The pic's from Halloween, the rant's from yesterday

I have these random skinned spots on my knuckles this morning. Why? Was I boxing in my sleep? Did I win? What the hell?

I try not to talk about my ex too much here. There's a few reasons. One - the last time I talked about him in great detail, he freaked the fuck out and I ended up taking down my last journal. Of course, he was reading that one and it was right after we split up and bleh. Whatever. Second, it tends to raise my blood pressure just thinking about the man. And no, not in a fun way. If he raised my blood pressure that way, I'd still be married to him, now wouldn't I??

Yesterday, he and I had a small run-in over the general care and feeding of our child* , which is really the only thing we have issues over anymore. Of course, it's really the only thing we SHOULD have an issue over, isn't it? Hm, funny how I still feel like he should have a say in any part of my life. Those ties, they take a while to sever. Remember this, it's important later.

Each time he and I have a problem, the argument takes less and less time to dissolve and I find myself less and less rattled by it. I find that I am more willing to tell him to take a flying leap,both more and less willing to just tell him what he wants to hear (huh?) and less apt to be upset about it later.

For example, when he challenges my parenting, I pretty much tell him to not even start with me. He may not like or agree with my parenting, but the fact is, I AM a parent. I do this full-time. I'm the one making the decisions and dealing with the emotional, irrational, insane 15 year-old girl in the house every day. I'm the one who has to play middle man between him and his child because he can't seem to figure out how to talk to her. Sometimes I feel like I'm parenting both of them, as a matter of fact. Don't tell me "be a parent" just because I don't parent like YOU.

I'm more willing to just say "Ok, I'm sorry this isn't going your way, I'll have her call you" and hang up than try to fix things, because finally, FINALLY, after years and years and years of banging my head against this particular brick wall, I've figured out that nothing I say will fix a goddamn thing. HOwever. I'm also not just going to sit there and apologize if I really don't feel like I did anything wrong. I used to do that. I used to apologize and cry and throw myself under the bus just so that he'd stop yelling. Fuck that noise. If I didn't do anything wrong, you can suck my ass, I'm not apologizing. And stop yelling, you're scaring the cats.

Do I get annoyed because he's disrupted my life AGAIN and tried to make me into his vision of what he thinks I should be AGAIN? Yes. Do I get annoyed because sometimes he has a point, but that doesn't mean he has to be such a jerk about how he makes it?? Yes. Do I let it make me cry and drag me down for the rest of the day anymore? Good lord no.

See? I will never be the person the Ex wants me to be. He claims that he loved (loves) me just the way I am, yet every time we fought, everything that came out of his mouth said differently. Everything I did was wrong, wrong, wrong. You can only be told you're wrong so many times, y'know? You can only hear apologies like "I'm sorry you misunderstood me" and "I'm sorry you got your feelings hurt" so many times. After a while, it takes a toll on a person. The toll it took on me was that I started to believe that I was the bad person in the marriage. The first thing I did was become the bad person in the marriage. Needless to say, that didn't help matters much.

Then I tried therapy and drugs. While that helped me become a happier person, it didn't help my marriage any. I realized that the problem wasn't really me. It was the marriage. So I left.

It's taken me two years of living without the ex to finally be able to figure out a lot of things about him and how to deal with him. The biggest one is that I will never, ever be able to change how he feels and I think he hates that. I believe that when he's angry he wants someone to be able to make him un-angry and life doesn't work that way. The only person who can make you un-angry is YOU. So finally, 16 years after meeting this man, I've figured out how to say, "I'm sorry you feel that way", and walk away and not worry about it.

My therapist once gave me an excellent visualization tool for dealing with other people. She said to think of other people's problems as marbles. That when they try to hand you their problems you can look at it like a marble in your hand and say "Ok, I can put this in my pocket and deal with it later" or "Ok, this is my marble now, I'll keep it in my hand" or "Dude...that's not my marble" and toss it. Three guesses what I used to do.

