at work, did not call and ask if it was okay, thought it was ridiculous when I lost my mind.  (I can’t really explain why this is equal to felony assault, but IT IS.)

She invited her grandmother to NC, my son’s great-grandmother & someone I’d never met, then became annoyed with the woman & left her at my house for 3 days without even a phone call.  At that point her brother was already deceased & I was on shaky ground.  It didn’t sit well when I called to my toddler and asked, “Do you want a slice of cheese?” & got the reply “Sure!” from a shaky 80-year old.  It was not a good time for extra care duties.

After 72 hours Rose came by to take advantage of our community pool.  When I got angry she locked herself in her car & wouldn’t discuss the situation.  In a burst of maturity I kicked her car & screamed like a maniac.  She has seen me at my worst and accepts me as I am, something I can’t say about many people on planet earth.  She really, really knows me, far better than my own family.  It’s not always an impressive sight to behold.

Her life has always been chaotic, beginning with a 25-year marriage to an alcoholic, but recently she’s been living with a 71-year old Italian who fancies himself Tommy Soprano.  She left twice, he begged her to come back, it’s a rollercoaster.  When they hit bottom again at the end of September she told me a few specifics.  We hadn’t really spoken in months, yet my reply was, “We’re coming to get you.” 

For more than 2 years I’d controlled my impulse to say or do such a thing.  His mocking her appearance was the last straw.  He’d done worse & I’m not sure what instigated those unthinkable words escaping my mouth.  (It happened once before, more than 10 years ago, when I invited the school librarian and her two daughters into our home for a month.  We later found out she’d stayed in someone else’s home for over a YEAR.) 

I should mention Rose has FOUR SISTERS, none of whom have stepped up, who from my perspective have let her down beyond belief. 

Did I mention she can be a little difficult?

(Or that they’re heartless bitches?)

In the mean time, while nearly homeless, she’s still spending money on food & cigarette deliveries to her parents, giving her mother money for unpaid bills when she calls crying.  At least she was until her father chased her out of their senior residence with a skillet because she wasn’t willing to give him the cigarettes he saw in her purse.

This insanity is what my son’s father described as utter nirvana, a family equal only to royalty.  I believed him.

* * * * *

Surprisingly, after a rough start, I really liked having her here.  My daughter & her father did not.  He went along with it, actually went with me to move her things, due to the domestic violence element &/or because he can’t bear confrontation or disagreement with me.  Rachel chose to stay in the car, not carrying a single bag of crap down the three flights of stairs.

That first night, sitting in our den, this child of mine asked, “How do you spell ‘psycho?’” 

Rose asked her, “Do you think I don’t know you’re talking about me?”  Rachel blushed & snickered.  It didn’t get better.  The following day Rose grabbed her in a hug and whispered, “I’ll kill you, ya little bastard!”, then released her with a laugh & said, “You know I’m just joking!”  Rachel took a baseball bat to bed that night, ever the drama queen, although I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.

Obviously we would have stepped in if we didn’t think the girl totally deserved it.  She was unwilling to be civil, the expressions on her face mind boggling in their vehemence toward a 59-year old guest.  Time and time again she tried to convince me that Rose was smoking in the house as a way to get rid of her, evidently unaware that I have dog senses when it comes to nicotine.  I did wake up one morning in my upstairs bedroom to the smell of incense from two floors below. 

To her credit, Rose reacted instantly to any request she make a change, including the incense, flowery perfume & speakerphone conversations below the bedroom door at 3 AM.  She completely avoided the TV room.  (It was the only way she could keep herself from chattering throughout entire episodes of favorite shows & unheard movies, a relatively unforgivable sin to every single member of this household.)  We overlooked the cooking smells in the middle of the night and a crazed drunken message left on the counter, something she didn’t even remember writing.

She’s suffering from shoulder injuries (two years now), takes a good deal of pain medication(s), drinks more booze than she probably should considering that fact.  Add in the Sudafed she took multiple doses of daily due to the basement allergy, which made her hyper as hell.  No doubt she’s got Attention Deficit Disorder to begin with, as bad as any out of control grammar school boy.

* * * * *

She was the perfect accompaniment to the gay bar, minus a few nerve-wracking situations. 

Once I went to the car and got this text: “In bathroom, fight with tranny.”  I don’t know anyone else who would ever send me just such combination of words.  She met people, got phone numbers & used them!  After telling us about going to this same place previously with her sister

and pushing her into the pool with both cell phone & flip-flops,

which then got stuck in the filter and had to be retrieved by an employee, we carefully avoided standing near the water.  Now remember, we’re talking about women in their 50′s, late 40′s max at the time.  Both are really attractive, you would not guess their ages accurately, even minus the behavior factor.  This is me on the left, you’ll have to guess which of the other two is Rose and which is really a man.  Seriously, would you guess anyone in this picture is 59?

The first night she came along we immediately lost her.  Eventually I realized she was the woman on stage doing a spectacularly nasty humping move with a cute young man.  Since then not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES I have watched her dance with such enthusiasm & creativity that she accidentally ended up on the filthy floor. 

BOOM!

On Halloween I headed for the stage once again to see the costume contest.  There stood Rose with a husky man, his arm wrapped around her tightly, blonde hair cascading down his broad sweaty shoulders.  He was wearing gloves & a cute skirt with tights. 

We’ve since learned John’s preferred name is Tiffany, that he has Asperger’s & believes he lived previous lifetimes as (1) a German SS officer and (2) an extra-terrestrial on a planet where people morphed from bears instead of monkeys.  He was thrilled I’d done a past life regression myself once.  He desperately wants to make me over.  I’m not glam enough for his taste.  Yeah, no shit.

During our last conversation at the bar he used a vice grip to hold my attention.  His spiked wrist band was causing me discomfort, as was the fine mist of saliva he sprayed me with more than once.  His breath was horrendous.  When I mentioned it to Rose in the car she said, “Oh God, I told him he smelled like a gremlin as soon as I walked in the door!  Why didn’t you say something?!”

This is why I love her no matter what.

Can you believe it?  He later told Rose he thinks I have Asperger’s, too, because of my ability to concentrate on his words so completely. 

It’s not fucking Asperger’s, it’s called growing up in the midwest.  It’s having ridiculous manners, non-existent boundaries, and the concern that people like me to such a ridiculous extent that I don’t even want to offend some crazy dude in a dress.  (As I write this I want to puke.)

* * * * *

But that’s not even my favorite story.  She met another dude who took a liking to her, one who dresses like a man.  He’d rented a room in the attached hotel so he could avoid driving home drunk.  Evidently ATTORNEYS are very careful about DWI’s.  She had no interest in him as a date, but he was perfectly acceptable as long as he kept buying her drinks.  When I found them she already knew his life story. 

He was quite inebriated & got thrown off the dance floor for unzipping and allowing the ventriloquist’s dummy in his pants to take a peek around.  As the bouncer escorted him out of the room, Rose’s new pal yelled out his room number & requested after hours party-goers.

