Blue Moon

In my last post, I shared my need for minions.  But upon reflection I realized that I would never get anything done, ever, because cuteness.  I think a man servant would be much better. 

 I don't know what it is about me that makes me so easy to talk to, but I've been getting that a lot lately.  I'm so easy to talk to.  I guess it's a good thing.  Maybe it's code for I'm not an asshole.  I like that better.  Maybe I should start charging.

Last night was a Blue Moon.  I guess what they say about "Once in a Blue Moon" has some merit to it.  Never has anyone left my life and come back, not only admitting that they were wrong for doing it but apologizing for it.  I don't think that I can say never, maybe twice in the 34 years that I've been alive.  I really hate having unanswered questions, so I've learned to stop asking them.  Either you want to be a part of my life, or you don't.  That choice has no bearing on who I am.  All I can say in this particular situation is that without saying a thing, this person was gone.  Our last contact was me opening myself up and discussing things that I haven't talked about in a long time.  I opened myself up and they judged me.  Or that's what I took the disappearance as anyway.

Here's the thing:  I am open about my past.  It's mine to have made peace with, and for the most part I have.  I am open about who I am as a person in general.  I was a big slut, but I'm not anymore.  There were things that brought that side of me out that I didn't know how to handle and I don't tell everyone about.  There's always gonna be a part of me that's sloppy and dirty and really hard to love, but I like that along with all of my other parts.   Can you say the same about yourself?  You may not have experienced the same things that I have, you may not be into the same things that I am, but you love hearing about it.  If you are that special kind of asshole, see yourself out of my life before I realize what a douchebag you really are. 

In other news: 
The house failed inspection. Not because of anything that I did, the state fire marshall code changed on the bedroom windows, they have to have at least one window that opens about 7 inches more than they do in each bedroom. Also there was a peice of siding/flashing missing from the eve on top of the house so it either needs to be replaced or painted. It had to have been something that happened when the roof was done last summer. 2 of the stove burners don't work. They used to work if they were positioned just right, but now not at all. In past years, they've said that they would put it in the report and haven't. This year they're including it, or at least I hope. It would be nice to have a fully working stove, but I've managed to adapt. The only time that I would really need it is Thanksgiving. I cook every day, but not to the point where I need all the burners. He also said that the dryer vent was undone, which I did because I took it off to clean it only to find that it needs replacing because there's a couple of cracks in it. I'm sure that duct tape would fix it just fine but I'd rather not take the chance and die. What can I say, I have a penchant for worst case scenario at all times, it's how I was raised.

Met my son's new therapist Wednesday. I think that this will be a great fit for the time being.   His services are for 90 days at a time with a max of 6 months, then he will resume with the prior one that he loves.

I was braiding my daughter's hair yesterday for the first time since she was in 3rd grade.  She decided that she wanted it chopped off pixie length.  I cut it and it looks pretty cute, but she wants it shorter on top.  We decided to give it a couple of days.  I think women of color with buzzed hair looks really beautiful.  She can rock anything and be gorgeous.  She also needs bigger bras.  Gods help me.

I took this weekend off.  6 months ago we started planning a family reunion, that has now fizzled out because of whatever reason and has, as far as I know, turned into just a bbq gathering, which isn't that what family reunions are?  I don't understand why everything has to be approached with such a flair for the dramatic.  Set a time and date, whoever wants to be there because you're important to them will come.  They had 6 months to plan for it, not like it's new news, but some are acting like they must have a hand delivered invite on parchment with the finest calligraphy or else they're not important enough to come.  I love everyone and I'm happy to see family when I see them, but if you are really the kind of person to be stuck up your own asshole enough for this crap, then I got nothing.   You were told about it, you had plenty of time to plan accordingly.  Go.  To.  Hell. 