I've gotten irreperably off track here, but my point is, the Ex can push my buttons like nobody else and I hate it. I'm one of those people who hates to cry in front of anybody. I was embarrassed to cry at my own father's funeral, so c'mon. Gradually, over the past two years, I've found and disabled each and every one of my buttons. Some of them were easy, because frankly my life is none of his business.

Unfortunately, the parenting button sort of has to stay enabled because of the kiddo. It just pisses me off that it's the one area where I feel like, no I'm not perfect, but I can kind of point to my kid, my intelligent, funny, gourmet cooking, snappy dressing, wise-cracking, animal-loving, atheist, Janis Joplin-singing, movie-memorizing, calls me mama and tells me she loves me in public kid and say "Dude...I AM a parent. A good one. Bite my ass."

*Kid stayed the weekend at a friend's house. We don't necessarily approve of all the goings-on at this friend's house, but she gets to go on a conditional kind of basis. Kid's cell phone died. Charger was forgotten at home. I had back up numbers, ex did not. Unfairness and safety issues of only one parent being able to get ahold of child brought up. While I agree, general dickitude was not appreciated, because kiddo had made an effort during the weekend to call me twice a day and let me know where she was, who she was with and what was up. There was only one misunderstanding about what was going to happen on Monday (no school) that led to the whole blow up.

Three random stories that might explain a lot about me

My grandparents used to take me on vacation every summer. We usually went to either Florida or Texas - something that was a two day drive from New Orleans. I've been to Disney World, Busch Gardens, Astro World, Six Flags, a whole bunch of caves in Georgia and one year, in a burst of creativity, we went to Tennessee.

Anyway, on one of the years we went to Florida, a fan belt broke in my grandparents' Cadillac and we ended up stuck on the side of the road. I can't picture my Poppa hiking for help, but this was about 25 years ago, so I guess he did. Regardless, a Florida state trooper ended up coming to our rescue by crossing over the median and picking us up.

Now, see I don't question authority unless authority gives me a reason to do so. So I said "Um, sir? How come you get to cross the grass and we don't??"

He looked down from under the brim of his Smokey the Bear hat at the cute (I was kind of cute) obnoxious little blonde girl in front of him and, to his credit, said:

"Well, that's because it's real swampy here in Florida and we know all the safe places to cross and y'all might not. We don't want y'all to get stuck."

Given a perfectly reasonable explanation for an injustice, I'll go about my merry way.

Of course, years later, I realized that the real answer was "because we're the police and you're not."

It's up to you to decide whether "years later" means when I was in high school or, like, last week.

********

My dad had this friend named Tommy. Tommy was an incredible artist. He had a red face and a stutter and was one of the funniest guys I've ever met. He died of stomach cancer when kiddo was a toddler.

Tommy is why I will never, ever, ever have Botox.

See, here's the thing. Anytime my dad and Tommy would be hanging out, drinking beer and bullshitting (something that they wouldn't shoo me away from, thank you Dad) the worst thing Tommy could come up with, the vilest poison, the most evil thing ever??? Was botulism.

"That can's dented! Botulism!!"

"Wait, how old are those chips?? No don't eat those! You could get botulism!!"

"Red sky at night, Sailor's delight, Red sky at morning, BOTULISM!!!"

So yeah, no botulism in the forehead for me, thanks though.

**********

My grandparents had this ranch style house that had that most useless of features - the formal living room. It, and the formal dining room to which it was attached, pretty much only got used for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, for storing random things and for when my best friend Carrie and I were playing.

During one of the holidays, my grandmother made the mistake of bending over at the waist to fix the cushions on the couch. My dad snapped a picture of her butt.

"Whit-NEY!!!"
"What??"
"Did you just take a picture of my butt??"
"Why the hell would I take a picture of THAT??"

Come Christmas, there was a small box under the tree marked:

To: Ma
From: Whit

It rattled

My grandma opened it up. It was full of puzzle pieces.

"Whitney, what the hell is this??"
"Well, put it together, I'm not gonna tell you."

