Barbie Versus The Red Power Ranger or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Bombs

I made a commitment to myself to blog every day I’m home. Just at home days because if I blogged on “school days” each entry would read something like: “blah blah…drunk guy…blah blah stupid computer system…blah blah crazy old woman…blah…blah…poop everywhere…blah.” So I’ll spare my readers and just write four days a week. Anyhow, this blogging everyday is going to be a hefty challenge because I’m sorta lazy. But at the same time it is forcing me to think about what’s happening around me and then make it interesting without sacrificing the truth. Telling the truth is important to me. I remember studying reality in nonfiction eons ago at school and it fascinates me because the truth is lost the second something happens. But If I were keeping a blog about my fictive life I would probably regale everyone with stories about new shoes and cocktails with George Clooney and Sharon Stone on my yacht in the South Pacific; Valentino would appear every once in a while with a gorgeous vintage gown just for me and I would be about eight inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter... (Cue up a little Brad Paisley “On Line”)

So I was on the treadmill this morning and reviewing what I wanted to accomplish today; number one on the list was figuring out how to practice forgiveness towards Ward rather than my knee jerk standard white hot anger. I was reminding myself with each step that ultimately my anger wasn’t going to change his behavior or our shared history. The only thing I have control over is me. Trust me, this mantra was not repeated in a soft sing song uber Zen chant but rather it echoed in my head like a DS issuing orders. I was also reviewing all the stuff I’ve learned as a result of mothering sons versus daughters. I’m really thankful to the one hundredth power I didn’t have daughters. I grew up with a sister and we fought with one another a lot. It wasn’t the mix it up, hurl insults at each other in a big whoosh of ten second bad energy, either. Rather, it was more like a slow torturous emotional burn. This past year it’s been great watching Wally and Beav move away from the CONSTANT taunts and physical teasing to a camaraderie of fun, games and secrets siblings often have with one another. I was pretty surprised to learn they were text messaging one another a few times a day this week while Beav was in Texas. So I’ve learned what it looks like to have a brother. They have always mixed it up one minute like mortal enemies and the next minute they are best friends again. I could use a lesson in forgiveness from my kids.

The other thing I realized is my taste in “films” is much different than it was before they came along. I’ve always enjoyed science fiction but not action or war movies until I had boys. Now, I’m the one suggesting we go see the latest and greatest Car Blows Up Bad Guy Dies or post apocalyptic story. The bigger the FX budget the better in my book. I’ve also learned to appreciate inane comedies like Night At The Roxbury and Zoolander. Ten years ago, I had this fantasy we would be going to art films and by the time they were teenagers we would have left behind the pyrotechnics and space ships. Now I’m the one all antsy to see the latest sci fi movie and they are just sort of meh on them. I almost bribed Wally with ten bucks to see Star Trek this summer but in the end The Girl went with me and I was spared laying out extra cash. (sad, very sad, isn’t it?) So this afternoon, we went to the “Sticky Six” (Dollar theater, wish I could say I coined that phrase) for the latest Denzel Washington flick about a post apocalyptic world. Thank goodness we didn’t invest more than five bucks because this movie is right up there with the Pokemon Movie as a“Thing -I-did-with-my-kid-and-hated-every-second.” I have a pretty high tolerance for violence and seedy subject matter but after about fifteen minutes into the movie, I look over at Wally and he is text messaging . So I give it another five minutes and decide this is The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly meets Mad Max and take a big chance on the “wrong” answer when I lean into Wally and ask:
“Are you really invested in this movie?”
“Nah, I can watch Mad Max at home”
Thank God because this movie was a grim and a cheap heartless version of The Road and it was going to be two hours of my life I would never get back. Much like the hours of Barney and Pokemon those two owe me.

After we left, I realized we had never left mid movie before. In fact, the only other movies I have ever left: a film with Kevin Spacey about flesh trading in a concentration camp, Dogville and Reds. (in my defense: we left Reds because we were drunk and it was moving a little too slowly for sloppy 20 year olds. I tried to watch it sober a few years ago and found myself wishing I was drunk.)

Years ago I could speak Power Rangers and dinosaurs which was invaluable at the preschool snack table. Now I find myself able to speak airplane, car, Parkour and Army. The Beav has turned me onto Top Gearand I find myself watching it even if he isn‘t around. I could probably intelligently purchase a car in England now. A valuable skill for a Semi Suburban-Semi Stay-at-Home Mom in the US, dontcha think? Army is still a language I’m learning and can understand about 75% of what is said to me. Fortunately, the unintelligible 25% no longer elicits an eye roll from Wally. He is a little more forgiving nowadays.

I don’t think I would have done too well with girls. I have a salty mouth and a cutting way with words and I would make her cry every time she was in trouble. I was a girly/girl but now I think toys marketed for little girls are insipid and just perpetuate the stereotype girls need to sit back and play quietly. But denying a little girl (or boy for that matter) the toys they gravitate towards just makes them all the more salient. Years ago, when I was pregnant with Beav and we didn’t know he was Beav yet, I asked Wally what he thought of having a little sister. My very sage three year old told me: “If she had Barbies I would cut their heads off and hide them from her.” And he would have had my full support.

Being daughter free means I don’t have to speak Sparkly Vampire or Jonas Brothers. Nor do I have to deal with daughters leaving the house looking like hookers, which would probably make my head hurt more than trying to understanding Beav’s mumbly speech and gritting my teeth when I see Wally’s saggy pants.

