So help me...

...because I am confused...

So I posted a blog the other day about being hurt by a friend.  It's normal for me to post a blog when I'm thinking about something and need for it to get off my mind.  Usually the blogs are about people in my life and I choose to write here on my blog because in my mind it's better than posting it on Facebook for all to see or taking out a page in the daily news for even more people to see.  At least this is my reckoning... I might be wrong.  Who knows.

Well it seems that the person that the last blog was aimed at actually does, or rather did,(I'm not entirely sure) read my blog.  How often I don't know.  I mean if you had been a regular reader she would have known that her act of unfriendship hurt me way before it got to this point.  If she had been a regular reader, she would have seen that I hit a very low point last year and needed help.  But then if she had been a regular reader and didn't bother to even post a keep your head up comment then that would be another act of unfriendship.  Do you know what I mean?  It's like no matter which way I turn, she was either not being a friend because she knew that I was hurting and still did nothing or not reading and still didn't bother to even text me when she found out she was pregnant.  Something I would have been over the moon to hear since the last time was in NJ she was taking pre-natals because they were trying.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, she apparently does or did read my blog because she responded by telling me that I was as usual (I kinda need clarification on that but whatever) wrong and not to contact her.

I really don't think she read the whole blog because I haven't tried to contact her.  I spent a month looking at her info page because I was blocked from everything else.  Then I put a Random hello Thinking about you or some piss on her wall to see if she would even respond.  I then waited a week and when it finally sunk in that she wasn't going to respond and that she didn't care I deleted her and I have never tried to contact her again.

Although now that I think of it, I think she might have been one of the people that got the mass Happy Thanksgiving text.  Not sure.  I know I didn't make the mistake of looping her into the Merry Christmas or Happy New year or Happy Valentines day text. *Shrugs*

But I never tried to contact her.  At least not after that very impersonal Thanksgiving text.  And yes I admit it was very impersonal but it was the quickest way to wish every one of my contacts a happy turkey day.  I don't try to be personal in stuff like that.

I am honest to God confused at how she was hurt at my blog.  Had it been written about me by someone I would have at least tried to explain why I cut them out of my life like a cancerous tumor that was infecting my whole body.  Hmm... Maybe it was analogies like that which might have pissed her off... Did I put any of those in there?  Lemme check...

Hmm. maybe it was when I played the race card.  For that I apologize kinda.  Not that she'll ever see this but still I kinda apologize because It was sorta unfair.  I never came to her face to face with my concerns that I was just the token black friend.  So how could she know?  I never came to her and told her how on her wedding day her son made me cry because he said something to the effect of Black people always copying each other and so do monkeys and all black people were monkeys or something like that.  The whole family laughed because well I guess to them it was funny and I was expected to see the humor in a child's statement but I didn't and it hurt, but I wasn't going to ruin her wedding day with it.  I never came right out and told her that 90% of the people she introduced me to as her friends treated me like a canker sore.  And that one of the couples in particular saw me in Target one day and upon seeing me whispered to each other pointed at me and promptly turned the other direction.  No... Friend's don't point out stuff like that.

I also never stepped up and told her that her basically forgetting about me hurt.  But then what friend does?  How do you approach someone and say to them, you are treating me like I don't exist and it hurts?  And don't say that's how you tell them.  I want to know which of any of my readers would go to their best friend of 22 years and say that.  No, you would just wait one more day for them to remember that you are on the same planet.  And then another.  And another.  And another until the days roll past and before you know it, five months has rolled past and you find out something that hurts you so bad it's very nearly physical.

But I digress.  That's only my feelings.  Apparently I was very off on how I felt.

Sigh... It's whatever.  I'm still confused but I guess I am terminally to stay that way.

Sigh... When a friend betrays you it really hurts...

You know I really thought that I had gotten this off my mind when I put it as my status a couple of weeks ago... But no matter what I do, I can't shake the thought that until she knows what she did to me, the offending person and her act of unfriendship will continue to affect me...

So a couple of weeks ago, My mom calls me and says, Did you know that Andrea is pregnant?  I responded no but then I had taken her off my Facebook last October.  Whether she knew or cared that I had was beyond me.  I remember posting that my mom had just told me my best friend of twenty plus years was sixteen weeks pregnant on my Facebook and I truly thought that I would be able to forget it.

