In which we bitch about family BS some more

So, at this point in the summer I am so missing my boys, its almost like my arms ache. Seening those little kids running around at church was like a trigger for me just craving to hug and cuddle a little one. I miss their noise and their chaos and their mess. I know, I miss their mess.

Anyway, its an emotional week and its only Monday. I have a final project to do for three separate classes. I have assignments to finish. I thought I had preschool for gideon and Isaiah's summer challenger activities figured out, but today it seems that no one knows anything about it, so I have to do some phone stalking on top of all of that.

And the closer that killer road trip gets, the more anxiety I feel towards it. I know I seem fairly nonchalant about the drive to Dad's, and I've made the drive a few times now. But sometimes I think about the speed and the forces involved with the mass of teh vehicles, and I feel a litte panicky. Plus I'll be driving on the third, so every asshole between here and knoxville wil be shooting fireworks, some at the road.

And then there's dad. He knows and has known that I wouldn't have a lot of time to visit. I drive up the third, stay the fourth, and we drive back the fifth. Okay. Did he take a day off? didn't even try. Last time I was there, when I stayed a full week, he had one day off, he'd traded the other regular day off to go see Emily graduate boot camp. Am I completely selfish to be wondering why he can't set that time aside to hang out with me, his daughter, his oldest child, and the mom of his wonderful grandsons? I have never been an important thing in his life, and I will never be a priority, and every time I realize that about him it hurts all over again. And i wish I knew why that realization keeps being so painful.

updates

Despite my feelings of rejection by church culture, I still feel drawn to church. ITs complicated, but I guess the simplist explaination is that I adore the faith and the promise of it, but I dislike the way many many people carry it out. I must not be the only one who feels this way, because the speaker today talked about legalism. About how people have made rules to help them live good lives based on scriptures. But that these rules have become the salvation for them, rather then tools and guidlines along the way to leading a christian life.

Christianity is about accpecting that jesus is the son of god. That we are all creations of god. That we are all sinners, and that jesus was the sacrifice to make us worthy of heaven.

The rest is just dogma and argumentativness. I accept that whole heartedly. I reject though, the idea that many christians have, that people who've lived less then perfect lives must forever be less then those who never stumbled. Part of being christian is knowing that there is no such thing as perfect and that everyone has problems and things they struggle with. The fact that one person's struggle may be easy to hide and the fact that my children are so odvious doesn't make me any more or less a sinner than anyone else.

It also means that avoiding any place or activity that may, possible, be associated with poor behavior, just because its associated with that behavior is not a godly desicion. It isn't a sin to enjoy a little captain and coke. The sin is in making the center of one's life the next time I get a captain and coke.

So anyway, I was out with my friend Cheryl the other night. She confuses me. She really does. But I try very hard to not critsize friends. Anyway, she was there with a guy who I guess she isn't crazy about. That guy has a friend who was super drunk when they showed up and trying to paw anyone near by. (cute though) and then there was this other friend of cheryl's there who is a bit of an attention hog and two friends of hers. The two friends were guys, brothers. One of whom had been pressed into designated driver detail, and had insisted his brother come along and keep him company.

So here I am. I am a mellow person, even when out. One of my friends is being completely dominated and occupied with thie guy, and the other girl was doing her best to torment and keep the attention of two others. I got tired of sitting in the middle of it and moved to the outside of the group, mostly because I was tired of being talked over by miss "loook at me look at me". The brother of the dd was there. To me he looked too young for me, but at least he wasn't drunk and wanting to grope and paw or being verbally tomented. turns out he isn't young, just babyfaced. Also turns out he's smart and we spent the whole evening pondering the tableu of those we were with, making fun of the glam rockers coming and going from the interior of the bar and basically being smart asses together. Phone numbers were obtained.

The next day we texted back and forth until three am. Turns out he has a girlfriend (figures), but I would rather be friends with a cool person then nothing at all, so that's the course I took. Texted him yesterday, and he and the girlfriend are fighting all day, something on going that they cen't seem to work out.