In Which Our Heroine Takes a Sledge Hammer To A Wall

"Eeyore," said Owl, "Christopher Robin is giving
a party." "Very interesting," said Eeyore. "I suppose they will be sending
me down the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and Thoughtful. Not at all,
don't mention it."

"Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not
there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want
something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want
something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people.” Randy
Pausch The Last Lecture

I’m a little late on this Last Lecture bandwagon and I finally listened to his lecture about childhood dreams today. A lovely bit of synchronicity in my life because I’m moving towards a couple of childhood dreams in tangible--albeit--baby steps. Too bad I have strong Eeyore tendencies and think any minute the world will discover I’m a faker and completely without any abilities so paralysis sits next to me. My other pet theory I like to play with and coddle is I really have been given the odd bits of talent and luck; those odd bits “which got trodden on”. (That quote always makes me giggle dispite myself) I also have made a BFF out of guilt. I’m facing down my fiftieth year and finally, finally courageous to do something with the imaginative sparks I have been gifted with. What the hell took me so long?

I am my own brick wall.

Not the first wall I’ve encountered.

Years ago, I underwent a reiki healing session help overcome some (then) chronic back pain but what really happened was a release of old bad psychic energy, which in turn did away with the back pain. Stay with me here even if you don’t believe in metaphysical healing because frankly six years later, I’m not too sure I fully believe what happened to me. During the reiki session, I was given a vision of a dirt wall that was created with mud, trash and twigs. Those who were positive forces in my life surrounded me and were helping take down the wall. Bit by bit we disassembled the wall. People would come and go and some would try to get me to stop working when it was obvious I was very tired. My helpers would tire and stop working, trying to convince me to rest but I would gently indicate it wasn’t time for me to stop. When the people who I allowed to weigh me down or hurt me the most entered into the picture, I would physically push them away so they wouldn’t interfere with the task. The wall was circular and in the middle of the wall was an entity (God/Jesus/Buddha/Me whomever it was It) bathed in light and a warmth that shone on the back of my head and I felt comfortably warm. Two of the most malevolent people in my life returned and started to cram dirt, rocks, trash back into the wall as I took it down and I was filled a deep and abiding anger as I pushed them away, screaming at them to leave me and to stop building the wall. When I pushed them away, I would push them away and out of the warm light. Soon the wall was gone and all that was left was a trench and I walked the circle my eyes shut against its’ brilliance and savoring how it felt on my skin. The depth of my grief and the sobbing after the treatment scared my wonderful practitioner. She was very afraid she had released something better left untouched and had accidentally broken something inside of me. Something had broken, it was a dam. A dam of resentment, pain, anger and self-pity. Who knew this was the first step.

Since that day, life has been pretty simple and satisfying over the last six years. I’ve been given enormous and generous gifts of people, time, oppertunities, you name it it’s been given to me. However, in the last eighteen months my life feels like it’s at the brink of becoming a murky, uncertain and difficult mess. Fortunately, I have gained enough personal insight to know this doesn’t mean I’m going to get so ridiculously depressed I can’t leave the house or work or care for myself. Tearing down that dirt wall moved me past the point of suffering from ever again suffering such a depression. Yes, I refer to it as a healing. Because it was.

So why all the naval gazing? I’m exactly 72 hours from my 49th birthday and birthdays always call up the worst in me. My woo-woo therapist told me my mom‘s last month of pregnancy was probably very difficult and that‘s why birthdays are hard for me. Mom couldn‘t remember such details about her pregnancy, which is particularly telling. Whatever, I think it’s just my birthday and I err on the side of too much introspection to begin with. Deep thinking: a Piscean occupational hazard of sorts.

Now I am faced with a big brick wall that I thought was The Economy, my age, my sons, my geography, my socio-economic level. . . That brick wall was everything but what it really was. Me.

I am my own brick wall.

Should I hit my head against in exasperated defeat?

Use it as a prop to watch my final years go by as I ruminate in everything I could have done?

Do I take a sledge hammer to it and move it?


Tigger wants to move it. Eeyore is afraid it will fall on her while she’s swinging at it. But if it falls, it's no longer in the way, right?

So Peace out this week and I will. Promise. And just in case you are getting me presents all I want for my birthday is a son who acts his age and gets his shit together and another son who doesn’t act as if he is the center of the world. A public option for health care would be nice too so I can quit my thankless job without feeling completely irresponsible.

source here

The War On Everyone

A few weeks ago one of my invisible friends shared an email her aunt received from a minister's wife. It's a letter from Jesus and it's brilliant.

Letter from Jesus about Christmas

Dear Children,

It has come to my attention that many you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival. . . although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth, just GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now, having said that let Me go on. If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks were. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1-8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it:

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. Not just during Christmas time, but all through the year. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing the president complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sends out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family? Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile; it could make the difference.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary-- especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them, buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions and words that you are one of mine.

Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember:

I LOVE YOU.
Jesus


If that doesn't just shut up everyone from the ACLU to James Dobson, I don't know what will. Because really, isn't it enough someone smiles and is pleasant to you and treats you like a human being and not simply a transaction? And I've been re-reading my New Testament and NO WHERE does it say in any of the gospels: "And lo' thou shall go out amongst strangers and speak unkindly if they do not recognize you as my follower" Nor are there teachings about becoming a "Bully For Jesus". But my New Testament left out a lot of the crap these hypocrites spew. (Why yes I am as intolerant of them as they are me but I don't want to throw them in jail or take their kids away from them, I just want them to STFU)

So who's more Christlike? The overworked clerk behind the counter at the post office who smiles for the 500th time that day and says: "Happy Holidays!" or the smug church lady who delivers a lecture about what a devote Christian she is and how dare someone take the Christ out of Christmas.

