I don't pretend to blog the way I should

When I began this blog, I originally intended for it to be my own place where I got things off my chest or out of my head.  If you know me personally then you would understand why I say out of my head as I tend to overthink things that stay in there too long and when I overthink things, matters grow worse.

I'm not sure when the last time was that I blogged and frankly, I'm too lazy to go back and read (also I tend to get caught up reading my blogs and as I have over 200 that would mean I would never finish this post) but I think I may have still been working at Hungry Howie's the last time I blogged.

I left Howie's in June.  Well technically I left Howie's in February but went back a little less than a month later in the end of March.  In hindsight, I should not have gone back.  I should have kept moving forward but I needed money and I needed to get out of my house.

But here's the thing, I left originally because I got up most mornings and cried because I had to go to work.  I hated it there.  As much as I loved my boss as a person, because she genuinely is a loving soul that means no one any harm the business practices she had to follow at the whims of the big bosses were less than above board.  In the end, I didn't feel appreciated and the pain I was causing myself every day by continuing to roll dough when my doctor had warned me to stop was getting to the place where I couldn't do anything I loved to do with hands because my hands were turning into dead weights at the end of my arms.  So I left.  I came back hoping to feel different but I didn't.  The second time I lasted two and a half months.

And i went to pizza hut.  That's where I am now.  I like it there.  It's run by a huge corporation, not two brothers and their three friends.  So when I do something and it doesn't stand out, I never feel unappreciated because I know I am one of a faceless crowd to the bigwigs.  My coworkers are for the most part a fun bunch of laid back folks.  There's not in house drama that everyone is gossiping about, no one living in another's pockets, no nothing that comes with small business.  I also got to work with J again as my boss.  Someone who has generally always believed that I could be more than I appear to be.

I am happy where I am.  I am happy with what's on my plate.

But as always when I am happy, something has to come along and try to snatch my happiness.

In August, I seem to have pissed off the person that I once called my bestie by not leaving work to go give her a hug when she was down.

It goes deeper than that.  She says i walked away from her when she needed me and that I had, in fact, been walking away for awhile.

If that is the truth as she believes it to be, then that is the truth.  I had been walking away.  I really had.

I know I had.  I had started to walk away from a lot of people and situations that made me feel like I wasn't appreciated.

I have to say, the most significant time I felt like I wasn't anyone to her was the night that I handed in my notice to Howie's the first time.

I remember that I could barely drive for the tears rolling down my face.  I had just quit my job.  I had nothing lined up, no prospects on the horizon and I had quit a job that I was good at because I wasn't happy.  What the hell was I going to do? How was I going to support my kids, pay my rent, do anything?  So I did what instinct told me to do, I ran to my bestie for comfort.

When i got there a mutual friend was over playing a game with J.  The man that I had a crush on for years.  Quite honestly, the one man in Charlotte that I have no desire to drink around, the one man that reduced me to stuttering and awkward giggling.  I had no desire to have him see me at such a weak point in my life.  But bestie, took that opportunity to try once more to make fetch happen.  in the midst of one of my freak outs I was told, "You should cry more, He should see you when you're like this."

I mean really? This statement was quickly followed by the seven words I hate most...

"If it makes you feel any better..."

I don't know about coming from anyone else to anyone else, but whenever I heard these words from her, it meant, it's no longer about me, it's about her.

I remember that I left soon after that that night.  In my state I was sure that the horrible things running through my head would spill out of my mouth.

Then i further pissed her off when I didn't immediately introduce her to my boyfriend.

yes, I KNOW that technically one should introduce the best friend to the boyfriend nearly immediately but for once I wanted someone to myself and there were circumstances that prevented me from trotting him over to meet her.  They had to move and her house was in disarray.  My mother taught me growing up that you don't have guests over when your house ins't guest worthy.  I couldn't arrange a place for us to meet because she never leaves the house.

I also believe that before the boyfriend meets the friends, he must first meet the people who come foremost in your life.  For me this was my children and my mother.  When I told her this, she outright said "Screw your mother and the girls!  I'm the bestie, I come first."  There are a million mean spirited things I could say at this point but the only thing I will say is NO ONE is more important to me than my children and my mother. NO ONE.  Not even the man I eventually marry will be more important than the four of them.  I can honestly say that it was that moment right there that I decided to stop hiding the fact that I was walking away.  That was when my respect was lost.

When the initial break came, I held firm to the belief that this time, i was not going to say I was sorry first.  She had called me a bad friend, something that I am not. Something that hurt me so deep I wasn't sure the cut would heal.  And then she went on Facebook and made it worse by telling her friends that I was never there for her, that I had ended our friendship because I couldn't be bothered with her anymore.

What about the days that I was scheduled off to take her to the doctor?  What about the fac that for three years she lived across the street from the grocery store, well within walking distance, but I had to get up on my mornings and days off to drive three miles to pick her up and take her ACROSS THE STREET???  What about the times that she didn't have food in her fridge and I cleaned out my freezer and or cupboards to give her food?  What about the times when she needed bestie time because she was having a bad day and I used my dwindling funds and bought a bottle of something to take over there so that she could have some comfort?  What about the pills I was prescribed to help with my pains but shared with her because her doctor refused to give them to her?

But I was a bad friend.

I got so tired of seeing the little barbs against me that I took her from my news feed. She in turn deleted me from Facebook completely.

In the past two months, I have had moments when I wanted so bad to text her or call her to tell her something and even some moments when I want to just say I was sorry fro not giving her the hug but then I realize that she very easily and swiftly cut me like a cancer from her life because she didn't get what she wanted from me.

Sadly, the longer we are estranged the more I think I was never considered a friend by her and that hurts even more than the initial.

I hope she will be the only person cut from my life because I finally have the courage to stand up for myself, but at the same time I fear she won't be the last.

I really sometimes wonder, why is it that people love to be there to commiserate with you but hate to see when you are finally able to stand up and see the sun?  Why do I keep falling for people that only want to see me at my worst.

Why can't the world have more people like M and S who are genuinely happy fr em when something good happens as I am for them when something good happens?  Why is it that with them I can have actual conversations and we can agree and disagree and no one gets butthurt but with my friend of eight years, one simple refusal to leave my job and go to my boss' house to give her a hug results in eight years turning to ash?

I'm so confused and unfortunately blogging has done nothing to help.  But it's two thirty in the morning and I have to drive all day tomorrow... err today so I must needs go to bed.

I'm scared stupid.

I have a son.  Like me, he is black and for the very first time in all of his seventeen years, I am afraid for his life.

Not because he's a hot head or in a gang, or because he's a daredevil (none of which is is BTW), but simply because he's black.

I fear for my child's life because of his skin color and his sex.

Not even when my son was learning how to climb stairs and took great pleasure in throwing himself down a flight of stairs so that he could have the joy of climbing back up them have I been this scared for him.

I would like to think that between my ex-husband and myself, he's learned to respect authority figures such as police officers.  I would like to think that he knows when not to make a joke.  I would like to think that he would understand that some police officers don't have the same sense of humor he has. (Not many people do but you get what I am saying)  But sadly, in this day and age.  He could do something as wrong as look a police officer in the face and lose his life for it.  He could reach for his wallet in his back pocket and lose his life.

And it's not just my son I fear for.  I fear for my daughters because let's face it.  Right now, black males seem to be in season but it won't be long before black girls are in season as well.    It's only a matter of time.

I have two daughters, a son, An ex husband who is black, and ex brother in law, two nieces, a father and an ex father in law, a mother and an ex mother in law, a boyfriend, and his son who are all black.  How long before this rampant scourge of racism comes to touch my family?  How long before someone who has any claim on my heart finds themselves at the business end of a police officer's gun?

I can't help but think of tales I read about slavery.  When there were too many slaves on a farm, the owner might put some on the selling block, or he might just kill some.  They called it culling.  Is that what police officers are doing now?  Culling?  Are there so many black men that the only thing they think they can do it cul them?