She felt bad he’d been forced upstairs before closing time (by just 5 minutes) & immediately began assembling a ragtag group of young people to accompany her to his room.  (Her fantastic sales skills are transferable to any occasion.)  I was laughing so hard I was crying.  Next I knew, I was standing in an elevator & Rose was nowhere to be seen.  I was surrounded by what could only be described as a group meant for casting in the next John Waters film (if he hadn’t died recently): men who look like women, women who look like men, varied colors of the rainbow & me (prior pale PTO secretary). 

I felt a moment of panic as I reconsidered my decision-making abilities & thought about what the fuck I was doing.

These things don’t happen when I go places with Roxanne.

When the doors to the elevator opened Rose had already arrived via the stairs.  She began rapping on the door as the diverse crew stood around, excited to see what was behind curtain #1.  They had no idea what prize awaited.  When a 300-plus pound man opened the door naked & excited there was a screaming chorus of

“OH MY GOD!” and “OH FUCK NO!”

and an avalanche of 20-somethings running for the exit signs.

Rose couldn’t believe they were so disappointingly appearance-oriented, yet she would no more go out with this guy than she would date a woman.  She probably would have been willing to enter the room if I had even given a HINT I might spend time in that potentially bedbug-infested cave with a man carrying a minimum of 30 pounds of impacted feces in his colon. 

It wasn’t happening.

* * * * *

I know you’ll be surprised to hear this, but she did a few things that left us nervous about leaving her in the house alone for long periods.  She lit candles & left them burning, forgot to lock doors.  So when a trip to Florida was planned back in October it was with the presumption Rose would be gone.  Otherwise, it was agreed that I would stay home.  I am not a huge fan of heat, pavement, traffic, or sheets previously used by multiple patrons, so it wasn’t like I was denying myself some fantabulous pleasure-filled treat.

I didn’t care for her story about paying for car repairs with Vicodin (the whole police thing).  So when I woke up Wednesday & the car dude was in our driveway using spray paint I was not happy.  She went to her son’s for Thanksgiving weekend and upon return mentioned the boyfriend had called.  It didn’t seem like a big deal until she left the house Tuesday on a date & never came back, for practical purposes disappearing from our lives in a matter of 12 hours.  I did call to make sure she was alive.

Just the day before my husband had actually had his first real conversation with her & advised he believed it was a serious situation worthy of a restraining order.  When she almost immediately chose to do the opposite it really pissed him off, not an easy thing to do.  More than once I suggested she come back & simply date the guy until receiving reassurance that things were really better.  She would hear nothing of the sort, not surprising since when she’s with him her personality undergoes a radical change that’s all about meeting his extensive needs.

She’d actually been surprised at how much she came to enjoy living in our house, the most low-key environment she’d ever experienced, my husband different than any other man she’s ever known.  No anger, no raised voices, no insistence that things be done a certain way in a specific time-frame. 

But Rachel’s advice?  “I think we should tell her to follow her heart!  CACKLE-CACKLE-CACKLE!” 

* * * * *

The trip was set for Friday.  Rose’s STUFF (3,000 small items and a busted up car bumper) is still in our house.  She also still has a key, thank God, or I would have had to get in the car and head south.  Instead, the girl and her father are staying in a 2-bedroom suite with 3 TV’s, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen, while I am home alone in New Jersey.

I am incredulous over what it feels like to be completely alone, loving it beyond my possible imagination.  Now I remember why people like living alone, choose to have no children and no spouse.  The rabbit in a hutch outside is a little more commitment than I’d choose at this moment.

It seems that even though I knew my daughter’s attitude and presence had an effect on me, I was unaware of the extent to which it changes everything.  As a pre-teen she does not like going anywhere, does not want to do anything I want to do, and is quite verbal with her complaints.  It’s like having an anchor around my neck.  I love her dearly but the experience of being on my own is so freeing.

My husband is another story.  When we are apart he tends to get a whiny tone to his voice that indicates he doesn’t like being alone.  Fuck me.  He has been instructed on how to deal with me but refuses to listen.  “Ignore me, don’t call me.  Be mean.”  He can’t do it.  This will be his downfall, the refusal to take my advice. 

On the other hand, he is the dreamiest father you could imagine.  She will have a better time alone with him than if I were there.  He is more outgoing, comes up with his own ideas to have fun & even sings in the car in my absence. 

WTF?

They had not yet been there 4 hours when he asked about finding a cheap ticket and flying me down for the week (they drove).  Meanwhile, I’d already been to a book sale, had lunch with Roxanne & watched “Slumdog Millionaire” until 5 AM.  What do you think my answer was to the idea of getting on a plane during a winter storm & leaving behind this opportunity to breathe on my own? 

You all know me so well.

There’s a Free Falling Flying Feeling When You Let It Rip

I so screwed myself today, but I enjoyed it while it was happening.  Can you really hope for more than that?

My sister called & that’s unusual, so I answered the phone.  (On average there’s only about a 23% chance I will do so before it stops ringing, even as it vibrates in the palm of my hand.  That percentage is based on people I actually LIKE, people I ENJOY talking to most of the time.)

Since my sister’s ex-husband (the father of my only niece & nephew) died of a heart attack just two weeks ago, and my grandfather & his girlfriend died 6 years ago to the day in a car accident, and it was the birthday of my brother-in-law who died of AIDS, death was again my immediate presumption.  (The advantage of age, actual hard evidence that you’re not over-reacting, even though the kid who says I do would still not be convinced.)

But anyway, I was wrong.  It was really our mother who put her up to it, saying, “Call your sister & see what’s going on in NJ.”   The woman is smarter than she looks.  She knows my concerns lie with my niece & the children, that I probably won’t even show up for HER funeral. 

I should have known, it’s December, time to talk about the holidays.  Mom was wondering if we might want to go to Las Vegas in January.  (I live 90 minutes from Atlantic City & can’t even afford to go there with a coupon for a free hotel overnight.  When I gamble I want wads of cash in my pockets, none of this petty bullshit.)  She also wanted to tell me about the Kindle book reader she purchased for over $200, as she swears her business is in free fall.  (If she gets me one of those I swear I’m turning it in for cash.)

* * * * *

The funeral for my brother-in-law was well worth the 12-hour drive at break-neck speeds.  People who have never lived in both places cannot possibly understand the differences between New Jersey & Illinois, at least the place I come from.  We’re not talking Chicago and we’re not talking high class.  It was really going home.

 To accurately depict my brother-in-law Willie, I will once again repeat that at his wedding rehearsal dinner (circa 1982) he loudly stated

“I’m so hungry I could eat the ass end out of a SKUNK,”

just as I watched the minister walk up behind him and stop to allow those words of wisdom to really sink in.  He hung his head for a moment.  I have no idea if he was praying or trying to breathe deeply, never a good thing when you’ve got skunk on the brain.  For years I thought he’d said “possum,” but my sister insists I’m wrong.