So now store clerks (particularly at Walmart, yeah I shop at Walmart because I'm evil and a bad liberal like that) are afraid to offer a generic greeting. Twice in as many weeks I have had two shy and timid but friendly and smiling queries if it's OK to wish me a Merry Christmas. Now that's just sad. It would be ok if you told me to have a Happy Hanukkah and we discussed the miracle of the light and the oil after a terrible and bloody war. It would be OK if you wished me a Happy Kawanzaa. And then we could smile and remark together the importance of all the principles but how Imani--the collective of the best of our traditions--is really what should be at the basis of the winter holiday season in this country because rumor has it we have religious freedom here.

I wouldn't mind if you chirped at me to have a really cool Chinese New Year. The point being we looked one another in the eye and smiled while sincerely wishing the best for the other bridging anonymity for a few seconds. Because let's face it some days life is really hard and some days the best thing that happens to me is a stranger smiles and hopes after my happiness.

Just be happy during this dark and often cold season, k?

My Oldest Son Should Have Been Named Pinocchio

I know I’ve mentioned this before but I must say it again: I really wish I had been given a practice boy to make all my stupid parenting errors on; say the wrong thing to and subject to poor judgement calls. You know like the little ‘droid in AI. To hone this point of how terrible my judgement is sometimes, I must confess, as “Mother Of The Year”, I took the boys to see AI a few short months after I left their father and became Disneyland Mommy. Let me refresh your memory about this Spielberg vehicle: a couple has a son who is injured and in a vegetative state; the bereft couple buy a robot boy and the robot boy bonds with them just about the time the real boy wakes up and returns home. Mommy doesn’t have enough room in her heart for both boys and takes the robot boy for a “ride” into the woods. The robot boy is dumped and must fend for himself against all manner of bad robots and bad humans until he drowns and is left to eternally mourn his lost mother. Real feel good stuff. Because my kids weren’t screwed up enough by having a depressed mother who left home; I had to take them to a movie which depicts parents getting rid of a child. WTF was I thinking? I deposited a theoretical ten grand into each of their theoretical Therapy Accounts on the way home from the movie. On top of a completely inappropriate plot line, the movie was terribly long and unforgivably dull. (Today when I reminded Wally of this movie, I got a sardonic “good job, mom!”)

I was reminded of my need for a droid kid the other day when I took Beav out for his first driving lesson. After the lesson, I picked up Wally and he asked me how it went with Beav. I sort of shrugged my shoulders and told him it was easy. “Yeah, it’ll be easier with the smart kid,“ was his heartbreaking response. Fortunately, Good Mother kicked in and I launched into my oft delivered lecture of how just because someone does well in school doesn’t assure they will do well in life or are really all that “smart.“ I wouldn’t be delivering the lecture if the Cybertronics people had given me my own little Davey.

I taught Wally how to drive a few years ago and if I say so myself, I did an excellent job. He’s a pretty good driver for an impulsive 19.5 year old man. But getting him to this point wasn’t easy. It was sort of similar to…I don’t know…The Eighth Circle Of Parenting Hell. To say sitting on the right side of a teenager when they are learning to drive is scarier than crap is an understatement. My outings with Wally would go something like this:

Me: ohmgawd ohmgawd ohmgawd…slowdown slowdown slowdown…don’t brake so hard…look both ways…LOOK BOTH WAYS…SHI---Jesus! Don’t do that again!

I’m surprised the Oh My God strap is still attached above the passenger door after being repetitively yanked and grasped for about a year of student driving. But just like breast feeding, potty training, and the seventh grade I got through teaching a kid to drive and I’ll get through it again. Only this time. . . Don’t you love getting to say that with your second child? (Don’t you wish you could say it after you fuck up the droid kid, as you are pulling away from the rest stop where you dump him?) Only this time, I’m going to be more patient and relaxed. In fact, I was so relaxed and smug as Beav pulled away from the curb for the first time with me riding shot gun I could have taken a nap, mixed some cocktails , paid bills or blogged. I was even laissez-faire when he told me he had never driven before. Relaxed but incredulous. Wha? His dad had never let him drive? His brother hadn’t let him drive? What is it with my kids? They are both so goody two-shoed they never snuck their dad’s old Jag out for a joy ride. If my dad had had a cool car, he would have needed new tires for it by the time I was sixteen. As it was my friend Melody’s dad had a sporty vintage Volvo which sat in their garage like a temptress, begging us to take her out for a spin. Which we did. And we got caught but it was worth it because when you’re fifteen the moment is always worth it. Ask Wally about this, you can see it in his eye when asked about the two unsanctioned parties he had at Ward's when his dad and step mom were out of town.