This has got to stop.

There is nothing else.  This has just got to stop.  And hopefully before black men take guns and decide that for every black life a white police officer takes, they take a white one.  If it comes to that, no one will be safe.  Not your mothers, your fathers, sisters, brothers, or even children.

I am sitting here in tears.  This has got to stop...

We never really leave high school...

It's a lesson that I have learned and keep having to re learn over and over again.

The characters never change ever.  The cast yes, but never the characters.  It's rather like Whitney houston and Deborah Cox's song. Same Script; Different Cast.

Usually I play the gullible bank freak outcast that wants desperately to be friends with all the cool people at the expense of her dignity.  The one that always, always, always ends up broken and alone.

I think this time I will play the band geek that already knows the lesson and sits back as the rest of the idiots in the drama play out their parts.

So... The cast of characters:

• The wife... aka the cheerleader
• The Husband... aka that guy, the cool one that every girl wants (Or so he thinks)

Caught up?  Good.

So the band geek became friends with both Th Guy and the The Cheerleader.  In truth, she kinda liked Guy more because he told the truth all the time whether you wanted to hear it or not.  And at one point the band freak was so super horney that she actually flirted with The Guy.  But here's where the drams begins to unfold.  The Guy turned her down and eventually the Freak found what she needed (which was basically a quick fuck somewhere) and she simply settled for The Guy's friendship because as stated before she actually respected him.  Meanwhile the Freak was occasionally hanging out with the Cheerleader but the more she did, the more she realized she was the beard.  The one that covers up.  When the cheerleader wanted to go out and screw the nearest dick, she basically told people she was hanging out with the freak.  When she was truly in trouble and stranded with the dick du jour, the freak did the good friend thing and went to the rescue.

But then the cheerleader slipped up and showed her batshit crazy side.  By this point The Guy had already left and kept trying to make a break but the Cheerleader held things over him.

About a year and half passed and the Freak no longer talks to the Cheerleader but sees The Guy often.  The freak still actually respects The Guy more from getting to know him.  So she actually tells The Guy about the night that the Cheerleader was stranded at the motel with the dick du jour.  Oops!  The Guy, while claiming that he knew the shit that the Cheerleader was in, didn't actually know that.

Damn that Band Freak!

The Guy ran straight to the Cheerleader to tell her what the Band freak said and as predicted, the cheerleader cussed the Band Freak out.

End of Drama.

Screw the names and the tags.  I knew that eventually the word would get to the wife that I told.  After she put a not so veiled Fuck you on facebook, I knew that the extremely long and blown out text was coming.  I figured it would either be a text on my phone or a message on Facebook.  Whichever served the purpose.  She chose text.

OMG I was so relieved.  I could go on with my life.

Except for one thing.

SHE ACTUALLY THINKS I WANT HER HUSBAND.  THAT I WANT HER HUSBAND TO BE MINE.

That's the one thing I can't get over.  Because it seems that the both of them think this.  For some reason they both seem to think that I want a relationship with the Guy.  

The Guy has a certain charm about him.  He demands respect just by being who he is, that it true but the Guy has a serious downfall.  he thinks that women who try to be his friend only are doing so because they want a taste of the guy.  

I want a quick fuck from him in late 2014 maybe early 2015.  After that I wanted nothing but friendship.  But she's worked it up in her mind that betraying her secrets I'm trying to get her out of the picture and put myself in.

I have no words.  I really don't.  I can't for the life of me see how she has held onto this belief for so damn long.  Or how he has.  No matter how many times I go over it in my head I just don't get it.  Maybe I flirt unconsciously when I talk?  Maybe I'm too friendly with men?  Dafuq?!?

So like I said, we never leave high school.  There will always be the one that plays the part of the band freak who just wants friends.  There will always be a plastic little spastic that gets high and fucks anything that can fit in her holes.  There will always be that Guy that thinks if a female is nice to him it must be because she wants him between her legs.  The Cheerleader will always think that every woman wants her man because she is so damn insecure.

To hell with them.  To hell with them all.  Fuck it, I haven't be apart of any band in nearly twenty years so even fuck the Band freak role.  I'm just me and I think I have learned the lesson of high school never ends.

So I'm at the point where if I never speak to either of them again my life will be so awesome.  I realize that since I work with The guy, silence may be difficult but damn if I won't try.

MAn Fuck High School....

Explanation of Silence

So, I’m not sure if anyone on Facebook noticed but for the last few days, I’ve been sorta on the missing in action side.  I guess my reason is that I don’t really have much to say publicly anymore. 

I found out a few weeks ago that I tested positive for Lupus.  A few days later she called back and said no, it wasn’t Lupus but pretty much 24 hours later I was called back and told, yes it is Lupus, they just don’t know what kind. 

Normally this would say to me, Dette, you need to get a second opinion.  But I couldn’t do that because even though my paperwork was refilled in March, Social Services still hadn’t reinstated my Medicaid which, until I can get a better job that comes with health benefits, that’s my only way of seeing a doctor or getting any of my ever growing number of prescriptions.  I have been fighting with Social Services now for months and only yesterday when I could hide behind my dignity and broke down and sobbed in front of pretty much everyone in Freedom Ave. DSS, did anyone do anything.  And before any one of you say it, NO, I did not use tears to get what I needed, I just wasn’t capable of dealing with the form answers that I’ve been getting lately indicating that I’m still getting nowhere.  It was only when I lost pretty much any shred of dignity I had left did anyone understand just how bad off I am right now. 

I can’t do this anymore.  That is simply what this boils down to.  Strange things have been going on with my body for almost a year now yet anytime I try to discuss it with a good number of my friends, it turns into them telling me about what wrong with them.  I have come to hate the phrase, “Yeah, well…” because it has come to ALWAYS without fail, mean “Enough about you, time to put the spotlight on me.”  The sad thing is, I’m not sure that any one of the handful of friends that do it even realize that they do it.  And I’m partially to blame for them not knowing that they do it because I tend to switch right back into supportive friend mode and comfort or just listen.

But lately I haven’t been able to do it.  The voice in my head starts screaming things that I have to hope and pray don’t come out of my mouth so I just don’t put myself in those situations anymore.  I’ve begun to distance myself from everyone.  I come home from work and I drink.  And I mean drink to the point where I used to be the one that my job called when they needed someone to come in and help out but they can’t do that anymore because within twenty minutes of getting home, I am no longer legal to drive.  I wake up, I play my Facebook games, and I get off the computer and I read.  I went back to writing again but I found that every time I did, whatever I was writing began to take on my real life or rather the real life my inner self wants where I blatantly scream, “It’s not about you!”

Believe me or don’t but I have even tried praying but the voice inside of me alternates from “If your friends won’t listen to you, why should God?” to “If there really was a God, why would he let this happen to you?”  This leads me back to drinking because I know there is a God and I know that he cares and he only give you what you can handle even if you feel like it’s crushing you.  So I try to shut the voice up because I was raised by a good Christian woman and loving Church family and I know that God is God.  I am not His only concern here on earth and He did not give me Lupus.

Those of you that think I’ve been shying from them and leaning only towards the man that I’ve been seeing, I can tell you that you too are wrong.  I haven’t said anything to him as well.  As a matter of fact, if he reads this he’s probably going to say WTF because I’ve become such a good hider that I haven’t said anything to him.  The truth is, I don’t want to run him away because he’s one of the few things in my life right now that make walking into traffic look like a really stupid choice meaning, he makes me want to live.  When I’m with him, I smile.  When I talk to him, I smile.  Hell when I think about him, I smile.  I like smiling.  I like feeling happy.  If not telling him about the crap in my life makes the happy continue, I’m going to try hard to keep that.