She put it together, and it was a picture of her, caught in the act of bending over fixing the cushions on the couch. Not a picture of her face, in other words.

Sometimes a little bubbles over

I am a terrible person.

When I come across a blog written by someone with cancer*, I get a little stab of jealousy and, yes, ANGER when I find out they're doing well or their treatment is working or they're recovered or in remission.

I get annoyed by all the pink crap for breast cancer when there's nothing out there for colon cancer and 100% of the population has a colon.

I'm pissed off that breast cancer has a walk and nobody else does. Is it because boobs are sexy and pancreases aren't??

I hate that one of my favorite writers is beating cancer right now and I can't just feel unadulterated joy for her like I should. I should be happy for her. I should poor a glass of wine and put on a silly hot pink hat and hug my kid and kiss my cats and paint a colorful self-portrait and then lift something big and heavy and lift a big ol' double-finger salute to cancer because she got away, so NYEH!!

But I can't. Because I'm still pissed off that it wasn't my dad.

This anger eats at me and it will consume me if I let it, and that makes me a terrible, terrible person.

*I hate the term "cancer blog", because goddammit, you are more than your disease.

snippet

The scene - kiddo has just put lowlights in my hair (because she doth rock in all things hair) and I've just gotten done washing and blow-drying my hair. ACTION!

"You rock!"
"Does it look good?? Is it what you wanted? Let me see!"
"Looks great!"
"Come here!! Let me see, lemme seeeee!!!!"
"Hang on, I have to put on pants!!"
".....I'll wait."

mutiny

All three cats are on the couch and I'm sitting on the floor. Something is seriously askew in my house.

flurry

It's 35 degrees outside and raining/sleeting/flurrying and since I live in Austin, Texas this means the entire city is shut down.

Good GOD, I love this town.

Anyway, I'm sitting here, with freshly blow-dryed hair (which of course looks fabulous, since I'm not going anywhere) wearing make-up, a fluffy purple turtle-neck sweater, fuzzy gray sweatpants and kelly green socks. I'm working on my third cup of coffee and wondering if it's too early to bust out the grilled cheese sandwiches. Whoo!!! Snow day!!

The kiddo, should you be wondering, is in Round Rock with her buddies and has today off anyway, since it's Martin Luther King day.

This means I have another day to myself. I staved off stir-craziness yesterday by going for a run and doing a quick work errand. Today I think I'll go tromping around in the cold. I don't drive in the ice, because I'm a southern girl and I can't, but I'm a little weird in that when it gets obscenely cold, I like to bundle up and go for a walk. Hey, I get to experience true cold one day a year, so why the hell not??

I'm watching "Charmed" right now and I know I've asked it before, but who the hell dressed Alyssa Milano on this show? Seriously.

I had to change the channel - the wife beater with lace and button straps and bizarre corset contraption ensemble was bothering me. And this is coming from a woman wearing kelly green socks, y'all. HGTV, I love Carol Duvall's craft show, it's so cheesy and earnest.

When it's cold outside, I get the urge to cook. I want to make pots of beans, pans of brownies, pies, quiches, casseroles, stews, cookies, cakes, soups, chili, souffles, complicated gourmet whizbang recipes and simple rustic throw it together and let it sits. Why? I do not know. But that's the urge. Right now I have a pound of bacon and a bag of lentils calling, calling, caaaaaalling me to throw them together. Lentils cook so very quickly, I think I'll wait till later.

But I am pretty hungry and it's never too early for a grilled cheese sandwich, right??

Blurb

Football, especially Saints football, makes me miss my grandparents' house. A lot of the Sundays of my youth were spent in the low-ceiling, dark-panelled den of their east New Orleans ranch style house, watching football game after football game, listening to my grandmother yell incomprehensible criticisms at the screen.

"Sack him! Sack him!!"
"Ma...that's not the quarterback, and he doesn't have the ball, so they can't touch him, much less sack him."
"I don't care! I don't like him! He's on the wrong team! SACK HIM!"
"......"
"Want another beer, Whit?"
"God, yes."

