2 years later

so I just posted what I had previously it seems left in my draft folder.

Some things are, as they will be 2 years later, a little different

I’m having a very sad stepmom day as a lot of us do, and I looked up ‘stepmother struggles’ on the internet because like, that’s where we look for things we have right? 

I mean, you should see my black tank top search variations. 

Anyway... 

So there’s this ‘Stepmother Bill Of Rights’ thing I see now and again when looking these things up, that makes me crazy because it’s all stuff that should be so obvious, but also stuff that’s such a pipe dream. The stepmother does literally all the same-if not more- of the parenting work that her partner does, often (I know in my case, anyway, very profoundly) loves their stepchildren as deeply as their birth children, but has no legal rights to the schedule, other adults making decisions for her time, and her giving twice as much time to parenting as she had to for only her own children. IT IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF BEING A STEPMOTHER. All of the responsibilities of a mother to children of which you are absolutely not the mother of no matter how much you feel like one. You aren’t their parent even when you do all that a parent would, often alongside raising your own child. So the one right that makes me craziest about that cute little stepmom bill of rights is ‘I will not be treated or thought of as an outsider within my own family or my own home’...

Wait-really? Did you not get the memo from the universe? You know, the one you should have read stating  THATS THE FUCKING JOB, PEOPLE! Did you not live in the same world we all did? Did you all not know what Wife-Life was to begin with, more or less second wife life with someone else’s humans as your own responsibilities and hearts? Were they not part of what You fell in love with, jerks? When you said I do, you said ‘I do agree to be a stepmother’. Sure a lot of it is degrading, heartbreaking, lack of appreciation belittling to how much work it is- but I don’t know how you found your partner and beautiful stepchildren living in a cave hidden from society, womanhood, stereotypes, and like, LIFE for so long. We don’t get a bill of rights. We don’t get ANY parental rights. No matter how much we sacrifice, how deeply we love, how hard we parent, we are NOT legally their parents.

We get amazing, wonderful stepchildren to love. It is not the world, our partner, or their real parents job to love that about us. Or even respect that about us. Or even treat us with any respect at all (because again ladies-you didn’t see this coming? Tv? Books? All the second wives you’ve ever met?) No one ever ever told us that was part of the deal. 

We are stepmothers. That was the deal. 

So hey, thanks Internet. Sometimes from annoying Internet movement rage comes perspective. 

Now since I went to my room for an hour, I’m going to go have the kids get off the screens my husband left them on all that time, or at least have them turn the volume down from window shaking to only minor ear damage  level. Not because they’re my kids and I have a right and a whole fucking bill of them implied by a mommy blog or anything... 

But because I’m their stepmom, and it’s my job. That I do, because I love them.

And Then There Were Four

As recently stated, while talking about a completely different thing, I now have 2000 stepchildren and a husband.

In reality, I have a middle aged but still dashing prince charming of about a foot taller than me, we wear the same jean size, and he brought me soup the first time I was sick, always remembers to bring me flowers, and my favorite, brought me the most amazing, insane, difficult and hilarious 3 step children. They're amazing new siblings to my sweet tiny lady, and an exhausting delight in my life. I don't just love them like my own child... I love them like my step children. It isn't the same... but it isn't less by any stretch in the world.  And so, an introduction:

1) The Little One:

The little one is in her panties. Always. She is nowhere near me but I know that she is in her panties because it is her only state of existence at nearly 6 years of age. It's an indiscriminent state of nude being, she answers the door that way, wanders out on the porch that way, sighs in public and tells me she wishes she could be that way all the time and didn't have to wear (whatever she is wearing) because "I just don't care for clothes".

The little one may in fact be an impish pixie full of some otherworldly magic, trapped in the limiting human form due to some weird curse by like, whatever curses impish pixies. But, she also may be criminally deranged and just waiting to kill us all in our sleep giggling sweetly all the while.

Time will tell.