And I realize that it looks to some like I’m keeping him a secret but what some people, okay a lot of people have to understand is that I’m actually being respectful.  I don’t say his name of put up pictures of us because I’m not sure that we’ve reached that stage.  I’m not sure if he wants that.  He knows that it’s one of my secret desires to be able to say on Facebook that I’m in a relationship with and actually be able to say a name.  I would love more than anything to be able to tag him in my relationship status but I don’t want to alienate him.  I would love to introduce him to my friends but sometimes I feel like the third degree he’d get from them might be worse than an FBI probe and then off he’d go and I’d hate my friends who would unerringly say, “He wasn’t good for you, anyway.”

Yes I know I’m a worst case scenario kind of person but most of you know this about me already so whatever.

I’m posting this on my blog because I still don’t feel like going back to Facebook right now.  I just don’t.  I don’t know when I will.  But right now, I need for the voice in my head (Which for better or worse is and has been for awhile now, Meredith Grey) makes some of the comments I want to post turn really nasty and I don’t want to lose any friends because my views aren’t their views which will lead to a debate of why they are right and I am wrong on Facebook, So I’m not bothering.  I’m watching my Facebook slowly degrade into a highly charged political arena with a little God thrown in every now and then.

So yeah, if you wanted to know why I’m silent lately, there’s why.  I can still be reached by messenger and text.  If I don’t respond, I may be at work or just not in the right mind frame to speak.  But I’m here, I’m living.  Don’t worry for me, I’m doing enough of that on my own.  I do love you all, I just have to figure out how to be outside of my own head and shut Meredith up.

Ta.  I’ll be around.

Living with it.

So about a week ago, i went to see a new doctor who leaked, I guess is the word the information that I had tested positive for Lupus in the blood work that my last doctor ordered.  She tried to make it sound like something I should have already known or at the very least something he should have told me himself but when she realized that no one had imparted that information to me she tried a different route by saying that a lot of women test positive but don't actually have it.  That route didn't work as well because the more she looked me over, the more she was convinced that I would not be one of the millions of women with a false positive.  I have way too many of the symptoms.

I have Fatigue that i can't seem to shake some days.  Even if I get eight full hours of uninterrupted sleep I can still feel like my butt is dragging.  Mostly I hide this with coffee and then use the slight caffeine high to look productive but the days when I don't even feel the caffeine, it is unbelievably hard to fake it.  Those are generally the days where I get in trouble because I don't have the energy to keep the things in my head from daytripping out of my mouth...

Joint Pain.  I can call it arthritis all I want.  I can cling to the actual fact that no one is too young to have it but the pain and weakness in my left shoulder that some days prevents me from doing my job or at the very least makes it so hard I want to cry... yeah.  They did an xray.  Inflamed joint not arthritis.

Headaches.  I get them so bad that well... I blank out.  I know someone out there has had a migraine so bad that they feel like if they could just crawl out of your body you'd be fine.  I can tell you first hand, wanting that and experiencing that are two way different things and if you'd ever experienced that, you'd never wish for it again.  It generally comes with a whole body shudder and suddenly for just a moment, the pain is totally gone and you feel like you're floating but not in a good way.  Floating like you're about to fall and hit the ground.  And then you go slamming right back into your body. But here's the kicker... what felt like a few seconds can actually be a good stretch of time.  Livy found me just staring at the wall once.  She said I sat like that perfectly still for ten minutes at least never moved, she said I didn't even blink.  then all of the sudden I shuddered and I blinked and I was back.  I have absolutely no memory of this.

Tonight, I took a good long look in the mirror.  Just to the left of my left eye my skin is turning darker... In the shape of what looks like a crudely drawn butterfly.  Combined with my bright red birthmark it's not exactly pretty.

I'm supposed to call her if I saw this.

The first thing I did when I get home that first night was to google if Lupus could be transmitted sexually.  Thankfully it cannot.  Please don't think I'm saying I think I got this through sex.  That was never my thought.  My thought was could I give it.  Every single source I could find assured me that I cannot give it to him.

But every single souce I can find says that this is going to get bad.  I'm going to have good days, I'm going to have bad days and I'm going to have really shitty beyond words days.  Now that I've finally found someone that I can see a future with can I do that to him?

It's not that I don't think he'd stick around.  Something tells me he would.  But do I want him to see me like that?  Days when I feel like he deserves someone that's not looking at being sick.  Days when I can't even get out of bed because it hurts too much.

Can I do that to him?  I don't think I can.

Part of me wants to just say "Run!  Run far! Run Fast!  Run and remember me the way I am right this moment.  Remember me before you got to see me on days when I can't stay awake for shit.  Run and remember me before you saw me have to crawl on my hands and knees to the bathroom because my feet were so swollen and hurting that walking was a wishful dream.(yeah that's happened a few times)  Remember only those times I couldn't walk right because you made my legs like jelly."

And yet Part of me hope he'll stay and hold me and tell me he's not going anywhere.  That those days I can't stay awake, he'll lay beside me.  Those days when pretty much all I can do is lie there with a book, he'll sit or lay there and let me prop the book up on his leg while he plays a video game or watches a movie.

I promised myself that Friday before last was the only day I was going to allow myself to wallow.  If I gonna have to live with this then dammit I'm going to live.  They say God gives you no more than you can carry.  So I guess He has decided I can carry this.

I will not wallow.
I will not feel sorry for myself.
I will not be upset if I have to do this alone (Total lie by the way but it sounds good)
I will not cry. (Still lying)
I will not WebMd myself into apoplexy thinking this is going to kill me in the next 24 hours. (again total lie)

Most of all, I will never say Fuck my life.  Because aside from  what is fast becoming something I can't ignore, my life is golden right now.  Good job.  Good man.  Awesome sex life.  Did I say good man?  Children who are about to leave the nest.  Really. Awesome. Guy.  Friends that I love.

I'm just gonna sigh.  And go to bed.  Because it's two freaking AM and I should have been sleep hours ago.  Damn Netflix...

Goodnight.

So.... I'm kinda at a loss for words right now...

So we're just gonna skip all the brouhaha about me not blogging for like five months, right?

Good.  I love you too.

So my last post was what? January?  A lot has happened.

So much.

Cannot begin to tell you...  Well yeah I can...

I don't know what happened in January that started to make my life more than I could bear...  Maybe it was that grey hairs started to look like they were outnumbering the black hair or that even when I dyed my hair the grey ones were still peeking through in all their smugness saying, "Haha, we don't die! We multiply!!"  What I do know is that smack in the middle of January I realized that my best wasn't good enough for the goals I had set for myself.  More importantly, other goals that I had set were getting farther and farther away.

This year I will turn 37.  Every New years I make the same resolution.  This will be the year.  It's a blanket resolution that can cover any multitude of things but mostly it covers me being alone.  Okay, not mostly.  Always.

Although this year, New Years had a new twist on it.  I spent it dancing in church and I prayed that this year will be the year.  With a capitol THE.  The year that finally they would see me for what I'm worth at work.  The year that my ex's wife stops thinking of me as the wicked witch of the South that secretly wants her ex husband back.  The year that I would meet someone that made me question if people were right; that I needed to accept myself before I could have feelings for someone else.  The year that for once everything went up instead of up and down.

I actually prayed.  And not a Dear God prayer but more of a talk where I sat there and just talked.  Into thin air?  To Him? To the walls?  I don't know but I talked.

And the middle of January, it came to me.  In order for things to change, I needed to change.  In order for me to change, I needed to take a step back and think about what I wanted to change.

The first thing I looked at was my work life.  I'm not proud to admit it, but I woke up each morning and had a very sad routine.  I got up, I cried in pain because my hands were killing me.  Then I got angry because I was crying and then I cried because I had to do it all over again one more day.  I had to go in and deal with crap that was way above my shit level.  not my pay level, my shit level as in I shouldn't be giving two shits about it.  Customers that knew that they could complain and complain and insult me and say pretty much whatever they wanted to say and all I could do was say "Yes sir/ma'am." and give them free food on top of it.  Drivers that didn't respect me as a shift leader and who thought it was okay to tell me to shut the f up multiple times a day.  And then what honestly felt like the last straw on the Camel's back, the appointment of a new Assistant manager that was about to walk in and take over all that I was doing and get paid more for it.  A child who routinely threatened that if someone acted wrongly he would fire them.  Something that I had on assurance that he couldn't actually do but having to stand there and say nothing every time he said it.