Getting the car fixed Wednesday. The mechanic I spoke with told me that Saturn's are pretty straight forward so it should be 2-3 hours of labor.   I like this person, my grandparents go to him for all of their car repairs.  It helps that there's a pretty good view, if you catch my drift.  If I hadn't had a mechanically inclined boyfriend over the past 7 years I would have too.  A lot nicer than any of the other shops that I spoke with.  I got a fantastic deal on the part at Green Point Auto in Brewer, $65 for a part that the median cost online was $175-225.  I called around and got quotes without needing any alcohol, sedatives or bail money.  It's quite an accomplishment if I do say so myself.  Ask me again Wednesday how I'm doing.  I pray that this is all that's all that it needs.  I really can't take another thing going wrong.  I still need to fix my window.   I'm just afraid that I'm going to take it apart and that I either can't fix it myself and need to phone a man friend or that something else will go horribly awry.   

That, and I also realized that I have an appointment Wednesday morning here at work that I cannot cancel or I lose out on $100 towards my yearly benefit payback.  Maybe I can borrow a car from someone.   

It would be great if things would just stop going crazy so I can stop having to act normal.

Pin Curls & Disasters

Oye. 

The sentiment is pretty much all I can muster lately.

Found out what was wrong with the car.  Don't ask.  I can't even. 

Had a shoot Friday.  It was on the waterfront at 3 am.  I wore a Marilyn Monroe replica dress.  The shoot wasn't planned, it just worked out that I already had my hair and makeup done.  I had my hair done in pin curls for work because afterwards I was planning to have a couple of drinks with a friend for her birthday.  The last time I tried on the dress it was horrifyingly ugly on me, but this time it looked fantastic.  Hooray for weight loss and going an entire week without a flair up.

I almost didn't go out with my friend, but I did.  As I explained it to her:  She is going to have a birthday every year, whereas I may never get laid again.  So therefore anytime there is a possibility of that happening, it is going to trump everything else.  I met her boyfriend.  He is a nice guy.  I hope she keeps this one. 

I get failed relationships and the reasons behind them, nobody really knows what happens behind the scenes.  It's just that when you're the kind of person who's always searching for something else in every aspect of your life, and things are evolving and changing at warp speed because you just can't seem to be happy with anything as it is, should you really make someone else have to keep up with you? 

I guess I don't understand the concept of change.  I like things to be consistant.  As much as I like the adventure of trying new things brings (giggle snort, some of you know what I am implying), at my core I really, really like consistency.  With that said, someone has caught my attention that I can't ignore.  Out of fear that they're reading this, which I doubt, I won't go into details.  It's just that when you have dreamed about this sort of person your entire life and suddenly they appear completely by accident (or seemingly so) you get thrown off kilter a little with a great big HOLY CRAP! 

I screwed up big time and wrote the date of my house inspection as being tomorrow instead of today.  I'm sure it won't fail, but it is a disaster.  Teens are great for helping in that process.  I'm ready to throw everything out the door.  The lawn mower won't work, again.  I've tried 3x this week to get it running to no avail.  Outside looks like I'm losing a game of Jumanji.  Normally I would just sit back and suck in the nostalgia, but the stress is becoming overwhelming.  I couldn't sleep last night because I pumped myself full of caffeine trying to stay awake getting stuff done around the house.  I need clones.  Or minions.

Balancing on a double edged sword is something is something that I am either failing at or really good at and it feels more often than not that it's happening at the same time. 

Existential Crisis

I don't know if that's what I've been experiencing lately, but it feels like it.

I have managed to spend almost every waking moment of this day questioning every decision I've made over the past 7 months. 

I almost don't feel like my life at this point has any direction.

When you get frustrated with someone you just want to scream in their face, "What the hell do you want?"

What do I want?

Do I want to date?  No.  I just want the love of my life to randomly show up and tell me that I'm his kind of weirdo and that he loves me and then we'll be together in our weirdness forever.  However, this is the real world, nobody has figured out how to make my idea of a Mr. Perfect Delivery work;  therefore, if I want to find someone to spend forever with, I need to date.  Or hide in my house in my pj's that I will inevitably go to the store in and ignore every sign the Universe throws my way that someone has a thing for me.  Signs, I don't get them.  They don't even go over my head, they just kamikaze themselves into the concrete barrier my brain had set up around itself that "gets" that part of human behavior. 