Some of my favorite quotes by The Little One over the past few months have been....

~ "I love standing here... I just kind of really want to pee in this vent" Oh so calmly, this statement. Moments before I, not so calmly, picked her up off of the vent and distracted her for the rest of the day.
~"I kind of wish I could marry you, Amanda." ('Awww', says our visiting friends) "And then, I could murder you and have another stepmother. (Strangely, visiting friends have no comment for that second bit)
~ " If a robber came in this house, I would kick him in the nuts."

2)Boy-Child:

Boy-Child is something especially unique to me. He does not care about glitter. He is not and never has been into My Little Pony. Or any pony oriented thing except that like ‘Hey Amanda, my friend told me there was a movie where a guy had a dead horses head cut off in his bed. When can I watch that movie?’.

But He is not without his fathers tenderness despite being clearly all schoolyard. He sings like an angel. He will not watch some movies with me because there may be an animal that dies, and that may be sad. Unless, apparently, that animal is a decapitated horse, of course.

Boy-child is often busy. He has to guard the house with a swat vest and a plastic sword and a storm trooper mask at least a few hours a week, he has box forts that clearly aren’t going to build themselves, and he is onto legos the way I am into makeup... and luckily for my new husband, children.

Much like his father, also, boy-child always gives me a hug and a kiss good night. He is absolutely the second male love of my life, and I admit, he’s really softening me up to how fucking awesome legos are.

3) The pre-Tween:

It is what it is.

She really loves me a lot, except when she hates my guts, so like... obviously she’s a 10 year old girl. What is more, she is a schoolmate and now best friend of my own daughter. Which was at first amaze balls and she could not believe her incredible luck. She was going to be at a sleepover that NEVER ENDS!

But now it is dawning on her... she is at a sleepover.

That NEVER.
Fucking.
Ends.

But, at the end of the day, she is my strong stepchild. Sometimes she has a mean steak I don’t know what to do about, that her father insists isn’t a problem. And sometimes she taunts her new stepsister until she cries. At first I was terrified, worried, and then it dawned on me that as the oldest in a divorce, she had been in charge of care taking for children who were not her own, but had no real rights with them... yeah.

I can get that.

And luckily I am not a 10 year d who hates loving a lady who loves my father, who has too much freedom after a brief wave of too much responsibility. I am a grown woman who can sit with her on the back porch and let her sneak soda and tell me that sometimes she’s just so mad and doesn’t know why, and I can TELL HER...”yeah. I can get that’.

And she was the first to say ‘you’re not my mother’... and will probably be the first to call me a bitch.... and she will probably be the one with the best blog, who I will enjoy long smart talks with the most. She is just a strong woman in a powerless pre-tweens life.

For now.

And of course...

4) My daughter.

She has prepared me for some of this, and she has prepared me for none of this. She is the little girl who once wrote Hitler a letter saying she believed he could be a better person if he just tried. And now, she is a big sister. It is all she’s ever wanted to be she says... except on the days she says she misses when it was just us in our little house and we could eat dinner on the floor and take silent walks and just share my bed.

But she misses her new siblings the few days they are at their mothers house. She knows that they all share one room there, and that there are babysitters very often, while I only get one every couple of months. And seeing these other children with this other lifestyle, she’s able to make connections she never could before about things like nature and nurture, about how her more outgoing housemates have a whole different set of circumstances than she, an introvert, instead of just assuming most people are better at being social. She’s recognizing that I patented for her needs above all else, and for the first time ever really realizing that her way is not bad, it is just hers.

And there is promise of another child, though as older people there will be some...um... logistical issues to shall we say, put together. But I cannot wait to see what these four will help Mark and I create as our one day 5th human. And until then... now there are 4. And I cannot wait to see what those four will create out of me.

Thanksgiving: What I'm thinking about at 12:20 instead of prepping bread pudding and putting rolls out to rise

It's now Thanksgiving by 21 minutes, and I have slinked my way back to my computer, back to this online purging, because what better time to purge than eating season.