Now don't get me wrong.  He was a nice kid.  He was pleasant enough but a very selfish part of my mind still screamed that he was a kid.  And that very selfish part of my brain was making me resent him.  And resent my boss.  And the latter I couldn't have because she was and is to this day one of my closer friends.  I hid my feelings for most of February.  I guess I did, I'm sure that it was clearly evident how I felt but I honestly didn't care.  So I quit.  I put in my notice and I left.  I left before I hated the place and the people that didn't deserve my hate.

For the first week, I slept.  Slept like I was never going to get out of my bed.  Ohmigod the sleep.  I slept in for the first time in months, I had time to cook for the girls.  I even had time for them to have sleep overs.

And in March, I did something I thought I'd never do.  I took a singular chance and began talking to a man on Tinder.  Like seriously talking.  I gave him my phone number and didn't regret doing so in the slightest.  I met him in person and even though I was scared out of my mind and nervous as hell I found that with him, even that first meeting, I didn't have to try to be anyone.  Being me just happened.

Scared the shit out of me.  Let me tell you.   Did you know that I can be funny?  That given the chance I can smile and make jokes and chat?  Neither did I!  He and I are still talking.  Every day I feel more comfortable with him.  Still scares the crap outta me because this is all new territory but I was able to tell him that which speaks more than it seems.

Can someone who knows the ins and outs of dating please enlighten me on what I am feeling?  I am constantly rethinking over everything I've said and done and wondering "Oh God is he going to chuck me?" But at the same time I wake up thinking about him.  If something happens, he's the first person I want to tell it to.  I don't get that flutter inside when I see him, I feel like... the best way to describe it is... I feel like... like... like I can finally breathe.  It's almost like from the time I leave him to the time I see him again I am taking half breaths but the second I see him and he opens his arms, I can take a deep breath.  That sounds absurd to even me but I think that's the best description of how I feel.  Free enough to breathe deeply.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Another good thing, I've gone back to Howies.  Back with my friends and doing something I love.

And guess what else??!

 Yep, that's right, for the first time ever, I have a new car!!  For the first time ever I also have a car payment but it's low and I earn that in one pay period so I can pay it okay.  I'm still looking for a name for her but I'm leaning toward Mitzi for mitsubishi.   OMG is it fast!!  I look down ad I'm going 60 before I even know it.  I never ever thought that I would love a tiny car but trust me when I tell you Mitzi only LOOKS tiny.  She has so much room on the inside that it's damn near ridiculous!  If i can only figure out how to attach my phone to what appears to be a bluetooth in the car I'd be way happier.   I loved my PT Cruiser but it was getting bothersome.  It started with it stopping on the road.  In the middle of driving it would just cut off.  I had time to coast to a stop in a safe place most of the time.  One particular time I had to think quickly and get to an exit off 77.  That time was scary.  The other times it was just bothersome.  Then it went months without doing it and I thought oh awesome!  It's grown out of that particular problem.  But then it started to overheat.  I was told that a radiator flush would take care of that problem so I paid seventy dollars for a radiator flush.  I sat there and watched the mechanic run water through it until it came out clean but still less than a mile down the road it over heated again.  I came home, had a glass of tequila rose and made the decision to get a new car.  Got up the next morning and acted on the decision before I had the chance to hesitate.

And with the good must always come the bad I guess...

Saturday Mommy, the girls and I were on our way back from Virginia when near tragedy struck...  A woman was stopped in the middle of 85.  Stopped dea. the car behind her skidded to a halt.  I'm not sure if he had already hit her but thanks to a defensive driving lesson I was given early in my driving days (Thank you Joey--never thought I'd say that) I was able to swerve so that not only did I only strike on the drivers side, I was able to avoid any airbag sensors.

I'm sore as shit though.  I guess being the driver and hitting only on the drivers side, I was going to get the brunt of it.  I think today was the worst of it though.  It better be.  I'm working the next six days and not being able to walk without a limp is kinda imperative. I took a hot shower this afternoon.  So far that an a couple of muscle relaxers and I've been able to sit and walk.  Let's hope it stays that way.

I should go to bed.  I have to have lil bit to school by 745 for a field trip.  I seriously doubt I'll go back to bed and I have a nail appointment at 12 so I have no clue what I'll do between 8 and noon.  I seriously doubt I'll go back to bed since once I wake up I usually don't go back to bed.

Yawn.  I should blog more.  No I should get to writing.  I really want to be published.  Maybe since this year is going so well for me... Then again, I'm so not pushing my luck.  I'm already blessed with a more than awesome guy and my job.  If I don't get published this year I will still consider this year a win.

Heh.  Does anyone remember when my blog was called Single and blogging?  God there were some wailing posts.  Sometimes I go back and read then just so that I can know how far I've come and grown.  Some of them make me cry.  Some of them make me angry but most of them simply make me realize that I'm not that person anymore.

Goodnight people.

Tuesdayness

So I think I'm going to just make this my day off blog.... or at least until the newness of the sims wears off anyway... if I'm not to freaking tired to do anything but shit and veg, I'm too busy paying the sims to blog.  Blame Patty, she's been telling me for awhile to try it out and I kept telling her no but I recently upgraded to windows 10 and it didn't like the sims 2, so I figured it was time to tale her up on her offer.  So far over ten nights and a couple of days have been lost to this game.   Like they just poof out of existence.

Anyway,  I learned two things today. One the bathroom at my job is haunted.  At least five times today,  the hand dryer just came on.  If I opened the door,  it went off. If I ignored it,  it kept going until someone came in be it customer or Lauren.  I think it more annoyed me than anything else though.

Also,  I learned or rather realized that I have a territorial bladder.  It has to involved the better part of over 40 ounces of liquid before my bladder can't wait anymore for me to use the communal bathroom.  I worked am 11 hour shift yesterday and did not have to go until I got home and I drank an xl coffee plus a good part of a two liter of soda.  Didn't have to go until I got home.  I'm more than sure that this is unhealthy as hell. I can work all day and not have to go,  but the second I get home my body is like,  "okay let's go. Now."

I probably doesn't help that I don't use communal bathrooms with boys nor do I use public bathrooms. I'm sure this is something that therapy can overcome but boys are icky so.... no.

So tonight is bestie night.  I'm gong make sure my kids are good and then off I go.

Ta!!!

Just when you'd thought I'd gone away...

I'm back!!!

Hehe, At&t and I had a serious fight.  They won but I didn't go down quietly.

So when we went to Europe for the week, most of the bills in both of our households were paid all but At&t really and when the subject came up, we were... well... in Europe and it was the last thing on anyone's mind.  So we got back and commenced to paying them but we were a month behind so every month they made my net stupidly slow and threatened to shut me off.  Two weeks ago, they cut me off but said click here to pay now.  So I clocked.  Cost my mom sixty seven dollars.  Three days ago they shut me off again.  Unlike the last time, however they wouldn't let me go ANYWHERE on the web... except Facebook.  Last time I could click past the pay now and they let me check my mail, go play a game, do all sorts of things.  This time they basically said Haha Fuck you.  I could see my mail but I couldn't click on any of them.  That's like going to the candy store and seeing all the delicious stuff in the window and finding the door locked.  I could go all over Facebook but no links would work and if I ventured out of Facebook land, I got a pretty little orange message telling me that I was a bad girl and now I was being punished.

Screw you AT&T!!  That's all I have to say on that.

So I've been playing the sims 3.  Like non stop.  Matter of fact as soon as I finish this, I'm going back to it because well... It's the freaking sims 3.  I should be decompressing from work because OMG today was one of those days where I just wanted to take a gas can and a handful of matches and torch sports.

To be fair, I generally want to do this every Saturday so today wasn't much different except that I was doing it on about one and a half hours of sleep.

