Little Bits of Pixie Dust

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thourougly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!!"

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Preparing to Live in the Car

As I've said before, living with my parents has been an uncomfortable situation to say the least.  As you know, four year olds are loud, and a lot of the time they are really fucking annoying.  But if they're yours, you ignore the annoyingness because you love them so much and the times when they are wonderful and loving and demonstate that you ARE doing something right are worth it all.  Well, C. is not my parent's kid.  And though they love him very much, he has begun to wear on my dad.  My dad has turned into an old man, which isn't really surprising to me because he had already lost his patience when my brother was a baby, and my brother is eighteen years old.  So he's turned into an old man in the sense of the "get the hell off my lawn, kid!" because when C. is having a four year old meltdown because he couldn't figure out how to unbuckle the seatbelt by himself or when he is told for the six thousandth time not to jump on the dog and then you have to tell him AGAIN, my dad is all "C.!" in an extremely grouchy and harsh voice and the other day C. was freaking out because he fell asleep in the car on the way home and then was really pissed to be awake and made to walk into the house he stood in the kitchen so that my dad couldn't see him and said to me in a quivery voice "I don't want Papa to see me like this!  I need to go downstairs so he doesn't see me." and then my heart broke into a million pieces and I melted into a puddle on the floor.  So yeah, things have been weird and uncomfortable in ways like that.

So tonight I got home and was having a perfectly pleasant conversation with my parents in the kitchen while C. played outside on the deck, when my dad said, "So, are you looking for apartments or what?" and I said "Yeah, I'm looking constantly!  But I've already applied to two places and gotten turned down because of my credit (sidenote: I've always been the second person on any lease with A* being the primary and this time he has an eviction from this horrible year so I'm applying by myself PLUS just in case something else happens I need to have a place in my name so anyway with his credit we were able to get places but so far with just mine it hasn't gone well; however my parents are the ones who told me to put everything in my name because they are convinced that A* will fuck up in some way and it will be just me) Anyway I said to my dad that I had already gotten turned down and he said "Well then you need to look harder." and my mom gave him a dirty look and he shrugged and said "What?  She needs to spread her wings, get out there on her own!  Were you gonna live with us forever?" and he turns back to me and I just mutter "Yeah" because they never said a time limit but obviously now I feel really weird and then I said "I AM trying" and told them about another place I was applying to that I hadn't even wanted to tell them about in case I get turned down again and then I said, probably only 20 percent joking, "I'm gonna have to go back to the ghetto because they are the only ones that don't run your credit" and then I got a lecture about how C. needs a place that's safe and where he can play outside in his backyard and there was never any SOLUTION suggested so that was pretty productive only in making me feel that much more like a burden and unwanted and like I'm on borrowed time and we're bothering everyone and suddenly it's just that much more uncomfortable to be here.

So the search has become even that much more urgent and I'm so very ready. 

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Look Out!!

Today I was uncomfortably close to hitting a tree with my moving vehicle… my moving vehicle with myself and my son inside of it. My parent’s move in the middle of nowhere, and there is no fast way to get anywhere from their house. Since moving there I’ve had to push up our leaving the house time by at least 45 minutes, an hour if I’m being realistic about being on time. I have to drop C. off at my mother-in-law’s house (she watches him in the day) and then go on to work. But this is after I have already driven a good forty five minutes in the inky blackness of early morning. And I have been having SUCH a hard time keeping my eyes open, and today it just got away from me I guess, because I realized that I had run up over a curb and was pointed right in the direction of a tree. Do you know that initial rush of complete and utter panic you feel when you know in a split second something horrible is going to happen? If you don’t, I hope you never do. To me it happens almost like a jolt, like a lightning bolt zapped me out of the blue. In that split second I was able to yank the steering wheel to the right and make it back over to the road, narrowly missing that tree. C. piped up, “What happened?” in the back seat, and I couldn’t answer him for a minute, my pulse was racing so hard and I thought I was going to explode with anxiety. I fought to keep a panic attack at bay, mostly because I didn’t want to scare C. but also because I knew that I was already pushing it as far as getting to work on time and I’ve been “talked to” about tardiness before. I finally answered C. in a breathless voice much different than my usual one. “Mommy wasn’t paying attention, buddy. Mommy just wasn’t paying attention but everything’s okay now.”


And yes, you smartasses out there, I’ve tried all the tricks to keep myself awake. I even googled it. I have been going to bed no later than 9:30; I open the window and let the cold air blast me in the face, I’ve tried chewing gum because Google said moving your mouth gives your brain something to focus on other than sleep; coffee doesn’t work because I drink tea by the gallon and the caffeine has no effect on me. Other than literally pushing toothpicks into my eyelids and forcing them open, I don’t know what else to do. My boss selfishly refuses to let us come in to work at 11:00, or even give us a nap break in the middle of the day. The world continues to selfishly revolve and make the sun come up at the most inopportune times. My car won’t make itself uncomfortable or stick nails in my butt every time I start to drift. No one will cooperate with me!