Anyhow, my self-congratulatory lassitude lasted about a minute (just long enough to get the checkbook and the cocktail shaker out) before the internal dialogue started:

Me: ohgawdmovetotheleft movetotheleft ohgawd ohgawd herewego please don’t hit the parked car. Oh crap, he’s going to take off a mirror…LOOOK BOTH WAYS. Slow down…stop…NOT SO HARD DON”T BRAKE SO HARD…SHI-- Jesus why do I have to do this again

I’m very proud this go round the dialogue was internal and I graduated from clinging to the Oh My God strap to putting a grip of death on the right arm rest thingie. I just hope it doesn’t fall off over the next few months of driving lessons.

image is from filmcritics.com and is a shot from AI
*****************************
As a PSA addendum to this very digressive and rambly piece I want everyone to know how extremely proud I am of my oldest son. Wally didn’t make it completely through his AIT (Advanced Infantry Training) this fall and while he was disappointed he has to start over in six months, he is taking it like a man and placed the blame squarely on his own shoulders. A first for him. I think I’m proudest of the way he is moving through a tough life lesson with grace and dignity. My son left home August 31st a boy but just like all that Army hooah literature said, he returned to me a confident capable young man. I can’t imagine what he would have been like if he had graduated. Probably 19 going on 40 like Beav is 15 going on 45.

Breaking My Heart Open So My Eyes Can See

Ten years ago this month I made a decision to leave Ward and within a couple of short months later not only had I left him but I left my kids too. I gave him custody because I was sick of fighting with him about it and I thought--as boys--they would be better off with him. But the real REAL reason is because I was absolutely convinced I was a terrible mother. I had suffered from not one but two episodes of depression. The first one was a mild post partum depression but the second bout was a doozy. I couldn’t leave the house for a month and Ward had to take full control of the kids. I barely made food for them those long weeks. Poor kids. Poor Ward. I still see their sweet faces looking at me with a mix of puzzlement and sadness because Mommy was dressed in a sweat suit in July and about 100 degrees outside and I had to hire a babysitter to take them to the pool and to the park and the rec center for activities because I simply couldn’t leave the house. I’m still not sure exactly why I couldn’t leave the house; I mean I don’t fully comprehend even now after years of therapy which monsters lived outside the door of the Fabulous House in Stepford and why they went away as quickly as they arrived. I do know I had to leave Ward if I was going to survive and if my children were going to survive and grow to have any sort of meaningful life they belonged with their fully functional father. They could hire their own therapist when the actions of their mother, foisted on them at the tender ages of nine and five began to muddy their abilities to cope in relationships with others. In essence, my well-meaning but sick actions fractured my relationship with them a decade ago because I was convinced I was a terrible mother because I suffered from two bouts of depression and was pretty sure I was gay. Let‘s not forget to add I was unfaithful to Ward to this list. I was depressed, confused and a liar. I was a BAD person to the tenth power and didn‘t deserve those children. In hindsight, I can see the life I was leading was sucking the life out of me. Of course I felt like I was drowning in an ocean with a plastic bag over my head. Shit, who wouldn’t? Don’t answer that because I know plenty of wonderful mothers who put up with WAY more than I did from Ward and they aren’t leaving their husbands and their kids.

When I say I left my kids, initially I saw them every other weekend and a night a week. I was Disneyland Mom. But a couple of years later, my children wanted less and less to do with me. For a long time I blamed Ward for poisoning them against me. But now I blame myself because I stopped trying to have a relationship with them and for two years we were like amiable friends who would get together a couple of times a week but each visit felt forced and everyone was miserable. Of course it didn’t help I was in the most dysfunctional toxic relationship of my life which, in the end, left me broke and broken. In AA terms, I hit bottom. (there by God’s unboundless grace go I)

But God’s hand was always just right there and as much as I hate to admit it; The Most Toxic Woman On The Planet had a role in all of this. Did I mention after I left her I was not only broken but financially broke? The only place I could find to live was a tiny little rental house in a neighborhood riddled with meth heads. I hadn’t lived in such a bad neighborhood since I was in college but the rent afford my paying off hideous debt and my landlord, an angel on Earth, didn’t give a shit if my credit rating was in the toilet. “I don’t check those things, I see in your eyes I can trust you.” And I didn’t let him down. We lived in that little house for three years. The 750 square foot house was our little port in the storm. I was able to put myself back together with the help of Jesus, Wayne Dyer, my therapist/reiki practitioner, Landlord Bob, and my boys. It’s a good thing I got my shit together and rebuilt my relationship with my sons because it was at this point Ward decided he was tired of being the custodial parent and lost interest in his children. But despite the neighborhood and the tight space our home was generally a place of peace and joy. Yeah there were hard times because Wally was such a challenging kid and Beav wasn‘t a walk in the park, either. But I figured (still do) the tantrums (theirs) and the aggression (Wally‘s) was bad Karma I had to work off. I made new friends, too. One of them shares The Girl‘s name and I met her first but eventually she became my “Spare”. I can‘t count the number of times me and TSG have been out and people will say: “Oh, this is The Girl.” And I have to explain but I’m always flattered by the confusion because The Spare Girl is an awesome woman. TSG has been a cheering section for me in ways I‘ve never told her and has been there for me in ways I don‘t think I can even explain. Her oldest son and Beav are a few months apart and very alike in their natures; while her youngest son-- seven years younger than Wally --is just like Wally. We can commiserate and compare notes on lots of things because in addition to our children, we have feckless ex-husbands who are hit and miss with financial and emotional support to their boys; plus we came out in mid-life. Rather, we finally came out in mid-life. One of us--not TSG--had a false start in the eighties.