We got Popeyes last night.  I don't know if it was that or what but at about three o'clock this morning, anything and everything that wasn't an organ and therefore attached to me in some way decided to vacate my body through any way possible.  I've already said too much so I won't say anymore except that it was both sad and comical.  The last time that happened to me was when I mixed heavy cream with milk in my meatloaf years ago.  And before that when I was pregnant with my son and decided to eat fried shrimp and white rice.  Neither of which he liked.

So I was not a happy camper this morning but thanks to a conversation between A and BF yesterday I was pretty clear on what I could text/call A about this morning and feeling like a truck ran me over, backed up and rolled over me about six more times was was not on that list.

I don't have much else in the way of blogging tonight.  I really want to get back to my game.

I'm not addicted, I can quit anytime I want to.  I just have no desire to.  It has nothing to do with the fact that I don't actually see people anymore, just sims...

Blog ya tomorrow!!  Stay Frosty!!

Nope, not tonight

So I spent most of the morning at work today thinking about a blog that I really wanted to do but sometime in the last 12 hours my body told my brain to just forget it.  Wasn't happening tonight.  Which means I'll go to sleep and it will be forgotten about.

I have a migraine and I'm dead tired so I will leave you with this thought:

Sometimes the people you grow up with are not the ones from your youth.  You grow at different times.  You hurt the ones you claim to love.  Sometimes the hurt is gotten past and sometimes it takes growing up to realize just how much some people have hurt you.

There are some people from my past that have hurt me in more ways than I care to count.  And it took me becoming an adult to realize that the hurt that I internalized for years made me the person I am today.  I have never told them how much they hurt me nor do I ever plan to because telling them how much they hurt me won't erase the hurt.  It will only make them hurt as well and then both of us are hurt.

The world is not eye for an eye.  Just walk away.

Ruffling feathers

Tonight, apparently, that's what I have done.

So a Yeshiva group wanted to build a college for the furthering of Jewish studies in my old hometown and they were denied.  I knew nothing about it until it became a huge issue and the posts that I saw on it were boarder line propaganda for bigotry and hatred.  At least three articles interviewed people that called the group "Those people."  and constantly said that they didn't want "those people" in their town.  They wouldn't be able to send their children to the parks because "those people" would always be there.  Property values would plummet because of "those people"

Ocean sin't known for being very open minded.  To anything.

Growing up black there was hell.  Teachers assumed that I wasn't worth taking the time on.  A lady that was once my period 5a teacher and who I believe is now actually the principal of my old high school, once called me a liar when doing the family tree project.  We were to study our backgrounds and build some stupid cube of who our ancestors were.  Parts of family come from France and some Indian tribes.  She threw out my research and made me put Africa on my cube.  She assumed that because I was black I was naturally descended from slaves and therefore the only country on my family tree should be Africa.  Did I tell my friends?  No.  I cried in the bathroom and then went home and told my mother who fought against her for me.  My first day in OTIS a white male student looked me in the eye then turned to his friend and said "Great, they let another nigger in."  I went to the bathroom and cried.  I went home and told my mom I was not going back.  She informed me that I was going back.  Hell my own guidance counselor sat me in her office and told me that I I didn't have much going for me and that pretty much the only thing I had going for me was that I was thankfully well spoken.  That Ocean had tried to give me all the breaks they could give to someone like me.

That was when I stopped letting my mother fight my battles.  I can't for the life of me remember the womans name because I blocked out a lot of my high school years but I remember walking out of the meeting and ignoring all summons' back to her office for a year.  I spent most of senior year hanging out in the band room.

Mrs. Olsen, the choir teacher was one of the most bigoted people in OTHS.  Her audition to get in chorus was to sing happy birthday, which I did in soprano.  I was placed in Soprano section.  But anytime I tried out for a soprano solo, I was told I wasn't good enough.  Yet I go to college and I'm told that I have a beautiful voice and whoever tried to tear me down by telling me I didn't obviously wasn't looking out for anyone except themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I made friends there.  Some of them I still call my friends.  Some of them I talk to regularly while others I simply get to watch their lives now through their pictures.  It happens.  It's life.

I don't go back there much.  When I happen to be in NJ, which hasn't happened in almost three years, I don't go into Ocean.  I meet my friends at the mall in Eatontown.  Not sure if any of my friends really ever noticed that I don't go to Ocean.  It took me being an adult and seeing racism outside of Ocean to realize that I grew up with an extreme dose of it.  In some way, however, it's made me who I am today and that's both good and bad.

To date of any of my friends that I met when I left Ocean, I am the most unoffendable person I know.  You seriously have to go to extreme lengths before I get offended and that in itself is a good and bad thing.

I don't talk about Ocean very much.  I don't think the place deserves much of my thoughts and even fewer of my words.  It's Ocean.  It's a place where not much changes ever and the people go to great lengths to keep it that way, regardless of who they hurt.

I will probably lose friends over this and the article I shared on Facebook.  That's fine because the people that know me; actually know me will understand where I am coming from with my opinion.  The ones that think I am speaking out of my ass never really knew me in the first place.

One point three billion dollars...

So when the powerball was under a hundred million I said, nah, not going to bother.  When it rose over 100 million, I still said nah, not going to bother but nice number.  I could be smart with a couple million bucks.

I would set my kids up for college and I would take care of my mom, I would... well I wouldn't really have much after setting up three kids for college, I just wouldn't, and that's reality.

So when it rose to over 300 million dollars I said, "Okay.  Still not gonna play because I have better things to do with the money but respect.  I'd be a little stupid with my millions after I did the smart thing."

I actually considered buying a ticket when it was over 600 million and I didn't make it off work in time to buy a ticket when it hit over 900 million.

As of this morning, that shit was worth over one point three BILLION dollars which means after taxes you have more than half a billion in your bank account...


A friend of mine, JP asked on Facebook this morning, what would we do if we won?

I'm not even going to pretend.  I'm going to be stupid as hell!  Oh don't get me wrong I would do the smart thing.  I would set my kids up for college, I would set my mom up, and I would even pay off all of my bills.  I definitely won't tell my boss to kiss my ass and that I'm never coming back but I would so tell her boss exactly which parts of my posterior he could kiss for all the promotions that he has walked right in front of my face.  Not his brother though, I like his brother.  1/4 of my bosses looks like Papa John.  And that's kinda funny because I work for Hungry Howie's.  1/4 of my bosses look like Daryl Hall from Hall and Oats (Hall recently, not from the 80's though I imagine in the 80's he might have still looked like him...) And 1/4 of my bosses is just a big ol Teddy bear with no hair and sporting a pair of shorts year round.  Saint Jimmy is awesome.  The one I would tell to kiss my posterior is a really good guy as well but he doesn't believe in me and that would be the ONLY reason I would say what I would say.  Not because he's a bad guy because he's not.  He smart, and nice, and when he cracks a joke that others outside his head can understand, he has a cool sense of humor. BUt he doesn't believe in me so if I win the powerball.... yeah

But I would be soooo stupid.  I would be like Oprah.  You want a car?  You got a car.  You want a house?  you got a house!  You want your electric bill paid?  You got your electric bill paid!  You want that cute puppy your saw in the window?  You got that puppy!  You have a mystery illness you need diagnosed?  I'll send your ass to the mayo clinic!

As for me, I would move to England.  Maybe not Westminster because that's pretty much ALL upper class.  Not that I couldn't afford it, I would be able to but I would rather have a quaint little house not very far from London.  It would have to be on the underground line.  I have been on the roads in London and oh my God!  I would die in five minutes out there.  First off all they drive on the other side of the road.  I'm not going to say the wrong side because to them, we drive on the wrong side but they drive like americans do and that's scary enough!  We drive like maniacs.  They drive like maniacs but on the other side of the road!  The entire time I was in London, I swore I was going to die.  Hell the entire time I was in Paris, I swore I was going to die in traffic.  And they do it on our side of the road!