Do I want to do chores around the house?  No.  I just want the kids to be able to pick up a damn cup once in awhile.  Then my house might not look like a tornado sucked up everything in the house and someone threw a bomb into the funnel.  I'm still working on that one. 

Do I want to work?  Of course!  I love to work.  I love to interact with people of all sorts like my current job allows me to do.  I would also like the freedom to be able to work when I am not feeling like I want to die because my body and it's dumb autoimmune stuff won't cut the crap.  However, being that I am not financially stable enough to be able to do that, work on a schedule that is not my own I must.  I kind of like being able to have consistency and having two weekdays off allows the kids and I to do fun things without every place we go to for fun being a mad house like it would be on the weekend, and during the school year I get some time to myself during the day. 

In other news:

Now for my body's next trick:  memory loss.  Seriously.  I've lost entire conversations that I had an hour before.  I misuse or forget the simplest of words in conversation (I've edited this blog 3x before posting) and get confused by the dumbest things.  My doctor thinks that my last concussion that I didn't tell him about (when I flipped my kayak last year) is something I should have told him about - it's been going on since then.  I've tried to explain it away but I really can't anymore, since it's happening when there isn't an explaination for it.  I'm being referred to a neurologist.  My swalllowing trouble still continues, but tis the story of every EOE sufferer and it comes and goes with my "cycle", as does every other problem my body goes through each month.  Still waiting on hearing from scheduling for my next EGD.  Man, I really won the "Rare Autoimmune Disorder" lottery, not.  I'd like to know what contest in Hell I won, because I'd like to go back to when that was and make sure that I lose instead.

My son had a fantastic time at camp.  Everything that he left with came back in one piece.  Except for him, he grew another 2 inches while he was away and can now reach stuff on the top shelf at the grocery store and get his own cup in the kitchen.  My heart cries a little every time I witness it. 

The car exhaust is fixed, and now has a strange thing going on with the front end that I can't explain, being a girl with little car repair experience.  Something isn't connected to something that it's supposed to be, or is ready to go.  Or at least it feels that way.  Could just be air in the tires.  My luck tells me something else. 

Daughters, children for that matter, but this time specifically my daughter, are for raising, not understanding.  For example, the grocery list my daughter sent me via text when I went shopping this morning.  I asked her what she wanted.  She responded, and I quote:  "Oreo ice cream, brussel sprouts, ham, cheddar cheese, potato chips and maple syrup."  I am quickly learning not to ask questions.  She is most definitely my child.

Blarg...

I get tired of being the only adult in the house sometimes.  This week being one of them.  I have a million things to do and I don’t want to do any of it.  Seriously, all week I felt like a defiant 5 year old who needed a nap so bad that they threw everything they touched.  Thank gods I have people in my life that I can vent to who, surprisingly, have not run screaming - yet anyway.

I want to date and fall in love.  But my experience with relationships pretty much goes as follows:   Imagine getting  a puppy on Christmas morning.  Someone took their time lovingly wrapping the box they picked out just for you.  Maybe added a ribbon or two for extra flair to prove how much they love you.  And then when you open it, you find the most demonic pet that anyone would hope to never have that ruins your, albeit somewhat delusional, vision of long walks on the beach during sunset.  They instead try to kill you in your sleep or live a double life with their previous owner or disappear without a trace, never to be seen or heard from again with no explanation as to why.

Men are like blenders.  You are really, really sure that you are need one when you don’t have one, but you’re not sure what for once you get it.  Not a very nice analogy, I know.  Don’t ever accuse me of having tact. I quit that crap years ago.

I see all these awesome relationships going very well all around me and it almost feels like I’m window shopping for what I want (and things that I will run screaming from) in a relationship.  I really can’t handle not being able to do what I want when I want to do it or having to explain why I like space so much.  It’s probably because I’m not really sure myself.  I do have to admit though, that sleeping in the bed and being able to hog the entire thing is kind of nice.

