Dear Blog

Dear Blog,

It has been 2 years, 10 months, and 13 days since my last confession.  I have since left my husband, or he left me, or, we left each other.  I'm not really sure.  I am sure, though, that I left him in my heart long before he left my house.  In the time he has been gone, I've learned some things about myself that I never really had the chance to find out while I was married.  Looking back on my life, even before marriage, I've never really spent any time single. It used to seem like such a dirty word....like lonely or sadness, but now that I've had the opportunity to actually spend some time learning to entertain myself, I've started to remember the person that was hidden underneath the weight of years worth of painful relationships.

I like to sing.  I like to sing everywhere.  I like to sing in the car, in the shower, at work, in bed, in the kitchen, wherever I can.  If someone tells me to "hush" or "shut up" I can punch them in the kidneys if I like.  I never knew I could sing until a friend took me out for karaoke one night in my early 30's.  After a proper amount of liquid encouragement, I sang "Son of a Preacher" to a crowd of about 5.  It was one of the most terrifying, yet liberating experiences of my life.  It opened up a well of music inside me that had been buried for a long time.  Now, I can't help it. If there's a song in my head, I'm going to sing it.  I also love Glee. Shut your fucking mouth.

I LOVE GLITTER.  I think glitter is great.  My husband had a near phobia of glitter.  He got into an angry rage if he found the stuff on or near his habitat or his wife.  I figured it stemmed from some untold childhood trauma, so I respected his need to keep sparkle out of our home for many years.  One of my first acts of rebellion leading up to our separation was buying some amazing purple glitter eyeliner.  This was after one particularly nasty fight that involved awful name calling and window breaking.  I don't respond well to name-calling.  Turns out, he didn't respond well to purple glitter eyeliner.  I wore that shit every day.  I loved it.  I still do.  I bought it in every color when he left.  I bought glitter body spray, glitter eyeshadow, glitter hairspray, and glitter nail polish.  Mind you, I've never been the feminine type, but since that man left, I glitter myself up as often as possible.  I love it.  It makes me feel like a frilly sparkle fairy, and that's bad ass.

I love being able to change my mind.  It is great that I can be as spazzy, flaky, and dorky as I want to be without anyone telling me to stop.  If you think I should stop, I don't need you.  I'm just me.  I don't need anyone else to define that for me.  I'm trying to do it all by myself, like a big girl.  If I want to wear clothes that don't match or that make my ass look huge, I'm gonna do it.  If I say I want Mexican food, then cook spaghetti, shut your hole.  If you think Buffy the Vampire Slayer is lame, and you don't want to watch it with me for the 50,000th time, there's the door...see ya.

These are just some silly things that popped into my head when I started writing, but on a serious note, I've really just started exploring some of the things most women learn about themselves in their 20's that I kind of skipped over.  I've always had someone telling me how to dress and what to say and where to go, when all along, I should have been making those decisions for myself, including the decision to get those people out of my life.  I've learned that life is far too precious to waste on days spent not being the person you want to be.  Even if that person changes daily. 

All By Myself With the Four Horsechildren of the Apocalypse

It's been a long time since I was a single mom.  Back in the old days, with one kid, and parents to help me, it was a breeze.  I had the perfect little accessory to every outfit, a little baby doll to dress, and a cute, cooing little ball of sunshine to wake up to every day.  Life was swell.

Get married, have more babies, babies grow up, people grow apart.

Now I'm alone with four small people who expect me to have all the answers.

I need a cheat sheet.

Big Time

Now that I have a WHOPPING 4 followers (ok 3, I'm actually following myself), I think I owe it to my devoted fans to write a shiny, new blog.  This one is all about cheese, possibly bacon, and how it all seems to follow my ass around.

Since my surgery in March, I have been working toward a goal of getting back on skates, and once again, becoming an upstanding citizen of roller derby.  I have been through physical therapy, training at home, jogging, walking, hopping, skipping, anything I can do to strengthen my leg to it's former glory.  So far, this has been going well, and I had hoped, as I'm sure others hope, that a side effect of all my effort may be some rewarding weight loss.  This, however, IS NOT SO. 

I don't drink sodas on the regular anymore, I drink water.  I cut WAY back on the bacon and cheese.  Lots of leafy greens.  Fresh veggies from my own garden.  Lean meats in moderation.  The occasional reward of a tiny morsel of sweetness.  I track calories, I keep a log of my exercise, and by all calculations, I should weigh about 145 pounds.  Once again, THIS IS NOT SO.

While I am still weighing in under my pre-last-baby weight, I'm still sporting quite  few extra pounds, particularly in the everywhere region.  I find this to be the toughest region to drop weight from.  I'm not sure where the sabotage to my diet is happening.  Do I sleepwalk to the fridge in the middle of the night for cheese and bacon?  It's possible.  I've done stranger things.  I think a more plausible explanation is that alien life forms are using my body for experiments, like putting high-calorie supplements in my water bottles and lite salad dressings to see if the resulting weight gain creates stress and confusion in the average working-class adult female. 

Well, Alien Life Forms, the answer to that question is a resounding YES!!! So stop your crazy experiments and let me get back to my skinny jeans.

Ok, I've never had skinny jeans.  I just want single digit jeans. 

AND Why is my 'a' key sticking?!?  It's infuriating.