So the question is, how terrible a person am I to be like (YEAH) at the news they are having trouble?

The prefect man

So my friend and I were having a philisophical conversation about our ideal men. Not the romantice, sweeps you off your feet ideal, but the ideal for the situation in which we live. That situation being, one single mom who spends 11 months out of the year absolutely dedicated to being mom. Two, strong willed woman who spends most of her time at work, or working on graduate school or both, three, an independant soul who dreads the idea of doing anything anyway but my own.

Its blunt and over simplified, but its also me. So my perfect man, is attractive, smart, comes over when I want him, leaves when I'm done with him, lets me keep to myself when I want or need to do so, and is smart enough to keep up with my sense of humor. Sadly does not exsist.

So, I've spent a few weeks being wilder then I should. I've met a few guys. Like R, who is hotter then hot, and fairly smart, who shows up at the KP and flirts all night, keeps me in liquor, and takes us out to waffle house when the bar closes. But who shows up wasted before anyone else has started, can't respond to a text message and gets grabby when he's overly drunk AFTER ignoring me all evening. There's mike who runs a million dollar bussiness, but who can't quit talking about money. And there's j, who is smart and cute and sweet and who even I can manage to shock on occasion.

Lots of lines in the water. Lots of nibbles. Not a whole lot else going on. But damn, why can't I keep one as a pet. Seriously R is hot. A mess, but a hot one. M is rich as hell, and in love with me he claims, and J is like a grown up harry potter.

And its quite possible that drunken blogging is a bad idea.

Why

This weekend amways make me think about my own childhood.

I guess its no secret that I've been reassessing some things in my life lately.

I had the opposite of a good child hood. What I remember most, because there are many things that I can't remember at all, even though I know I should, is pain. Emotional pain. I guess stress is another word. Fear too.

I was terrified of my mom. The woman could yell and say the most terrible things. She would wait until you weren't expecting it too, especially if you'd really pissed her off. Most of the time though, she was jsut distant. Her face in some romance novel. Our mission was to do our chores, which were assigned in such a way that all the housework was on us, and to not bother her, or do anything that might cause her to be bothered.

Then there was my step father the pedophile. I literally had hives for three solid years and it never occured to anyone that something was happening to me on a nightly basis to cause that level of stress that it manifested physically.

The mess I became, the mess I've been, the mess you've read about for years, it probably no surprise to anyone. I just wish somedays that I had been clever enough to avoid most of it.

I don't regret my kids. I do regret the coward I am. You see, its people I am afraid of. And its new people I tend to avoid. Peopl are assholes. They judge you. They steal from you. They use you for what they want and then get rid of you, or just turn into assholes so you get rid of them. They leave you feeling empty and sad. And those are the "normal" ones. That isn't even taking into account the psycos who might actually have rape and murder on their hearts.

But life spent avoiding people is sad and lonely. I don't want to spend my life ignoring my children to read a romance novel. I don't want to spend my time alone and bitter.

And the worst part, the really bad part. Is that the craptastic childhood I had has marked me as strange. I come off as weird, off, inept. People avoid me because I am marked with strangness. And nice, normal people avoid strange.

But I'll be damned if I live like a hermit because of it. I plan to keep trying. To live life and to love my boys and to do my work. And maybe one of these days, I'll have what I want in life.

Sometimes I hate all this technology

Okay, so some people seem incapable of using their phones unless its between midnight and 2 am. Problem being, if I'm not already out and about and enjoying their company by then, I probably am not interested in hearing from them. And yet, can't answer a phone when not super late at night.

Anyway, after that lovely experience (aren't people GREAT), I was reading the news and in less then five minutes, I read a story about a woman who killed and skinned a puppy because she was fighting with the person who gave it to her, a hunter who shot and killed a little girl through the wall of her home, after he'd already fatally wounded a deer he fired that shot, and a woman who poured gas over the head of her daughter and then set ehr on fire, then put her to bed with life threatening wounds.

People suck. And I"ve been doing homework all day and my brain hurts and distracting myself with a little surfing didn't help things.

