Category Archives: Humor
Unfriended – and a giant fish
For all my growth and new maturity (I say with a modicum of sarcasm) I thought I had let go of a certain resentment. It became very apparent that I have not relieved myself of it – after a couple of small kicks to the teeth last night.
So I’m breaking one rule of confidentiality and I’m going to talk about someone. Oh yeah, I’m gonna. Gird your loins.
I’m even putting a photo up … so other women can take heed. I did blur out the other person in the pic (see, I do still have an edit button.)
Last night:
Nic and I were chatting about his ‘donor’ I won’t give him the noble title of ‘Father’ or ‘dad’ he earned neither.
There is a catchy song on the radio by an entertainer named Mackelmore. When I looked this song up, I was surprised to find he resembled said ‘donor’ when I knew him in the clubs. Only, donor had darker blonde hair and a leather jacket. But, similar looking. See below. That is Mackelmore.
Damien Lewis also reminds me of a young version of donor
I wanted to compare to be sure – as it’s been over 18 years since I saw ‘donor’ young.
I went onto Facebook where I am friends with ‘donors’ mother. I use the term ‘friend’ loosely. I think we only chatted twice. Once she actually asked me to send pictures of Nic? Um …. It’s Facebook – I have a WHOLE BUNCH of photo albums chock-a-block full of pictures of Nic. Click on them woman!
There were 3 pictures of donor in her album. So I typed her name and … nothing. She had unfriended me!!!
Now, the last message I sent to her was just before Nic turned 18. basically saying that it would be the last time I reached out and made an effort. I’ve had this notion from the get go that just because donor didn’t want to be in his son’s life, didn’t mean I should punish Nic’s paternal grandparents. I took him to meet his paternal grandmother as a newborn. She didn’t want to hold him. I took him to say good-bye when I was about to move to Nevada when Nic was in 2nd grade. They took a few Polaroids. The second visit before we left town was met with donor on the couch. (Gee, thanks for giving me the heads up that my son is about to meet his donor with no preparation.)
That was the first and only time that donor and son ever met.
I recall he took Nic out onto the playground as I waited nervously – he introduced him to everyone as his son and then showed him his DJ equipment at his apartment (same complex).
That was it.
Nothing more.
I left town and never saw him again. Never pressed for child support. Never contacted him. He made it very clear he did not want to be a father – so be it.
Now, his mom not only unfriended me … but blocked me. And that ticked me off.
It’s one thing to be a deadbeat dad, but what grandparent doesn’t want to know their grandchild?!?!
If a girl came to me holding a baby and saying it was my sons child – I’d have quite a chat with Nic. Did you have sex with this girl? If so – then there IS a chance this is your child. If you do not believe that to be the case, initiate tests to determine the truth. If it is your child, step up and provide for that child. Emotionally and financially.
Was there ever a conversation about Nic between them I wonder?
So I’m sore about being ‘dissed’ by grandma. Nic says he’ll find him and we start searching the net. He announces “I FOUND HIM!” My boy is a funny guy … on his ipad, in the google search box were just the words “Dead Beat Dad”. Ha ha.
I entered his name … and did find him.
It wasn’t until I saw his smiling, carefree face that I realized how angry I still am.
Not only smiling and carefree, but evidently quite the avid fisherman now (AND reviewing expensive rods and reels on Amazon. That’s just super that you have extra money to spend on your hobby there champ!)
Here is the photo: He’s on the left
I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted that fish to suddenly pull a Monty Python “I’m not dead yet!” and bite his pointing finger off.
The frustration that I feel seeing him enjoying his life when he walked away from his responsibilities is beyond my ability to describe.
I have been angry a lot of today.
I have to stop – drop and roll. No, that’s for something else …
I have to stop. Breathe. Look at fact.
- I chose not to pursue financial assistance from this man, knowing Nic’s life would be better for not having him in it
- It is donors loss not knowing Nic
- I don’t know if his life has been easy or enjoyable from 1 photo
- I don’t know that he wasn’t eaten by that fish …
What I do know is I have more forgiving to do. Because I’m not there yet on this one.
On a happy note – Nic isn’t phased by any of this. I don’t know where he gets his resilience, but I’m glad he has it. I also hope he has bail money should I ever bump into donor in the future.
Waking and winking and windows with locust
I found the locust. Well, they’ve still been out and about, but not in the vast numbers they were not too long ago. I think most of them gather on my porch at night. I forget to keep my porch light off. I digress.
I pulled up to the laundromat and spotted them.
Okay, so there’s only 4 or 5 on the window, but they’re everywhere in the parking lot.