So when TSG called me early on Thursday morning and her first words were: “I can’t do this anymore. I want out and I don‘t want to be a mother anymore.” I knew exactly what she was talking about. Because I feel this way about three times a week and know without a shadow of a doubt if I had to do it over again, twenty years ago I would have told Ward I didn’t want to go out with him much less sleep with him because if we started dating, one thing would lead to another and it would spiral out of control until I was locked into a life long relationship and a role I would spend most of my time resenting and quite frankly hating. I hate being a mother because I’m so bad at it. Like I hated being a waitress because I sucked at that, too. I don’t hate my children so don’t call social services or my ex-husband. I just really don’t like being a mother because I am emotionally lazy. I am sick of having to be thoughtful and strong and forbearing and patient and wise and wonderful and listening and coping. Because just now it seems like the only thing these kids do is break my heart and drain my bank account and ask me for a ride somewhere I‘m not invited to go . So I knew exactly where TSG was coming from. The week before I had spent the day helping her--pre and post op--with her boys when they had their wisdom teeth taken out. Wally-the-Younger (WtY) was tuned up and I knew he was going to be a handful waking up from anesthesia. He was but TSG is a saint (I really want to hate her but I can’t) and she talked him off the cliff and he calmed down. What I didn’t count on was he had been acting like an asshat for a few months and was moving my very dear friend to the brink of her limitless patience. When she told me what was going on I wanted to march over to their house and spank that twelve year old menace. (More evidence I’m not much of a mother) How DARE he treat his mother, his hardworking single mother like that. I at least have an ex-husband who shares custody of Beav (for the moment until his stepmother, Alexis Carrington, gets bored and doesn’t want him around) so that’s a gift compared to her ex-husband and his fucked up games and issues. But instead of spanking the boy she set some stern boundaries with him and he has respected them for several days now. God’s hand was clearly in this because I was supposed to work and if I had been at work, I would have missed her call.

I need to remember this whole God works in mysterious way thing because that evening I got the other big phone call; Wally had failed his PT test because he quit in the middle of a run. I’ve already chronicled in full internet blog vomit my initial reaction. Last night, as grief would have it and my nature will predict I landed full on in the Anger territory and sit here. I mean I was really angry. I wanted to scream and rave at him: “What the fuck were you thinking?! When are you going to stop this behavior????!!!!” Then I got angry at myself for ever giving birth. (now that’s getting to the root of the problem) TG thoughtfully decided we should go out to dinner last night, to cheer me up and to celebrate her recovery. She had progressed from laying in bed with ice on her shoulder and under the influence of prescribed narcotics to being able to dress in real clothes in the span of a few days because she is from Polish stock who all believe if you can survive post WWII Germany and refugee status under the tyranny of the USSR you can survive anything, including shoulder surgery. I know everyone will be stunned to learn I wasn’t very good company. It’s a good thing I had to drive because if I had the option of not driving I would have had eight too many drinks and probably puked all the way home from the passenger seat. (Hey, I’ve come a long way in five years but I’m not perfect) Not only was I angry at Wally but I was resentful I had to try and help him through this hiccup and not only was I angry about the whole thing my heart was broken for him because he has to live with the consequences of quitting. I was also angry because I knew this about myself--prone to freaking out and quitting midway because of ZERO self-esteem--and went ahead and had children. What the fuck was I thinking twenty years ago.

As luck would have it a young couple were sitting just across from us in the uber chic uber hip restaurant we were in last night and as luck would further have it they had their brand spankin’ new baby with them. “You know it’s a good thing I’m driving because if I weren’t I would probably get drunk and tell those people it’s not too late to take that baby back to the hospital because all that baby is going to do is grow up and break their heart” The Girl looked askance at me, worried I was going to do it but her worry was quelled when I started to cry and go over and over all the the bad things I did to my children and the many ways I have sinned against them. I do believe in my heart of hearts our children choose us but why on Earth would anyone be as masochistic as choosing me for a mother and Ward the ball-less wonder as a father. She let me rehash the things she has heard me confess about a hundred times and then she said this:

“Those boys love you. You are the one they depend on.”

As much as I was enjoying the pity party, I realized she was right. Wally called me first this week and when he tried reaching his father; his father “missed” his call. (Oh for the love of God you don’t miss calls in this day and age. His asshat father didn’t want to deal with it. Gah, I just wish he would disappear!) Beav knows it’s pointless to ask his dad to do something for him because it won’t get done and it’s doubly pointless to ask him for money for his activities because Ward simply won’t have it because he never has money for them but has a wine cellar. As she reviewed these things, I realized she’s right and I fought becoming smug because everyone knows how much I can’t stand “teh smug”. Smug is also a sin of pride and that’s just one more thing for the long list of transgressions I commit so I chose to not add it. Instead, I changed the subject and we talked about her. What a relief for everyone when the whining stopped.

This morning at the early hour of two at 0200 I awakened with a headache which I was happy to blame on stress rather than alcohol abuse. Because worrying about stuff you don’t have control over is so much healthier than drinking to excess. (myth number 2373 I tell myself) I took a few Ibuprofen and tried to go back to sleep but of course I couldn’t. I lay awake in the still half light which gave the impression it was not early winter but mid summer because it had snowed. For a few minutes I tried to pretend it was really an early morning last June. After playing the time machine game, I ran my tape about how much I hated myself for hating being a mother and how I hated having my heart broken by Wally again when I remembered something I read in The Power of Intention exactly five years ago which was one year after I had found shelter in the Crack Cottage and began my amazing spiritual journey which led me to the sweet life I have today all made possible because I couldn't leave my house July 1999. Dr. Dyer shared a letter a woman wrote to him which said the following: “When my boyfriend broke up with me, I thought my heart was broken but you helped me discover my heart was broken open.” I realized I needed to turn pull my finger off the self-loathing button and take a second look inside this broken heart. My heart is broken open to all sorts of possibilities and lessons in faith and trusting the Universe or God or Jesus or whoever things because do happen for a reason. Like the whole messy business of involving myself with The Most Toxic Person on the Planet so I would have to live in a terrible neighborhood in a tiny poorly insulated house that was either too hot or too cold so I could learn what was really important.