I digress.

This week without my son has been nice with just my daughter.  She wants almost nothing to do with me most of the time unless it involves food, but I’m pretty sure that goes for most parents of teens.  We’ve eaten our fair share of “girl food”, healthy stuff my son won’t touch with a 10 ft. pole.  Watched some movies.  Red Eye and Fight Club were both fantastic.  I tried brussel sprouts for the first time since I was a kid.  I love them and can’t get enough of them.  She and I actually fight over them.  Just want to throw an apologetic shout out to my mom for every one that I gagged on as a kid.  These things are pretty delicious!  Don’t ask me to try beets.

Thursday we went to camp.  My brother moved the key location and thought it would be ok not to tell anyone – that was fun.  Thankfully I knew where the spare is.  Rei broke my fishing pole and I made her wade out to get it.  The water was only waist deep but she acted like she was dying nonetheless.  I can’t blame her, she had to walk into the weeds to get it.  I instantly panic and am convinced something is going to lunge out and eat me any time one of them touches me when I’m swimming.  The bugs weren’t as bad as they had been when I went there the week before.  Didn’t catch anything, but not surprised because we went in the middle of the day.  The dogs loved it.  Jack loves to swim, only he won’t go out on his own.  He stands on shore with a shit-eating grin on his face waiting for me to come pick him up, wade out to my waist and then let him swim back to shore and do it all over again.  Then he runs around like someone lit a rocket out of his ass.  It was the first time that I took Riley with us.  She was still unsure of the water at first.  Then Rei pushed her off the dock accidentally.  To our surprise, she swam back to shore, got back on the dock and jumped off.  She only did it once, then she got onto shore and rolled in the pine needles and dirt so I had to drag her back into the water to rinse her off.  Australian Shepherds and their damn double coat!

The boy child left for camp without a hitch and is being picked up by my dad.  I am dying to hear all the details about it.  I sent him with his backpack that was still in brand new shape for school without thinking.  Hope it’s still in one piece.  My son (and most boys I know) are so rough with their backpacks that I had to replace it 3x last year, much to the chagrin of my wallet.  And he grew!!  This spring he pulled an Incredible Hulk and had literally NOTHING to wear, so in a bind I had to go to goodwill and buy a bunch of pants that fit him in the waist and have my mom hem them.  They are now like Capri pants.  Also he went from a kid’s size 5 shoe to men’s 8.  Tell me about it, **face palm**.  Thank gods all of his shorts fit him from last year.

My daughter has always been a loner.  She likes being by herself.  Like me, she prefers quiet.  Anytime we’ve gone swimming or to camp, she is instantly ready to go.  She has yet to contact any of her school friends to do anything.  I’m almost concerned, but she just doesn’t care.

I am a little less concerned about the car issue.  It runs.  It gets me to where I need to go.  And my son is still thankful we have a really safe imaginary motorcycle.

It’s the little things.

Forgot To Post, Created Last Week.

Many things have happened since my last writing:

Of course when things are uneventful the way I like them to be I have almost nothing to write about :)

My son turned 12 last Thursday.  He and I had our one on one celebration like we do every year.  This year we did Pizza Hut and went to see Jurrassic World.  Then on his birthday, I cooked dinner and brought it over to dad's.  High five to the fact that I didn't spend the entire day in tears!

Dad signed him up for the Boy Scouts AND signed him up for summer camp for the week.  My son might has well have been told he was given all the gummy bears in the world (or maybe I'm the only person on the planet who would be elated about that).  He is over the moon excited.  This is something that he has wanted to do since he was 6. 

4th of July weekend came and went.  Spent the evening after work

The camp road is cleared.  My sister in law got a friend to help her cut and move them.  The kids and I went down Sunday.  She and I did some cleanup to the yard.  My soul is at peace knowing that I am now able to get to it.  Thinking that next week while my son is away my daughter and I will spend a couple of days down there.