Honestly, I liked Willie.  I love memorable characters.  There are so many boring motherfuckers in this world that I really & truly appreciate an original.  He was nothing if not exactly that.

We got along well because of our common enemy, his mother-in-law, who loved describing what a piece of shit she believed him to be, right up to the point where she mentioned “Why bother having a funeral?  He had no friends,” which was an incredible & jealous lie.

My issue was that she couldn’t completely get off except when bashing him in the presence of his children.  The fact that he broke my sister’s nose not once but twice had nothing to do with it in my opinion, he was their father.  (If she had been my daughter, no doubt I’d feel differently.  He would have died much, much sooner.) 

But my sister chose to marry him, to drink with him, to fight with him, to let him live in her house for the last couple of years even though they’d been divorced since the early 90′s. 

I love that about my sister, that her heart is way bigger than her brain.

Only the experience of sitting in a funeral parlor can so clearly highlight the advantages of being the bigger person, the kinder person, when it comes to how you treat others during this lifetime.  In a variety of ways, she took care of him right to the end.

Willie was a simple dude who had tools from the construction trade and a Budweiser Light can on the display table next to his box of ashes, as well as a deck of cards and a sweaty old ball cap.  There was no kneeling bench, no sermon.  Most of the pictures of him in the collages my nephew put together — or “colleges,” as my sister pronounced the word — “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!” – showed him with frizzed out blonde curls standing 6 inches out from his head and a face clearly plastered from inebriation. 

He wasn’t a big guy but his personality was huge.  You would never, ever spend time in his presence without laughing out loud, sometimes unintentionally.  His repertoire was endless & unique.  He was a funny motherfucker with enough nervous energy to keep a windmill turning.   The last story I ever heard him tell was when I dropped my niece off after getting her out of prison.  His son was on his way to court for domestic assault after pushing his dad down a few times during a drunken brawl.  Evidently it was not the first time.

The son & his girlfriend had barely made it to their truck when we heard the lowdown on how Willie had come back to the house unexpectedly one recent morning and caught the 21-year-old mother of 3 (with another on the way) standing naked in front of the family webcam.  (Willie hated this girl so much he refused to speak to her 3-year old, the part of the story that really shows what a fucker he could be.)

Maybe because he was unable to show love in a typically acceptable fashion it made his kids go above & beyond to maintain a close relationship with him.  When I went on vacation with his son a few years ago, my nephew, the father/son duo spoke on the phone no less than a dozen times a day.  I was JEALOUS.  The relatonship with his daughter, not so much.  He did not treat her well in oh so many ways. 

Unfortunately his incredibly creative & masterful use of every nasty ass word under the sun did not curtail itself when it came to calling her names related to female genitalia or probably even venereal disease.  This guy could tell you he was going outside to get the mail and use all seven of George Carlin’s dirty words in a single sentence, then add in one of his own adjectives for descriptive purposes. 

I mean, seriously, of the thousands of people I met across the country in several decades, Willie was the king of profanity.  Most of you know I love curse words, but it’s way more complicated than mere cursing.  We’re talking “c*cksucker” was as common to him as “ketchup” would be to the man who serves hot dogs at a hockey stadium.  He could use the word “c*nt” in a sentence related to Illinois sweet corn in August.  Truly masterful. 

* * * * *

My personal highlight of the actual memorial was when my grand-niece, who is 18 months old, was allowed to run around the funeral parlor like Dale Earnhhardt at the Indy 500.  She smiled & laughed, crawled under chairs, nearly knocked over the lectern, hid beneath the guest book & continuously popped peppermints into her mouth then let the sticky goo run down her chin.  I was never so disappointed as when her mom sent her home with family friends about halfway through.

In New Jersey children are not invited to anything of the sort, not even weddings.  It seems so unnatural to me.  I mean you might as well get used to the fact that being a part of a family is a pain in the ass right from the get go.  Why pretend?

Wedding receptions are typically more than $100 a plate here on the East Coast.  In Illinois friends bring casseroles to the VFW hall and the bride puts on jeans and a t-shirt before she starts to dance.  As far as I know, the divorce rate is the same, maybe higher when you start out with a mountain of debt.

Experiencing these kinds of events reminds me that I’m not as weird as I sometimes feel here, even after more than 20 years, surrounded by tiny chicks with lots of vowels in their names, some I can’t even pronounce.

* * * * *

The funeral “after-party” was at my sister’s house, the one she hasn’t lived in for 5 years, the one her son and grandchildren & ex-husband have made it impossible to sell. 

I never would have suspected you could fit that many people into such a small place, more than 100 when you counted the screaming toddlers on plastic riding toys in the middle of the living room.  I’m not sure where they hid the dogs for that part of the evening, perhaps in one of the bedrooms.  Earlier my sister had been pleased when the German Shepherd finally drew blood from the Boxer she brought up from Kentucky, explaining that it had to happen.  I’m not sure it had to happen with so many children in the room, but whatever.  Clearly I’m an idiot.

It was the only funeral after-party where I guess I will ever have a chick show me her fake boobs, particularly as her husband (nephew of the deceased) sits between us and says,

 ”Can you believe those nipples?  Those are COMPLETELY REAL, they’re the originals!” 

He was not even bragging, not a little bit, cause it was a totally accurate statement, they were perfect!  He also knew exactly what they cost him, right down to the penny.  In a prior lifetime, like 1976, I worked with this woman’s older sister at a grocery store in town before she got involved with a guy, sold some drugs & ended up in prison somewhere in B*tt F*ck U.S.A.

Incidentally, I did ask ”Are those real?”, so you can’t really place blame entirely on the proud bearer of the nipple-tastic breasticals.  She was being completely accommodating, except for when she started to scream at her husband, Leland, as he stood at the doorway, dropped his pants and pissed out into the yard.  No one else really cared.  (Seriously, the house has just one bathroom & I came very close to peeing in the sink at our old house due to that exact same issue.)

Anyway, I am positive Willie was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes as he watched us celebrate his memory.  Really, it was the most appropriate send-off, except for the part where my nephew Clint drank nearly an entire bottle of Crown Royal, began screaming something unintelligible about how his father was dead, then lost consciousness and was carried to bed with limbs akimbo by 6 dudes who finally got to do something that remotely resembled the pall bearer role.

I was just glad he passed out before calling his grandmother.  When I tried to get the keys to the car away from him he got mad as hell and I reminded him we have two things that bond us: (1) we nearly drowned in the Atlantic Ocean together and (2) our hatred of the family matriarch.  It worked a little too well when he began scream, “YEAH, I WANNA CALL GRAMMA AND TELL HER SHE’S SUCH A BITCH!”

It’s times like that when I am reminded why my sister does not view me as the perfect sibling.

Don’t let me forget the best part . . .

When my nephew was carried in and laid down on the bed his girlfriend put her head in her hands and said, “Oh my God, I can’t take it.  He won’t let me have my bi-polar medication.”

Huh?