Expect lots of edits

Hee - Pee Wee suggested I cut out one Starbucks a week to save for my tattoo. That's actually a really good idea, except my current budget is set where I only go to Starbucks ONCE a week! HEE.

Oh, and I don't get too upset about suggestions, 'cause a)it means you're reading, b)I don't have to listen and c)as long as you're polite, who cares?? Now if you start saying stuff like "Goddamn, you need to loose wait and get rid of all thos cats, your a lozer you suck!!!1111!!", then maybe I won't be so nice. Otherwise, suggest away!!

So, the red wine's been boughted, the chili's on the stove, the Oreos are on the counter and I'm sitting here, flipping back and forth between the pre-game and "Myth-Busters." I can't figure out what's a bigger insult- the fact that my dad's not alive to see the Saints go to the playoffs, or the cheesy "24" tie-in they're doing right now. Discuss.

Y'all - even if you don't give a fuck about football, even if you HATE it, root for my boys, OK?? They're due.

Cats shouldn't eat rubberbands

I stopped at Starbucks this morning for some coffee and one of those apple empenadas that I know they'll get rid off entirely too quickly (fuckers), and the woman who went through the door and quite rudely did NOT hold it for me was one of those women who was dressed in a suit and pumps, despite the fact that it was Friday and this is Austin. I was slightly annoyed and intimidated until, while standing behind her in line, I looked over her shoulder and saw that while she was trying to look important by using her stylus to mess with her PDA, she was actually playing Collapse.

She did have on some really great jewelry though.

So look, I know nice people don't admit to reading it, but dude...what the fuck is up with Trainwrecks?? I hope somebody hacked it and it's not a case of another cool site shutting down because they lost their balls. Seriously dude. All they did was make fun of sites. That happens on LiveJournal and Diaryland and every other damn site in the world every damn day. I need my trainwrecks. I will, well, I will be mightily pissed is what I will do, if they've shut themselves down!!!

grumble mutter grumble

My fabulous boyfriend bought me a white noise machine for Christmas and the noise I like best is "rainstorm", because it works like a charm. The problem is that now, every time it rains during the day, I respond like a toddler in a moving car and fall right the fuck asleep. My boss is not amused. Anyway, right now it's raining off and on, so I'm like a narcoleptic over here. Of course, the wine may have something to do with that.

I've been obsessed lately with getting another tattoo. The problem is, that costs money (which is something I'm trying not to spend too much of) and it keeps me from donating plasma (something I'm trying to keep as an option for money making.) Hmph. I'm constantly thwarted in my efforts to turn my body into a billboard. This much real estate - it's a shame really.

Mom, be quiet.

OK, it's 12:30, I'm most of the way through a bottle of red. Talk to y'all later.

Sideways*

Dude. I've got all kinds of stuff climbing around in my brain right now, but can't seem to shake any of out in any kind of coherent fashion. This is why y'all get memes, just so's ya know. I get 30 squillion ideas in my head and they all crowd up at my fingertips when I sit down to write and I just sit there like a character in an RPG, sort of rocking back and forth. I like that image much better than "like a mental patient", thank you. Anyway, because I do not have Jane's mad segue skilz, I present you with some random, disconnected paragraphs.

So, this mommyblogging thing?? What, exactly, is the big deal? I mean, Dooce annoys the shit out of me and I think Amalah's cute but a little delusional, and yeah some of the stuff that's actually written about the children walks that invasion of privacy line, but this is all the same stuff that moms have been telling each other for years and years. The difference is, now they're telling each other over the internet instead of a party line, so it's the WORLD listening in, rather than just the operator. Oh, and they're shedding light on the idea that parenting isn't always pudding and kisses. Well, DUH. I just don't see the big deal from either end - why it has suddenly become a cottage industry to write about your children, or why some people find it so incredibly distasteful that they're doing so.