In better news, a friend of mine has been trying to set me up with a guy she knows for months and tomorrow she is having a cook out and what she calls a "blind meeting". Less pressure then a date. Has to go better then mister "I'll buy shots at the har and cover waffles when the bar closes, but I won't answer the phone". He was cute too. And seemed like he had something going on in his life.

Anyway, My friend seems to think highly of this guy, I'll try to keep an open mind. Her kids and on agin, off again husband will be there, so it wont be a wild scene. I'll be nice and try to be charming without putting foot into mouth. (I have an uncanny knack for saying things that are terribly vulgar, without meaning too, I've always had that problem, and people LOVE to laugh, especially when I turn red)

Clarifications

I was thinking a bit more about what I posted the other day. I didn't mean I was going to over throw everything I valued for a life of booze and men. And despite all Cheryl's talk and bluster, I don't think I will ever be able to pick a guy up, lead him on for a few days, get what I want from him, and then dump him. I'm not wired like that.

But I meant it when I said I was tired of being "good". I'm tired of following these rules of decorum and modesty and morality that seem to hail from another century, or two. Back in the day marriage was a financial arrangement. Women needed men to provide for them and protect them while they bore and raised children. Men needed the help of the woman and their children, even members of each other's extended families to work farms or what have you. Women came with a significant dowry, money paid to her husband for her upkeep. But the husband owned everything in the relationship, and had the right to treat his wife however he wanted, short of actually killing her, although I wonder how much that happened and wasn't reported or prosecuted.

Times now are definitely different. We still have glass ceilings. But not nearly as many. Women can work outside their homes, and raise children in a wholesome environment, as I am doing right now. It isn't even like it was a few decades ago when women immediately remarried because there was no other way to not live in abject poverty. I live in relative poverty, true. But lets face it, I have HD cable and high speed Internet service. I use my air conditioner and I drive my own car. I am much better off then so many people in this town, country, planet. Its amazing when you think about it.

Which gets me back around to the topic of men. You thought I had become sidetracked, didn't you? Anyway. I LIKE men. Not saying I can't live a complete life without one, but I like the idea of having one around, you know? I don't mean to move in with the first guy who winks at me, but male attention is a nice thing to have, no? That and just adult company that isn't directly related to work or my school or my kids is so nice it's not even funny.

anyway, I think that's what I was talking about the other day. Letting myself off the hook a bit. Letting myself have permission to be silly, to have fun, to do things purely for the enjoyment of doing them. Like going out to see a band play. Like flirting with a guy who is more then willing to keep buying me drinks. Like eating waffles at two am for the hell of it and crashing on a friend's couch before driving home in the morning.

Would I do all those things if my kids were waiting at home? Probably not. But they are safe with my dad and will be for a couple more weeks. Do I have massive amounts of work I need to be focused on? Yes, but I can't study, research and write 24hours a day. And I'm tired of pushing myself to the point of complete burnout.

does putting myself out there have potential negative effects? Yes, I suppose it does. I can't get pregnant, but I still have to be safe, not that I've been getting any action that would require it. There's the fact that everyone in my family is alcoholic and that warm cozy feeling that I get when a drink hits bottom feels a little too good for me to be comfortable with doing it everyday, but time and place and place and time. There are, I suppose, emotional dangers. Flirting leads to crushes sometimes, even for grown women. Feelings unreturned are not easy. But lets face it, its better to be out there, trying to connect, then sitting at home pining.

Do I think I will end up with happily ever after and white dress and a big house and prince charming? No. DO I think I might end up with "Hey babe, I'm not busy next weekend lets go get silly together"? Maybe.

And maybe that's all I want or really need at the moment. I like being in charge around here. And I like sleeping alone, watching what I want to watch, making plans without a major debate, buying things with out a major debate, and raising my kids without having to argue my point every time one of them needs something. In a lot of ways, its easier to be single then to be married. So, I Don't know for sure, other then I can't go on and on like I was. I can't keep living like an old spinster when that isn't what or who I am.