But I can't.

Okay, fine, you either don't know or don't care that I deleted you from my Facebook.  You never thought of me after I moved, and after you called me out on Facebook for deleting a post that you had commented on thinking that I deleted it because you disagreed with me, when in reality I deleted it because I was foul mouthed in the original comment and retrospect caused me to realize that it was uncalled for.  And You didn't seem to care when I began to delete the "friends" you introduced me to that never ever talked to me or even said hello.

But we were friends for 22 years and you didn't even bother to text me and tell me that you were pregnant?!?  Seriously??  That's like walking up to me under pretense of hugging me and then planting a knife right into my heart.  I could forgive and even try to forget that you blocked me from seeing pictures that I was in on your Facebook and that for a month I was stuck looking at your info page because you had blocked me from seeing any of your posts, but disregarding a 22 year friendship and not even telling me that you were expecting.  Low blow.

Regardless of the status of our online friendship, I would have never done that to you.  It was wrong, it was crass, and above all, now I know that we aren't even friends anymore.

Very well, I can take a very unsubtle hint when it's thrust in my face.  You chose your brand new non colored friends over our childhood friendship and relegated me to that dusty corner of your basement that never gets looked at.  Your actions just told me that what I thought was our friendship is officially over.

Whew!  Got that out of my system.  The question is, since I KNOW she doesn't read my blog, should I email this to her (A cleaner less acerbic version of course) or should I let this be the end of it.  And never think of her again and let her keep thinking that I'm still the ever patient Claudette sitting there waiting for her to notice me?

Sigh...

The sad thing is, IF my senior class ever has a 20 year reunion, I would want to go and she might be there as well.  I tend to hold onto things like this and stick them in my hair so that the ire never goes away.  What would I do if she came up to me and hugged me?  Would I hug her back and smile in her face or would I knock her away and treat her as badly as she's treated me?  I guess time will tell really.

Hopefully now that I've blogged about it, I can forget it and move on.

I really hope I can forget her the way she has me... But dammit 22 yrs of friendship meant something to me.  Obviously more than it did to her so it hurts so bad it's almost a physical hurt...

Sigh...

So... yeah....

So I went to the store tonight because my kids needed buns to go with their hamburgers.  That I didn't end up getting the buns and they didn't end up having hamburgers is only the end of the tale...

I should have gone to Food lion.  I really should have.  Looking back I really should have.  I don't know why I didn't I fully intended to go especially after the picture that my friend Mary Beth posted.

See she was in her food lion and found a side of beef for $926... Yeah, I know right?!?  She found another for like seven hundred dollars but I digress I'm kinda straying off topic but not really. So anyway, despite my intentions, I found myself at Wal-Mart.  And like usual every time I step into that money sucking hole, I went every place BUT where I needed to be.  I'm in the Ethnic Hair aisle (Can I point out that I really love and hate how the wal mart closest to me has delegated black folk's hair the very last freaking aisle in health and beauty)

So I'm standing here and this old but not so old (meaning she looked old but you could see behind the wrinkles that she wasn't as old as you would first think.  Of course if she's not grabbing your hand and telling you the things she told me, you don't really have a reason to look into her face.  So anyway I went to pass her and the younger woman that was with her and politely said "Excuse me" just like I do when I want someone in my way to move.  She looked up at me and I think she was about to say excuse her but she kinda stopped with her mouth open.

Yeah, I happened to notice this and I kinda stopped but it was that "Oh shit why's she looking at me like that" kinda stop.  She grabs my hand, spreads it out and traces the lines on my palm.  The whole time I'm thinking, I should snatch my hand away, I should get mad that this woman is manhandling me, I should snatch my hand away fast but I didn't.  Do not for the love of god ask my why I didn't snatch my hand away.

She looks up at me and she says as clear as day... "The one you dream of is going to find you soon but the one you want is the one you need.  Do not give up on him.  Just be patient.

Yeah, uhm... "What the eff are you talking about old woman"  was what should have come out of my mouth.  What actually exited the gaping hole where my mouth was was something along the lines of  "Huh?"

