Jabberwocky

I’ve made you into a fairy tale monster. Mythic, horrific, contained.

All these years you have existed separate from my reality. You became a bad dream, half forgotten in the morning light but still lingering behind, springing forth when I closed my eyes. You became the shadow in the bushes, the half glimpsed stranger, the eyes felt watching.

I reconciled myself to what was lost because I built so many beautiful walls to protect what was left.

Like a naughty Alice, I could not resist what is through the looking glass though; always searching for the monster I was afraid to find. Peering wide eyed through the mirror as though I believed that knowing where the monster was would keep him at bay. As though believing if I could not find the monster, he had ceased to exist.

Then, there you were at last. Again.

You have not evaporated into mist, after all. You have, in fact, married, fathered, befriended.

I have only one question for you now;

Have you truly changed or have you simply gotten better at hiding your fangs?

Psych!

Reason number  a lot that I'm going to hell;

I was on the elevator just now coming back from lunch when a two year old little girl announces to me very cheerfully

"You gots a BABY in you tummy!"

And for just a moment, I glanced over at her mother, face frozen in horror, clearly praying that I'm not going to go all pyscho fat bitch homicide baby killer on her, praying that her sweet little pigtailed oracle hasn't just commited the ultimate faux pas, and for just a moment, perhaps a moment too long, I contemplate bursting into tears as though mortally offended.

But I? I HAVE TURNED A CORNER and I'm all cherubic and shit and so I said "Yep!" and let the mother breathe again.

Where's my fucking gold star?

So that my husband will SHUT HIS FACE

I'm posting a blog entry. I KNOW. But he won't shut up. You know what? I'll show him. By posting the contents of our conversation yesterday. In which he asks for whores.

Me: Is this your plaid? Because it's very expensive. (explanation: I'm looking for the Campbell tartan that his current kilt is made from. mmmmmm kilts)

A: It's *a* version, but not the version which my kilt is made of. My kilt is at home. You can look...

Me: You’re being difficult. Fucking Campbells.

A: How about "will you take a picture of your kilt and send it to me?" Fucking Murphys.

Me: Stupid logical Scots. All the time with the logic.

A: You know what I love? Being insulted. You know what I love even more? Knowing how to change quikset locks.

Me: I’m adorable. And pregnant. And can cry on command. SOMEONE WILL TAKE ME IN.


A: I'll bake them a cake. 

Me: Or, you could bake ME a cake and I’ll be  much more sweet tempered and cease insulting your lineage.
A: I think you're a lying liar. I've been burned by you and your afore mentioned lying lies before!


Me: In relation to cake? I doubt it. We all know what I’ll do for cake.
 
A: Yes, but once you've HAD cake, you're completely out of control. Your bewwy huwwwts and cake won't make it feel better and you just want to make the world huwwwt like you do.


YOU'RE A MAD WOMAN, I TELL YOU!! MAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDD

Me: Fairly confident it’s your fault in the end.

A: Naturally.

Me: I’m glad you’re  coming around. Now about this cake you’re baking me. I like chocolate.

A: I will bake you cake if you stop and pick up cake mix. And if it's chocolate. And if I get to lick the bowl. Do you see that? FIRST he maligns my heritage, THEN he implies that he'll put me out into the cold world ALL ALONE and THEN when I generously allow him to win back my love he asks me to bring him WHORES. This is what I deal with.

Oh. And I'm pregnant. Surprise?








For reals. This is my deal. Take it or leave it.

Me: Do we need anything else?

A: Ladies of the night. 

Pity

Here is what I haven't said; this is what I can't say;


The loss of her broke me. It shattered me into a thousand wee pieces and left them scattered about. There are days I do not cry, but there is not time I do not remember that she would be this big or this old. Sometimes I wake and have forgotten her absence and then I remember again and am shattered again. But mostly, I don't forget and that is both better and worse.


Sometimes, I am able to believe myself when I wish another mother a happy pregnancy. Sometimes, I'm able to be happy for them. It's easier, of course, when they're happy for themselves. But still, inside, I hate them. Just a little. For having what I don't. And then I hate myself. I don't wish them ill. But the jealousy burns; a tiny, bright flame in my gut tears me up and I hate them.


I am selfish in my grief. Forgetting that he, too, lost her. Curling up on the sofa or raging, tears streaming down my face in the grocery line as he strokes my hair, taking all the sadness in the world and making it mine alone. Your dog died? You lost your job? Your husband left? I don't care. My baby is gone. But of course I do care and then I hate myself, too. I hate that I count her absence in months now, instead of hours or days. I hate that I will one day count it in years. I hate that I have to count it at all.

I hate that the Universe gives baby after baby to mothers who hit them, or drown them, or sell them, or forget to hug them. To mothers that leave them in dumpsters or with some man they met; some man with shifty eyes, alone in the bathtub, or in a hot car. I hate that I walk through the aisles of the store and hear them crying as their mother ignores them and talks on her cell phone about how she's gonna get her hair did. I hate that someone, somewhere, some mythical force, thinks that they are better mothers than me. They must be, right? They have their babies and I do not. Their body kept their baby safe despite them and mine did not.

I hate that I am now the woman who Hasn't Move On. I used to pity that woman. Now I pity myself.

For Starters

Me: Okay, but how the hell did a vampire get someone pregnant? He's dead. His stuff would be all dried up.