* * * * *

 Back to present day: by the time sis got me on the phone, Mom was already on another line.  I hit the mother lode on about the 10th question,

 ”How’s it going with your daughter living with you?” 

WELL, that was a half-hour conversation, only I didn’t have to speak at all. 

It was exciting to hear my sister’s side of the story because she’s such a careful person she rarely lets go unless she’s drunk.  If she’s drunk she repeats the same four facts over and over.  Sober is so much better.  New information continues to come to light instead of slurred repetition.

Evidently it’s not a perfect situation.  I’m shocked. 

I would have assumed that the 23-year old who was living life as a crack whore before entering prison would come out and be a relatively model kind of mother.  Who knew?  Man, I can be such a bitch I even shock myself sometimes.

* * * * *

So by the time I got on the phone with my mother it all came out in a rush.  “Oh, Las Vegas?”  And then suddenly I found myself talking about my brother & spitting out details of my current day life to the one woman who will be sure to

cook my ass like a fatty goose.

Everyone wants a mother, some imaginary entity who will accept them implicitly, even those who’ve been smacked by her time and time again, even when we all know that more often than not parents &/or children are the least accepting of all.  The best part is knowing I don’t care.  I am okay, no matter what she or anyone else thinks or says or does.  I will be fine no matter what happens, no matter who dies (as I cross myself & bless my children in a neurotic rush), even when it’s me.  (At least for today, with this particular personality in the forefront.)

This blog was created on the basis of letting it rip, of telling the tales, of revealing the secrets, even my own.

When I can respect & admire my loving little sister who picks up every stray dog off the street while I worry about insignificant fleas, even as I have no problem accepting the ultimate good in the spectacularly entertaining man who treated his own daughter like shit, love my niece the occasional crack whore with no reservations, adore my nephew who shows his ass while wearing his heart on his sleeve, & enjoy the company of Leland & J. (the breasticular peeps) more than most of the respectable assholes I meet,

then fuck it,

I need to start questioning this core belief that without perfection I am personally unacceptable, that I shouldn’t even bother to try.  I have to consider that perhaps there are people who will like my own crazy pieces best of all, as I do theirs. 

Maybe they are the only people who matter in the end.

Instructions For Being A Big F*cking Thanksgiving Turkey

The holiday season has begun and I’m in rare form.  Whereas previously I’ve done things like gone to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan (spectacularly awesome) or shopped my ass off on Black Friday (exciting enough that I’ve very nearly sh*t myself)  . . . this year would have none of that.

* * * * *

I bought Thanksgiving cards, none of which I mailed or even addressed.  Well, I did send one, probably to the person least likely to care, cause that’s how I roll.

In my refusal to participate in this thankful thing I didn’t buy food, cook anything, or even wash a dish.  Pretty sure the reason my daughter hasn’t spoken to me in over 24 hours is that I didn’t want to sit at a decorated table, not when there are only 3 people, no dead grandparents, no screaming babies, no conversations of  political dissension, no familial hatred, irritation or annoyance.

Yes, I realize some bizarre oddballs would do it just for themselves, put out a big fat brown paper turkey and a plastic tablecloth, but personally I prefer to make myself and everyone around me miserable.  It’s a mind-set and you have to work at it to really perfect something so wicked.  If I cannot have the agony of family past then by God I will re-create it for a new generation.

When the phone brought Thanksgiving greetings I didn’t answer it.  Although I always think I will make calls on holidays, be a good friend or relative, I never do.  I’m more likely to just stop talking to the elderly blind woman who enjoyed my company so much that I decided I didn’t have time for her.

My niece called twice — the kind of enthusiasm I appreciate when I’m not thinking about how annoying it is when people love me & want to tell me about it – but I didn’t answer.  Maybe if she’d tried 5 or 6 times I might have acquiesced out of exhaustion.

(I’ve been supportive since she got out of prison, but could no doubt have done so much more.  I like telling her stories about what a fuck-up I am.  I make sure she knows details of ALL the familial sins, not wanting her to fall into that addictive thought thing where she believes she’s an original.  There is hope for the future.  She too can marry a decent man then years down the road ruin his perfectly controlled life when she lets her personality come to light after years of denying it.)

My brother Scott called too, but I missed it entirely.  At least that way I don’t feel guilty.  He’s decided he no longer wants a life of depravity & brought up religion recently.  If that wasn’t a downer I don’t know what could classify as such.  I mean REALLY?  You’re going to go from stories of swinger escapades where you accidentally left a condom inside another man’s wife to tales of meeting potentially sweet chicks at church, just as I’m ready to tell you I’ve gone off the deep end?  It seems so unfair!

When my son rang, of course, I answered and put on a smiling face and perky attitude that must have made him think I was popping amphetamines while decorating the tree with a martini in my left hand. 

“Yes, son, we can’t wait for you to come home at Christmas!  This family is all about happy tradition & by God we’re looking forward to seeing you my dear.”

* * * * *

I fantasize about holidays spent serving turkey to AIDS patients and wiping the asses of foster children, burning gravy while sporting gray hair that hasn’t been tended to because I’m so busy caring for others.  But none of that has ever really come to pass.  Well, it’s never even been attempted.  My mind is so much busier than my legs or arms or dialing fingers.

My alter ego believes in tending to others so much more than my real self can conjure up the motivation to actually do it.  Oh, but the thoughts of humanitarianism I’ve had could fill an orphanage with children who love me beyond words AND a homeless shelter with dirty bed-bug ridden strangers who would no doubt speak very highly of my loving nature.

* * * * *

I did eat a lot, all things that I am not supposed to: the french silk pie (a deep dark chocolate cream) was cut into around 4 AM the night before the day, but still technically on Thanksgiving.  Then it was creamed corn casserole (made incorrectly), stuffing (to perfection), mashed potatoes and gravy, plus vitamin & fiber-free white rolls with butter.  It’s a dreamy kind of diabetic recipe for leg loss.  (I hope if I ever do end up in a wheelchair someone just wheels me out to a deserted location and dumps my ass near a red ant hill.)

During most of the festivities I watched 8 hours of a Godfather marathon.  Part I was great, Part II not so much.  It ended at 4:30 a.m., so I finally went to bed.  The marathon was a lifesaver, all that blood & sadness, cause I didn’t think too much about anything else as I worried about Michael & poor, poor Sonny the emotional hothead who’d fuck anything that walked.

It did however annoy me that my husband stayed up until 3 just to keep me company, when I didn’t want it.  Instead I’d prefer he disappear into thin air.  That’s a whole other story and of course I don’t want that for my daughter.  He needs an invisibility cloak that works only for me.

Yes, I know I should be on anti-depressants but they make me gain weight and take away my ability to orgasm, which obviously would depress me.  Stupid, stupid fucking pharmaceutical companies.  Combine an anti-depressant with a diet pill that makes me orgasm without a penis and now you’re talking.