And instead of during eating season, preparing said eats, I am thinking about my mother. My quite dead mother. The mother who I found out had died as I prepared my Thanksgiving meal 8 years ago, in a different house, in a different life, as a different me. That me, also, had just the evening previous cut and laid out 4 cups of  half inch bread cubes to stale for the butterscotch bread pudding, double recipe, to be prepared half with and half without chocolate chips.

Before I slinked my way back to this computer, I was contemplating waking my husband up to tell him about my mother.

Oh. Also, I got married. It's been a busy year. He does not drink alcoholically, he does not hit, he does not lie, he does not call me names, and he does make me waffles. Really good ones. With ice cream on the top. As that's better than I've done in the entirety of my dating career the last 5 or 6 years, I did a wise thing and married him. I am still a neurotic single mother... but now I share a bed with a neurotic single father, and together we are a very happy hot mess.

But that is a different update.

So... right. Before I slinked my way back to this computer, I was contemplating waking my husband up to tell him about my mother. Not mentioned in our vows, however,  was a promise to wake the other when we feel an overwhelming urge to blubber out "My mother learned how to read well to read me bedtime stories" and thus 'asking' without at all asking, them to get their head that quickly in the game and know exactly where we're at. And then to understand why we're extremely angry at them, as of course we know we will be.

And so, I reasoned that this abstract waking may not be very fair, and left our bedroom.

On the way to the kitchen, I saw my cat. Not the old black one with the sagging belly and puffy fur that was there when my mothers death was announced to me, sitting on the couch next to my toddler, but the new sleek black one who was brought to me three years ago by a cheating boyfriend, and who I could not turn away because like my husband, he was a boy who actually seemed to adore me. And I thought about telling this furry boy (who no longer seems to adore me but rather, I suspect, is using me for dry cat food and a warm crotch to sleep on when I am laying on my back) about my mother.  "She was a trucker for a period, you know...that was when she lived by Coney Island and made my brother and I boxes with our names written on them in glue that she covered with sand from the shore. I lost mine when I was hitchhiking a teenager to make to to my brothers graduation"

But by time I'd made it to him, my new hostage was gone.

However, I was left thinking of my brother also-- I thought I could maybe text him in the middle of the night... "Hey, remember when Momma was a carnie and she brought us those giant stuffed animals, that big gray dog and what was the other thing? A bear? Remember when she came to visit and her husband got drunk and passed out on his horn in his car for like, 10 minutes?"   But, that's not reasonable behavior. Not at 12:40 on Thanksgiving morning.

Guess what is reasonable behavior, according to me, at 12:40 on Thanksgiving morning, then?

Perhaps you guessed, say, sitting on the floor of my kitchen, so close to the Internet, to eat hazelnut ice cream in my panties. And if you did, you would be right.

But in my thoughts, not once did I get angry. Not at her having been gone so often, not of her forgetting birthdays, not of her ultimate decision to drink herself to death when it came time to choose between the disease of her liver and the disease of alcoholism. Not even at myself for all of the years I didn't send birthday cards, for not reaching out better, more, for being a shitty daughter because I'd deemed her a shitty mother.  I did think, though, of my stepchildren, how I know she would entirely enjoy them. And my daughter, how madly she would love her. And my husband, how much he would appreciate her no frills nature.  And I thought about how much she would like the life I made for myself, the integrity I at least try to live with, the maternal part of me I so resented her for not having that I couldn't recognize that she wanted so much to possess.

And I thought that 8 years, and entire life, later, gentler, more forgiving, more grateful...I like to think that today, it wouldn't be the frustrated obligatory love between a child and her live away mother. Today, I believe entirely that she would like me. And she'd feel like I really like her too. Because I think who I am today really really would.

And so it's thanksgiving. And I hate thanksgiving. But maybe this year I won't hate it as much, as this year I have gotten old enough to find that I am grateful.