The car is making me crazy.  Last week, the window got stuck on the rubber that surrounds it and came off the track.  "No big deal, I'll just deal with it when I get home", or so I thought.  Sure enough, stop at a stoplight, and watch as the glass slowly sinks into the door.  I have yet to attempt to fix it.

Then Wednesday of this week:  Meeting at work, then trek to Rockland to get the results of my son's evaluation.  It pretty much cemented what we knew all along, it's a matter of implementing the information that we have into an action plan that is going to work and help him be better that I'm losing my mind over.  ADHD and ODD.  Therapy is in place and has been for months.  He likes her and is a good fit.  I know that the company that she works for has a pretty high turn over rate with employees, I'm praying to every entity in the Universe that she isn't going anywhere. 

Dad picks up son and takes him to Orono to the Boy Scout store to get his uniform and all the things he needs for scouts. 

I'm on the way home from dad's.  All of a sudden there is this God-aweful grinding/banging sound under my car.  Pull over and call dad.  Police officer stops to see what is going on and make sure I'm ok. 

SIDE NOTE:  Call me a 90 year old grandmother in a 34 year old's body, but I melt every time someone stops to make sure another person is ok or goes out of their way to help someone else that they don't have to.  As someone who is in charge and does everything for herself most of the time, and really doesn't have that much of a support system when things go wrong, you don't know how nice that is, but I do. 

Dad shows up, sees that my exhaust came apart from my muffler and was hitting on my drive shaft, so it's a really good thing that I didn't attempt to limp it home.  He was able to connect it together and the car sounds better than before. 

Go to Bangor first thing Friday morning to get the boy some last minute stuff for camp, including sneakers because he went from a boy's 5 to mens 8 in 2 months.  The gas gauge isn't working.  Awesome.  Car still working fine.  I go to work.  On the way home, suddenly my engine is really loud like it was before and something dragging.  At 9:30 at night I called dad.  An hour later he came and strapped  it up.  This time the exhaust has disconnected from the engine area.  The only way to fix it is to weld it.  I am screwed, and not in any fun ways. 

Last night I laid awake waiting for the meteor to strike. 

Accountability

Through experience, I have found that the phrase "I don't want to argue" is code for "I've said/done, or am about to say/do, something incredibly stupid and you will want to kill me."

I am so tired of being an adult.  What is the point?

Is it wrong of me to expect people to be accountable?  And I don't mean being on time, life happens.  I mean showing up at all.  Or at the very least having a really, really valid reason for not picking up the phone. 

No, getting trashed the previous day and being too hung over to get out of bed isn't allowed as one of them.  You know what you have for plans, act accordingly.

I myself look at time frames as guidelines.  There are very few exceptions, such as the time you are supposed to show up for work or the time that a movie starts or other responsibility crap that goes along with well, life.  Otherwise, the chips fall where they may. 

However, with that said, do not, I repeat DO NOT make plans with someone, especially if it meant that they had to inconveince another person's life (by getting out of work early, for example) to make the plans with you in the first place and then not even pick up the phone if you are going to choose not to follow through with those plans.

It's reverting back to childhood.

Be accountable.

If someone is not adult enough not to move on with their day because you don't want to do what you said that you would after you have the balls to tell them, the result is on them, not you.  If you hide, it is ENTIRELY your fault.

Honesty.  It's a thing.

I am mad.  I told you I'm mad.  I'm even more mad that I am that unimportant to you.

You're mad at me for being mad?  Grow up. 

Maybe it's being a single parent with responsibility coming out of my pores that hopes that other adults understand integrity.  Maybe I was just raised to be a good person who goes out of their way to show people that they matter.  Because I know how it feels to not matter to someone. 

Maybe you were hoping that I would turn into an asshole.  I can act like one if it helps you sleep at night, but it's not going to change who I am.  You know me better than that.  I'll love you anyway, and will take more of your crap if you call me again. 

Because you matter.