* * * * *

Holidays don’t bring out the best in me, if you hadn’t noticed, instead they make me want to fall in a hole and be covered by just enough dirt that I can continue to breathe.  I’m not QUITE suicidal, I have too much hope for the future.  It’s that schizo thing that alternatively saves me and frustrates me until I want to peel my skin off with a fork.

* * * * *

So yesterday was the day after Thanksgiving.

First, I slept until 11.  When my husband brought me the phone I looked at him with the hatred of a terrorist at Guantanamo facing her captor.  I spoke to my great friend Roxanne for a few moments from the toilet, nearly falling back to sleep on the bowl.  Promised her I would call back, which I never did.  (She puts up with a lot.)  Checked for a text that wasn’t there, then slept some more.

Coffee is the only thing that makes me smile every single day.  So I had some.

Eventually Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda were on the tube with “Yours, Mine and Ours.” It was beautiful & I cried tears of joy instead of the other kind.  But when it ended I was back to my real life and didn’t have 16 children and one on the way (because you know I am really incredibly fond of laundry and making sandwiches in bulk).

So we put in another film to further escape our hideous lives in this home that’s practically a mansion with its two acres, pool and flat screen televisions, a refrigerator full enough to feed a Sudanese tribe.  (Fortunately they were not here during my eat-a-thon because I might accidentally have popped one or two of those tiny people in my mouth without looking, mistaking them for licorice or beef jerky or a slim jim.)

I should be ashamed of myself but I’m way too white trash for that.

* * * * *

Did I mention I woke up this morning weighing 179 instead of the 249 I was at some point during a Weight Watchers weigh-in before the diabetic diagnosis?  179 might sound like a lot to those of you who live perfect American lives with women wearing jeans in a size 0 after a pregnancy that ended 90 days ago.

For me it’s a loose size 14 and the best I’ve looked in two decades.  It’s trading clothes with my 12-year old and doing dumb shit like wearing a t-shirt with a Miley Cyrus tag from Wal-Mart when I’m in the mood to be an asshole.  If I get any thinner my skin will further hang like fancy draperies.

My crooked bangs and big chiclet front tooth are still all I see.

Yeah, happiness comes from weight loss & a great house & a husband who adores you beyond his ability to express it without weeping (which if you’re like me will disgust you to no end).

Believe it & get a big surprise.  Happiness lives inside your head & you can make yourself totally fucking miserable in any situation at all.

* * * * *

So after Billy Bob Thornton and his dumbass movie “Daddy & Us” pissed me off completely I took 2 Xanax after sobbing on the toilet (back to my favorite place).  I went to bed at 8 p.m. and woke up & headed downstairs just as my husband was coming up at 12:30 a.m.

Holiday’s over.  Time to get back to normal life.

The problem is I haven’t known what that is for the past five months, ever since my brother died, I turned 49,  my son moved away, my daughter hit puberty & I lost any and all purpose I once pretended to have.

So that is why I haven’t been blogging funny entries that are supposed to be entertaining and make you laugh, although this one did do it for me in spots.

Maybe I’ll try again later.

But Grandma Told Me To: A Lesson In Violating Parole

Talked to my sister and niece today.  Quite a slow learner, I was dumb-founded to discover Mom decided to ask the newly paroled 22-year old to drive her car on the trip from Illinois to Kentucky.  It wouldn’t be a big deal

IF SHE HAD A F*CKING DRIVER’S LICENSE!

Yeah, they’d just left

the Parole Office

and gotten the papers necessary to transfer out of state when Mom had one of her genius moments.  Of course, you’d think the girl who actually

SPENT TWO YEARS IN A CAGE

away from her children, living with stinky, ugly, sometimes large & horny women, would consider saying, “Grandma, I don’t think I should start breaking the law just yet, maybe it could wait till we cross state lines?”  But NO, of course not! 

I don’t think she even said, “Grandma, do you dream of seeing my face behind a dirty plastic visitor’s window again?”  Or “Grandma, do you miss having cup-a-soup from a fancy machine with me in the waiting room?” 

As I think about it again, though, Mom most certainly went right for the candy machine.  She no doubt would scarf down a Reese’s so quickly it would get caught in her esophagus because of the balloon surgery she had for weight loss and then had to give herself the fisting Heimlich in an attempt to get the swallowed whole tasty treat to go up or down.

My sister was the first one to tell me about the parole violation.  She gave no evidence of upset, just said, “Yeah, Mom thinks she should practice since she needs to get her license soon.”  Other grandmothers teach their granddaughters to make chicken soup or sew curtains, mine incites her beloved granddaughter to go for broke against the Illinois State Police.  

I said, “Oh, well I guess she waited to get out of Illinois?”  (Kentucky officials seem to be amazingly more lax about minor rule violations like tax evasion, shooting neighbor’s dogs and such. When my nephew was given a DWI in Illinois he was ordered into months of counseling.  Then he moved to Kentucky.  The woman he was directed to see there told him to “go to church” and “get a good woman.”  That was it, concise direction in a single session.  Kind of admirable, really.  A “no bullshit” therapeutic experience.)

It wasn’t until I spoke with my niece that she came out with the details: she began driving IN THE SAME CITY AS THE PAROLE OFFICE. 

 Who knows, maybe she drove right out of the parking lot?

Might as well ask the parole officer if he’s got a bottle opener you could borrow for the drive.

This is mother’s specialty, her equivalent to brain surgery, trying to GET OVER ON THE MAN.  I can just imagine the words in her head, “Nobody’s going to fucking tell me what I can do with my own goddam granddaughter!  If I want her to drive my fucking car she’ll drive my fucking car!”  Her beady little eyes narrow and her lip turns up in a sneer, highlighting the scar from when she put her face through the back door just before leaving with the police for the mental hospital 40 freaking years ago. 

Meanwhile, if they’d been stopped and a jail visit followed, it would have been the ticketing police officer’s fault, the State of Illinois’ fault, my sister’s ex-husband’s fault, and quite possibly the black man driving along side of them who clearly should have been stopped instead of some innocent looking white women.

She’s the same woman who assisted her son in hiding stolen merchandise.  He (1) stole his grandfather’s pick-up truck to (2) steal a soda machine from in front of a grocery store.  He hoisted the full machine by himself. 

In later years she peed in bottles so he could pass urine tests for over-the-road truck drivers since he was still doing drugs while driving a semi, something that clearly wasn’t in his best interest as a heart patient.

Considering the fact that he’s dead now and all that didn’t work out so well you’d think she might evaluate her attitude, but that would be like admitting she’s ever been wrong.  I can promise you that is not a possibility.

All of these jackassian nincompoops think nothing of driving without seat belts as well.  One report detailed 4 adults and 3 children in a crew cab pick-up truck (the kind with a backseat) for two hours with my drunken ex-step-father at the wheel.  The kids rode unbelted & my mother and sister screamed about (1) getting lost in the dark and (2) wrong turns and (3) dangerous maneuvers by a mad man who occasionally likes to tell a long twisted story about killing his ex-wife’s lover and (regretfully) the dude’s wife. 