The freaking Arc Du Triomphe is in the middle of what might be the deadliest traffic circle I have ever seen in my life and you know what?  There are people walking all over that damn thing.  There has to be an underground walkway to that thing because NO ONE is brave/stupid enough to walk through that circle and never once did I see a bus stop in middle of all that mess to let anyone on or pick anyone off.


I'm not sure if I would take my mom.  She says she wouldn't want to go but at the same time that means she gives up the right to call me on the daily and begin every conversation with the words, "You took my grandchildren xxx miles away from me!" (I'm serious, almost every day that I live in California when she lived in NJ, she called me and this was what I got instead of Hello."  I'm sure you can imagine what my face looked like every single phone call....

I was going somewhere with this.

Oh yeah, the lottery.

I can't really say what else I would do.  I mean it's money.  I would help out a few mom and pop shops but mostly I would just life comfortably.  In England.  I have no desire to continue living in America really.  But that's a whole nother blog for a whole nother day.

Muwah!

Cigarettes and death

First off, on the subject of me missing last night's blog, Shut up.

Second I have come to a very stunning conclusion.  Cigarettes do not cause death as the Surgeon General has decided.  No, on the contrary, cigarette's save lives.  They save lives.  Lots of them.

Now I'm not much of a smoker; asthma prevents me from really testing my limits because I seriously don't want another lecture from another doctor on how I should give up altogether to breathe better.  Trust me when I tell you that many many MANY people are alive today because I was able to take a puff a cig.

I started in high school.  Here and there, it depended on who I was hanging out with.  Most of my friends were on the straight and narrow and the thought of a cigarette... ew!  Like even! But every now and then I might snatch a few minutes with someone that used a bathroom pass to sit in the stairways and puff close to the door.  Okay, Heather.  I smoked with Heather.  One or two others after she left Ocean but pretty sure that's where it started.

And in a world where I often felt like the token black in the room, cigarettes helped A LOT.  No one was going to die in high school.  But a lot of people were spared the ever hurtful  barrage of venom dripping tirades whirling through my head.

College was very little different.  Band people smoked.  College kids smoked.  Black college kids smoked black and milds.  Don't ask me what's in one because I really don't  want to lie to you.  More than a few times Mr. Grey was spared the poison in my head because I was able to find a cigarette.  Randy hated it.  And while he was giving me sex I stopped because let's face it.  Replace anger with orgasms and who needs nicotine?? Seriously.  I will take nicotine after orgasms but truthfully it's been so long since the orgasm that I'll stick with the nicotine.  Now when he went away to join the ever expanding cast of Dumbasses in a tin can a.k.a the Navy, (Ever witnessed a cult that had matching uniforms and a health plan?  Their mascot is an old man with a serious what not to wear problem.) I once again picked up my lovely little white friend but I also picked up his much larger brother, the bottle.  Yes I drank in high school, hell I drank in middle school and as far back as one year old.  I lived in Germany.  They MAKE beer for children.  But in college the pain of what I thought was my very first real boyfriend (turns out he was a not very friendly fuck friend) going away to make a man out of himself (It didn't work) was  significantly  less if I had a cup of very bad liquid in one hand and a 'cancer' stick in the other.  Also, after the summer before my ill fated sophomore year, the pain of realizing that I had passed on a possibly very good,  albeit very short, man in favor of Randy was dulled considerably with this method.  

And then I got pregnant.  And I'm not stupid, I know you don't smoke when you're pregnant.  You don't  smoke, you don't drink.   Also I had to move back home with my mother who had no idea that I did either and I worked at Value City.  It was not one of those really happy pregnancies.  I was angry.  Angry at Randy for knocking me up.  Angry at myself for letting it happen, angry at my mom because she never let me forget for one day that my life was more or less over, angry at the job that put an angry little cuss like me in charge of customer service simply because my mom could do it.  I was further angry at Randy's mother who's wedding toast THE NIGHT OF MY 'WEDDING' TO RANDY was, "Well, I guess I gotta keep you now."  As in she legally couldn't get rid of me.  Angry that I was once again in New fucking Jersey.  Angry that I didn't follow through on the very nice church that offered to get me into community college, set me up with housing, and find me a job with the only codicils being that I continued my  education, I continued going to church, and I keep my child.  (hindsight is a real bitch!)  All because I listened when they told me that we don't have unwed mothers in my family and that I needed to fix my mistake and marry him even though when he asked and I accepted WHEN I WAS NOT PREGNANT, he  reneged saying he only proposed because he was missing me.

Hi!  You were looking for one of the royal princesses of the fair land of Dumbass???  Right here.

After I had the boy, I could barely wait to get a cigarette in my hot little fingers again, but I didn't count on one thing.  We lived with a bunch of nosy assholes.  No one said a word in Dahlgren about it because I took long walks.  Long ones.  The corner store sold loose cigarettes and I discovered that if I went to take the trash out and hit there, by the time I circled back around to our apartment, I was done.  If I bought a coke at the same time you could neither smell or taste it on me, not that Randy didn much tasting.  When we moved to Newport News, we had his godfather living with us.  I was told it was to help me out with the baby but first off the man was so damn dirty he washed his underwear in the sink where I washed food and dishes WHEN WE HAD A WASHING MACHINE. When he got a piece of money he went and got beer and he turned violent but lest I say something to anyone about the fact that this grown man used to hit me when he got intoxicated.  Oh no, then he turned the story and said that he didn't hit me, he just knocked my cigarette out of my hand and I took it too personally.

Besides mothers and father all over the world, who has ever been able to knock that precious cigarette out of someone's hand and live to tell the story?  Exactly, my point.  If Rich had knocked the cig out of my hand he'd've been dead.  The truth, he was right there with me on the stoop smoking.  But he was family and I was just the wife so who do you think Randy believed??  He got off and I got yelled at by the mighty mighty husband for smoking and he knew how to get me because he claimed I was a bad mother for doing it.  "What kind of mother smokes??"

Uhm... yours.  Marijuana to be exact.  Several times a day.  While small children were in the house.

So I stopped smoking.  We started fighting and I started eating.  And somehow he we okay with this.  He'd go out to sea, his house would be taken care of, his godfather would be fed, the people living in our house were fed, he would come home, we'd have sex, we'd get in a massive fight, I would eat, he would leave for another deployment and the whole shebang would start all over again.

Somewhere in there we had two more kids, I moved back in with my mom, we moved to a different part of Virginia and I pretended for all who wanted to watch the show that shit was okay.  I was married, I had my kids, I was happy.

I spent YEARS wanting a cigarette.

Moved to California where he could further exert his manliness and make everyone think that we had one of those awesome marriages.  Serena was the only one that understood me at first because her marriage was shit.  We stood on our respective back porches passing cigarettes and coke.  Well she gave me a cigarette, we each had a coke, and passed the vodka back and forth.

Then she went away.  But it was okay because I got Carrie!  Yea for Carrie!  If my life was dysfunctional it was totally okay because she could top mine any given day, she drank, she smoked, she didn't much care if I snagged her cigarette once in awhile and we drank and best of all... our husbands shared a love of things electronic.  It was great!  They babysat each other like all the time.  Leaving us to be mom and women.

But like all good things in life, the navy said we must move back to Dahlgren.  

But again, life looked at me and said, "It's okay, I took you from the land of love and the people who understood you and brought you to hell, but I'm giving you Patty and Chelly."  And cats.  Lots of cats.

But marriage was just one thing I couldn't stand any longer so I had to leave the land of boozy Fridays and Phase 10.

And return to New Fucking Jersey.

I smoke, I drank and I did it alone.  I did have a bitof fun.  There were friends in there but I never really let any of them know that pretty much every night after I put my kids to bed, I cried.  Cried hard.  Because my life was shit.

I made the choice to move to NC.  i was going to start over in the country.  But Mom moved down here with me and my pipe dream of moving to the country that wasn't exactly the country because there would be a city and a Patty nearby turned into living in the city.  Or the burbs at least.