"So God, I’m ready, bring it on. Show me what the purpose of this Fresh Hell is all about and if it’s about giving you everything I worry and fret about and then taking it away because I’m a big control freak. Fine. I can deal with that but can you leave my kids out of it because I think they have suffered enough at my hand." Thanks, Me.

The Only Way Does Not Exist

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Fredric Nietzsche (image from losanjealous.com)


I'm not sure where to begin purging all the ideas, thoughts and feelings I've had over the last week or so. In fact, this blog is only going to touch the surface of what I’ve been feeling; a feeling I wasn’t able to isolate until the other day when I posted a well thought out “status update” on Facebook and received flippant replies. Yeah, I know, it’s freakin’ Facebook, so get over it. It's not like I was blogging on Open Salon. And my friends aren’t mind readers so they didn't know I wasn't being light-hearted. The replies didn’t upset me as much as it pushed in my face something that has been bothering me a lot lately. The malaise this country operates under. It’s a malaise of cynicism and bitterness. A malaise I am prone to suffering. And I know it’s all chic and hip to be morose and gloomy and malevolent and snaky but really? Enough! The political left bitterly blames the right for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (ok, then all you folks on the left, stop driving your cars, riding trains, planes or buses and buying manufactured good because then we won’t need so much petroleum for products and gasoline.). The political right blames the left for the out of control debt and plague of terrors called health care (alright then all you folks on the right you can stop driving on the public highways and while you’re at it, if you’re 66 or older can we have all that money we put into Medicare back?) Yeah, the country--if not the world--is in a big mess and yeah, religious zealots and greed and capitalism is to blame. So don’t participate, go find a cave and be bitter and angry and cynical there. BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE ANY OF YOUR STUFF WITH YOU.

Some of my friends will call this a crisis of faith (I heartily agree, and will click the “like” button) but other friends might say it’s because we are at the “end times and Jesus is coming” (I would have to push the “meh” button on that one because we won’t know when the end is because that’s just how God rolls) And then I would have friends who would snark at me because I’m ignorant enough and unsophisticated enough to even believe in God much less the idea of Jesus.(the dislike and ignore function would be activated) And you know what? That kind of snark is just sad. I’m sick of snark. I’m sick of defending my faith to my acquaintances who are atheists. Fortunately, I have been vocal enough that most of my friends who happen to be agnostic or atheists just leave me alone and let me have my “Invisible Sky Friend” Actually, I love this moniker for God, and it makes me giggle and feel warm and cozy all over. Probably not Keith’s intent when he was sneering about evangelical Christians and let that lovely gem drop.

I’m guilty of sneering at evangelical Christians. But the one’s I sneer at are the judgy media whores and the judgy gay bashers who get caught with male escorts and their pants around their ankles. But then I’ll sneer at anyone who queer bashes because chances are they are and it’s too scary to contend with so they pour on the hate. I also sneer at people who refer to themselves as “Christians” when they protest at Veteran’s funerals with ugly, hateful signs claiming God hated their loved one for serving in the military because God hates fags so that’s why we were attacked on 9/11. Just thinking about Fred Phelps and his church makes my blood boil and my heart sad all at once. Because in some very small liberal minds Phelps is your typical Christian. Uh huh, just like the Palestinian who blow up cafes is your typical Muslim and the dumb mo’ fo Israeli who thought it would be an excellent strategy to take Muslims hostage in a Temple so the PLO would force everyone to start shooting--and the Jews could call foul--is your typical Jew.

One of my favorite people I get to share this Earth with is a very devout born again Christian. God only knows what she thinks of my foul mouth and my lifestyle and my ribald sense of humor but she loves me anyway and I know she prays for me because that’s what Jesus would do. How lucky am I to have a friend like that. Anyhow, K went to Israel a few years ago, with the intent to convert Jews to Christianity. I bristled when she told me she was going to do that but I told her I hoped she would have a safe and meaningful trip and I was (truly) looking forward to hearing her stories when she returned. K was supposed to travel with another woman but it feel through and she ended up alone and depending on a network of strangers, some Christian, some Jewish and some Muslim. Her daughter had a friend in Israel and they had friends and so on and so on and everyone, no matter what flavor of God they worshiped, welcomed K into their homes and hearts. She never got a chance to witness to them because they witnessed to her through their actions. She came home transformed and even more Christ like. My guess is K transformed their lives in ways she will never know because she is just that sort of person. K had a front row seat and experienced the futility of war and told me everyone she met just wants it to stop and feel the governments--all of the--are the driving force feeding the crazy on either side.