In With The New

Some people-- namely, but unnamed, some of the other single lady bloggers I know of-- rush back to their blogs after a breakup, suddenly realizing that they love being single, their girlfriends are like, the best, dating was soooo lame and they totally love motherhood (all the while never noting where that love was for the time they were in a relationship).

They come back with a whirl of independents, frantic clanks, and a serious bang.

I however, come back with a slow head-low slink, the name of the unborn child I should never have named still on the tip of my tongue, my ex safely a year behind me, and a daughter who is still a million times better than your daughters, a million times better than me. I come back in a exhausted heap in the middle of a Saturday night after a crafters busy season because my daughter won today in a big way and I've been losing to glitter all of last month, and at some point in ever single mom with a blogs life.. she's going to use that blog again. And if that single mom is me... it's not going to be very profound.

My daughter won today in a big way-- let's go back to that, because it's always easiest for a single mother of a 10 year old to open with "my daughter is soooo intelligent" kind of blurb. And oh yes, she is.

Because today my daughter told me "You must not like the way you look because you frown every time you look in the mirror. But Mommy, you actually look more, like, wrinkly when you frown".

Fair enough, 10 year old.

So, almost a month into the new year, I am making a resolution. It's an absurd one, childish and motivational poster-esque, but it's the one I'm making and I'm at peace with this. When I look in the mirror, I'm going to smile. Because she's right, I don't look as old when I smile, and that in turn may give me a legit reason to smile more often-- not knowing what I look like when I'm not smiling as the primary information I start my day with.

So, that's where I am. There is more to say, and this isn't an explaination as to where I've been in blogging or why I'm where I am in life... it's just that. My daughter said the smartest thing, and I decided ages after the last time I decided to rock my blog, to post it.

And... done. 

Oh, look: A blog.

So. There was a cheating boyfriend, a breakup, there was a new boyfriend, there was a baby coming, she never came, the depression did, and there is now no boyfriends.  There is however a new house and a yard and a cat absurdly named The Edge. There is a new business, there was a falling out of epic proportions with the previous girlfriends, but in the two years since, my life is better for it.

And there is more to report-- but it's not that kind of night. It's more of a "Hey, I still have my blog" kind of night. And here it is.

Unrelated to any previous post...

I am sunburned. My daughter is sunburned.

And?

Well, it's March. This is the best sunburn EVER.

"I'm Bored"? Well, I'm boring. Or creepily maternal-- whatever.

I had a friend point out today that I have not blogged in forever and she finds that boring. Which is fair and accurate, and the truth is I'm probably not as boring as I think lately-- and I'm glad that my friends know that even when I don't.

That being said... in school, in the most god forsaken 190 poetry class full of borderline illiterate proofs that my school is not a real school, I have to write when told about what is going on right then. And the truth is, I used to keep a blog just to make sure I would write every day, shamelessly, just to go through the motion of stating what is happening or what I am thinking, for perspective (A little too much perspective, which to this day people have not laughed at). Why have I not done that lately? Because I don't wan t perspective because I've made peace with the sadness and coldness of my relationship partner? Maybe. Because when I write catty things about people who dick me over they end up with hurt feelings because someone told them to go read my blog and I become the bad guy? Defs. Because I want to make cold mean jokes all the time that don't translate as well in type and just make me look (more) like a cold hearted bitch ? Omigod, absolutely. Because as she gets older I realize more and more that people don't want to hear about how my kid did the cutest thing? Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

But, as it happens, when my friend suggested I blog (and by suggested I mean posted a very direct command to my facebook wall in somehow the cutest way ever), I had already been thinking about blogging. I had been making my bed and thinking about how by time I've found a willing father that I would want to have babies with and gotten to a place that it would be reasonable to have another child, I will be about 37 years old. Which with all due respects, is not a desirable baby-having age for me.