I was allowed to sleep in until 5:30 am this morning. Butters was either a) feeling generous or b) tuckered herself out with her Shar Pei/Shepherd shenanigans. I’m leaning towards b. Although, there’s a strong argument for a choice ‘c’ … That I was too tired to notice any earlier attempts at arousal. Is that the right word? Okay, that’s funny. I’m leaving it in and not even going to google. OCD be damned.
Bottom line is I ‘arose’ and decided I’d be at the laundromat as soon as they opened. Then hop from here to the grocery store. THEN … I’m cleaning the house in ‘ten-second-tidy’ fashion and hitting the couch.
I even decided in the car on the way over that I was going to try out ‘sassy’ today. Thought I might even wink at a fellow laundromat patron if one made eye contact. Male, female – didn’t matter. It would be one of those friendly ‘hey there – alright?’ winks.
I’m not very good at winking. If I try with my right eye, the entire right side of my face scrunches up and I end up impersonating Popeye.
I can pull off a left eye wink, but I can’t support it with the casual confidence to make it look like anything more than a twitch.
Those realizations, coupled with the fact that my table was taken, sucked all the wink mood right out of me.
I’m at the kiddy table under that damned rainbow umberella again. Add insult to injury, the lady that works here walked by and mentioned I need a new laundry basket. Hmph!
They sell them, and if I’m interested I should let her know.
Good grief.
Morning Manatees, Royal magic and cheesecake
Good Morning to you, good morning to you.
We’re all in our places
With sunshiny faces,
and this is the way
to start a new day!
I beg to differ. My face feels like a handful of sand was tossed at it by a drunken Sandman. He did get some granules in my eyes – that must be why they’re sore and grainy.
OR … or … it could be that my dog pulled her ‘there shall be no alarms, who wants to be alarmed? C’mon, I’ll gently rouse you from sleep by creeping around the bed, then staring at you” routine again.
It IS Saturday right? Yes. And yet, at 5am, I was up. Stomping to the front door being led by my manatee with hair.
I’m getting pretty redundant writing about Butters.
I’m thinking of changing my blog name to ‘Musings-from-the-laundromat-about-Butters’ That would pretty much encompass my posts.
So, I am in fact up.
It is what it is. She is what she is. The morning has broken and since I’m too tired to start cleaning it up, I’ll share some exciting news.
It’s not my news. Or is it? If I’m sharing the news – is it technically … oh, never mind.
SO!
I have a brother in the UK. He works at Warner Bros. Well … (she says, like an eager, sparkly eyed gossip) … guess who he got to meet yesterday?
AND … (she leans in closer for effect)
He was the one that got to hand Prince Harry his wand! (If I am to believe my brother-in-law’s post on his wall, which I do.)
Haven’t seen anything on my brothers wall about it yet, but he’s been too busy hob nobbing with Royalty I suppose. I’ll be grilling him soon about all the details. The horse’s mouth will be parched by the time he’s done answering all my questions. Wait, he’ll be typing. Horses hoof?
Pretty cool if you ask me.
I had 2 pieces of cheesecake yesterday. That was pretty much the hi-light of my day.
I had been coveting the cheesecake through a glass door.
There was a meeting going on that was none of my business, but the dessert caught my eye.
It’s who you know people, it’s who you know.
That meeting broke and I had already sent my ‘don’t think I didn’t notice that cheesecake in there’ email to someone who’s business the meeting was.
Dessert tangent. Sorry. Hey – ‘Dessert Tangent’. That would be a great name for a little shop.
Back to my sibling story.
He’s talented too – made Nic and I these wand replicas before he worked there. (Oooo! Foreshadowing!!!!)
Perhaps I can wave one at Butters while saying: Expecto Patronum! That should clear the area of Butters the Demented. Or does that just work on Dementors? Hmmm ….
OR, I could just stick one up her nostril until she gets the hint.
I’ll give it some more thought when my brain wakes up.
*update … Story confirmed and got some other tid bits I can’t share … Also had to remove my brothers name due to strict social media rules. Warner Bros. has a privacy thing with their staff. But let me just play Perez Hilton for a moment and say … One person who was there has an epic imagination ;)*
Sleep deprived Buttery post
I could have sworn it was Saturday this morning. It really ought to have been. Nic was off for ‘April break’. What IS that? And why is it only one day?
Anyway – I slept like a baby last night. Woke up every 2 hours upset with something or another. Not quite screaming.
Drama + Butters + Sinus Tachycardia + son chatting on his ipad = no Z’s.
(I mean, he was seriously chatting – full on – carrying his conversation buddy around the house. In a moment of delirium, I actually thought a girl was in the bloody kitchen with him. Then I sussed it out.)