So she says again... "The one you dream of is going to find you soon but the one you want is the one you need.  Do not give up on him.  Just be patient."

I'm thinking there was a really dumb look on my face at this point because she expounded.  "You dream of a man.  He has an accent.  You have dreamed of him for years.  He is real and he is on his way.  But the one your body wants right now, He's the one you are supposed to be with.  Just be patient."

At which point she drops my hand and walks away.  The younger woman with her looks at me and says "I'm sorry, my mother sees visions.  She seemed to think that you were one she needed to tell a vision to.  You can take it or leave it.  Only you know if what she says has any significance but you should know, I've never known her to be wrong."

Stupid me says, "She's a psychic?"  To which the woman smiles at me and says "Call her what you will."

And she walks away.

My feet started moving but my brain was stuck on perma-pause so when I pulled up in my driveway without the hamburger buns I was pretty much thanking god for my ability to drive without thinking.  Then again who knows maybe he sent the woman and maybe he was driving the car tonight but oh my damn that was a chilling experience in wal-mart tonight.

So I'm thinking at this point if anyone is actually reading this, you might be wondering why was this so eerily accurate to me?  Here's the short version.

I have a guy that I have been dreaming about for basically as long as I can remember.  Even while I was married I dreamed of this guy.  I have "Watched" his children be born, I have "watched" his wife walk out of his life, I have "watched" his kids grow up.  As a matter of fact one night I dreamed that his son fell out of a tree and broke his arm.  I woke up screaming that he was hurt.  One night I dreamed that the girl was lost in the mall and I kept saying she was at the food court.  If Randy remembers my fresh from sleep ramblings is beyond me.  He might have been like the few others I told the story of the dream person to and wrote me off since by then I was on anti depressants.

As I moved around, he either got clearer or blurrier.  IN New Jersey he was so blurry that at one point I pegged him as Asian.  When we stopped in Texas for a few nights on the way back from Cali, I saw him so freaking clearly I could have drawn him.  It wasn't until I got here to NC that I heard him speak for the first time that I remember.  He has a Texas twang.   My take on all of this is the closer I get to where he is physically the clearer he is.  But then that's just my take.

As for the one my body wants... let's leave that alone for right now...

I don't know what to think... She was so on point that it's making me think but like the younger woman said... "Take it or leave it"

I'm thinking I need to leave it fir right now.  I really think I need to leave it.

Yes, I should leave it.

Yes.  Yes... definitely leave it.

Right???

Week five..

I have now reached Week five on my new daily headache medicine that is also an anti-depressant, migraine control, thousand other side effects pill.  And I can tell you there are some changes and not for the better.

One, it does NOT control migraines.  I have had two that I had to use the migraine med that I take after it's already started and can't take anymore pain.  Being as this is the actual use of this med I'm thinking that it's not really doing a bang up job now is it?  Nope...

Two, it does NOT put me to sleep like it's supposed to.  This I don't blame on the medicine not working really.  My body gets used to sleeping pills very easily.  The fact that a medicine that has a drowsing effect is not working after a week of working is actually not surprising in the least...

Three, an addendum to the second because the sleeping effect is sorta working, just working in a really annoying manner.  It doesn't put me to sleep, but it keeps me asleep.  Once I go down I'm down for nearly twelve hours.  This past week or more, If I try to stay up after I get the kids off to school I can't keep my eyes open for more than an hour and then I doze off against my will and sleep until noon.  It's bad.

Four, I have started stammering with a fierce vengeance.  My tongue gets tied up for trying to speak and I have to start whatever I've been saying all over again and you all know my memory... I'm liable to forget what I was talking about even if I just shut the hell up!

Five, Yeah uh, that whole enhanced sexual desire.  I got that.  The easiest way to say it is that I'm horney as a motherfucker and no place to spend it...  My dreams are so x rated I want to put a surgeon generals warning on them.  I mean damn...  I can hardly take it anymore.  I see a man I'd like to... well you know... and my mouth gets to waterin' and my heart gets to going and I'm like the wolf in those loony tunes... Of course I'm going to be honest, there is only one man I want to do this to in all reality and since I can't, well...  I'll say no more on this.

