Things I Shouldn't Have Done Today

Because there's always a few.

1) Bought more than I can afford in lingerie because I feel so (Deleted for being wayyy too creepy even for me o 5/29/12)... Oh no.... clearly I'm not the crazy one here. (But clearly I am. Because you know, the deleting of most of that paragraph)

2) Worked out with a 100 degree temperature. The worst is, I reasoned (correctly, I dare say) that I was going to be so out of it that I wouldn't notice how hard I pushed myself. I totally doubled all of my weights for double the time. And now I totally ache outside as well as in. And I don't just mean my shattered soul, I mean my intestinal hemorrhaging. No, not really-- but at this point, nothing would be shocking to me anymore.

3) So I have this ex boyfriend who always wants a picture of my boobs. I sent him a picture of a heavy dude in the gyms boobs instead (with heavy dudes agreement).

He sent back a compliment.

I win.

None the less, I know I shouldn't have done it. Sorry about that, Christopher. Stop being a fucking creeper.

4)smoked 4 cigarets to try to make myself feel better despite being extremely sick. Didn't work. Bad idea.

5) Heading out to smoke one again right now.

This is what Leaving Las Vegas would look like if Nicolas Cage didn't drink, I have no doubt. It may be lame, but it's my lame. And at least I'm not going to die in a hotel... just on my porch in a mountain of cigarette butts with several thousand dollars of lingerie on that won't change anything.

Why Thank You, 5 Year Old Boy.

"Hey, you. You're that girls mommy, right?"

"Um, yes I am."

"Is that a perm? Because it's a really good one if it is."

OK, Kindergarten student-- thank you for that. And Kindergarten teacher who looked embarrassed at overhearing? Don't worry. It's really only natural curls that look this way.

Ah, The Normal Girls

Normal girls, ones with parents and a lawyer and a close brother or sister... when they think about their relationship they don't think about the things I do. They think about their wedding and it isn't "How will I keep my brother from not rapping? Is he in jail right now? Are my dad and his new wife allowed to come to a non Catholic service now that he's devout? Are they even still in town? All of my side is going to be drunk girlfriends and middle aged men I spend most of my time talking about why we don't drink with?" They think about their gown, train or no train. They think about If their father will pay for a brass band or if they should just go with a DJ, not if their boyfriend would acquire the debt from the unpaid biopsy bill if that happy engagement ever happened.

And they don't think about what happens if that never comes about the way that a girl like me, one without family does. I don't think about if I break up who will get the things we got together, or if I will have to de-friend his sister on Facebook. I have to think about things like "Who is going to know I want all of my organs donated and the remainders of me to go to science? Who can clarify that I have a brain that is valuable to alcoholism research and it isn't to go anywhere else? That my mother died that way, and I saw friends die that way and I want memorial contributions made to it and my brain can't go anywhere else?" I have to wonder who will pick my daughter up from school to tell her if it happens in the middle of the day. I have to wonder who is going to check on my ex boyfriend, my best friend, on my birthday and death day every year and understand how close our friendship is and also to understand through their own experience that they are losing someone they love or at least once loved the same way.

Where would my cat go? Who would take her? Who knows what kind of food she eats? Who would tolerate her drooling?

And these are all just facts of life. If I lose a partner, I lose the voice that can speak for me in the absence of family, in the absence of my own.

And all of this is really only to say that I should stop watching Greys Anatomy in entire season chunks, at least before bed. Because I didn't do my sociology homework, but I'm only concerned with who would know who to call when surgery fails if I am all alone. And all this to say is that I am not one of the normal girls. And that it's clearly not all about not having a family.

Sorry Sandra Oh... we're going to need to take a break. It's not that I don't love you, it's just that you make me crazy.

Unrelated, But Kind Of Related

At the aforementioned special event, I completely for got to mention the awesomeness. On our way out, I saw my dreamy academic adviser having lunch with another professor from my school. He looked extra 90's power-pop, I think his hair may have been parted even MORE in the middle than usual.

"Why hello, Dr. Pearl Jam (that's what I call him in my mind). How nice seeing you here. Oh, and what is that smell... Cool Water?"

"Close, CK one. I notice you're here instead of in class, much like myself."

"Why yes, Dr. Pearl Jam, I am. Here we stand, not student and professor, but man and woman."

"So it seems. I also notice, outside of the educational environment as we seem to find outselves... you're beautiful."

Yup, that's exactly how it went. That's the conversation.

The one I had in my brain while I shuffled out quickly with my child born out of wedlock, a picture of my boyfriend on the front of my phone, and the knowledge that I'm clearly much older than this professor filed away in my mind.

Yup, that's exactly just how it went.

Better Off Without A....

Today, my best friend got engaged. What that also means is the man I lived with for 7 years, raised a child with (not her father-- the man who raised her and her father are very different things) put a ring on another woman's finger and said they have both wanted this from the day that them met.

At which point, I was still living with this man.

And I eventually had put together that he was into some girl he had met towards the end and that's why he was so mean (and oh, it was mean, uncivilized is the mildest I could call it). What I had not been aware of until now when I was watching my past on one knee begging to be someone else's future, was that these two people were already deeply in love in those last hellish weeks: That this is why I had gone through so much that I still wake up shaking sometimes today.

Since then, my ex has started taking medication, seeing a counselor, doing all the things someone does when they need help for rage or any other malady that hurts other people. He's done this on his own, which I respect and am glad for and lets him be one of my favorite people in all the world. And I'm going to be the best man. And I'm going to be wildly happy for my best friend and the woman he is going to marry, who is a lovely woman to say the least. And that's all fine and good all these years later, I can't wait for that day.

But at this moment in time I want to go on record as saying "What the fuck? Seriously dude? Wow."

And now, that is said. And now, I can simply stand back and enjoy everything to follow. Because some things are shady as shit, that's just how it is... but what's done is done and once the initial sting wears off, all that we're left with is two happy people, who are happy with someone else. And get to enjoy one anothers happiness as what it is. And that's a fucking rarity if there ever was one.

So "Ouch"? Yes. And then, moving right along.

Maybe I Can Be Even Clearer, Babydaddy:

If you keep reading my blog with such dedication, I can only assume you would like to see yourself in it more. Pictures and all.

I'm tacky, and I'll go there. Stop fucking stalking me, dude. Don't you have a wife and home and job and shit? Because generally when dudes stalk me, they are sleeping behind a local Martins and recognize me from shopping or something. Because stalking is kind of a tacky hobo behavior.

Don't be a tacky hobo, dude. It doesn't suit you. You're really more of a Little Lord Fauntleroy meets Damien Hybrid than a lifetime movie skid row creepster. Even I'll give you that.

Some Things

1) Over the weekend, my boyfriend did something amazing. He took me to a They Might Be Giants concert. There were not shirts I wanted in my size, and the teenagers in front of me were douchy as shit, and my breast hurt from the biopsy (really, they're a much cruder process than I had expected!), but it was They Might Be Giants, and both Johns were charming, and my boyfriend is not the hugest fan but was still willing to not even sit but stand through an entire show. Previous to that, there was amazing sushi, and much nagging from me about where we were going, and he was a gem all the while.

Unfortunate, however, was a young girl in the bathroom before the show. 8 minutes before the show, actually. She was slender and pretty and probably a couple of years younger than me (which is already a couple of years younger than your standard TMBG fan). She fell from the stall, asked if she could hug me, and fell into me before I could politely decline (though have we met me? The truth is I probably wasn't going to anyway). "Ijustlovethemsomuch!" she slurred, burped a little in me, and swooned back into the stall to throw up. While throwing up, however, she said something to the effect of how this was going to be the best show of her entire life.

And I never talk about this, seldom with my friends and almost never online, but now and again there's a moment: Here's one of those moments. That poor drunk little girl who couldn't even keep it together, already falling all over and puking in her hair before her favorite band even hit the stage, it was a little close to home. It was me 3 years ago, and it was unsettling to see what I was like now that so much time, so many meetings, and so many days without a single fucking scotch, neat, double, have passed. I remember often times that I quit drinking because I was a train wreck, but it's easy for me to forget exactly what that train wreck looked like. I just wasn't present for any part of my life, I was always blacked out and crying by time the most important parts got to me because I was celebrating their pending arrival. And it was sooo unsettling to me to see in this little girl, and it made me sooo grateful that I'm not that girl today.

And unrelated, it kept bringing me back to the thought of this chapter (this is not the best translation, I know) of the little prince http://www.angelfire.com/hi/littleprince/framechapter5.html ... I can't see the connection. Maybe it's something I was thinking of the last time I was drunk at a concert, fuck if I know. But, that's what I keep thinking of in relation to this drunk girl.

2) Girls Night:

I have really amazing girlfriends. I am very selective, there are maybe 8 girls in my life who I am close to for extremely different reasons, and I trust them and I feel safe with them. In the world of girls, this is no small thing to boast. Last night was girls night with a few of these girls, and I couldn't have been happier. I have women in my life who get my jokes, who I can gossip about the evils of gossip with, and who can periodically understand complete non-words "You know that blond girl with the face who was like... (insert weird non-word expression here)" "Oh, yeah! I know that girl". I am at peace with the females around me: That's fucking huge. And I blog it a lot because it always blows my mind. For all of my bitching, I have things going on that I don't really know other women who can claim.

3) Oh My God, SERIOUSLY, fucking roommate.