I just want to wiggle my toes in grass.  I just want to sit on a hill and watch the sun go down.  Or come up, I'm flexible.

Most importantly I wanted to find a guy that wanted to do the same.

"I'm moving to Raleigh."  Four words.  From the ex.  Life... void.
"I'm moving to New Mexico." Five words. From the ex.  Life reinstated.
"So what should we do today?" Six words.  From the mother.  Life voided.
"I'm moving back to North Carolina.  To Charlotte." Eight words.  From the ex.  Life null void and reassigned.

Countless gallons of alcohol and countless cigarettes later we are arrive at today.

No man.  No grass between my tootsies.  The man that lives near the grass my tootsies long for, doesn't want me. My tootsies never see the light of day because they stay crammed in my work shoes.  My boss's boss, doesn't appreciate me at all.  My boss, yes, her boss, not at all.

I just want my grass.

Until I get my grass however, I keep a pack of cigarettes in my car.  And when the stupid people come at me, or my mom, or my ex, I smoke.  And I don't cuss them out, or threaten them.

So Smoking doesn't kill.  Smoking saves lives.  On the regular.

The  surgeon General has probably never had a stressful day in their lives.

So I have this addiction....

To pretty underwear.

There's this saying that if you get a girl home and things get hot and heavy and you get her clothes off... if her bra and her panties match, you weren't the one to decide that you were going to have sex that night.

At this point in my quest to be the owner of all the pretty underwear and bras, I look like I  decided  to have sex every night of the week.  Like, if a guy got me down to my  skivvies  I would hope that he wouldn't think that was an automatic indication that I'm cool with going all the way.  You know like we are making out and the shirt come off cool and then he somehow gets in my pants (I really have no clue how this comes about because the last time I was at that point my brain was jumping up and down shouting "Yippie!" that absolutely NO thought was happening.  No observing of the course of events just feeling.) and he  sees  that the rug matches the curtains (Yes, I KNOW that is not the actual meaning for that) and figures "Oh hey well it's been decided.  We're getting laid!"

It started innocently enough.  I was transitioning out of sports bras and trying to find something girly.   I wear a uniform at work that makes me look like everyone else (at least that's the point they tell me cause I damn sure don't look like anyone else) so I wanted to look pretty under it.  And OMG!  Thanks the the lovely sales at Lane Bryant and the Avenue and those very evil people giving me an ever increasing line of credit, my collection has quickly become an obsession.  Counting the bra I am currently wearing... I have 25. (Not nearly enough in my opinion.) and so many pairs of undies that the collection has officially rolled over into TWO dresser drawers.

And I don't want help with this obsession.  My mom took over my \Avenue card which honestly is okay by me because I don't much like their bras.  I really only use the Avenue for pretty underwear and my jeans when I decide I need a new pair once a year.  But oh boy!  My Lane Bryant!!  Love love LOVE!!!

I guess the most awesome thing about this is, I don't do it for anyone but myself.  I don't actually care if a boy sees me in my matching skivvies.  They're to make me feel pretty.  Not for him to notice.

Sigh.  Have the big girls awards ceremony tonight.  Hope she wins!  Toodles.  May or may not see you later.  Either way, my blog for the day is official!  

Hairspray... as desecrated by the students of my daughter's middle school.

So I asked for tonight off because Olivia was in a school play... err. musical.. uhm... yeah

I didn't have high hopes because it's a middle schoo production and Charlotte middle schools pretend on a regular basis that they're broke as a joke.

But man, I didn't expect it to be THAT bad.

The girl who played Tracy Turnblad.  She was an okay singer. BUt I have the STRONG STRONG feeling that she got the part because she was well... a big girl.

Most of the cast didn't come close to knowing their lines.  Mind you Tracy was 90% more on point than anyone else who had more than five lines.  For that she gets mad props.

They seemed to mix the old movie, with the new movie, with the broadway play and the result was something that made a DIEHARD Hairspray fanatic like me want to cry.

Of course my baby was awesome.  Yes.  Yes I did just become that mom for a second.

It was bad y'all.

When Olivia came home early in the year saying that they were doing Hairspray, I was like well there are only like four roles she can play, Motormouth Mama Maybelle, LIttle Inez, or one of the dreamettes or whatever those girls were called.  There was the off but likely chance that she could also be random black dancer #2.  Olivia asked me why were those the only roles she could play and I looked at my child like I didn't give birth to and raise her.  Liek she was high and lost her mind.

Uhm, I replied... Because you're black...

To which she asked what that had to do with anything.

To those of you that have not for some reason unknown to anyone but God not seen any version of Hairspray, let me break it down to you.  It's a play/musical about race relations in the 60's in Baltimore.  As in Black and whites and segregation. So being that my child is black and she most definitely is black... there were only four or so roles she could play.

Now imagine my shock when she came home and said she'd gotten the part of Prudy Pingleton.

Let's recap shall we??

<---- 1988="" in="" p="" prudy="">
Prudy in 2007--->















What about this says "Let's give this role to a little black girl"??

I will tell you exactly what says that.  My child goes to a school where whites are the minority.  Blacks had primarily ALL of the roles both black and white.  Those that weren't black were Latino or in the case of Penny Pingleton (technically my daughter's daughter) Asian.

The only white child in the ENTIRE musical was in the chorus.

The Chorus.  As in couldn't get a role in a musical that was about blacks and whites in the 60's.

But I went.  And I clapped.  I grimaced, I talked smack about it, but I supported the babies.  With all my heart.  They did their best but next year see if I don't try to volunteer to help out and see if next years play isn't way better if I can.  No more of this practicing one day a week BS.  Nah sweetie we will practice from september to June twice a week and when we go on the stage will be more than a riser and people will talk about how decent it was if not even good.

I guess what I'm saying is no matter how bad it might be always go out and support the babies.  They mean well.  They really do and at the end of the day when they stand up to take their bow and see you clapping because unlike their damn daddy who couldn't even request tonight off work or their Stepmother who'd rather take your brother and go to a function at Elevation freaking wanna be a church but it's really a tv viewing every Sunday instead of supporting the "Stepdaughter that they love so much" you were there and they will love you just a little more for it.

Support the babies man.  Just support them.

Goodnight bloggers!  Love you!

Blog January 5, 2016

So yeah,  remember when I said the would be some ridiculously short blogs? This is one of them.  I'm so tired that my hair hurts and it has nothing to do with the fact that I tried to hot comb my hair tonight and might have singed a little off.

So blog blog blog blog.

Goodnight.

Yawn....

So... uhm...

Four days into the new year and I've already fallen down on my resolution....  That is actually a new high for me.  I usually stick with something for at least a week before I default back to my normal.

But to be fair, Mystery Case Files came out with a new game.

A NEW GAME!!!

I can tell by the crickets that you aren't as excited about that as I am.

Or was last night.

The shit is hard.

So the girls got back home last night.  I asked R to have them back to my house by seven so that they could do their chores and shower and go to bed on time.  Wanna know what time he bought them back?  A quarter to nine.  Bedtime is at nine.  They didn't get to bed until after ten.  Guess who had cranky kids this morning?

So I asked R to take Kay to her dentist appointment.  She was getting the last three or four of her twelve cavity horrorfest drilled.  He said to get her there and he would be there no later than 8:10 to sit in the waiting room for her and take her on to school since I needed to be at work by like 830 across town.  At 8:35 he called and asked if I could leave his number with the people at the desk because he was stuck in traffic.  Smile Starters doesn't work that way.  A parent must be in the lobby at all times in case they need you.  So no I couldn't leave his number and go.  Plus all her stuff was there.  He finally shows up at ten minutes to nine.  By now, I'm cold (the waiting room at smile starters is ALWAYS cold.  Even in the summer, it's friggin winter in there.  In the winter I swear I'm going to be frozen to my seat.)  So he gets there and I figure I'm already late so why try to face what is going to be a very long day without coffee?  Coffee is essential for making Dette calm enough not to cuss out the stupid customer, slap the rude ones and strangle chatty coworkers. So yeah added the extra five minutes on because hell in for a penny in for a pound, you know?  I was already going to spend the day playing catch up.  I always do when I get there late (Which is why I get there as early as possible... meaning anytime after five am because DD doesn't open till 5)  Get to work.  Have 40 minutes to sheet out and open the store.  I got this.  I'm super Dette.  No really I am because dammit I did it.