So yeah it's a safe bet that when I make my appointment with Dr. Lewis, I plan to tell her without a doubt what is going on.  I'm going to be honest, I don't know how much longer I can take it...

Enough is freaking Enough!!!

Okay, I'm just like everyone else.  I'm going to miss the music that Whitney Houston put our as much as the average person... I know that her music meant more to some than others... but enough is enough!!!

Whether it was intentional or not she took her own life and suddenly everyone is remembering her...  Don Cornelius took his own life and all he got was a day of soul train back to back.  Whitney dies and suddenly NO ONE can stop "remembering" her.

And I'm not saying this to be mean because I have nothing bad to say about her but tell me this... besides some music and a few movies, what did Mrs. Houston do that was so special?  Did she build a hospital or help starving children?  Did she cure a fatal disease? Did she use her millions of dollars to end hunger in a third world country?

No she sang.  She acted.  She used her money to pleasure herself.  Why should I drop everything and "remember" her.

One day was expected two days is acceptable but we're now at the six day mark and I for one am tired of every single African American channel pre-empting EVERY SINGLE PROGRAM to "remember" Whitney Houston.  Let the woman rest in peace, let the world start spinning again... we will survive...

A whole New Low....

I really honestly can't believe it...  My son hit a whole new level of low this time and didn't think for one minute that he'd get caught in it...

He came home with his report card the other week and he had one a a couple b's, a c, and a d.  He then said to me that the c got rounded up to a B because of the days he was absent for being sick.  I said okay and told him we had to get that D up.  Then next day, he came home with a pink invitation to the AB honor roll ceremony and said that since that C got rounded up to a B he had made the AB honor roll.

My first question was how in the hell did he make the AB honor roll when he had a D?  I mean maybe AB honor roll means something different to these schools today but in my day, that D would have meant no AB honor roll, you know?  So never the less he got congratulated by the whole family.  Everyone bought his excuse that he got on it because the C was rounded up to a B, no one questioned anything.

Well even though I had questions, my mom and I still planned on going to the awards Ceremony.  And I told my son this.  To his credit, he tried very hard not to get me to go.  At first he said he wasn't sure parents were allowed.  Then he said he wasn't sure he was in it because of the C that was supposed to be rounded up to a B but still appeared as a C on his report card.  Then for a week it was simply not mentioned.

Then he came home last Monday all mad because the honor roll kids got to go play laser tag and he hadn't gotten to go because his bus was late.  His bus is always late getting to school because the woman doesn't show up here until 8:45 which is exactly one minute before she can be reported. (His actual bus arrival time is 8:36 and she has ten minutes to get there before she can be reported.)  Anyway he said he was the ONLY ONE that didn't get to go because his bus was late and they had to be there at a certain time.

No those of you that are parents reading this, wouldn't common sense ring in here and say If this was a special trip for all the kids on the honor roll, don't you think the bus could have waited for him.  I mean they had to have a list of kids that were going to be going and further more since this was a school trip, a permission slip should have been sent home.  Right?  RIGHT??  All of these occurred to me as I called the school to find out but was asked to leave my number and the principal would call me back.  HE never actually called me back but then this is the man that called me by five different surnames in a ten minute conversation the last time we did talk so I'm assuming he forgot.

Skip to this morning.  Jovaughn took the invitation saying that he had to have it to get into the ceremony today.  Another one of those warning bells went off in my head.  Then he said he really didn't think it was for parents because they told him it was just a party.  Another warning bell.  I told him that I would call the school.  And i did and they confirmed that parents were invited to the ceremony today.  So I went to pick up my mother and together we went to the school.

Now, I had decided that I was not going to sit through this thing if my son wasn't one of the kids being honored and I found the first adult I could and she confirmed that the ceremony was for perfect attendance, and AB honor roll for either the first or second quarter.  I said he didn't have perfect attendance and he didn't get AB honor roll last quarter because he got an F and this quarter he'd gotten a D.  The lady then directed me to a list of all the students on the honor roll and told me to go check it.  I did and surprise, surprise!  Jovaughn's name wasn't anywhere on the list.  Around this time, the boy comes into the auditorium where the ceremony is being held and he sees my mom sitting and I can't tell if he was surprised to see her sitting there but I do know that a fearful expression and tears sprang to his eyes when he saw me. I took him up to the woman who happened to be his guidance counselor and told her that his name wasn't on the lists and that I needed to know why he received an invitation to the awards ceremony if he wasn't being honored.  She replied that it seems to have been a mistake that he was given one and then she told him to just go to his elective which is the class that he would have had if he hadn't be in the ceremony.