Our national past time of Beating Down Those People We Don’t Understand Or Agree With feeds the crazy here, too. It also feeds the malaise of fear and the malaise of anger and the malaise of anxiety we are suffering globally. But with our information explosion, it’s hard to turn away from the train wreck. At least, I’m having a hard time turning away. But I must turn away because I strongly believe my psychic vibration can affect my life for better or worse. God gave me this force but it is I who must tap into it and create my positive existence. But I can’t do it if I’m a partake in the Train Wreck Slide Show. In short, The Net is harshing my mellow. So what am I doing to stop--what feels like madness--in my plain? There are snaky blogs I’ve stopped following and sites specializing in doom and gloom and blatant scare tactic journalism. I have left a community I’ve been a member of for many years because I was sick to death of defending my spirituality which is accessorized in believing that Christ is my particular religion’s son of God. (Dude, it’s all God. Flying Spaghetti Monster, Loki, Allah, whatever) All I know and care about is my belief in God’s limitless and boundless grace is what gets me through most days. I was also sick to death of the malevolence directed towards any member of a particular political party. Finally, I had had enough of the smug, self-serving tone most of the participants had and their predilection to thinking they were the smartest, wittiest people on the planet. I beg to differ, they are actually some of the most mean-spirited and culturally bigoted people I’ve ever run across but it took me about ten years to figure it out. (Some of these people I love and will continue to keep in contact but that’s a handful) As an effort to take the high road, and walk the way of peace talk, I’m not mentioning the name of the community. Rather than fight it any longer because I’m not as well educated as the most vocal and erudite in the community, I’m pushing away from the table and declaring the relationship over. But it wasn’t without getting angry about it a few weeks ago. I was letting my anger seethe and boil but I gave it one more go yesterday and all my lurking prompted was my status update someplace else who’s ill timed and not thought out responses further flamed the fire of a marvelous egomaniacal fantasy.

Yesterday, I imagined shouting loudly enough so even earthlings whom were asleep would awaken, those who were fighting in wars would hear over the chaos of death and those who were working would listen:

“ stopSTopSTOSTOP bickering and just live and let live!!”
“Use the next five minutes to breath deeply and think about whatever it is that makes you the happiest, be it Jesus, Zeus, your dog or gold or opium crops. Just stop whatever it is your doing and take five minutes to contemplate what makes your heart soar.”

And the erudite left is not the only guilty party in this game. Another place I frequent has a mix of ideologies; one of the members--in the middle of a discussion of the Fort Hood shootings--had the audacity to blame Obama for them. Whatever, dude. Sheesh crazy is as crazy does. But this is typical of the hysteria coming from the right. I can’t whine too much about the right because I pointedly avoid most US news outlets because of the fear mongering. (I have enough fear conjured up in my head, thanks, I don’t need any flavor of wing nut telling me what to fear or think.) And frankly, I am more left leaning so I don’t know of many right leaning publications. But the crap The Huffington Post spews out could tip me over to the other side. No wonder the right hates the left. We act like a bunch of know-it-all-assholes because they act like Holier-than-thou-demagogues who hate everyone else in one breath but tell us we need to all be more like Jesus who didn‘t hate anyone and probably would be happy to have dinner with just about anyone who would have him.

But isn’t that the beauty of the human condition, this duality, this flawed-ness. We are all so deeply and beautifully flawed. The Girl blames Adam and Eve but I think it was all part of God’s divine plan and he would have found a reason to kick us out of the garden anyhow. Because God was like that in the beginning, pretty much impossible to please and quick to anger. It wasn’t until he calmed down somewhere after Jacob and started thinking about giving Earth Jesus who could be his mouthpiece for peace since he hadn’t done such a bang up job before then.

So if you name yourself a liberal, shake right-winger’s hand. And if you are right wing, shake a bleeding heart liberal’s hand and after that, don’t forget to breathe and let your heart soar for a minute cuz it’s a great feeling.

Good Morning Yesterday

I swear, my Texas accent returns the second I step off that airplane. Hell, I even start thinking with a Texas accent. Years ago, when I was an even bigger bitched up snob than I am now, it would have unnerved me slide back into that drawl! Now it just cracks me up to hear the stuff coming out of my mouth. I’m never about to do anything. Nope, immediately, I’m fixin’ to do something or go somewhere. I’m not southern enough to “bless” someone’s heart but that will probably happen after I visit Wally on family day in the Deep South. TG is from the Midwest and she thinks the accent is charming. I must admit Sophocles sounds preposterous with a Texas accent and it was at that point when we were doing this play in high school my accent began to fade. Mr. Evans, bless his heart (snerk) tried to educate it out of us.

Which brings me to the real subject of this week’s entry: my high school reunion (nice sequay, huh!)

I was one of those rare people who really enjoyed high school. Yeah, there were days I thought the world was ending. I had my heart broken in small pieces on two momentous occasions. I broke a heart. I was teased about my height, my skinny and endlessly long legs and returned the teasing in kind. Despite all of this, I loved high school and was lucky enough to make lifelong friends. So I always look forward to these ten year reunions. Each gathering has been completely different, too. Each one better than the last in some ways and I always learn something about me and people I was lucky enough to grow up with.