SO, like many other things, there's a balance to be walked. Boundaries that have to be set. Self rules I need to follow.

And while I will agree that organized religion does a lot of personal damage, look at me, faith is a requirement. Faith in better things to come. Faith that people are essentially decent and honest, faith that the sun will rise, faith that I won't splatter myself and my children to smithereens on the freeway next month. Faith that the car will keep working and gas prices wont get too high. All the things are things we have faith in and don't even realize it. One thing I DON'T have faith in, the idea that sitting at home, being proper and no fun is a way to attract what I want in life, and is a good thing to model for my kids.

I saw that behavior in mom, and have copied it. But mom was a co=dependant nightmare, and did serious damage to us kids. Damage just as crippling as our father who drank and was in and out of the house so much, and our stepfather the pedophile and his copycat son.

I am not perfect. I need to stop trying to be. And then things will feel better. To be honest, they already do.

empowerment

Thinking a lot lately about what that word really means.

Does it mean being independant and beholden to no one?

Does it mean doing whatever you want, when you want it?

Does it mean being "good" and ignoring what you need?

I think it means a little bit of everything. I think that empowerment is being able to know who you are and what you want, and what you need. My friend chyrl is an interesting person. She sleeps with pretty much who ever she wants. She shares custody of her sons with her exhusband who is in a rather open relationship with her.

Seems like it ought to be terrible, right? Seems like she's this lost soul who sleeps around for no reason. But, she's a teacher too. She knows these guys are disposable and jus tahs fun with it. I'm not sure I'm capable of that, on the other hand, Sex is on Maslow's heirarchy of needs, right after oxygen, food and shelter.

So, is cheryl a bad person for sleeping around? Is she being victimized by these guys? I don't think so. If anything, they wish she'd be more committed to them. Is that wrong of her? Is it wrong of me to envy her a little?

I don't want to bring random men in and out of my sons' lives. I don't want to spend every waking minute worrying about my size and my hair and my face and being clever and saying just the right things to keep someone interested. And I don't want to be celibate for years on end either. So its a quandry and I know it seems like a sea change.

God knows I wish I could be good. I wish I could join that church and feel really accepted and find a nice man who would be a good partner and husband and father to my kids. But that isn't what I find in churches.

I find women who see me through slitted eyes. I'm the young, single mom out to take the men. The men who are available and looking for wives see me as a fallen woman. To be commended for raising three kids alone and pitied for her struggle, but untimately I "made my own bed and need to face those consequences". Which means being out of bounds to the nice men.

So I spend a lot of time alone, thinking and wishing. And feeling like I'm missing something I shouldn't be.

I think I'm going to make more of an effort to be less like a nun, and a little more like my friend Cheryl. Why not go out once or twice a month and enjoy myself and not take anything or anyone seriously for a few hours? Am I wrong to want that?

Storms

So, I have this awsome video I took of lightening strikes I took from my house. But blogger is refusing to load it and its too big for photobucket. What I need (read want) is to get a decent video camera and software to edit films. I'm thinking about making a podcast for my classes. I have lots of kids who miss class for activities of one sort or another.

Anyway, its been super stormy. And I love it. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. When I was a little kid my mom would wake me up and bring me out onto the porch to watch the storms when they rolled through late at night. We would sit on our porch, which was a real porch with a roof and a railing and a swing, wrapped in blankets because the rain would be cold. The wind would blow and the lightening would flash and thunder would crash. And my mom sitting there next to me, so solid and calm and THERE, and the safety of the house right there, I felt absolutely safe and absolutely loved.

Other kids were afraid of the storms. As adults some of them are still afraid of storms. As a kid, I thought it was a little silly. I knew that sometimes storms got bad and knocked down houses and tossed people and trees and cars around, but I also knew how to hide in a basement, and interior bathroom or a ditch if I needed.