My roommate was one of my best friends. I went out on a huge limb to move with him. I put off decorating because he had certain ideas and I didn't want to step on his toes and do it all while he was out of town every week this summer with his girlfriend. I actually would never have selected this three bedroom duplex in a million years if I wasn't planning on having a roommate for at least a year. But, now that roommate isn't even my fucking friend, has only one friend (everyone has that one friend that dates that way I guess-- but still, it fucking sucks). And, he's moving out in January. Which he randomly told me on our (my?) porch a few weeks ago out of the clear blue sky and started offering up replacement roommates who he hadn't even talked to about it. And who I wouldn't let live with my child. And who maybe aren't employed or aren't looking for roommates, or who don't even like me.

And it's the shadiest, most childish, most irresponsible thing a fucking human being can do to a friend. And it hurts like fuck, and it also makes a complete mess out of my life and leaves me really scared of how I'm going to pay bills, etc.

And as if this wasn't all enough... seriously guy. Don't fucking keep all my plates in your room. If you flood the bathroom, fucking clean it up. be a little apologetic. Don't use forks on my fucking Teflon. Don't burn the bottoms of the handles of my saucepans.

Or not, whatever. I just wish the asshole would move now, I'm so hurt and furious and fed up. A bad friend a bad roommate AND screwing me over... what am I getting out of this? For real: This fucking sucks.

And, that is all. Now, to try to scrub the char off of the bottom of my pan handle, call my boyfriend to thank him again for an amazing Friday night, and to post pictures of my girls all up on the Internet, then to cuddle my favorite girl before writing those papers I like to put off until 3 hours before they are due as a rule.

So, I'm In Love.

What of it?

Well, since I prompted you to ask (and seem to feel certain that you all looked at your monitors and muttered to yourself "What of it indeed, Nanda?), here's what of it. That's when shit goes down.

No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.

No one ever expects their boyfriend of 2 years to ask them out to dinner, and then suddenly say they want some space. As though this talk couldn't have been had over brushing teeth in the morning, or walking each other to the train. And yet, this is what happened to someone I love very much and the person she loved very much. The last time I saw her, with him, he went onandonandonandon about love and their future and how he worried about losing her.... blahblah. The guy's smarmy, lacks a degree of class that even I'm eligible to scoff him because of, she's better off I'm sure-- but whatever. That's not the point, not to her.

The point is, she didn't expect it. Because everything was fine.

When you hear about breakups, it's never "Oh, everything was completely terrible, they didn't get along, then one day he came home, she was having sex with the neighbor on the kitchen table, and they all had a good laugh about it and said "Whew, guess we can cut this act out now, huh?" You never hear about those kinds of things because quite frankly, they don't matter. Throwing away a dress that you don't like that doesn't merit the same kind of concern, conversation, or thought at all the way that, say, your favorite jeans suddenly tearing at the knee in that one place that can't be sewn up again... that's something you tell everyone about all day and feel ugly in everything you try on for months after.

And I'm not worried about what would happen to my unhappy relationship if it wasn't around anymore... hoorah if that be the case. I'm worried about my happy relationship. It's always when people think they're happy that shit goes down.

Always.

Unrelated, besides being a mother, student, girlfriend, friend, etc... I am now a tooth fairy. There wasn't any training or certification or officialization... my daughter called out from the back seat of my ex boyfriends car on family day "Hey Mommy, my tooth came out". I took a picture of the bloody slightly scared grin with a hole in the middle, made a quiet call to my sweet perfect boyfriend (who is inevitably going to break up with me out of nowhere when I least suspect it because I feel that way) to request a gift and 3 gold dollars to be dropped off discretely after hours, and it was on. There was some crawling into the bedroom on all fours in the dark. There was some half crawling out, a surprise cameo from the roommate (because he's not here much, yes, but also because like, it was dark: Surprise!") which involved loud gasping at a loud door closing at the end of the hall.

He was like "What are you doing?!" and I was like "Ssh!! I'm the tooth fairy!". Thank God my daughter sleeps like a 52 year old drunk man for that confession of secret identity. I mean seriously-- did I need to clarify to such a degree? I guess it was only the lack of megaphone that stopped me from tagging on "I'm also Santa, that sleeping bird the other day was actually dead, and I didn't even want to have her until the 5th month of pregnancy!"

Seriously. I can't believe they gave me a baby. And, that she's lived long enough to lose teeth, and mentally healthy enough to sleep soundly knowing I'm the woman in charge while she's dreaming.

I mean fuck... it keeps me awake at night all the time.

And, that is all. Now, while awaiting a random breakup from my boyfriend because I'm deeply in love, and to find out in the morning that my daughter heard everything and KNOWS I'm the tooth fairy, a damn liar, and clearly scared of the dark (I'm really actually quite lucky the night light didn't give me away) and she never wants to speak to me again, I suppose I should do some of my homework. Because I think I failed to mention this: It's also a new semester, with new assignments, and 2 classes that I don't want, that I can't possibly enjoy, and that I haven't even started the reading for.

I may be the tooth fairy in real life, but it's only a rich fantasy world in which I'm an actual grownup.

"We Stopped At Perfect Days"

I deleted this post. Because it was ridiculously mushy and discussed the shade of the boyfriends neck and the way he swings his arms when he walks. But we did stop at perfect days the day this was posted initially, and I would relive the moments that were posted here a million times over if I could. But, at the same time, I wouldn't want to have to read them as they were written whilst trying not to gag at my own words even once more.

Sometimes, Actually, You Can Have Too Much Of A Good Thing.

Seriously. If I ever ever ever have to go to the fucking zoo again, I will lose my mind-- literally. You will find me muttering to myself while attempting to feed my own hand to an Emu or something.

2 times in one day? Really? I've totally had worse ideas, I know... but on this particular day, I absolutely can't imagine what those might have been.

This Is My Life

Last night it was my pleasure to see a very lovely wedding with Mass, which filled me with waves of Catholic guilt a non-practicing should ever have to feel, and a deep sense of relief that there is that non practicing whatnot: There was about 128 mentions of the bride and grooms children, need for children, intent for children, and Catholic responsibility to give children. Honestly, there may not have actually been 128 mentions... but there were definitely at least 12.

Babies, Babies, Babies.

Interesting side-note... when all was said and done, the newlyweds were riding back to the reception with us because my boyfriend has a 2010 Hummer and until someone gets a 2011 Hummer, he's got the most MTV Pimp My (Event Here) car in town. Which is funny, but not the side note. The side note is this: I was talking to the bride and said something about cranking out those babies and was she nervous about all the talk about it, and she stared at me blankly and said she hadn't noticed. But then, she's a regular church goer and I'm a single mother: We may have different triggers.

After this it was my lovely pleasure to sit at the not dancing table with the not present boyfriend (not like he's not there for me or something like that, I mean physically: He doesn't like to be around me when we're out because he has too many social responsibilities. I assure you, that marriage would never have lasted if he had brought me a cup of coffee or had a piece of cake with me or something-- whew. At least one of us was thinking. Understand, I am rolling my eyes somewhat severely here, not in an "I should break up with him" kind of a way, but in a "most girls" would break up with him kind of way), drinking enormous amounts of coffee with his best friend who had unofficially become my plus one by making conversation with me and pouring me iced tea, and discussing the eventual joys of pregnancy (AFTER said baby gets all up out of the uterus) with a very close preggie friend of the not present boyfriend who I find to be quite a joy (disclaimer, we were discussing it strictly for her, I am not pregnant, I realize that may have read that way... whew).

And this sounds like a normal night in the life of a normal if not slightly dysfunctional unmarried couple in the Midwest. Less so, is that we had to leave the reception no later than 10:30... Because we were going to be on time for the scheduled private evening with WWF Wrestling champion Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

That's right: My boyfriend bought a wrestler.

Now in fairness, he didn't singularly buy this human being for the evening, someone else chipped in as well. The point is not, however, who paid with him: The point is, on a Saturday night I was in the company of a bought living person who is extremely famous in the wrestling scene.

And, he was actually a very nice man, if not a little excessively trashy. He did know a lot of euphemisms for the act of performing fellatio and how to work them into completely unrelated conversations, and he absolutely without a doubt managed to tell my boyfriend in several ways that he would like to see his (very attractive) sister and (well, I'm very attractive, it's true) girlfriend exchanging rather adult natured pleasantries. Which my boyfriend beamed at because I guess what normally requires threatening words and perhaps a threat to fight is quite less offensive when uttered by a famous douche bag in a bar.

Fair enough.

Eventually a couple of my superbest girlfriends came out, one had her cleavage signed, by boyfriend maybe had way too much to drink, and the night was over. The entire next day I wandered around thinking to myself in a sleepy haze... "This is my life."

My boyfriend buys wrestlers, I'm going to be married at an excessively old age, and the Catholic church will want babies from me that I don't want to give them. My cosmic Internet soulmate gets her breasts signed by celebrities she's not familiar with because it's good blog fodder and she's fucking fabulous in ways I don't know how to explain, my daughter will be home tomorrow and I can't tell her about parts of my week while she was away, and my desktop has a picture of me clutching saucily at a middle aged man with long hair, a beer gut, and the undying affection of my deeply Indian boyfriend who more than once began a chant of "USA" in one of the less cultural bars in our town on Saturday because really, he's the most all American boy you'll ever meet and loves wrestlers, their catch phrases, and I secretly think the baffled looks of some clueless bar guests for which the evening must have looked even more surreal than it did to me in the morning.