I considered screaming like a banshee that I’d call the police myself if I hear any more of that kind of shit (you’d think I’m talking about the murders, but I’m back to seatbelts).  However, knowing the way children’s protective services handled everything down the line, I no longer trust them either. 

It starts to feel like I’m living in an alternate universe where people actually want to do well by children, escape spending time in a pen and avoid living with shit in their nostrils because their head’s so far up their own ass.

Don’t get me wrong, I can be a total fucking asshole!  But usually when it’s happening I REALIZE it, I can acknowledge it and call myself a moron.  I might even STILL choose to do whatever idiotic nonsense has taken root in my mind.  I mean I am biologically tied to this clan of fools, so what can really be expected?  Certainly not perfection.

* * * * *

We’re starting to think that my sister’s boyfriend, Mike, is the brains of the whole Kentucky operation.  (That would be the dude who’s still married for the fourth time, somehow can’t get the last divorce to go through and make sis #5.  Incidentally, he’s on federal probation for overdue child support in 3 states.  Plus one of the ex-wives went on welfare when he didn’t make payments and so now he must pay the state back for the cost of that PLUS interest.)

He recently sent me a dirty joke by text.  We managed to convince him that since he sent it on my daughter’s birthday I thought it was a greeting intended for the 12-year old, so handed her the phone without reading it.  Then we told him she dropped the phone, began to cry and ran away sobbing. 

He’s apologized several times since and we just don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

My Alter Ego ~ A Twisted & Demented Superhero

Since I’m back to blogging I’m determined to post regularly.  Wish I could do it every day, but I’m a big fat loser and have permanent brain freeze when it comes to any kind of expectations.

I’m trying to quit my addiction to Mafia Wars but knowing my Cuban businesses are making money and that eventually the coffers will be full and unwilling to accept more if it’s not banked gnaws at me like a teething child at mommy’s boo-boo (or a grown man of a certain type).

So I’m going to make a list of things I could do instead of clicking that magical button that takes me to a comatose state similar to a quaalude (which I did ask my doctor for a prescription for but he refused).

1.) Bathe

2.) Clean the house.

3.) Take action toward earning money in the near future.

See?  I’m bored already.

4.) Send another text message.

5.) M*sturbate

We’re talking short-term here.  Neither of these take long at all.

6.) Wake up my daughter and make her day delightful.

7.) Send my son an e-mail that makes our lives sound like they are perky and wonderful and so much better than reality, in an effort to make him miss us desperately and realize that California is not that great if he can’t be near his adoring mother.

8.) Try and call my niece, who should be on her way to Kentucky right now in a car with my mother, the most hellish thing I can imagine!

9.) Read some blogs and comment so everyone knows I still love them dearly even though I seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

10.) Call Roxanne & see if she’s going to laser tag tonight. 

Yeah, that’s what I’ll probably do. 

I really wasn’t meant to be unemployed. 

I need direction at all times, like an ADD-riddled child standing on the beach holding sand in one hand and a dirty cigarette butt in the other, wondering if he should eat the cigarette or throw sand in his sister’s eyes, therefore scratching her cornea and damaging her vision for the rest of her life.

* * * * *

Just so you know that I didn’t spend all my time on Mafia Wars just clicking buttons, there was an actual incident that occurred in which my assistance was helpful and I received a ‘Thank You” note regarding same yesterday.  Last week at 3 or 4 am, I forget which, I noticed someone leaving comments that sounded like “Help me,” “I can’t take this any more,” “I just can’t do this.”

Nosy bitch that I am, it was necessary to intervene mostly for my own mental health.  So I told the guy he was scaring me and asked what he meant by those apocalyptic messages.  After no response I instant messaged him and sent another request to his in-box, determined busy-body that I am. 

When he wrote back it was to ”Pamele.”  This was the first indication of his drunken state, such poor spelling.  Fortunately, since he was suicidal, I did not deride and mock him as I might have otherwise.  I did not tell him that my son won the whole school spelling bee in 6th grade & his current successes more than likely hinged on that fact.

BACK TO THE STORY AT HAND, MAINTAIN FOCUS PAMELE!

After half an hour of back and forth in the instant message box and repeated statements that he had to go because he needed to end it all, I finally looked up his profile page and called the police department located halfway across the country.  It took close to 30 minutes to explain the story, find his address & get an emergency unit to his house.  In the mean time I eventually had him on my house phone and a dispatcher on my cell phone asking if there were weapons in the house.  It was like an egomaniacal dream come true being in the middle of such chaos, a two-fisted chatterboxing life link.

He was quite soft-spoken and thanked me several times for talking to him, even though he continued saying he had to go.  I kept asking questions.  He told me I was such a kind person (clearly hallucinating at that point).  Then I heard male voices in the background.  They entered his home without even knocking, which seemed rather aggressive.   Then he REALLY had to go.  Afterwards I was instructed by a fireman who called my house that I needed to call the Emergency Room and give them any information I had. 

How do you explain at 4:30 AM that you live in NJ and you have never met this man from Illinois before, but you’re “friends on Mafia Wars“?  I felt like a certified lunatic.  Fortunately the game is so huge that the psych tech knew exactly what I was talking about.  Unfortunately she had a voice that made me think she could convince ME to commit suicide if I had to listen to her drone on for long. 

She instructed me to send copies of everything I could find regarding the things he’d written, then she gave me an invalid e-mail address to send them to.  It did not instill a feeling in me that my unskilled and off the wall crisis intervention would be followed up on properly.  Naturally I began thinking that maybe I should drive the 14 hours and give the only appropriate counsel available in North America, my own.  Because, you know, I am a fixer freak.  I’ve never truly fixed anything in my life, but in the back of my mind I KNOW that I’m PRACTICALLY the BEST at doing EVERYTHING.  That is because I am a GENIUS and all around me are IDIOTS.

Yeah, I tell myself that as I sit home contemplating whether to twiddle myself or brush my teeth.

So, anyway, Chris sent me a note yesterday saying that he was sorry he dumped his problems on me but was glad I was there.  I was tempted to write back and tell him it was the most important I’d felt all summer and could he recommend me to other suicidal peeps or would he prefer a cash remuneration? 

Instead I wrote something nice about how I would really freaking hate it if he was dead, all the while wondering if we panic at the suggestion of suicide because, hey, if we gotta stay here you do too!  Like, what if death is actually nirvana?  You just don’t freaking know!  I mean, he said he was in physical pain from an accident.  I really freaking hate pain.  I am a huge pussy, like f*ck that!  I would totally off myself if I was painfully miserable!

Yeah, not the kind of philosophizing you want to do with a dude who’s already questioning his commitment to breathing and blinking. 

I also stopped myself from saying “Call me any time you want to talk about your problems,” because I really wouldn’t like it if this was an ongoing thing and I couldn’t feel like I fixed him in 90 minutes or less.  That would just piss me off and eventually I would say something stupid like,”Stop with the f*cking depression bullshit!  I already told you, just go to sleep!” 