Saturday, March 09, 2013

Seriously my mother and her friends sound like they are screaming and sometimes it is really hard to come up with a title so that's why I said this

Stuck in this weird place between childhood and adult is a strange and uncomfortable experience.  I think that some part of me automatically reverts a little bit backwards towards the child side when I am around my parents for an extended period of time; I find myself whining sometimes, or leaving decisions up to them, like I am a teenager again.  But of course this time I have a child, and decisions that are very adult to make, so I can't relax into this state for too long.  Obviously I don't want to have to depend on my parents, though most times I am sure that they would like me to always consult and then follow exactly any upcoming decisons made by them  for the rest of my life.  Moving back in with your parents when you are in your thirties is certainly not an experience that I would recommend to anyone, as grateful as I am that I have a roof over my head and a safe place for C.  And living here has given me the ability to save up a pretty good chunk of money, so I have tentatively began to look for places. 

Here's where I get all defensive, and really that attitude only belongs to my parent's, because they are the only ones that really give a shit about my life, so pardon my harshness but I'm preparing myself for the moment when I have to tell them that I am moving back in with A*.  Yet another way that I feel like a child again.  When I was in high school, I was dating a dorky kid with horrible acne and my mother hated him.  I'm not really sure why; she always said that I could do better, and he did do some really stupid stuff, but the poor kid was fifteen and sixteen and I was positive I was in love with him.  I would lie about the status of our relationship to my parent's so that they wouldn't get mad; at one point when my mom caught us kissing in the basement she forbade me to see him, so I pretended like we had broken up and we would have clandestine dates after school and sneak out at night, when we would sit on the swing in my backyard and make out and then lay on our trampoline and stare up at the sky and talk about anything and everything that came into our heads (young love was so intense!)  Wow that was an extremely long tangent that has absolutely nothing to do with what I was originally talking about.  It will tie in together (probably) pretty soon.  What I'm trying to say is that this situation that I'm in reminds me of that time of my life, that time when I was fifteen and sixteen and had to sneak around with my boyfriend; now I'm having to sneak around with my husband, and it is ridiculous and almost in a way embarassing that I'm having to lie about meeting MY HUSBAND but I just honestly don't want to have to talk about it and be judged and that's exactly what would happen because my parents actually and truly hate A* and there is nothing that I could say to change their minds and as long as I live here I just don't want to hear it.  I can't make them understand that I love the man and that I want to make our marriage work and that I want to have my family back but I don't feel like I should have to defend that because I am an ADULT even though I live in my parents fucking basement and here you go, the circle goes round and round.  I don't think I'm making any sense but seriously this is the shit that runs through my head ALL THE TIME and aren't you glad that you are not me or in my head? 

So that's why I feel weird about my position in life and staying here and why I am scared to death to tell my parents the truth so I act in a ridiculous way and then I honestly feel like I should punch myself in the face. 

Sidebar (at first I typed sidebad, which would be a funny word but then when I was writing that I typed fird instead of first and that's even funnier because it's close to turd and I am seriously a twelve year old boy who just smoked his first joint) anyway I bought a T-shirt today that says "Some people just need a high five.... in the face" and to me that it just hysterically funny and especially because I am always saying I want to punch people in the face as noted above.

This has turned into a really long and winding post but my mom has a bunch of her friends over and I am in a dim basement with the T.V. on low and they are extremely loud and I just can't wait until I can be in a room where I can hear the T.V.  and I could paint my nails in actual light.  Fuck. 

Monday, March 04, 2013

Violence in the Workplace

Wah wah, woe is me, I’m not gonna talk about how much my life sucks in this post…wait, I guess I kind of am, but it’s a DIFFERENT way that it sucks. So there.


So what is really sticking in my craw (what the hell does that expression mean? What is a craw and why are there things sticking in it? All I know is that my mom, who is a proud hillbilly, says this all the time) anyway, what is currently pissing me off--- my co-workers. I work with a really great group of people and most of the time I love them. I mean, I spend more time with these people than my own family, so it helps to get along. They make fun of me a lot, but my life and personality kind of lends itself to the ridicule, and I figure if they are still making fun of me then they still like me enough to pay attention. But as far as my whole relationship DRAH-MAH right now, well, it is just getting out of hand with the advice and the remarks and the telling me what I should do and the judgements and the *I* would do this in your place, it is getting really really old. And I know that I kind of started it by letting them know what was going on in the first place, but seriously when you come to work with your eyes swollen shut from crying so hard and a noticeable lack of a wedding ring and several overheard yelling conversations with your husband, they wanted to know what was going on. I truly tried to give an abridged version but that is just not how my mouth works; I mostly open it and then my entire life story falls out. But now I feel like punching someone in the face at least five times a day when I hear someone making a comment. Since I really love my job and want to keep it, punching someone is not an option. I try and make it seem like it’s not a big deal, like the whole ignore the bully and they will leave you alone theory, but it is not working so far.

Basically, this was just a long and winded post about how I want to punch several people in the face.