This is my life.

Hey, Fisher?!

Who reads me from there? For real? My boyfriend assured me it's not his best friend who he mentioned lives there (he seemed to think it was completely absurd that I would find myself so interesting-- actually said that as a matter of fact... fair enough, but ouch) and after he talked to me like I was crazy for about 5 minutes I hung my head in shame and realized clearly it's not that.

So who the fuck is it? Because I looked it up and it's some fancy part of Indy. If I know some fancy person in Indy, can I come tan in your back yard and go swimming? I love tanning and swimming.

Another 3 Things I Have Learned About Myself

1) My healthiest relationships are always, without fail, with my exes.

I don't know why, it's just one of those things. I want to date all of my best friends so we can break up and be even closer. I realize this may not be a reasonable statement, but neither is "My healthiest relationships are always, without fail, with my exes". Sometimes, reasonable has nothing to do with it, not with this girl.

2) I'm one of those girls that just shouldn't look up pictures of her boyfriends ex wife.

I'm prettier, sure. And I'm almost definitely nicer. But, the lady has a better body. I mean, it's double mine, I'm not denying that... but it's just a better all around shape. And there's no reason I should have needed to know that. There's also no reason Facebook ought to think we should be friends. I sleep on what was probably her side of the bed. We don't need to share anything else.

3) Actually, I write a pretty fucking good paper the night before class.

And I guess I kind of already knew that... but it's nice to reaffirm.

Things I Have Learned About Myself This Week

1)I can't make zucchini bread.

I really can though, actually. I'm all about it, I can do it with my eyes closed, I know how much of this and that I like and when the air is drier or moister and the oil or flour needs to take that into consideration or there needs to be a few tablespoons of pudding instead of actual vanilla extract... so it's not that I can't make zucchini bread really. It's that I can't bake zucchini bread that comes out successfully, ever.

Great texture and flavor? Yes.

Burnt crusts? Every last fucking time.

2) I don't care how much time you give me, I'm not going to start on my final project until 2 nights before it's due.

No, really. Always. Did I get a weekly study guide broken down into 4 perfect little painless sections, about 20 minutes of work a night? Did I care?

Yes and no. Now I've got 3 days to do about 5 hours of work, which isn't so bad. But the last 3 days, when about 14 hours of work was done? Well, that was a little more bad.

3) I can be such an asshole.

Even if my boyfriend and I don't care about people hitting on me or me flirting with people or having crushes (a girl has to get her banter somewhere, and my boyfriend is a scientist-- he doesn't want to bother, and I don't have the energy to try and force him to), there's a 3rd party here that ought be considered. Sometimes, the guy in my aloof thoughtless flirting web is just an innocent bystander who has recently had their heart broken and people feel the need to remind me to 'be careful with that'. To which I say I have a boyfriend, I'm not trying to start anything with anyone at all, duh. To which well meaning person will peer at me point blank and say "Exactly".

Ohhhh.

4) I'm now one of those girls that overdoes it lifting at the gym because she was still feeling pumped when she should have hit her cardio for a while.

Seriously. My arms are still fucking killing me, but I was feeling it-- I couldn't quit!

I have a problem.

It's So Big!

My zucchini is bigger than a porn stars penis. What in the fuck am I going to do with these?

Unrelated: Between school and child rearing non-stop for two weeks, and final moving things, and being painfully poor, and midterms, I've only just finally managed to get it all together... I have not had much time lately to go out and socialize, have the aforementioned porn star kind of fun, or tend to my garden. Yesterday, I did all of those-- and I'm happy as pie.

That is all.

"You know, sausage is really good."

And there she is in princess panties and one of my old baby-tees, sitting at the foot of the stairs. I don't know how long she's been there, and I'm not asking.

"It really is, Mommy. Can I have some?"

Oh come on. Go to bed, 7 year old.

Unrelated Side Note:

I have packing tape in my hair, mayo dripping off of a bun onto a borrowed black sweater (sorry April) mustard smeared in the inside of my rental text ("Ordinary book usage"? I'm sure) , and I absolutely don't remember where I parked my bike today. I had to hand my friend Corrie a sub to hold for me while I hugged a set of couple friends I accidentally solicited an offer for sexual help from, and I am supposed to be studying for a test right now but instead, I am blogging this. after arguing with my professor about true or false questions I haven't even seen yet.

On the upside, I have removed the packing tape from my hair.

I may be cute like a button, but that button is a messy train-wreck of one indeed.

Because That 4 Blocks Can Make Or Break You.

Moving is a fucking bitch. I'm a fine one to talk however, when considering that I am movings fucking bitch. I have a 7 year old, I do not have a car, and I have the babydaddy from hell who I'm terrified to make any changes in my life because of... one way or another, this shit hits the courts and I'm bombarded with a new set of demands he will make my life a living hell because of.

(To clarify, this is the man who sent me an email saying he works every bit as hard as I do, he's had our daughter for sometimes an entire week while in school himself! Nasty little dwarf, that one is.)

But, I'm also blessed with an alarmingly patient boyfriend who does elect to be a man, do anything he can to help, and never a once complain or snivel about what he isn't required to do-- fuck, he isn't required to do any of it, he's just a good person... he can't understand why you wouldn't always help when you could help a pretty lady with a little girl. There have been a million trips to load up the Hummer, endless nights listening to me fight back tears because little me doesn't like the house, the rug needs shampooed, I can't afford my cat deposit, I don't have time or energy to do these things, I'm broke as shit, my babydaddy is a jerk, my daughter won't sleep in her bed, I hate sleeping alone in my bed, we don't have time to have sex, I have headaches all the time, I'm getting old, i don't have storage, I have too many coffee tables for this place, and so on and so on and so on. I must spend hours a day doing this, so much so that one day I was talking about the new place and he lit up saying "Oh! you're happy!". And I was, though it was fleeting, and that made him happy.

And that's all a woman needs to see to know that for once in her entire life, she got it right-- she met an actually good man, and he loves her. That's the kind of shit that blows my mind.

It wouldn't blow any of my friends minds, however... I have nothing short of 345 emails from friends on facebook saying "Oh, so you moved in with Nivas!" Um... no. We've been together 6 months. That's less months than my child is years old. I have school. I have a daughter. I have friends and interests and values and problems and hobbies... I have a life that is entirely full, and what is more, is now also full of wonderful boyfriend time. I already have a life, period. It's not like this is what I've been looking for or waiting for to be fulfilled... this is icing. I'm not going to sit down with the tub and a spoon and discard my cake, especially not in a mere half a years time. What in the fuck is wrong with my friends?

For real, ladies.

In their defense, my guy friends would never ask me something so absurd.

And finally, I am here. Stopped still in the middle of my life and OK with it. I need to get the rugs cleaned somewhat badly, yes. I need to clear out the rest of my old apartment, yes. It would be nice to get my bed set up, totally. But until those things happen, I'm just so glad to have a huge apartment, a boyfriend who moves me physically and to the point of a big nasty lump in my throat with the kind of helpfulness and kindness and ability to know when to take over and when to stand back that I've never met a man man enough to rival in past (my but that's an awkward sentence, my but a lot of these are awkward sentences actually). Indirectly, simply in being so helpful he has done more for my daughter in way of the availability and peace of mind her mother has to offer than her own father has in 7 years of life and 1 in conception (and had one stellar conversation with the housewarming gift of a potbellied stuffed frog that absolutely blew my mind).

My cat is content on the table in front of me, my daughter is at daycamp, and I can sit in my sun room with a cup of coffee and blog from the comfort of my new house. There is furniture here, and food and a wall full of all of my teas across from another wall full of all my tea pots. I can take a shower if I want to, the water pressure is nice here. It rained earlier and there's a cool breeze blowing through the screen door while the sun breaks through the clouds periodically, the living room is dark and warm the way I like it with its deep burgundy rug and heavy dark vines, there is no dining table but there will be and it will be beautiful, only a small pile of boxes in one corner of that room to be packed before everything is finally done, and in this exact moment in time there is absolutely nothing I have to do... for the first time in weeks, I have a few minutes to simply sit and relax.

Ahhh.

God willing, I never have to move 8 blocks away... that may be one that actually kills me.

And, We Have Interwebs.

It's random, yes, but I've decided to move-- and then moved.

The Internet is set up, the child dislikes the new bedroom (I absolutely woke up with her and a cat sleeping on my head-- so much for re-claiming our independence in sleeping arrangements), there is food in the refrigerator, the notice of relocation has been sent to the courts, the other place is nearly done (I have two places currently... I have arrived).

There is much to say... to be continued tonight. Or whenever I can find time really, but it will be continued-- because I have the Internet again.

God bless us, every one.

Things I have Heard Or Read In The Past Week Or So That Have Made Me Giggle

*"I have never once felt the need to take my laptop to a fucking Panera."
-Random mid day text from the boyfriend

*Ooohhh.... Tidy Cat commercial.
-Spoken very seriously by my 6 year old when peeking at Youtube

* "Order me some Ben Wa balls? So my Ben Wa will be Ben Wow."
-Me, to a friend at a sex novelties party

*"They call it being crazy. We call it being literal."
- Said to me by that same friend, whilst discussing breakups (and more specifically, how a man wanting to divide everything equally in a breakup is begging for a woman to cut the comforters and books cleanly in half)

There are more-- lots more. But it's already 2:00 AM, and I'm certain there will be nothing to giggle about when I'm passing out in a Psych class because I was up all night hitting the blog too hard.