I then went to the office and left a message for his teacher to call me because at this point, you have to understand.  I dragged myself out of bed, and my mother out of her house and drove all the way to a school that I don't like overmuch anyway and now I was being told that he wasn't in it...  Naw,.  that's not flying with me.

So I am back home waiting for the teacher to call me.  Because I have strong suspicions that Jovaughn got that invitation from another child and tried very hard to pass off that he was on the honor roll even though he wasn't.  The deeper issue here is that he obviously wanted me to be proud of him for something and he thought that he wouldn't get caught.  But here's the thing... even if I hadn't gone to the ceremony, I knew that there was one today and I would have wanted to see his award.  Where was he going to get one with his name on it, or would he have said there was a mix up and he'd get his later?  I do know that he thought through it enough to leave his trumpet at home.  so he wasn't prepared to be sent to music class today.  The parent in me wonders what would have happened if he had sat through the ceremony he wasn't supposed to be at.  Would he have been marked as skipping music?  What would he have done if the teacher emaillled me or called me.

There are too many question surrounding this and my son and I don't know which answers to believe.  At this point I am waiting for the teacher to call me back.  I am not going to scream.  I am not going to yell.  In fact, I don't know what exactly I am going to do because yelling doesn't work, threatening doesn't work, punishing doesn't work.  Nothing works with him.  He still lies like a rug.  He's gotten on this path and he seems to be stuck.  I'm afraid my son is going to end up in juvie because he's going to llie to the wrong person one day, you know.


Like I said.  A whole new level...

Power of speech..

You know, I am generally worlds most unoffendable person but yesterday, the envelope was pushed into offending territory twice.

And here I thought my offense envelope was super glued to the table never to be moved.

First, let me explain.  I grew up in Ocean Township, New Jersey.  If you've ever been there, then you know how hard it is to be black there and keep your identity.  Very few blacks make it out of there remembering that they are black and not just very dark version of all the white faces that surround them.  I was one of them.
It's very hard to describe the way I grew up in Ocean.  I drowned, I resurfaced, I drowned and repeat the whole process a few more times.  But the end was that I came out of there thinking that I was a very dark shade of white.

I don't blame anyone but myself.  My friends never pressured me to be anything that I didn't want to be.  They never said I had to change.  It was all me.  I saw the faces that got what they wanted and I decided that I needed to be like them.  In my mind that meant I had to forget that that I was black.

It's whatever, its over.  It took going to a black college and living with my husband and other things to remind me that I wasn't a dark tanned version of white and that I was indeed black.

But I am getting off topic.

It started yesterday with a picture.  I saw it on one of my high school acquaintances profile and I commented on it.  I even shared it on my page.  In both places I outright said that it was offending.  It was this picture...

You know I'm not going to pretend that there are people out there that aren't going to get why that is so offending.  I also know that there are some  people out there that are going to get it.  So for those that don't get it, let me explain.

IT's one of those urban legends or myths or stereotypes that black people drink more kool-aid than anything else.  We drink it on days that end with a y, in the summer we freeze it into pops, we drink it warm, we drink it with sugar caked at the bottom, we dye our hair with it, hell when all else fails we even mix our liquor with it.  There's a million tings that "black people" do with it but you know what?  It's not a black thing really.  It's a friggen drink and it's damn cheaper than soda and actually since you determine the sugar content it's actually safer than soda to give kids but no one sees that.  They just see black people drinking it all the time.



The fact that this store and to be honest it looks like Shop-rite, would put this up for sale and associate it with black history is downright offensive.  They may not have meant it personally. but dammit, it's a cut to anyone that knows what the link is.  People who don't know would just think it was included in the black history sale.

I can't even begin to say anymore about it.  Just suffice to say I was highly offended.

Second.  A friend of mine very casually said something that really cut me to the quick. The person who said it has since apologized so there's no reason to repeat what was said or say who said it.  It's over.