Pretty much the way I act as a mother when my children are unhappy.  Like, “DON’T FUCKING CRY, IT MAKES ME SAD & I HATE THAT!”

* * * * *

Growing up in constant crazy, my brain was permanently conditioned so that NOTHING makes me feel more content than contending with a crisis, as long as there’s nothing REAL I have to do, like cope with a dead body or clean up puke or see anyone completely losing their shit from injury or loss.  I don’t like illness or icky stuff or real human emotion. 

Who knew crises of a virtual nature would fit my criteria so well?  Good God, like I needed another reason to remain behind my computer screen, tucked safely within the folds of my superhero sweatshirt.

 

The End of My Twisted Summer Vacation &/or The Memorial Tour

Tomorrow the pool will be closed.  My summer was spent mostly on Mafia Wars, not poolside, but I like looking out the window and seeing the attractive blue color.  The husband spent an inordinate amount of time keeping it that way.  Fortunately he likes that kind of mundane task, the sort that make my eyes roll to the back of my head.  There were people actually in the water less than 12 hours total.  Personally, I did not spend an hour, not half an hour.

Except for a week on the road I sat with my laptop and cell phone in front of a big screen.  I learned to text message this summer, sending hundreds of them.  It would not have been a really big deal if I’d had no use of my legs.  (As it would happen, my favorite story this season was that of a man who met a woman on Match.com, then found out she was in a wheelchair only when he had to carry her to the car on their dinner date.) 

I thought living in a big house with all the associated accoutrements would make me happy.  Well, if finding out interesting things about yourself brings joy then I’m a gleeful mofo.  My mid-life revelations have all been surprising.  There are so many things I previously observed other people do and judged harshly,  insisted “NO WAY.”  Then I did them.  Pretty sure I would have eventually made the same revelations in a studio apartment. 

I am like my mother in so many ways that if I was really, really consistent and true to myself I’d commit suicide.  I am also unlike my mother in so many ways that it just saves me.

In August I drove to Kentucky (again) and took stops along the way in Pennsylvania and Illinois.  My daughter stayed in Pittsburgh with her paternal aunt and hated it.  It was her very first time being away from either parent.  She told me she believes I am “like a queen” now after “living in anorexia.”  We all live these private lives & have different ways of doing things that we don’t even share with our closest relatives.  They’re as foreign as if we were born in different countries. 

A single tiny chicken cutlet served with applesauce and canned carrots might as well have been a serving of pig’s feet in my daughter’s experience.  Her aunt actually told the rest of the family, “R is ALWAYS hungry.”  R no longer wants to call her “Aunt” Bev and insists I change our will so that she is not ever left in her care again.  For crying out loud, the girl grew 6 inches in the last year and is nearly 5’8″.

I drove on to Illinois and visited with a cast of characters.  My aunt and uncle, as always, were a happy highlight of the trip, reminding me that there are close family members who have never (1) spent time in jail OR prison or (2) resembled something off a “Po’ White Trash” calendar or (3) played pornography on the television during daylight hours with young children in the vicinity.  I hope that doesn’t make me sound too ultra-conservative or uptight.

It was interesting meeting my brother Jim’s girlfriend’s new lover, a guy that’s both living in his house and doing his chick.  It would take approximately four of the new guy to even come close to Jim’s size.  He was utterly lovely and answered every single one of my very nosy questions without batting an eye, including being quizzed about how soon they got together and at what point he moved into the house.  No one could ever take Jim’s place, not even with Julie.  I was surprised to discover that her oldest daughter still calls Jim’s cell phone every single day to hear his voice.  Of course then I had to do the same thing, not knowing previously that the account still exists.

* * * * *

It was my delight to be the person who picked up my niece from prison and took her home after nearly two years.  The end of that story has not been written, as she will be heading to Kentucky on Wednesday into the snake pit that consists of my mother, her mother (my sister) and a multitude of f*ckery.

Yep, this is the face of the prisoner.  WTF?!

When we arrived at my nephew’s house, where S would be staying until court, we were met by his beautiful 2-year old amidst the 20 or so broken down vehicles parked in the yard.  Hailee had used an electric razor to shave a 2-inch swath down the middle of her head, making a reverse mohawk.  According to my sister’s ex-husband, who also lives there, it probably happened when her mama was posing naked in front of the living room webcam.  He’d caught her entertaining someone that way a few days before our visit.

That would be my nephew’s fiancee, the girl whose parents were both on death row before her mother died in prison last year.  She’s both beautiful and crazier ‘n hell.  I’m sure that’s how she found our family, with dysfunctional sonar.

* * * * *

Kentucky was the last stop before saving R from Anorexia.  It was my sister’s birthday and the anniversary of my brother’s death two days later.  Our plan was to get matching tattoos, but the day to day details of taking care of three children ages 1, 2 and 3 made that impossible.  However, I’m still getting the freaking tattoo.   

Since this was my third trip in less than six months I was able to see a little clearer picture and experience more of the anger my sister barely contains.  She is miserable without her friends nearby, stuck in a house with either my mother or the kids at all times.  Her boyfriend is such an idiot that he’s jealous if the man next door stops by to play horseshoes, as if she would blow him on the kid’s trampoline.  (If she did it might at least take away a bit of her isolation and hatred for life in general.)

By the time I’d stayed just two nights I had both sister and mother in stereophonic sound stating that I wanted the kids to like me too much, acting as if I was being a show-off for trying to keep them happy even during things like clothing changes and bedtime.  Always a fan of the underdog, the boy is my favorite and it rubs everyone the wrong way when I make it clear I think he’s perfect in every way, when I insist he does not have ADD or anything of the sort.  However, arguing with my sister does not make it better for him when I eventually get in my car and drive nearly 1,000 miles to the east.

* * * * *

My niece has been out of prison for almost a month now and last weekend was her first time to Kentucky, her first time to see her kids.  She, too, was accused of being “too nice,” told she needed to “toughen up.”  When she took the baby to my mother’s house the toddler stepped in dog pee the moment she walked in the door.  My mother was angered by the ridiculous idea that her feet needed to be washed off thoroughly, what was the big deal?

Mom then offered S, a 22-year old, her old bras and underwear.  S gained weight during her prison stay, but she is still under 200 pounds.  My mother is over 250 & a filthy pig.  Mom advised her that her jeans were inappropriately tight.  This is the same c*nt who used to insist that I should buy my clothing in the men’s department. 

End result, my niece is no longer excited about going to Kentucky.

Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that she got drunk with her mother the last night she was there.  According to her reports she “only drank four beers” but then “threw up all over” her own shirt.  Yes, my 48-year old sister got drunk with her daughter the paroled crackhead.  Did she think it would be a bonding experience or was she just in the mood to tell her how completely she’s f*cked up both of their lives?  Either way, her motivational efforts had the opposite effect.

Although S has signed away rights to the children, assigning them directly to my sister, the idiotic familial expectation is that she will step right back in and begin taking care of them.  My sister and mother both feel so strongly about this subject that I could not speak up against it, could only stand there waiting for flies to occupy my mouth and throat.  In reality, after all the craziness, it might even be the best plan.