Guess Who's Daughter Is Chewing Her Toenails?

Yeah, that's right.

And again, she is standing while doing it.

"What did we say about this?"
"That you didn't feel like fighting with me and that if I'm going to stand up and bite my toenails standing up, do it where there's a rug so I won't get hurt if I fall."
"OK, but what did I say all the times before that?"
"Not to bite my toenails. But now I'm on a rug, so it's OK. You said that too."

Fuck. I suck at parenthood.

And, This Day Again.

I never have my daughter for Mothers Day-- this is by choice. Today's call was "Hi Mommy, Happy Mothers Day! I think I'm going to go to the park, ok bye, I love you!" Click.

There may have been a little more conversation than that in there, but it was all one sided attempts by me to keep her on the phone-- when she's done, she's done. She is 6 years old, she doesn't care who her mother is and she isn't supposed to. She's not supposed to spend a day celebrating the love and attention of her mother, which at her age she is legitimately entitled to entirely. She's supposed to take me 100% for granted, she's supposed to consider me someone who needs to be here all the fucking time doing exactly what she needs me to do like it's my fucking job. Because it is.

I'll save the "Tell me how much you love me" coy ego-boost fishing for falling asleep with my boyfriend (yeah, I do that shit: Sorry, boyfriend). And on Mothers day, I'll sleep in, I'll have lots and lots of sex, I'll not do my hair, I'll watch horror movies in the middle of the afternoon, and my life will be completely fucking fabulous, laid back, and responsibility free.

The bottom line is, mothers day is a family holiday and I have no family. I have no partner. My mother is dead. Mothers day doesn't particularly apply to me. It's not a happy day, it's one I would rather didn't exist. The man who got me pregnant will never show up, all 4 feel 5 inches of him, to be the big person and say "Thank you for raising our child completely alone with no help from me while I cheated on taxes to declare her and finished my schooling with no job on the returns: And now, watch me skip out while YOU'RE going to school, because shit bitch-- I got my education so thanks for going to school full time with no help from me while I move on to the next phase of my life AGAIN. Trust me, I'll profit on your losses in my refusing to co parent over and over again, because you're the best mom ever!" (and then produce for me a bottle of Chanel Mademoiselle Coco, a Sephora gift card and a promise to babysit any time I want in the next 3 months-- ah, mine is a rich fantasy world indeed). There is no flowers or cards or anything to be sent to my own mother, and I don't know that she ever really dug on those things to begin with, every year since she died is a reminder of how really bad I was at those things when I had the chance, time to reflect on how it must have felt in those last three years of sickness that mothers day came and went with no card to be found in her mailbox from South Bend, Indiana. My 6 year old isn't really going to be sitting and reflecting on how much I have or have not done for her, or what it's going to feel like to either of us thinking back on mothers day 10 years from now-- as well she shouldn't, and I would be the worlds most fucked up parent if for a split second I thought it should be that way. All and all, mothers day is about your community, and I have none. I have a child I want nothing from but her happiness (and the adorable card she made me in her first grade art class), I have no mother, I have no family. And I just want to skip mothers day, every single fucking year.

I went with a friend and his son for lunch today, and was given chocolate from a tiny candy shop in some little town near here. I am blogging while I devour the box of chocolates unceremoniously, in my pajamas. I may watch mommy dearest, I will totally not clean my apartment as I had originally planned on, and tomorrow I will have lunch with another friend of the maternal persuasion with difficult circumstances-- ones I could never begin to fully comprehend. And I'm leaving the "Mothers Day" tag off of it, and chalking everything up to "I had a very nice weekend" of whatever sort it was.

Drunk Indian Boyfriends And Dyngus Day: It's Exactly As Absurd As It Sounds

Yes, he's from Wisconsin, but still. He's raised by people who go to Temple and don't eat cows, and aside from that the man is a million times more all American that an apple pie on a Michigan window sill: He is not Polish.

And he is going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow and as absolutely adorable as his late night call was, I think it's going to serve him right.

Dyngus Day... psh.

My Two Sweeties

I feel terrible for my 6 year old daughter. I've told people for years that she's very socially elegant, that thank God she gets her fathers familys charm (but with none of the robustfully disingenuous smarminess), and none of my awkward squeaky babbling or lack of filter. Today however, I watched my clever and genuine little sweetie meet my other sweetie (my bearded sarcastic jaded sweetie) for the second time, balance a crayon on her head, make some funny noises, throw up a false laugh over it and after a few more minutes of awkwardness, isolate herself beneath a box and yell goodbye from there when my other sweetie was on his way out the door.

And it must not be an exact science for her to process any more than it is for me to, here is this man who she'd never heard of before 4 months ago suddenly showing up with boxes to let mommy store things, cheese flavored like chicken noodle soup, a full beard and a full grown dog he calls a puppy... he's got a giant car and left recycled crayons in little square shapes for her over spring break: He seems a little too good. And where in the fuck did this guy come from, anyway?

And oh, honey, I know the feeling.

But in the end, he was stopping in without the dog and she was ok with it. And if she starts freaking out and acting a little bizarrely, I suppose that's much better than her being unhappy with the situation: Nervous and afraid are very different things, and it could totally go the other direction. And it doesn't, and my two sweeties, while both a little nervous about it, can be in the same room together for small periods of time if need be without anyone totally melting down about it.

Two Toilets

In the 24 hours since my 6 year old has been home, the following have been done:

-A toast to two toilets. Thanks for playing, friends from film class.
-A circus
-Cleaning up the scraped knee from the circus (note to self: Anything that starts with "And now for the famous mimes slide trick" is no longer allowed).
-Cleaning of bed previously refused to be used for new big girl
-Waking up at 5:30 am to find new big girl in my bed with her foot in my ear saying "It's not your bed, it's our bed... right?"
-Explained why we don't tell people they are boring
-Explained why we don't tell people that I said they are boring.
-Explained (see lied) to boring person about why my 6 year old may have thought I called them boring.

Life as I know it has resumed... and I'm over the moon for every boring moment of it. Best 24 hours since the last 24 hours after a long visit, totally.

"Oh, I'm Just Sleeping With the Bassist"

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I hate dating guys in bands. I have always hated dating guys in bands. For most of my dating life, however, I have totally been involved with a guy in the band, and almost always without fail that guy has been a bassist.

And I remember vividly the endless shows of my last serious boyfriend, technically I could probably call him my husband by common law in Indiana if not for that tiny little breakup (during which I skipped town and came home pregnant: It's a wonder we never sealed the deal, yes?): And I remember vividly the first show he asked me to, being at the wing place next door to the coffee shop they frequently played, downing beers with some new anchor-woman from our local news station (a friend of my boyfriends band-mate and best friend). We were guzzling quickly while I was explaining in needless detail exactly why I hate Natale Merchant (really I did-- really, I do). I thought we were drinking so fast for obvious thrills and she thought because we needed to hurry to catch the band. She asked if I was coming, and I said "No, I'm just sleeping with the bassist" and got incredibly drunk alone while my boyfriend catered to teenagers who didn't ask much of a Pixies cover. For months I did this, maybe even a year, and one day to my secret delight my boyfriend came home to tell me that the band was breaking up.

And that's all fine and good, and we were happy for a few years before he got critical and violent and I in turn got drunk and then got in bed with other people... but before all of that I was a good girlfriend. I showed up to watch him soak in the worship of these barely teenage (if even) fans, and to see him wildly happy. A tall nerdy kid with coke bottle thick glasses, a hipster before there where hipsters (when it was just being a geek) feel important and admired and handsome and talented-- a little less Woody Allen and a little more Elvis Costello. And when the tribute fan page popped up as a suggestion for me on facebook tonight I absolutely sighed with relief... there were pictures I had taken, but none that I was in-- and I haven't dated a man in a band or had to go to a coffee shop for any reason other than coffee for a long long long time.

After that immediate wave had passed however, I inched my mouse over to the "like" tab and clicked. It was a time in my life. I was 21, pretty drunk, very pretty, and too cool to be into the band from which I was sleeping with the bassist...

...and secretly, at the time I didn't ask a lot of a Pixies cover either.

*(Side Note: My ex boyfriend is still one of my best friends, and despite hipster not being hip yet at the time, was totally handsome even as a Woody Allen type. I'll say a lot of things about him under my breath, but never that he wasn't attractive in his way. Black hair, black framed glasses, knew mean was totally funny, and a music and pop culture nerd in every way.)
**(Separate Side Note: The above side note is a disclaimer for in case of reading by either my ex boyfriend, or my current boyfriend, who is just my type... Black hair, black framed glasses, knows mean is totally funny, and a music and pop culture nerd in every way. And makes me feel warmer and fuzzier than any ex boyfriend possibly could. AND who isn't in a band, which more than triples his sexy factor in my eyes)

Other Peoples Problems

I can be so self absorbed so often, am so self absorbed so often... but today it's raining and I'm not taking it as some personal lash out from the universe to me.

In a rare moment of too much perspective, I can think of nothing in the world but someone else and their universal circumstances, and there's nothing but love and warm wishes for them today.

A Few Things While I Eat This Apple:

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Yes, sometimes a blog post is exactly what it sounds like in the title.