But then I looked over at the oven area and saw the mountain of Deep dish pans.  It is a general rule that if there are more than 12 pans you make deep dish dough.  Fill the pans and put the rest on trays to be sheeted later.

By the time I finished making all the balls (Shut up) I needed for the pans I had enough dough left for Lauren to make a junior pizza.

32 pans.  32 doggone pans.  Had to do that first and not concentrate on anything else because if you take your attention from Deep dish procedures for even a minute, that minute turns into ten and those ten turn into an hour and before you know it, you have lost an entire batch of deep dish dough because that crap rises so stupidly fast that you have about enough time to oil the pans before you have to start sheeting. So that took me until like one thirty and then stupid me started on her regular dough not looking at the time.  Because at 2 pm, I'm supposed to drop everything and do evening sheet outs. (I don't get to see the front of the store much when I open...)  Didn't finish that batc of dough until almost three so got started on the sheet outs while helping J do the Planet fitness order.

Aside:  Planet fitness orders over 130 dollars worth of pizza from us on the first monday of each month.  I have no problem with this.  Well I kinda do.  My moral compas kinda points due north most of the time so I don't see why a GYM orders PIZZA.  I actually asked a lady that works there once.  She was honest, I will give her that, but her explanation was that people eat the pizza and feel so guilty that they hop on the machines and work out.

Fucking brilliant.  Devious as hell, but fucking brilliant.

Shorter segway, I didn't get back to the rest of my dough until after five when the closing shift leader got there.  This is not an uncommon occurrence in Howies these days.  In fact I wasn't in trouble for it but it annoyed the piss out of me because I generally have my dough done before the evening sheet outs.  I get this single mindedness thing going and dough just gets done.  Today however, my brain was like, "Nope, don't talk to me, you didn't finish your cup of coffee, I'm not playing fair today, go fuck yourself."

I promised I would get A through rush.  Rush seemed to rush right on past Howie's tonight because by a quarter to seven it was so slow I think the clock was moving backwards.  I ran.  Ran far and fast.

So right now Charlotte is in the brink of a cold snap.  And by snap I mean a beefy jock wound up a towel and snapp our naked asses in the locker room.  It's so damn cold it hurts!!!  I usually love winter.  It's the one time I really don't have to take my allergy meds and two inhalers because everything is dying.  There's no damn dust.  This week, I have had to use my rescue inhaler because the air is so cold that when I get it into my lungs it's so cold it burns.

No shit... today the snot froze in my nose.  I am not kidding.  I stood outside to talk to my mom for about ten minutes.  The snot froze in my nose.  And when I went to blow it, not realizing that it was frozen and not just crusty (I have a snotty nose it's winter, if that's all I get I;m okay with this) it broke and tore skin from the inside of my nose.  Causing a nosebleed.  Once again my brain said, "You didn't finish your coffee, this is what you deserve."

So I am going to bed.  Early for me but there you have it.  My nose is still bleeding.  My feet hurt and this morning I discovered that if I take off my shoes while sheeting out the morning pizzas, I can't see the top of the sheeter because I'm just that short.  Yeah...

Goodnight.   I'm going to cuddle under my blankies!

Why did I resolute to do this every night again??

Oh yeah, new year new me... wait.  Nope that's not it.  There was a reason.  I know I had one.  It might have been with my butthurt feelings thinking that one day I'll look back and say that I was wise or something...

Knowing me, I'll look back and think.. "Was I drunk?"

Tonight, the answer would be yes.  I'm not even going to lie.

My intention tonight was to come home and tear into the bucket of hot wings I got from Wal-Mart and have a milkshake so that my mouth wouldn't be burning.  But I put a little too much Kahlua in my shake (Is there really such a thing as too much) and four wings in and I was full.  Throw them bad boys back in the fridge.  I wish I could say that I'll try again another night but my girls come back tomorrow so all leftovers are fair game.  We live on a "Eat it or lose it" kinda vibe.

Sorta like the Hunger Games, except I'm usually the first tribute to starve to death....

I had a direction I was going in tonight.

No I didn't.  I thought I did but I don't.

So yeah.  Jan, 2nd blog.

Weight: Not even looking
Money: If I could spend the money I draw, I'd be rich
Sanity: Uhm... what?
Chicken Wings this year: 8
Hours worked this year: 16/7 of 44
Hours slept this year: 8
Dates this year: Zilch

New year.... new me

...bullshit.

I'm going to be the same opinionated,  bossy bitch I was at 12:01 that I was at 11:59.

The only difference is,  now you will know it.

It's not so much a resolution as a basic saying is going to happen. 

I'm tired of being the one that everyone gripes to but no one listens to. I'm tired of people taking my good days and bringing me down because if they can't be happy then no one will.  I'm tired of my bad days not being all mine.  If I'm having a bad day,  freaking listen to me and console me don't tell me about your day which had to be ten times worse.

I'm thinking about getting my wrists tattooed this year.  One side will say,  "always remember who you are." Not sure yet what the other wrist will say but I want them on the insides if my wrists so that every time I look down at my hands,  I see it and remember it.

It's time I stopped trying to make everyone else's world a shiny happy place and start making my own world less gray.

It's time I start thinking about me.  My kids are going to be grown and out of the house soon and what will I do with myself then?  Go party?  Go hang out all night at friends houses drinking?  Work myself to death every night until all I can do is drop my body on the mattress and hope I wake up on time to do it all again tomorrow?

I always said that when my mom passed away,  I was going to pull up stakes in North Carolina and go where I want to go,  which up until last year was California.  Now honestly,  that's England. I don't have to live in London.  I had always kept to the saying that the only things that can make me stay here were a job that I couldn't leave our a marriage.  I can make pizza and count cash and do customer service anywhere.  Well maybe not count cash anywhere because the cash registers in Europe confused the hell out of me. And it's not like I'm getting married anytime soon.  The guy that I have been in love with FOR YEARS wouldn't know that I'm on the same planet as him if you showed him a live video of me dancing.  No other guys seem interested in more than the occasional screw.  So exactly what an I holding my breath for?

And I'm going to stop asking myself what is wrong with me.  There is nothing wrong with me.  Except that not one of my friends know who I am.  They think I'm an easy going push over. They think that I'm not mature enough.  They think that I'm going to freak out over the smallest little thing and let things blow way out of proportion.  They think that they can just idly pass me over for things that I deserve and that I'm going to smile and say it's okay. Because that's what I've done in the past. I bucked up and smiled, said it was ok,  then went home and cried and never let them see how much they hurt me.

You hurt me,  I will let you know. And then I will be through with you.  I spent 2015 looking back and making sure no one was left in the dust like I was the spearhead for no child left behind.  This year, if you fall behind I hope you don't choke on my dust too much.

I think that if I make a new years resolution, it will be this: I will blog every night before I go to bed.  Some blogs will be obscenely short while some may be obscenely long.  I will stick to one point,  I will not name names,  I will not defame anyone nor will I get overly personal.  This blog is for me and if you don't like it,  I'm not standing over you making you read.  Be a goddam adult and so coming to me whining about how I hurt your feelings when you obviously didn't give a damn about mine which is probably the reason you ended up in my blog in the first damn place.

Ring a ding ding. Let 2016 sing with me saying to the world that this is who I am and if you don't like it,  kindly exit through the door on the left. I have a daily cap on how much bullshit I can take and I'm sorry for you but if that limit is reached, you will be sol.

Let the year of Claudette begin.