Now as an adult, I've witnessed tornados several times. I've driven through hurricane strength winds and seen the funnels in my rear view mirror. I've helped friends and strangers clean up messes left by storms and I've seen the personal and material devistation that can happen. But I am still not afraid of the storms. I get watchful when I know they are bad. I take cover when I know I need to. But I am also drawn to the power and force embodied in the storms. Nothing can match the primal tone of a thunder storm.

And I feel pity for the adults I know who are still so anxious of storms. I wonder if the anxiety is because they were raised by fearful parents. I wonder if their parents never did anything to make them feel safe and loved like my mother did for me when I was small and we watched those storms.

Granted, later she became crazy and a force of terror in her own right. But before that, she was my mom, who loved the storms and taught me to love them too.

Life's a Bitch

And that's all i have to say . . . not really, but that's the gist.

So, still dealing with drama from the theft. Tom hasn't paid me back yet, probably wont ever, just said that so I'd tell officer Benson not to press charges. I don't have a whole lot of cash on hand, but the card balance showed 44 dollars the other day, even with those two fradulent charges on there. But I guess they took off a credit they'd given me, because I tried to buy gas and it wouldn't go through. After half an hour on the phone with customer service, it turns out that there isn't much I can do until they recieve a formal letter from me. And the rep seemed to be implying that the charges weren't fradulent since the card information provided to the merchant was good enough. RIIGHT.

I just wanted to take a drive, you know. Put on some music and let the wind in my hair and drive for a little while. But I guess that isn't going to happen tonight. I still am not sure I'll have books for my classes, or babysitting next month for the math class I decided to take. Nothing is working for me.

I think the biggest problem with me is that I spent the morning filling out welfare paper work. The application for child car, food stamps, and cash is all one document, so every time its time to renew, which is every six months, I have to fill out this form that asks questions like how many men I've slept with, would I be willing to help hunt down the fathers of my kids, have I quit a job. I have to gather up proof on my income, proof of my rent and utilities and proof I've been paying. I have to include a school calender and information about the babysitter.

Its humiliating. Adult women who have master's degrees and teach shouldn't have to go through this. It makes me resent my employers for paying me so little that I need, it makes me hant to yell and scream at the men who should be paying me child support, but aren't and it makes me want to bitch out the child support enforcement officers who want my information all the time but can't seem to find the assholes who contributed sperm to the situation.

Combine all that with the less the stellar date the other night, and I hate everyone. I mean it, no one is in my good graces at the moment.

Dates and updates

update first. Tom took responsibility for the card to the officer. To me he is still saying that it wasn't him but he can't prove anything and so he's going to pay me back. The funny thing is that I probably would have put minutes on his phone if he'd asked. And I would be more willing to forgive if he'd just give me a straight answer "I did it, it was stupid and wrong and I apologize" But he hasn't and I don't think he will. 

He has stated that he'll pay it back. Somehow his ability to fend for himself improves marvilously when he's facing legal issues. I guess if he pays me back and gives me back the card I won't follow throuhg on the formal charges. But he can't stay here anymore. That's blown. I won't be stolen from in my own home. 

I'm sure he justified it, and continues to justify it now. I have so much compared to him. I'm getting paid the next few months without having to go to work for it. ITs all noise as far as I am concerned. I've worked very hard to get to where I am, which still isn't where I want to be. While I've been working, Tom's beed scheeming. joining "businesses" with his buddies instead of getting a regular job. blatantly refusing to apply to sertain jobs but then poaching and panhandling and eating rotten food to eat. I don't think I can help him by letting him stay here. 

Now the date, I've been IM-ing with a guy for a while and we almost met for coffee but that didn't happen. Last night we did get together. And for the most part it was okay. He's no brad pitt, but I'm no Angelena jolie. He's smart, can have a decent conversation. The only thing is, he is the most TERRIBLE kisser on the planet. ITs like he's trying to intubate me with his toungue. Not sure there's a way to get past that one. 

Of course the craptastic way the day started may have colored everything I experienced that day, so maybe I'll give him another chance to impress me. 

Anyway, that's what happened yesterday. Lets see what friday holds. 