1)Hot Young Indian Boy Was Staring At Me Again. I rolled my eyes because you know, what else am I going to do? But, I probably also blushed. I should note two things here though. 1) I blushed because he looked at me like my boyfriend does right before he says something wayyy too sweet for a bitchy girl like me to handle and 2) The only reason this guy keeps checking me out is because one day he caught me totally checking him out, like really shamelessly. Again, let me note that this guy looks freakishly similar to my boyfriend, and if you'd ever seen my boyfriend you can see where that's both highly attractive, and not something you can say every day.

2)Dude, I'm such a train wreck at the gym. Seriously, I don't run unless someone is chasing me, I'll work my left leg for 20 minutes and my right one for about 27 seconds if it's more convenient to my conversation with my gym buddy to turn the one way longer, and I don't own a sports bra (though this led to a great jab in the locker room about me yesterday: "If she's going to get her tits done that big, she could have gone a little smaller and fixed her face". First, I want to note that these girls were total bitches, clearly. Next, I want to feel a little smug... my boobs are sooo real)... I don't know why I bother.

3)Hey YMCA Mom that stole my camera after 6 year old swim practice? You're a bad person. I hope as they get older, my daughters cuteness gives your daughter an eating disorder. Seriously, you don't know better when you see an expensive camera than to put it in your purse?

Jerk.

Mmm, good apple. Have a nice day.

And Then This Other Time, I Thought I Was Breaking Up With My Boyfriend, But I Wasn't.

That was a good thing.

Who knew that outright refusal of breakup was an option? My precious boyfriend who suffers my neurotic fears endlessly and patiently. "I do not accept this breakup" were the exact words-- difficult to argue with.

Without going into details, we'll just say it was a curious notion on my part that this would be good for us, and I'm more in love now than ever, and there's no reason in the world I shouldn't be. I done found me a good 'un.

All of that said, there were other severely noteworthy things in my week as well, I just had to make note due to the disappearing blog of yesterday than said quite different things about my romantic status.

Besides my love life, there was an amazing trip to New York, complete with a visit with my sister who suddenly had no idea what state I lived in, who my daughter lived with, and I believe may have said "I'm sorry, do I know you?" at a couple of points during dinner. No, that's not a true story I admit, but overall the woman was beyond playing coy. There are times when you think it's wonderful that you have grown and your siblings and yourself can have really adult relationships because you're all your real selves now. And the last time I saw my sister, this was true. It was warm and funny and candid and overall she was a woman I admired instead of a teenager I looked up to and loathed in equal parts for all of her snide accomplishment. In this visit, though, my sister was every bit the teenage girl that snubbed me while smiling sweetly at me, leaving me feeling shabby and underfoot and hopeless but tolerated. The exception being, this time I traveled clear across Manhattan to a weird ass out of the way gentrified part of Brooklyn for her to say "Wait, why are you staying on the Upper East Side?" as though a simple and practical part of the city, and my choice in friends who live somewhere inconvenient to her was the real problem. Because she's my sister, I didn't say "Fuck you and fuck this", I smiled and I tried to find common grounds and touch base on some warm familiar level.

It never quite happened.

It was amazing being back in the city though, and beyond amazing being with the friend I went to see. She's someone who gets me, who I don't have to laugh around, who I don't even have to talk to. At one point we checked email and sipped coffee and muttered back and forth to each other, and it was fabulous and bonding. I'm at this mind-blowing point in my life right now where I have several women I can call my best friends, and they all get some part of me that none of the other ones do, and I couldn't be happier with any of it. And I couldn't have been happier with a visit with Ashley. For the love of fuck, she got me Swiss cake rolls and went to Sephora with me and made me coffee. There is little more the two of us need than coffee and something to put our feet up on to be completely in our element.

I know it's rambling and messy and uninteresting, but these are things I failed to blog recently and wanted to just to know it's recorded somewhere. And now it is, and I have after-trip cleaning to do, a dance recital to practice for, and 2 papers to write before morning. But I have a precious 6 year old fast asleep in bed, a boyfriend who doesn't let me freak out and I doubt would ever let me break up with him, the most amazing girlfriends in the world who ask nothing of me and I have nothing to ask of, so in the grand scheme of things I think I'm still ahead of the game.

So This One Time I Was Going To Clean My Apartment And Cook Dinner For Myself

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But, then it was 12:14 and that hadn't happened, so I let it go gently and winced through a Bauhaus set played by my charming boyfriend on a late night college radio station (seriously, he has like 20 jobs) and realizing that we will never ever ever be very musically compatible.

And this leads to other thoughts that have nothing to do with the cleaning and cooking that never happened. It leads to thoughts of the past weekend, which was very exhausting and very sad for reasons I won't go into because there's this one tiny part of me that is a private person. And it leads to thoughts of how I don't know how to talk to people. I say I do, and I can talk about what's wrong with you or what's soooo wrong with me just to the degree that my favorite friends nearly have to spit swigs of cocktails back into the glass, yes. But I can't say "I am feeling this way about this, and I don't know what to do with that", ever, ever, ever.

So this event that's none of your fucking business, we'll say I burned dinner for his parents (because that would never ever happen both on account of me not wanting to meet peoples parents without a gun to my head and being a fabulous fucking cook in equal parts, and cannot be compared to anything from a wedding to a death to buying a new home to changing my major or anything in between-- thus protecting my none of your fucking business stance), it left me with unsettled feelings and doubts and fears and sadness and overwhelming sickening preoccupation with my future and what I want it to be, and so I did what any normal healthy woman would do with her feelings: I blamed my boyfriend for trivial things that have nothing to do with the matters at hand. I picked at him for things he picked up for me to eat in the middle of the night when I said I wasn't hungry earlier. I accused him of being insensitive for being sensitive in the wrong way. I decided he was a clueless privileged jerk because he let me pay for dart games and when I ran out of quarters just stopped playing without seeing who would break the tie.

I admit, this may have been unreasonable.

But in that time, all that I didn't know I wanted to talk about fell away and the time passed that I would be able to talk about it before everything had been rearranged to fit different practical molds of what I needed feelings and ideas and plans to be. And now it's hanging there, another something that is between us, because it was never something between us. Not because we're not working out, not that at all... I'm absurdly in love and he's the most wonderful man I've ever met in my life. Just because we're in a relationship, and this is what happens in them. Relationships are like any other new little existence. They start off pure and perfect and without stains of ego and pride and fear and indifference or self involvement, resentment, mistakes and misunderstandings and all of the things that make us what we are together as much as they do who we are individually.

And from then on, things have nothing left but to get more and more imperfect by the second, and I hate that. And it's just a natural progression and I know that, but still... it fucking sucks. Not that it's happening to us too, just that it has to be that way at all.

And removed from this, I am thinking of my daughter. She wants to meet my boyfriend. It's been months in the making, she knew that first weekend when there were pictures on the computer and mommy was singing a lot and giggling at text messages that something was up. Because it's my daughter, who's fucking brilliant, she specifically knew "Mommy, you have a boyfriend. Your friend Nivas is your boyfriend I think".

Yes, 6 year old, you think right.

And since then has been the pending meeting of my boyfriend. I wanted to do 6 months, but that requires a degree of removal from my daughters life that she doesn't care for. We share everything in one another's life, and for me to have this one part that is mine she understands-- but for me to have this one part that is secret and completely out of sight from her, that is where it gets personal.

Her father has her every weekend now for absurd reasons I can't get into without starting to foam at the mouth and developing facial twitches and bulging veins over, but regardless of all that, it is happening and we're in a bad way. She clings to my leg every waking second that she is still able to be at home, she begs me to just one day lets leave early and walk to school together before daddy can come, she wants to keep a calender to count the days until he leaves town so she can just be home again. And I guess that was the point... to stop fighting so hard for the right thing for them, let him bludgeon their relationship himself if he insisted and stop fighting so hard to protect him from himself even if it is for her sake and to just be there to love her as much as I can through the years as this continues on. And I am more able to hold her afloat than to change the course of his mad and erratic current, that's true, but for fucks sake. It's hard on the kid, and she knows I love someone besides her in all the world which I don't think she's ever really realized I could before, and she doesn't even know him.

And he'll be great, I know he will, and it will be fine, I know. But I don't do shit like this, not ever. If men meet my child, it's because we are friends. Dating, then meeting my child is totally against any and all of my rules as a parent. But, this isn't a passing thing we're seeing what happens with, this is an actual thing that we're both committed to good things happening with. And that's wonderful, and yes, that means that in the spring we should get his puppy and my 6 year old together for a little walk in the park or something. I know that, I do... but fuuuuck fuuuuck, fuuuuck.

This is not how mommy rolls.

Mommy doesn't even clean her apartment and make herself a nice dinner, more or less let her 6 year old meet her boyfriend, have a boyfriend, or reflect on how she has a hard time knowing how to talk about how she really feels or what's really wrong so that she can be a better girlfriend for her boyfriend because she really wants to see this work, because she's really really happy.

And icing on the cake... by the end of this blog, I've found that I like more than half of his set list-- and I may just clean to it. Oh, and there's They Might Be Giants, and I just sighed and smiled to myself and muttered "Awwww..." . I probably bit my fucking lip and twirled my fucking hair.

Who the fuck am I? Seriously.

Fuck.

You Know What? Back The Fuck Off.