ANYWAY (she says again, and this time she means it)
My pitter pattering heart has been trying out all kinds of fun new ways to present itself to me lately. ‘Ben Gay like warmth’ feeling … left armpit pain … then last night, it got sassy on the drums … brrrrrrrrm, burr, brrr-bump. And then something in my chest grabbed a tambourine and started showing off.
A friend taught me to cough to get myself back into rhythm – so I lay there, coughing like a dork.
THEN there’s Butters. Oh Butters.
Don’t let this image fool you. She does. not. sleep!
For two weeks or so – every few hours from 9pm until my alarm goes off at 6am (not that it’s had a chance to go off for the last week), she stands inches from my face and whines and wags.
I get up, let her out – and then leave the flipping front door open so she can get back in.
You see the crack? And you’ve seen her nose – so seriously, WHY can’t she ‘nose’ her way back out?!?! She sure as hell can do it when a cat walks w/in a mile of the house.
I might as well just put an ad on Craig’s List inviting any local wackos or serial killers to my insanely unsecure house at night.
“Come on in! Doors open! I’ll just be in my room, trying to sleep. Be as quiet as possible when you kill me.”
Why does she sleep inside? Our fence is chicken wire basically … I think intended for really apathetic, frail chickens. And we have coyotes out and about.
In between the fun excursions to the flipping door – the tiny snatches of sleep I grabbed onto, (which, resulted in nightmares) Waking up to Nic church mousin’ around the house and my heart getting all excited, I woke up (pffft … didn’t really ‘wake up’ so much as ‘give up’) none too pleased.
I tried to have a chat with her.
She didn’t care. She assures me she’ll be doing it tonight too. And the night after that, and the night after that.
And the thought occurred … when she’s older, and not energetic – probably I’ll miss the spry insomniac that she used to be.
Today I’m neurotic – until I google again.
It’s official. I’m neurotic. (as I notice the hair in my eye in the above picture)
I Googled it, so it must be true. Plus, it described me to a T on the following:
- The tendency to restrict oneself, to be satisfied with very little or to remain inconspicuous: Grows out of normal need to move cautiously, delay gratification
- An insistence of self-sufficiency and independence which does not allow one to ask for help or commit to relationship: Grows out of a normal need for autonomy and self-sufficiency.
Anxiety, self-sufficiency, OCD and having to over analyze every little thing, yup, that’s me.
Good news is – it’s not a mental illness and it’s treatable. basically, ‘get over it’. Okay, so maybe they suggested therapy to help with that. But, there is hope.
Seriously everything I do, from driving beyond 5 miles in the car to being faced with something unexpected, results in a physical reaction akin to readying myself to open a can of Pillsbury dough.
I have had a reprieve from most of my anxiety, by not interacting with people outside of work. I have to push myself to do anything that involves making eye contact with others. Funny thing is though, when I am out there, I’m that kid who just waltzes up to another kid they don’t know and introduces themselves. It’s mental. Okay, I’m mental.
So before I turn into this:
Or this:
It’s time to assess myself.
I don’t think it’s a secret that my kryptonite is ‘relationships’ (of the romantic variety.) *shudder*
I’m talking, full on – fight or flight response to the THOUGHT of it. I want you in my house, but gone when I want to be alone. I want you in my life, but don’t tell me how I should be living it. I want you to find me attractive, but don’t look at me or make me feel like a piece of meat.
It’s terrible.
Seriously.
Because there is a really good chance that my neurosis in this area will end up truly leading me to my cat lady future.
This is how I see those relationship petals … nothing is black and white. Except how I want things. Those are very black and white, and don’t you bring a grey crayon anywhere near me.
I’ve found a balance that doesn’t give me panic attacks. It’s called being alone.
But recently, I’ve had my balance tilted. Thankfully, these days, when off-center, I stop to look at what is causing it. I’m a lot more open to the possibility that I (gasp) could be wrong.
I emailed my best friend and she assured me, she was not about to co-sign my bullshit. She heard me out – as she always does and about 100 emails later, I could have published my analyses as a thesis.
I think I convinced myself to some degree that I was doing the humanitarian thing by not getting involved with anyone. I KNOW I’m a mess. Who puts themselves out there knowing they’re a train wreck? I have my good qualities too – but don’t think it’s fair to subject someone to my hang ups and neuroses. I’ve hurt too many people already.
So if I’m going to even consider changing my cat lady plans – I have to start to work on myself. That’s the bottom line. Because even if Prince Charming showed up, with a box of Good and Plenty’s (my favorite) in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other – I’d find something wrong with him.
People keep saying, “when you meet the right guy, it will be different.” But, I really think in this case: It’s not you, it’s me is the truth of the matter.
And I’m all for truth.
And hope.
And love.
Just better be EXACTLY the way the ever-changing image of it is in my head, or else.
Debauchery Soup 