I should have know better

I should have. I really really should have know better then to become entangled with my brothers. But I'm human and blood calls to you. Blood, genetics, society, psychology, something calls to you and tells you to reach out to those you are related to. TO help them. To trust them. To be nice to them. 

So is it any real surprise that I've been hanging out with mike, driving him and tom around to try and find jobs. Loaning money to mike. Letting tom stay in my now empty apartment while the kids are gone. Buying Tom food, letting him eat my food. Letting him crash here while I was out of town. 

Well, I'm guessing I shouldn't have let it happen. I'm guessing they were more or less in on it together from the begining. And I'm guessing that they aren't going to speak to me or let me see my neice for a long, long time now. 

But my FAMILY has been stealing from me since before mom died. They'd take cash out of my wallet and then act like I was paranoid and crazy when I freaked out because I couldn't account for where it all went. They pawned things of mine for cash. Took my cars late at night to go cruising. 

And for some reason I thought they were done with that sort of thing. I was wrong. They are both golden toungued conmen. 

While I was gone, someone got ahold of an expired debit card I use for travel and for internet shopping. Its one of those prepaid, reloadable numbers you get from walmat. Usually it only has anough money on it to cover to three dollar monthly fee. But to go to Tennessee I put several hundred dollars on it. 

Today, curious and wanting to see how much I had spent on the trip and on what, I logged into my online acocunt to see just that. And there were charges to alltel, a phone company I don't use. There were charges to hoonan house and to papa johns that happened while I was out of town.  I asked Tom, who was here making breakfast and he claimed it was all mike. I've talked to mike and he says it was all Tom. 

I called to card company and Alltel, both gave me the run aroung, requiring me to call them back. The short answer was that I needed to file a police report to get my money back. I needed to send said report and a formal letter of dispute to both companies and I needed to be a royal neg to get my money back. 

So I did. My brothers, who spend lots of time on the wrong side of the law are panicking, I'm being painted as an irrational and horrible person, and the cop was very nice and said that he would try to find video at the merchants, that would conclusively show who stole and attempted to use the card. 

Why couldn't I have a nice circle of people around me? Why can't I have brothers that are kooky and weird but not theives and liars? Why can't I have that kind of nice live were no one is sitting around plotting a way to take advantage of me? I'm a nice person, I'm not horrible to people or grotesquely ugly, Why can't I have a decent family life? 

Been awhile

I have to apologise for being a bad blogger. 

I don't know why, but it seems like lately, I laven't felt that over whelming urge to purge here like I used to. 

I wonder if its because I am in such a better place, emotionally, then I was when I started blogging, sending these mostly anomouse messages into cyber space. 

Anyway, in the last week I've finished the visit with dad, got up early saturday and drove home, the kids stayed. I left before they woke up because other wise it would be hard on me . . . and I wanted to get home while it was still daylight without killing myself. I succeeded. 

Having spent so much time driving the previous day, sunday I decided to walk to the grocery store, and ended up giving myself horrible blisters on the bottom of my feet, which are still sore after several days of badaids and antibiotic ointment. 

My brother Tom is officially homeless and was planning to hitchike to California, I talked him out of it, and somehow he ended up staying with me. Right now it isn't too big a deal becase the kids aren't here and he's sleeping on Isaiah's bed. BUt he can't stay. He talks about going to sell plasma and to panhandling, but I don't think these are viable options. I've threatened to take him to dad's and leave him there if he's still homeless and jobless when I go get the kids. 

I made a coffee date with a guy, who broke it the day of and has gone silent. NICE. I think I give up. I would like that "got your back" and the compainionship that a relationship gives, but I am convinced that the truly decent guys, don't want anything to do with a woman who has three kids with two dads and all the other issues I have. 

And that pretty much brings anyone still reading up to date. I am trying to arrange a bit of a get together witha  friend of mine, but I'm not sure if its going to happen either, she is notorious for making plans to make plans and then breaking them also. 

So, if nothing else, I have a few weeks of peace and quiet and can catch up on my reading. YAY me.