Yes, YOU, hipster film professor in your too tight jeans with your "Yeah, I'm just a guy like you're just some guys" attitude. I'm not stupid, I'm not a 19 year old who totally digs on your mocking Transformers a lot. I see you condescending every kid in this class, and I see you grading and regarding me differently because I outright fail to appreciate your false accessibility. I know you're a snotty hyper conservative who thinks waking life is brilliant and like perfectly good classic Hollywood movies ironically instead of with any real sheer delight.

And I know you don't give me participation points, and you shouldn't leave your roster open when I talk to you at your desk if you don't want me to see that.

And yes YOU, touch-my-hair-in-math-class-guy. Yes, I dropped the class. Yes, now I see you in the gym. But there are two other things we can note here: 1) I know fully well that you don't actually pick up a single weight or get on a single exercise machine, or even walk the track in the gym. and 2) I notice you are in the gym when I am every time... but I also know that you're skipping the math class in question to go to it. That, my friend? Creepier than you touching my hair.

And yes, especially YOU, boyfriend. If you tell me you know what when we're you know where one more time, I swear on your stupid sports teams I will scream and kick you and tell everyone surrounding EXACTLY why that just happened.

Now: Everyone back the fuck off. It's not my week, and as of current I am foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog... and things haven't even gotten ugly yet.

So This Is Monday

It's not to say that I don't generally have unpleasant Mondays, not that at all.

No, what it is to say is that today, even in the grad scheme of Mondays, was especially unpleasant. Why? I'm so glad you asked (and don't you role your eyes, you can stop reading whenever the hell you want, and with all due respects, you knew what this blog was to begin with, and there you went typing it in to the search bar... I refuse to be the one who feels silly here. Or the only one, anyway)

1) I had my bike stolen.

And by that, I mean it turns out that if you leave your bike unlocked for well over 6 days in front of your college, which is known for homeless people sleeping in it... someone's gonna' take that bike. Who knew? Well, everyone in the campus security office, for starters.

2) So you know how I thought I had raccoons in my attic?

Well, now I know I had raccoons in my attic, and that the largest one was 25 lbs. The pest control guy assured me that it would be released into the wilderness, did not agree to accept addresses from me suggesting where it ought be dropped, and it totally pooped through the cage onto my stairs on its way down.

3) My math professor seems to think I should be coming to class more often.

Well send your snarky emails to my babydaddy who makes me take days out of school to fight false allegations of child neglect, the raccoon living in my attic, and my 6 year old who has inconvenient ideas about when to be up all night having bad dreams that require some sleep in the daytime to recover from. We all know if I miss 2 more of your classes, I will fail the course. One of those classes I am guaranteed to miss (again, talk to the babydaddy-- when it's not his problem, it's not a relevant one), and we all know I'm barely passing anyway. Let's just step away from the send button, shall we? It hurts my heart.

And if upon further reflection you still feel you would like to beat the dead horse of your choosing, let's do it on a Tuesday, shall we?

There is more, my Lord there is more, but in a few short hours it's going to be Tuesday and the whole thing to be done over again.

Well, that's embarassing.

When we got together, not very long ago, my boyfriend and I used to write these long random emails to each other in the middle of the night. They were candid and neurotic and cautiously romantic, and it was a comfort to be able to wear my heart on my sleeve and not feel exposed or vulnerable, but a mutual participant in something overwhelming and new and delightful. He told me recently that he used to watch his inbox for messages from me, even check in the middle of the night, and that he would write me back very carefully.

It's not often that we exchange emails anymore, and I'm not even entirely sure that he reads them at all. Last night, as often, I wrote my boyfriend an email. It was neurotic and personal and candid and romantic. And, in a couple of days when I ask him if he read it, he will do what he generally does when this happens-- he will kiss me and say "I did, and it was very sweet".

And I will feel exposed and vulnerable and I will wish I'd said less, and there will be less between us, and more between us.

I've always said that relationships baffle me because there are only the two modes, advance and decline, and the advancement is short lived and exactly what creates the decline to begin with. And, now comes our decline and I have to wonder why I got on this ride to begin with-- I knew what this was.

Things I Find Annoying: A Sunday List

1) My boyfriend does the most frustrating thing.

Any Sunday that we are spending together that is cut short:

"Aww, I hate losing our Sunday time!"
"Me too. Why don't I pick you up after I gt off and we can go to sleep and I can drop you off in the morning?"
"No, you need your sleep for your business meeting/field work/cross county job trip... whatever the fuck you do. "
"No, it's fine. I like falling asleep with you!"
"Ohh, you like me!"
"Siiiike!!! I'm going to drop you off, yell "see you, wouldn't want to be you" and drive a bunch of donuts in your wet lawn in about 45 minutes. It's awesome that you just believed that suggestion, though"

Or, maybe he said "See you next weekend sweetie" when he drops me off to gently announce that he didn't find it a good idea after all when saying he had and that no, I shouldn't be waiting around midnight in my pajamas to have a cute last minute sleepover. Because he doesn't want to make me feel bad by saying it's not a great idea, and he wants me to make other plans because he's a good guy who knows I only have weekends.

Whatever-- it's the fucking principal of the thing.

2) My EX boyfriend does the most frustrating thing.

Or rather, he IS the most frustrating thing. We're still best friends, or at least we're supposed to be, but sometimes out of the clear blue sky he'll decide to just start being moody and impossible and I'll get the impression that we are not friends at all, and have no idea what I've done. Then I'll walk on eggshells, then I'll feel ashamed, and then he'll yell at me for being weird. Then, I'll cry. And cry and cry and cry and cry.

Really, it's like we never broke up.


3) It Is Raining Snow Outside.

I, personally, find that disgusting. Pick a way to ruin what I thought was the start of our Midwestern spring thaw. ONE way.

Raining snow... what the fuck.

4) My Apartment

Which really just ties into the snow and the rain and such. But, it was 56 degrees a few days ago, I lit incense and opened the windows and cleaned my living room and my kitchen (to a lesser extent) and my bathroom (which is never that bad off to begin with).

But, there's still the bedroom, and that was going to be done today, and it isn't. My problem, largely, is that specifically in winter I cannot clean. I don't know why, but my diet, my cleaning, my homework, my everything falls to hell in the colder months. Not because I'm unhappy mind you, I am actually one of those people that is very happy even in the middle of winter all the time. But still, something in me freezes the second the weather does, and I needed this thaw to last a little longer... I needed it to last until I got under the bed and the top of the dresser at least.

Freezing rain. Fuck this shit.

5) Feminists.

Specifically, the feminist who copied and pasted one of my blogs, and then submitted it to our local female studies performance group to do a stage reading of. You picked something personal, you edited the meaning out entirely, and you completely missed the fucking point.

You exploited my motherhood, my female insecurities, and if I didn't hate feminists before, I do now. Way to support the team, jack-ass.

And, that is all I have to report.

Hey, Guess What I'm About To Do?

If you guessed "Go to the Gym and get ripped", you're half right. But if you guessed "Go to the gym and drink soda and work yourself into an ALMOST sweat in a totally cute outfit, then spend 40 minutes walking the track talking about sex and potential sex with your gym buddy*... "

Well, then you should have bet money because of how 100% right you are.

*{and by this I mean partaking in discussion about sex with said gym buddy, not that there is potential sex between the two of us. Not that she isn't a lovely girl, mind you... but this isn't that kind of gym, and what's more, this isn't that kind of blog}

To Say The Least, The Week Was Difficult.

I am am a good mother.

There are few things I can say about myself with complete and utter confidence. More specifically, there is one thing I can say about myself with complete and utter confidence, and it is that yes, I am a good mother. Of my looks I will say "I have a great body-- but, I may have nursed a bit too long, and I have a little mommy tummy". Of my intelligence, I will say "I am very smart... but just in some ways". Of my house I will say "It's pretty much clean... but it's very cluttered" or "It suits me... but it's a little small".

But of myself in the end, of what I come down to and who I am, there is only the one thing I can say in complete confidence. One thing I have not and will not doubt: "I am a good mother."

End sentence.

My daughter is carefully fed. My daughter is clean and well rested and gets exercise and socializes with other children multiple times a week outside of school. My daughter knows she can talk to me about anything. She doesn't lie to me, she comes to me when she's hurt or sad or happy and because in all the world I am who she wants to go to. If she has days she hates me, she is allowed to. If she has days that she just wants to not talk about anything, just quietly sit and hold my hand or lay her head on my shoulder without getting into why she has had a bad day, that is allowed, too.

She is allowed to be a child, to say silly things like 'butt' and 'poop' or giggle at those words without being shamed. She is allowed to be 6. She is allowed to sleep in her undershirt for the next day because she gets warm when she sleeps in PJs and sometimes takes a full 20 minutes trying to put one on in the morning because she's like a 40 year old who is out of coffee when she wakes up. When it is only her sweater or long sleeves, she can put them on herself even tired, and feel like a big girl. Why this is, I do not know. But it works, and so it is done at my home.

My daughter is told precious stories about her father and his family, regardless of the living hell they have put me through, regardless of the values they have that I do not ever want my daughter to think are OK: Because if I raise her well, she will not develop them and part of raising her well is letting her love who she does and encouraging it no matter who I know those people to be.

And my daughters father files motions against her mother, who never raises her hand, enforces consequences in a loving but firm way only, makes sure there are frequent new experiences, educational toys, social interaction, who reads to her for hours and makes up stories on command, who walks 5 blocks to the laundry mat in the snow every single weekend that she can without said daughter having to come if it is cold, claiming she is an unfit mother.