I did make a discovery that made it all worthwhile, the stash of photo albums hidden in my mother’s sunroom.  The scanning will take me weeks or months, but some of the pictures are priceless.  Here’s a sample:

This is at my mother’s wedding to her second husband in 1967, all six of us.

Penny (6), Scott (6), Jodi (8), Pam (7), Jimmy (3) and Shannon (3).

* * * * *

In the meantime, my son graduated with his Master’s degree and moved to San Diego.  He’s doing really well and seems happy, which is pretty much the best I could ask for.  He lives on the beach and tells me the people are “ridiculously beautiful,” then laughs.  Here’s a before and after of that, too:

* * * * *

Driving back to New Jersey late at night on the anniversary of my brother’s death, I decided to call Jim’s cell phone again.  As I listened to his voice the car lights lit up a big green exit sign that said “Pewee Valley.”  Our father’s nickname was PeeWee.  Dad died when Jim was only six years old and the sadness of that loss permeated his life.  It was the perfect wrap-up to my memorial tour, acknowledgment that Jim is with Dad and happy at last.

* * * * *

So how was your summer?

My 49th Summer: Facebook, Games, Gay Bars & Old Friends

Life is unpredictable and it’s necessary to roll with the changes.

God only knows, it couldn’t have been easy for this guy!

My son is apparently moving across the country within weeks.  My daughter has hit puberty with the speed of a gazelle and sometimes the charisma of a rattlesnake.  My husband is either at work, on a lawn mower, or snoring in his recliner (some things ARE predictable).

In August my little brother died a full year ago.  I kept wondering when this reality would hit me & suddenly it did.

I turned 49 in June and believe it was the beginning of a disgustingly trite & overdone mid-life crisis. 

I hate being predictable.  

As I sit here at 3:00 a.m. with my 11-year old watching “Slither” (one of the greatest & most bizarrely insane movies I have ever seen – www.slithermovie.net) I’ll agreeably acknowledge we’re living an experimental lifestyle.  We stay up all night on computers, watching recorded movies & playing games.  We rarely see the sun, except through a window. 

If we keep staying up later we’ll eventually be on a farm schedule, like that of my grandparents.  The real issue is I can find no reason to change the situation.  Does it really matter? 

I have no idea.

* * * * *

Facebook has brought many interesting people back into my life, one of whom is Linda, my old girlfriend.  She will be visiting soon and you will absolutely love her.  Finding people I adored years ago is like discovering a piece of my heart long abandoned, left to rot like green meat or black lettuce.  WTF?  How did I lose them?

No doubt it’s because I slept with most, cheated and abandoned them before they could do it to me.  Never mind that I did not choose people as cruel as myself, but instead eviscerated those with huge hearts.  I could not handle being loved.  I ran cross country both to escape my mother AND so I wouldn’t have to face my own behavior, in the hopes that no one would beat my ass like I deserved.

The people I didn’t particularly enjoy knowing before?  I clicked off 3 of those annoying bitches just yesterday.

The first full day I actually spent as a person at 50% of age 98, I found someone I’ve looked for off and on for 25 years.  I knew him before I moved to San Francisco, childless & barely out of college.  How strange that he appears when I again have little purpose, as I slowly but surely lose my chosen role.   After half a lifetime I’m back at square one.  He is able to fill in blanks that confirm how lost I was at age 23, how determined I was to self-destruct.  His memory is exacting, mine nearly non-existent. 

Anyone who attached themselves to me might as well have strapped C-4 on their chest with duct tape.  The question today is whether that statement still holds true.

* * * * *

Rather than complete annihilation, I began numbing myself.  As a result, in some ways I feel I’ve wasted half my life.

In an effort to live my final days (you think I’m joking?) with joyful abandon, I went out with my girlfriend to a popular bar catering specifically to gay men.  (There are also straight couples & lesbians, so we don’t look like total freaks, never fear.)  I walked in and immediately knew one of the bartenders, then saw an old neighbor on the dance floor.  Kiss, kiss!  It was like I was channeling Nathan Lane and screaming, “I’m home!”

We’ve gone twice and I’m thinking of applying for a job so I never have to leave.  It’s in a hotel and there are bars out by the pool, with lounge chairs and an upstairs deck.  Perfection, indeed.  Dudes humping dudes humping chicks.  It’s a free for all and I love it.

Dancing for a good portion of the five hours we spend there (Saturdays from 10 pm-3 am), surrounded by adorable boys who are alternatively (1) dancing shirtless or (2) dancing in thong only or (3) making out like they haven’t eaten in a year and their boyfriend is holding a hidden cheeseburger under his tongue, it’s the most fun I’ve had in forever.

The first time we actually stayed and closed the place down, eating breakfast in the adjoining restaurant.  A gay bar that also serves french toast dipped in Captain Crunch?  Is this heaven? 

Leaving the place at 3:30 we were approached by a young man on a bicycle peddling some type of “powder.”  It’s impossible to describe how grateful I was to discover I looked cool enough to be a crackhead.  I mean, honest to God, I should have tipped him for the compliment!

This past Saturday night we did not go to the bar.  I also did not make it to the video store, my husband did.  The only thing more depressing than watching movies where people get fingers chopped off and bleed incessantly, then spread the blood all about their bodies, is knowing I could have been dancing & laughing & jumping in time to great music along side men with what look like cucumbers in their panties. 

They’re just so sweet!  Last week a man bowed in our direction and called the two of us “Queens.”  Personally, I appreciate being considered royalty

even if it’s because I bear some resemblance to Prince Charles.

Most people go ga-ga over two chicks together.  I must disagree vehemently.  I am a devoted & incorrigible fag hag.  Those boys want nothing at all from me and I LOVE that about them.  They are welcoming, they look me in the eye and smile.  What more could I want?  

Fortunately Roxanne let me in on the fact that I have an unfortunate habit of opening my mouth and letting my tongue hang out while I dance.  I’m working on it. 

Do you think it could be the tequila shots?

* * * *

When I haven’t been bar hopping I’ve spent approximately 18 hours a day with my laptop, first in a virtual word called Yoville, decorating my apartment and my virtual self in bright colors, playing with penguins and robots. 

Really, though, how often can you redecorate?

So I opened an account in Farmville and added crops, cows, rabbits and pigs to my menagerie.  It’s a game that perhaps uses 64 of my IQ points.

When my new/old friend invited me to play Mafia Wars it was instant addiction.  Sometimes I’m only sleeping 4 hours in every 24 hour period.  Problems with insomnia?  I have the answer.

* * * * *

Things have to change soon.  My son graduates with his master’s degree on August 8th and I’ll make the trip south. 

In the mean time, you can find me on Facebook. 

Even better, Sunday mornings around 4 AM I’m playing Mafia Wars under the influence of tequila after spending the night at the bar.  Come join me.