What I am saying is, I will never have another child.

And, though I never wanted to be a mother to begin with, though my life with my daughter has been disaster after disaster of single motherhood simply because sometimes that's what single motherhood is, at some point in the past couple of years I find myself thinking that I would do it all over again. Well no, not the poor thing. Or the single motherhood disasters thing. Or the breastfeeding for fucking ever thing. Or the letting my child decide themselves if they want to be an introvert or not because she is who she is to the degree that I have (and who she is, turns out? TOTALLY antisocial, and as a side note, in no way interested in learning how to swim, dance, play an instrument, or any other activity that involves anything besides drawing pictures, cuddling, watching the cartoons I grew up on, or reading: Which admittedly I think is every bit as awesome as I am concerned that it may be unhealthy) . But in later years that I would have liked, I realized that I'm sorry I didn't know I loved motherhood-- and I didn't know it would be too late before I figured it out.

But there is also another thing I know-- I don't reallllly want it. I think I do, but what I want is to have done it the first time now, when I have the people in my life that I do now instead of when I was so all alone. There are several people close to me, as well as several more I know just a little but who are close to people I love and trust enough to assume makes these people amazing too by proxy. And, I wish I had a chance to have shared my pregnancy and first years of motherhood the way I can't wait to share theirs. I never had a baby shower. When I was in the throes of some very severe postpartum hysteria (it's a real thing and it depends largely on support systems and other such circumstances), I never got to call anyone in the middle of the night to say "I'm so happy I have this little girl" when I was suddenly struck by how extreme a love for your own child can be, or "I feel like I could stick my head in the oven right now if I have to be awake nursing for another second" when I was overwhelmed by every single thing that every single day consisted of anymore. I wish I'd gotten to see my best friends holding my daughter and crying with me and laughing with me as she grew. And, when I see how much I am going to get to be a part of with my friends, I have this horrible self centered moment now and again where before I think "Oh this is exciting", I think "We never had this. I did it all wrong." And it passes extremely quickly, and it doesn't happen all the time, but every now and again I think (mistakenly) that my life was different in such a way that I would still have time for another child.

In short, I do not want to have another child. Not at all. I want to have this child, the one I never expected or wanted, under different circumstances, with all of the beautiful people I have around me now there to be part of it. And when I start to think about that, I miss what is much more important: That the mothers I know and love, pending and current, are in my life now, and I get to be a part of what I didn't have. And as my daughter sees that as she and the 6 different babies that are going to be bore in the next year grow older and older, she is going to learn what it is to be a woman and a mother... and a good girlfriend. And one day, when she finds herself in a family way under whatever circumstances, favorable or not, she will have those kinds of relationships. She will still have what I lament having not had for her in the beginning, hopefully. She will learn have what I still have so many years to teach her matters.

She will have a fucking village of women to be there for as much as to have there for her.

And I love all of my girlfriends. My absolute best and most cherished girlfriends are, I'm pretty sure, never planning on being pregnant or mothers, and what our bond is is something superhuman but not about motherhood. But there's a different bond I feel right now for my pregnant friends, this little secret that just we know. And I love that I have them now and get to watch them become mothers, (sometimes again) and be reminded all over myself of what at a cheesy beautiful fucking Icouldthrowupinmyowmmouthathowi'macting mess of joy and heartache and hope it is. And just like my daughter, this is a new phase in my life: The phase where the women around me are having babies.

And shame on me for not before this blog fully appreciating how absolutely sincerely delightful and beautiful it is that I get to be witness to it-- and, honestly, that seeing the beauty of parenthood doesn't have to involve me doing it again.

And to one of these women, the (pregnant-- I didn't mention that, did I?) friend who demanded this sappy horrible god awful blog... you're right. I'm not normally that boring. Don't you kind of wish I was now?
Ohh. There's no emoticons in my blog. Here is hoping this will do. <3

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"

.
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:

.
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

.
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.