And it makes me sick. Absolutely sick.

And the judge laughed. And everyone I knew first gawked then cussed and then laughed too... "That's absurd-- you're the best mother I know". This from the best mothers I know, this from teachers, this from people who admittedly hate me as a human being, can't stand the sound of my voice. This from a woman who I in younger wilder years slept with the boyfriend of... "I'll probably always hate you for how you were when we were teenagers, but even I can't believe that bullshit. You're an amazing mother. You never even say shit about that jack-ass in front of her, even the times it would be appropriate to. You're even too nice about him for some of the things she asks you about that he's suggested." And this person, if we may note, is in fact an early childhood educator.

And she agrees that I am if nothing in all the world, an amazing mother.

Because I am. I am a good mother. And now, I am a terrified mother. I am walking around on eggshells, scared to let my daughter sleep in bed with me because he may file a motion that it is indecent. Scared to joke about anything because if she repeats it he can twist it how he wants. But at the same time, scared to speak to her in any way, or to not say anything for fear that he will paint me as in-affectionate.

I spent the weekend in a bed and breakfast with my amazing boyfriend. We went antiquing, we stopped at totally random restaurants to eat, we went to the beach to look at the lake covered in snow. And I clung tight to the trip, not simply because this man is the man of my dreams, or because I have not had a Valentines Day in years... but because I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid that the man who came for a year to live near his daughter is laying the groundwork to take her away from me, and weekend visit with boys, homework that means nothing without the child who will benefit from the eventual degree, an apartment too quiet, will be all I have left.

Which is my worst nightmare, and one I never prepared for before-- one I never realized I needed to.

Because I am a good mother.

It's 9:10 am, And Already: I Can'T Talk About Today Anymore.

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That's where we're at. Just saying.

Go Ahead And Judge Me.

In the middle of cleaning my living room, I had some thoughts. I abruptly remembered I had homework to do, went back in time to sort out if I had covered all of the food groups in my daughters dinner, discovered that I can no longer find the ankle brace my jazz dance instructor lent me which I A) need for class and B) just don't want to lose because it's not fucking mine. I didn't have time to be cleaning, I was totally bombarded by having to as well as the fact that I haven't since early December, and the walls are literally closing in on me-- it's a small fucking apartment. There are a few people in my world who can understand this, but not many: Cleaning the things I have to clean is just too emotional for me, and not cleaning only makes it worse. It's like having a fear of the dentist while the cavity becomes an abscess (side note: I am terrified of the dentist and generally have not liked to go until pain from toothaches has brought me to the emergency room).

I stopped, lay down in the middle of the floor on a big pile of papers in sweatpants and nothing else (You know what? Go on and fucking judge me: The moral of the story here is that I was cleaning my living room at all. No eyeliner, no support on my double D mommy boobs, no airbrushing over the scared and tired face of a 31 year old woman who has cared for herself exclusively essentially her entire life, and minded to the task of others thinking well of her all the while-- that shit'll break you out and give you some crows feet, yo) and cried myself to sleep. I wasn't sad, I wasn't even really frustrated-- I was just full. There was a kind of surface tension, like the skin on a too taut balloon when it starts to pucker from old air a few days later, and I could feel it straining across my throat. I had been trying for hours to decide which childhood homework efforts needed to be saved and which of her hours of learning and growing could be tossed in the recycling, if I still needed this Abraham Lincoln bust I bought my ex at the dollar tree 8 years ago or if the fact that he had left in in our house when he left not a month after I did to be with the love of his life was reason enough to discard it myself. I tried to find a place for my vitamins that wouldn't get in the way of the tea or the peanut butter and longed for a moment to be the kind of woman who could add on when she ran out of space instead of having to discard this much of her life, no more or less. And just as in my overcrowded apartment something had to go from me, bloodletting of sorts--if I'd had leeches, I would have used leeches and that would have worked every bit as well.

But I didn't have leeches. And so, the crying.

I slept for about 10 minutes, then I got my ass up and blogged this because it's better than walking around carrying it, and now it's back to picking apart the little bits and pieces of my life, separating the emotional from the practical, because that's what there's room for on so many levels I can't even begin to blog it.

And now, on to the bathroom. I don't know that I've ever cried in sweatpants in my bathtub before... we'll see how it goes.

Saturday Night And The Non-Drinking Woman

Sometimes the above stated means a lot of diet soda, watching some of my favorite people do shots together, smoking a half a pack of camel light, finding They Might Be Giants on a jukepox, misspelling jukebox, and posting on my phone run on sentance style while discussing with one of my all time favorite women about what it would be like if we'd become friends when I still drank.

I love Saturday night, and for all of its absurdities and delights, I love every last Zero-proof and joy drenched drop of my life. And if I haven't blogged it yet, April, I utterly love you... the most delightful long tall girly drink in town.

Sometimes I Really Like My Life.

Grocery shopping day, for most women. For this one? Madcap romantic adventures. Specifically (today), a deli worker of all but 20 years old (he used to be a checkout boy, he couldn't wait until he turns 21 to buy his own beer) gifted me with 4 boxes of conversation hearts... and his number. He would like to have coffee, he knows I have a kid "but that's totally cool, like-- we can go somewhere that she can come too if you feel safer that way".

Aww... that's so sweet, really. But, I will be keeping the conversation hearts. And I may give some of them to my boyfriend.

(I'm sorry, really-- it's just true)

Forward, checkout line. My daughter wanted 3 items that she had at some point in our trip realized that she needed desperately, immediately, and could not risk me not buying-- so had attempted to hide them from me cleverly in my very own backpack. I always check my backpack for just such a reason, however, and was able to avoid criminal conversion charges for unwittingly smuggling the following out on her behalf:

- 2 bags of Old Wisconsin Beef Bites (which she later referred to simply as 'that bag of beef'-- and she was referring to the one bag that yes, I totally bought)

- 1 bag of Pork Rinds (because child cannot live on beef alone)

- 1 bottle of feminine hygiene wash ("Why this?" "Um because there's this butterfly on it-- can't you see?" Obviously not. Oh wait, maybe that's because you had shoved it into the bottom of my backpack before we left a store-- but no worries, I have no doubt the police woman would also be very fond of the butterfly. I mean, look at it. It's purple, for the love of all things shoplifted)

Upon my arrival home, there was one other surprise for me-- 2 bags of Twizzlers from my Aunt Crystal. Aunt Crystal is pretty much who I want to be when I grow up-- she gardens in the right seasons, she doesn't miss birthdays, she uses stationary instead of notebook paper, she can grow things on windowsills in bottles, a skill I did not acquire from her mother and my favorite grandparent, and she knows about my completely irrational mad love of Twizzlers and that it was something I might happen to need right now.

With this extra positive energy coursing through my veins, the practical thing would be to use it to clean my fucking pit of a house.

Or... to eat twizzlers wrapped around beef bites in my pajamas. Yes, yes, that will do. Tonight I really like my life. Why try to improve upon perfection right this second?

I'm Afraid I'm Going To Become One Of Those Girls....

You know the ones, the ones who blog about their boyfriend and their relationship all the time because it's their most and least favorite subject (because we who blog enjoy our least favorite subject even more than our most favorite sometimes).

And I want to spill over with details: He drives a hummer and it doesn't even freak me out, I panic about having things at his house, when he's falling asleep he's a different person than when he's awake and as such I sometimes feel like I'm in two completely unrelated and sometimes conflicting relationships. I want to gush about how he's of Indian decent which gives him unbelievable eyelashes and a sexy strong jaw, but how ultimately he's just a nice boy from Wisconsin without an exotic bone in his body, he's wholesome and bitter and funny and perfect and by far the smartest or most attractive man I've ever been involved with. I want to blog about funny jokes, I want to blog about how right now I'm in a fight with him that he doesn't even know is a fight because he's too well adjusted to know how to empathize with ways the odd goings on of a spazzy girl like me strictly within the space of my own mind.

And so, there is this post. Because it should all happen at least once (and only this once), so we can move on to more important matters-- like how I'm eating honey straight out of the jar right now, why my babydaddy is a creeper, and that my 6 year old just told me that her boyfriend is a very nice young man and she doesn't know if he should be her boyfriend because she's just too young to have a boyfriend and because she just likes him "a little bit too much in school".

Eh. At least she comes by it honest.

I'd Rather be Bow Hunting

So yeah, I totally did a 15 minutes late half dance into class deal again this morning, said sorry too loudly because of my headphones, then turned in the wrong homework. The librarian (yes, this class is taught by a librarian) glared exactly as a librarian might be expected to, the headphones flew out of my ear, and about 3 minutes later I saw her standing next to my computer.

"Young Lady (yeah, those words from a librarian: Some days my world is like a Norman Rockwell painting that has little tolerance for me in the middle of it)-- would you mind turning them off, also?" It turns out my ears were not in fact just ringing from the volume of my previous listening, but in fact that my pocket was still humming with music. Specifically the words "Exquisite Dead Guy".

And then I turned in some more of the wrong homework-- not great at the online submissions, this girl.

I want to go back to bed, go ice fishing, go shopping... I would be happy going bow hunting. All I know is that I don't want to be here. I don't want to be in this semester at all for any reason whatsoever.

And yet, off to class number two which I did a crossword puzzle through last session. Oooh... I hope there wasn't any homework.

Now, I'm not saying that I think a half pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream and 2 packages of Ramen is a decent dinner for anyone, mind you...