The point in all of this is that people, all people, even me, need to watch what they say or even post sometimes.  Everywhere there are people that are going to be offended somehow some way... So think before posting.  Like I said myself included.

Nobody understands...

And it bloody sucks!

I have been without a decent computer for going on four months now and that is a hell of a long time for me.  My blue baby died in October of LAST YEAR and I haven't yet been able to get it fixed or gotten Randy to do something with it.  I started using the E-machine that Denise and Steve gave me that had till then been the kids computer but now even it is dying on me.  I don't understand.  I keep it cleaned out.  I don't put software that can be malicious on it and I use anti virus out the yang.  But yet within five minutes of getting on the internet this thing freezes up and takes nearly ten minutes to thaw.  Good God spell checking ONE WORD can take up to five minutes if it has a mind to.

And no one understands.  My mom lets me use her computer but then she has to come get me or I have to go over there. They've closed the library near me and the next is maybe fifteen miles so Can't go there because then I get a lecture on gas prices.

Someone had once offered to help me fix it but he's got his own life and contrary to what I want to beleive no part of it includes me.

I started a new med that is an anti depressant but at this point, it's such a low dose that my depression has now triumphed over it.  For one whole week I was okay.  Shit was sliding off me like a greased pig and now.  it's sticking.

I have no computer, I'm fucking alone and will be on yet another valentines day, my mom still treats me like I'm sixteen and no matter what I do I can't shake her, My frie3nds for the most part go about their dailly lives and don't give me even half a thought.

You know I bet if I just sat here not moving, not facebooking, not tweeting, and doing absolutely nothing even blogging, it would take the most diehard of my friends about three to four days to figure out that something was wrong.  DOn't get me wrong.  They are awesome friends but let's face it, in four days even three I could have died and be rotting and they wouldn't know it because I'm not one of those friends that they think about on a daily basis.  I think about them, most of them on a daily bais but I don't seek them oiut and say anything because most of my friends and I function under the allusion that if no one has called/texted me about you saying your dead, then you are alright.

But I'm not.

I hate my fucking life.  I can't do anything.  I can't get a job because I have no car.  I can't get a car because I have no job.  I think and I'm not 100% sure but almost there that my God sister has jilted me of the estate money my godmother left me.  Estates close after a year and it has been a little over that now.  Like 15 months.  I don't like sounding greedy but to be quite honest, that money is possibly the only thing that is going to save my ass right now. 

They have cut off my water twice.  I have managed to keep my power on but only by hook and crook.  I'm damn lucky they are still picking up my trash and my gas bill is over 400 because it's been at least three months since I was able to pay them.  Come spring, they WILL turn my gas off.  There is no doubt of that whatsoever.

I can't hold on much longer.  Randy says anything I need for the kids just tel him.  HE will send it but then he has a me moment or a minutes for his fiancee to shout at him because he's once again taking care of my children and he stops doing right and does what she wants him to.

And how freaking fair is this?  She had a effing PhD and a job, but HE has to pay for her mortgage, the childs daycare, and half of her household bills???  One wonders what the hell SHE'S paying for.  Then on top of that, his mother can't bleed her daughter dry anymore since she has massive medical problems so she's turned to bleeding Randy.  God knows what bills he's paying for her.

So I try not to complain when the child support is a little late because I know he has two other women sqwaking in his ear but how's it going to look when his first three kids are sitting in a dark cold house because he had to make a choice on which woman to listen to and his ex wife lost?

Won't look bad on him because I'm an adult, I should have a job,.  I should be contributing to the household.  Hell technically, I should be running th household.  It's kinda hard to do that without a job.

The best part, everyone is pretty much demanding I move.  Show me a way to move to a new house for free and I will do it.  Last time I checked, you need deposits, moving costs, and everything else that goes with moving.  If I can't get the money out him to pay the other stuff, how am I going to get that???  Hmm???

I have a fucking headache3. One that requires the new migraine med. 

I can't do this anymore.  I think I am just going to stop trying and let myself sink.  It's not like anyone is going to swim to the bottom to help me up so who bloody cares anymore.

Fuck life.  I'm done with it.