Back to the cheese and bacon I promised.  These foods can be a healthy and delicious addition to any diet when taken in moderation.  WHO THE FUCK HAS THAT KIND OF WILLPOWER?  Cheese and bacon are fucking delicious.  You can't just eat one strip of bacon or one ounce of cheese.  Why do they even offer these up as serving sizes?  It's complete BULLSHIT.  On the package, it should say:

 Bacon.  Serving size, 1 pound.  You will die of a heart attack, lard ass, but you'll die happy.  1500 calories, a literal assload of fat.

Cheese.  Serving size, 1 block.  Add crackers.  Blocks up your colon and gives you wicked gas, but it's so creamy and delicious!  2000 calories, fatty. 

At least this approach doesn't fool you into thinking that these foods are going to help you achieve anything other than an ass as glorious as my own. 

Excuse me, now.  I feel an otherworldly compulsion to make a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.  Adieu. 

           

What was I thinking?

Usually when I take a picture of myself, it's for a reason.  I actually HATE to have my picture taken, because I'm usually making some dumbass face or not paying attention or being completely fake.  If I do it myself, many times the picture ends up reflecting back my mood or something in particular that I've been pondering.  Since it's only obvious to me what I was thinking at that precise moment, I've decided to pass this along to you, my 2 followers.

Here, I was thinking "Damn my skin looks nice today"!  Not kidding.

I don't ever go outside, so here I was thinking that I'd provide some proof that I'm not a vampire.  See?

Here, I was thinking about something awesome that had happened the previous evening.  It's probably not what you think.

I was thinking that I looked pretty good for being 15 weeks pregnant...and that I deserved a crown for making it that far with the most awful morning sickness ever. 

Here I was just thinking about how lucky I am to have such a beautiful baby after such a long, difficult pregnancy.  I wanted to take a picture to send to daddy.


One more:

First thing in the morning....i just had a really nice dream, and i wanted to remember that smile on my face.  Not telling who I was dreaming about. 

That's all.  All my recent pictures have sad stories behind them, so I'll spare you the tears. 

what the hell?

I'm feeling quite selfish at the moment, and more than a little angry with myself for letting my life get into the tangled state of affairs that it is.  I've sacrificed everything I wanted for myself in order to keep the peace and to try to salvage what was left of my marriage and family.  I gave up many things that brought me solace and hope to focus on what was supposed to be important.  I tried to be grateful.  I tried to be thoughtful and helpful.  I hoped it would make a difference and that my life would feel more meaningful and fulfilled. 

So it turns out that all this is bullshit.  Of course, my children come first, and every breath I take is for them and their happiness, but all the other things: the house, the car, the job, the money, the whatever, is completely useless when you are fucking miserable.  So now, the kids notice that I'm unhappy.  My friends don't want to hang out with me anymore because I'm such a downer.  Even my cat hates me. 

How do you find the time to remake your life with four children, one full time and one part time job, bills to pay, obligations to honor, and a complete lack of money and energy?  Where do you start?  I fucked it all up.  I tried to fix it, but it's too broken, and now I need to start over...but where, and how?

My kids are all I have right now, and I can't lay all this on them.  I really just need someone who will sit with me, listen to my sob shit story, tell me to stop whining and be a big girl, possibly slap me upside the head, then give me a hug and tell me it will all be ok.  It will be ok.....won't it?

In the Before Time...

I've decided that since my brain is mush, and I can't come up with a new thought to save my pathetic life, I'm going to rehash some old myspace blogs for your (all 3 of you) enjoyment.  So here:  read my shit.

So anyway, it seems I haven't written anything in a while, and I know how disappointing that must be to the 2 people who read my senseless drivel, so I shall now give you what you both have been waiting so long for:
A mind-numbing narrative on the current state of my being - coded in obscure metaphor so you'll have no idea what I'm talking about.

My life is a mushroom.  No, not that kind of mushroom, but then again, maybe it is.  My mushroom resides on the cold, damp floor of a forest, shaded by a dense canopy of flora, surrounded by other mushrooms, none of them quite as plump and juicy as mine.  She waits.  She knows not for what she is waiting, but that's all that mushrooms can fucking do, you understand?  Sometimes it rains, and when it does, the rain just puddles around her little mushroom stem, pissing her off.  What can she do? 
Wait.  Duh.

Sometimes the mushroom catches little glimpses of sunshine through the leafy roof above.  Brief moments of warmth and light.  Enough to satisfy the short, dull existance of a mushroom.  The wind blows.  The canopy seals.  The sunlight is gone. 
The mushroom waits.  Again.

The poor mushroom is very misunderstood.  Many believe that it is a mushroom's fate to be sauteed in butter or served with pasta, but is that really all a mushroom is good for?  Perhaps the mushroom does not want to be eaten?  Or if she does, maybe she wants to be savored - whole and raw - just like nature intended.  Perhaps mushrooms just want the chance to grow like everything else and not be plucked up before their time and thrust unceremoniously into the hungry mouths of passersby.  It's quite possible that they like to sit and wait.  But how should we know?

We aren't mushrooms.

The Car Gods Taketh Away..

I've put so much time and effort into just having a basic, running vehicle in the past year.  I worked several jobs to pay for the repairs, spent almost my entire tax refund replacing the engine, and spent a lot of time walking to the bus stop while I waited for it all to come together. What reward do I get for my efforts?  I get my tag confiscated by the Gas House PD.   Not only were the inspection and tag dead (new engine wouldn't pass inspection), but I had a 2 day lapse in insurance back in November and neglected to turn in my tag.  So, a year or so and about 4 grand later, I get a semi-functional car in the driveway that I get to pass by as I walk my hobbly ass to the bus stop to go to work in the morning. 

fuck.

anyone out there got a bike for sale?