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...I'm simply saying it's what I just had for dinner.

The Little Things

It's the little things people forget about when dealing with the poor single mother. And it's the little things that leave me with that big feeling, the one of not knowing how to address the little things or taste the words coming out of my mouth.

I'm dating a man who drives a Hummer, lives in a 3 bedroom house all alone, and buys $50 ties without so much as looking at the price tag. And I've been a trooper, I have. I'm gracious when he picks up the bill, I don't fret about how utterly unthinkable most aspects of my life would be to him if he were to live them. But, he is a Packers fan and I wanted to wear his team shirt (more for our own amusement given my clueless nature regarding athletics than to be of some real Green Bay support mind you). And it seemed like a good idea-- at the time.

Did you know packers shirts, or at least any moderately attractive ones, are almost $30 plus shipping? And that in order for them to get here in time to wear for more than 2 days previous to the game, it's going to be about $40?

Well I do. That is to say, I do now.

And it's sad, remarkably so. I was online looking them up kind of halfheartedly (as in not yet looking at the list prices) when I got an email from him this morning, links to three separate shirts. He was happy that his new girlfriend wants to play (and I do, I really do). I could completely see the bearded little smile playing around the corners of his mouth. And then a little smile started playing around the corners of my (un-bearded) mouth . And then I started really looking, and the smile melted away as though Amazon.com were a sudden spring heatwave in early march and said smile was one of those tiny little dirty mountains of compacted snow and ice which used to be a giant mound of plowed white that remain after most of the snow has started to puddle away.

And it's not that I don't have $40 to spare here and there. It's not even as though I didn't spend more than that on my last Sephora bender. It's just that try as I might to think of it as a gesture in the way of love, I don't have $40 to spend on a sports teamed t-shirt I'm going to wear for 3 days, and I can't find a place in my mind where I have as little as I do and that's going to be one of the luxuries I choose and I can be OK with that.

Which is fine, and not a big deal, but it's one of those glaring obvious things I keep thinking about-- me and this man, we're different. And I offered to make a nice, oh fuck-- let's be frank: an absolutely adorable gesture, and then had to say "Oh, you know, it's going to take a while to get here" and know what neither of us are really talking about (and I honestly believe that in his good albeit naive nature he really doesn't think it matters at all): His girlfriend is literally poor, and sometimes limited by that.

And it's gross to blog, even knowing that he doesn't read my blog. And it's gross to know all on my own-- and some day I'm going to have to say outright "Yeah... I can't afford (some thing that isn't a big deal to him but is to me)". And it's going to feel gross to both of us. And that's when things are going to start to change.

I understand that I elected to live the life I did, that it wasn't even that I had to make a hard choice but that "I would rather not have very much money, and I would rather raise my child without too much money". It was always not only my choosing, but my very deliberate and sometimes even enthusiastic choosing. But, other people don't understand it-- not always. Men and the date night suggestions forgetting that this requires money per hour for a sitter. Friend plan evenings out that they know I'll just love, but I have strict rules about what I won't spend money on so I can spend money without concern in other areas. And ultimately, this isn't fair to them-- I've made a lot of decisions for these people and their relationships to me in deciding I was going to be poor. Sometimes too poor for the little things, which is what interpersonal relationships are made up of in general.

And I don't like Green Bay, I don't care. But I do like my boyfriend, and I would have cared to see that look on his face when I as promised showed up on game night in an adorable little green tshirt with those yellow letters across my adorable breasts, saying adorable little things and making such an adorable little gesture.

And when I think about the adorable lost in this little matter, it doesn't feel like such a little thing at all. Which is why in the time it has taken me to type this, I've decided to put one of my little splurges on hold and get this instead, because all too soon we're both going to have to look at the truth of his poor girlfriend-- and as long as that's already coming, I want to be sure there's a lot of delightful going on before the ugliness and discomfort comes along. I had someone in my life once who said that he always liked leaving my home and feeling the weight of poverty lift off of him... and he wasn't a great person to have in my life-- but he was an honest one. And since then, I've never been OK again with letting anyone else see that weight over my head or letting it seep into the fibers of their own lives, arranged entirely different for I'm sure exactly the reasons they should have been to them.

And as long as it's inevitable, I'm going to go ahead and not crush this wonderful man under that weight any sooner than need be, or even leave any clues that it is there if he's not feeling it yet.

"Mommy, is 'sustainable' like sharpening a pencil instead of just throwing it away when it breaks like you do?"

Um... probably.

Clearly, in this house 'pencil sharpeners' are for damn hippies.

Overwhelming Realities

I was sick for a week. In the world of a single mother, this is no small statement. I don't have family, I don't have the kinds of friends who can come and take a child for a few hours... "I was sick for a week" means "Too much TV was watched, the cleaning was not done, and I didn't fight with my 6 year old the way I should have about eating her fruits and vegetables".

And then a friend died. This resulted in 2 days of tears that just won't come but in passing bursts of snot and mascara, and that haunting feeling that of course I'll see her one more time to give her a hug, to talk about things, just because you see someone one last time that stands out. I don't remember the last time I saw her, it may have been a couple of Saturdays ago when I did the Macarena with her, but it may have been last Tuesday when I was flustered and didn't give her a hug. And I'm not entirely sure which is the case, and that isn't the way you see someone for a last time. Except that it is, I'm never going to see her again. And it is what it is.

And I start school tomorrow, I don't have any text books, my apartment is a pit, and I don't know what smells in my kitchen but I know something does. A friend, one of those dear ones that you just 'get' and that just gets you and you don't know how you weren't always friends with, referred recently to "living like a depressed child". I entirely understood the sentiment at the time, or I thought I did, but now that I really entirely do I want to go back in time and retract the "Oh my God, I know exactly what you mean" and wait until now, now that I really do.

There are panties on my kitchen counter, my class schedule is scrawled like a suicide note inside of my notebook (there are 5 buildings on my tiny little campus, how do I not know where 3 of my classes are?), I have not gotten any of my text books, I have 3 pieces to finish for an auction I signed on for months ago and am only half done with, and tomorrow I am turning 31 and want nothing more than to curl up fetal position and be reborn no sooner than spring. It's seldom that there's too much for me to deal with... but there's too much for me to deal with right now. This too shall pass, that's what I keep hearing and keep telling myself, but I'm dead on my feel right now, blogging instead of cleaning, and while willing everything to pass quickly, I'm still not even attempting the very basic fix of just for tonight passing out on the cool side of my pillow.

That's how fucking overwhelmed I am-- I can't even go to sleep because I'm too overwhelmed with the thought of waking up to all the same messes in the morning.

Must Be Friday Evening

Little Old Woman at store: Oh, that smells beautiful (lavender scented hand lotion). Your husband will like that...

Unwed Mother: Oh, I'm not married. It is nice though.

Little Woman: (patting me on the hand softly) Such a pretty girl. It's OK, you'll find someone.

Aging Spinster who clearly has little to live for according to look on Little Old
Woman's face: (backing away) Um, I'm not really the marrying type. Thanks though.

Disappointed Little Old Woman: It's fine, young lady. You'll meet someone some day. God has a plan for all of us.

Needless to say, I did not buy the hand lotion. My God, when does this ever fucking end? At what age will they finally just say "Poor dear, must be too late for her now" and not address me at all?

Eh. Easy Come, Easy Go.

Did my 6 year old really just call me ugly on our way to school today? Reallly? Ah well, so much for the love-in that was yesterday.

And At The End Of The Day....

It was bound to happen, and of course it was bound to happen less than a month into things: I was going to pour all of my "I've been hurt" issues out on the freakishly handsome absurdly kind uncomfortably smart new boyfriend in a 237 paragraph email in Shakespearean pros with illustrations and footnotes in 3 languages. And he was going to write back in a completely sensible fashion (which includes about 12 sentences... I never got the memo the rest of the world did on appropriate email lengths) that I'm a very nice girl and he hopes I feel better and he's going to be really nice to me because he likes me.

And now I look like this traumatized moron and he looks like (and is) this very reasonable lovely man who I have no business being with, and that's going to sit in the middle of the table glaring at me. But he won't notice, because he's just that wonderful. Which will make it all the worse. I just ruined all the enjoyable parts of a brand new relationship (it doesn't go back from that kind of disgusting self-inflicted humiliation), in record time. Even for me.

I'm simply not old enough, calm enough, or normal enough to date.

In unrelated events, my daughter told me today that she loves me more than anyone (melt) and that includes daddy (gloat). I informed her that she just loves daddy in a different way but every bit as much as me I'm sure... then I gave her some gummy worms and secretly gloated yet more. Through the day I rescued her from a nightmare, nursed a wounded knee, found a lost doll, calmed two nervous fits of fear that I dare say resembled existential crisis (What am I supposed to be?!" and "I don't know what is going to happen after right now!"-- dude, she totally gets that shit after time with her father, don't look at me) and gave 1 fabulous piggy back ride home from school. The house is a mess, my love life is in shambles that only I am aware of, but this is right... this is natural... this is what I do.

This is what I'm supposed to be. At the end of the day, I can't get anything else right very often, but this is who I am, this is what I know. And if I'm a lame girlfriend, an uninspired student, a scattered blogger at best... I am mommy. And I'm damn fucking good at it, and that's more than enough to go to sleep feeling that all is right with the world next to the little girl who loves me more than anything, despite what I may or may not have done to anything else through the day.