Hm, a jump from babies to Jef - yikes. No, no, there will be none of that. He's just the next subject on the list. Everything on the Jef front is going beautifully. I'm not picking out china patterns or anything, but I'm happy. I'll just bask in that for a while. His work schedule has rotated around so that he's working weekends for the next couple of weeks, but come the first weekend of February, it's on! Or...something. ?

The Saints are in the playoffs. I know, y'all just pulled a muscle with the eyerolling, but dude!! DUDE!! So if any of y'all are in the Austin area on Saturday, I'll be watching the game. c'mon by, I'll make queso, bring your own wine.

My kid doth rock. She failed Algebra II last semester (she also worked her ass off in it and is taking honors Algebra II as a freshman, so I didn't give her too much grief) and was planning on switching to regular (non-honors??) Algebra II this semester. However, the teacher told her that if she can make a 76 in the class this semester, she'll get credit for the whole year. I'm not entirely sure how that works, but when kiddo told me that, I said "I think you can do that." She said "yep, so do I." I'm so proud of her, because she's a tenacious little pain in the butt.

I'm still discovering strange habits that I had from my marriage - things I didn't buy, places I didn't go - because the ex didn't like them. I've been divorced for 2 years and finally bought some soap other than Dial white. How long does this take to go away?? The habits and the consciousness of them??

I want to make some of this, but I'm not sure what scent. Lavender seems the most obvious. Sounds like field trip time. Mom??

*The title is taken from the pictures, which is not supposed to be sideways, yet is. The magic of blogger. That pic, by the way, is of some bathroom grafitti that I discovered at the first happy hour I went to after I filed for divorce. It just seemed kind of fitting.

boys

I'm getting tired of leaving my boyfriend in Dallas, you guys. OK, well, that sums up the entry for today. Bye - turn out the lights on the way out, would you?

Seriously, this long-distance stuff sucks. At first it didn't bother me, because I'm one of those people who needs lots of space in a relationship. The idea of having a boyfriend who lived 200 miles away was actually sort of comforting. There was no way we'd get all up in each other's business, no way I'd feel like he was always in my bubble, and no way he'd feel like I was always in his.

Jef and I have very similar needs when it comes to space. Neither one of us "transitions" well - mine is getting home from work, his is waking up in the morning - and we both have times when we just need to be away. He's said that one of the things he likes about me is that I let him "go to [his] cave." I told him it's easy, because I can totally identify and assume that when I need to go hide, he'd give me the same respect. So far, so good.

Anyway, being the neurotic cave-dwellers we are, a 200-mile separation makes that whole space thing pretty damn easy. But now, it's getting a little old. We've spent 4 days in a 700 square foot apartment and all I can think at the end of it is "I have to go home already??"

Admittedly, that's without the pressure of a work schedule. Our weekends do tend to function a little like mini-vacations. But folks who know me know that I get tired of being around other people after a while. Especially in close quarters. I was not built for boat-dwelling or submarines or camping or maybe even being around other human beings on a regular basis.

But we've gotten to a point where the distance is just frustrating. At the risk of y'all getting knocked over by the pure romance of this statement, I gotta tell you - we don't bug each other's shit.

We've talked about moving to the same city and the thing that makes the most sense is for him to move down here - which is great, but not really feasible until September.

This leads me down a path of self-doubt. I'm totally comfortable with the idea of being in the same city (yes! start packing! why aren't you here yet?) and I've even thought about moving to Dallas (sorry mom, but if it weren't for the kiddo, I probably would) but for some reason, the idea of him moving here for me makes me nervous.

Fact is, I'm not comfortable with the idea of somebody changing cities *for* another person, ever. It can lead to a lot of resentment and pain if the person who moves ends up not liking the new location. I know Jef hates Dallas and loves me - that's a good combination. But I don't have enough ego to think that I'm enough to make things OK if he has problems finding a job or a good place to live or anything interesting about Austin.

I don't know - that's September. We'll get there. But right now, I'm so tired of text messaging and 3 hour drives and going a month without seeing him because of his work schedule.