This year, I got to see a woman whom I never fail to remember when I see a Goth chick walking into my boys’ preppy high school. My high school was all about preps and sports and I thought the key to survival and therefore happiness was to be just. Like. Everyone. Else. She was a little bit hippy and a little bit punk and had the most amazing hair I have ever seen. When we were all ensconced in our helmet head Farrah do’s, Her hair was dressed simply and spilled down her back without a drop of AquaNet on it. When we were girls, She genuinely liked and got on with everyone because she was such an individual everyone knew her not because she was the girl who got pregnant or busted for dope or had to miss school because she lived in a terribly abusive situation but because she was just She and completely unlike the rest of us desperately trying to conform. She is still wildly original and creative. She’s also extraordinarily beautiful and appears to have been cryogenically sealed and frozen for the last thirty years because she looks absolutely the same only with a touch of experience around her eyes. What a pleasure to talk to this woman who wasn’t afraid to just be herself. Too bad I said something terribly awkward and goofy (I haven't changed, either) I hope I can fight the urge to stop one of the art chick’s at Beav’s school to tell them this story! (can you imagine the level of humiliation I would visit upon him if I did this…hmmm maybe I can use it as a threat to get him to make his bed)

Another amazing woman, shares my name but with a sharper edge. EdgierJuneCleaver has five children. Five. That’s a lot of children. I would be drunken-in-and-out-of-rehab JuneCleaver if I had five children. And while she is proud of them and has nursed one of them through the unspeakable experience of cancer, Edgier has her own life and a career. Edgier is the Quiescental Texas Girl: smooth as butter but can cut you like a knife. She also has those classic Texas looks: beautiful and leggy.

I was lucky enough to be escorted to both parties with my original Prom Date (PD). I was his galpal in high school and we spent a lot of time hanging out together. PD always had an opinion about what I was wearing or my hair. So he was better than a girlfriend because he would tell me the truth. One day, I was fussing about my hair or something stupid and he gave me--to date--the funniest compliment I’ve ever received: “June, out of all the girls I know you always look consistent [this was good, really!].” It’s the “consistent” word that cracks me up. He was a Mathy boy so variables are something he spent time thinking about.

This year neither of us had dates or spouses in tow and we talked to one another like we did all those years ago: as one another’s sounding boards and confessors. I learned to trust him when we were kids because he was the only person out of all my friends who had the courage to tell me the boy I had dated for almost two years was also seeing one of my friends. He of course shrugs it off as, “It was a question of loyalty.” Loyalty in friends goes a long way with me. So months later, we find ourselves without dates to the prom; we decided to go together. The people we wanted to go with had other dates. But I don’t remember feeling like a consolation prize because PD was one of the people I most liked spending time with. Besides that, he borrowed his brother's hot car and wasn't afraid to wear a baby blue tuxedo so we matched. And I knew he was a gentleman.

He still is a gentleman. Thankfully he left his baby blue tuxedo at home.

Warrior Princess, Smorrior Princess. I'm just a mama protecting her youngin's

Long-standing myths are on the verge of mutating. Stories that have remained fixed for years are about to acquire unexpected wrinkles. The effects may be pretty spectacular. I suspect it'll be the equivalent of Sleeping Beauty waking up from her long sleep without the help of the prince's kiss, or like Little Red Riding Hood devouring the wolf instead of vice versa. There's something you can do, Pisces, to ensure that the new versions of the old tales are more empowering than the originals: For the foreseeable future, take on the demeanor and spirit of a noble warrior with high integrity and a fluid sense of humor.

This was my horoscope for last week. Warrior, yes; high integrity and a sense of humor was an epic fail. But it’s a place to start. Always the good thing about the bottom: you can move up. And see the stars and yadda yadda twelve step yadda.

The Beav had his wisdom teeth out last week and was a trooper about it. Wally was deployed from Alexis’ house to my house this weekend, against his will. I guess this will prepare him for the US Army to make decisions for him. Hopefully, he will accept them with more grace. Not that he has a stellar role model for that.

At least, I don’t have to continuing stuffing down how I feel about Alexis Carrington. What I was waiting to say after The Beav graduated from high school just sort of puked out of my mouth and into her ear. After she started to cry, she accused me of being: “mean”? Mean? Are we twelve or fifty here? The more apt verb would be “done”. I'm not being "mean". I'm coming from my unhappy "done" place.

But I started the week “done”. I resigned from doing charge nursing. If I didn’t have a child to finish raising I would have resigned from nursing. Too many never events in one single shift.

But my week hasn’t been without noble warrior moments.

One of my “noble warrior” moments last week was not calling security when the screaming family room physically threatened a doctor because I knew she was (a) crazy and (b) grieving. My second moment was allowing another family see my profound grief while I was at the bedside and shared the news their 48 year old sister--a vibrant, previously healthy, biologist--may never return from her vegetative state.

I owned to Alexis a few hours after my tirade of how thoughtless and self-centered she behaves, that believe it or not, I have an inkling of an idea the balance it would take to be a step parent. I also know it would never be for me. I don’t have the stones for it.

It took courage, telling Ward how Alexis has negatively affected our sons. I’ve been afraid to do this because, frankly, I’m worried about repercussions on them. It was tough to tell him things she has said to them and done to them over the years; things I’ve witnessed; the broken promises; The Beav's fear about being the kid left at Alexis' now Wally is living with me; how sincerely devastated I am to see the man he has become; so alien to the man I once loved. But then, I’m not the woman he fell for either. I’m not the nodding and bobbing “yes girl” who thinks he is an expert in everything and always right about all that is wrong with me. Tap dancing as fast as I can to make sure I change to fit into his specific mold for me because obviously what he thinks I should do and be is absolutely The Right Thing. When Ward married Alexis, he gave her a ring and his spine. I wish I could grow extra spine and gift part of it to him.

It takes a lot of grace to be a noble warrior. My reservoir of grace was temporarily empty but I can feel it slowly starting to fill again.

(I borrowed my girl Xena from boxoffice.com. She's fierce in that ep!. . .)