Shush: Seriously? That's the plot hole you're fixating on?

Me: Until they reveal Kristin Stewart is really a zombie, yes.

Cosmo Lies

The secret to a happy marriage isn't finding the perfect man, it's finding a man who you don't want to stab in the ear with an ice pick even though he throws his dirty clothes ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF THE HAMPER.

(actual crime scene photograph)

(not pictured: the folded basket of clean laundry I did two weeks ago but haven't put away yet because I hate that part and I don't want to do it and you can't make me so there.)

Unlike what happens in Vegas, which ends up on the internet.

Bum: Excuse me beautiful lady, do you have any change?

Me: Nope, sorry.

Bum: That's okay, we can still get married.

Me: I've already got a husband.

Bum: Damn, girl. That's okay. We don't have to tell him. What happens downtown can stay downtown!

Willow

ceramic vases stand sentinel
cloying scent of lilies heavy, sweet
petals dropping like tears
loved me, loved you
loved her
forming drifts around
carefully typed words
inadequately embossed on stiff little cards
until the transient well wishes
can be borne no longer
and the detritus is cleared away
the cheerful reminders of death
stowed neatly beneath the sink
counters cleared of
thinking of you
ten tiny fingers, ten perfect toes
suspended in black and white
replaced by a grocery list
as normal begins to smooth broken edges
of life held together by grief
until from a distance
it looks whole again; fractured but solid
save for the space
that fits the shape of her exactly

Everyone Else is Doing it!

People are stupid. Seriously.

My parking garage has a single driveway that feeds two gates. EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY there is a line of chumps waiting to get in the garage. Why? Because like lemmings they all feel the need to line up at the same gate. Failing, apparently to realize that if there are two gates, two cars can slide in at once! The novelty!

Sometimes, for fun, I sit at the gate and pretend like I don't know how to make my card work, just to see if they'll wait patiently behind me rather than break rank and move to the other gate.

Because I'm an asshole.

A Ranting We Shall Go

Why the hell are some people such big whiny babies? NOT ME. I wasn't talking about me, though if you'd been at my house the last few days you'd be all "well you SHOULD be, Whiny McWhiner" and then I'd cry. Because that's how whiners deal with shit. They whine some more.

One of the things I do is make the kitchen duty list. Everyone gets a turn. Today Chief Whiner was all "Where's YOUR name on the list" so I pointed it out and he's all "why is it only on there once, mine is on there twice?" Listen, ManBitch, my name is only on there once because I do kitchen duty every fucking day. Any time someone else has a meeting, is off, forgets or just doesn't bother I do the kitchen. Sure, it can be argued it's part of my job to keep an eye on the kitchen, but KEEPING AN EYE ON IT and standing in as your mother because you never learned to put a cup in the dishwasher are NOT the same thing. Don't believe me? I DON'T CARE, I make the fucking list and if you whine any more I'm putting your name on it every other week. Don't like that? SUCK IT.

Seriously, the next person that whines "it's not fair" at me is getting punched in the throat.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Hey! I have a blog!

I know, right? The line to smack me forms to the left. Please be orderly and have your ticket ready.

So, I really don't even know where to start.

I got married. But most of you know that. Here we are looking all disgustingly in love and shit.

Just kidding. That's us with our attendants, Vodka and Jameson's. They've been such good friends to us over the years, it was important that they got to be part of the wedding.

I got a new job. It's pretty much like winning the job lottery. No, it IS winning the job lottery. The pay is great, the view is great, the work is great, the people are really great. If I didn't have to wear a grown-up costume to work everyday it would be the Best. Job. Ever. hands down. That's pretty much all I can tell you about it though because sometimes you see us on the news and there are Rules.

Um...what else? We went to Seattle in June for M's 16th birthday. Right? What the hell? She's working at summer camp now, which means that the next six months everything she tells me will begin with 'at camp'. I write her letters from the cat. One cat is a little tetched and the other is kind of a bitch and doesn't write letters so much as send a list of demands. No boring 'love mom' letters from this house. I mean really, she's gone for six weeks. And all I do is go to work. So it's not like they'd be a wealth of funny stories or anything...unless I ride the rail in.

Seriously. Do any of you commute on public transportation? Is there a law that states the minimum number of crazy people per train?

I was waiting for the train and a homeless person was digging through the trash. Not a big deal, there are frequently people collecting things to recycle. Not this guy. OH NOT EVEN A LITTLE. This charmer grabs the WHOLE FUCKING BAG and brings it on the train with him. A bag of trash. Trash that has sat in the 100+ sunshine cooking that old nasty chicken to an extra special level of stank.

The next day a different guy, not visibly homeless, took the time to sit down next to each passenger on the train one by one and assure us each "everything was going to be okay". Some people got addressed as "brother" or "sister". I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I just said "thanks" and was glad he moved on.

Riding the train makes people very short tempered. Not just me I mean. I'm always short tempered. It's part of my charm. Yes it is. Shut up.

You're the reason Mama doesn't blog anymore! And why can't have nice things!

Friend this.

This place has gone from a complain about everything (but in a humorous way! With mirth!) to a "work through the issue around divorce because my therapist is too far away and I work too many hours to go anyway and also I'm off all my medications oh and PS I'm having wicked body issues and aside from THAT Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" bit of Internet that I mostly forget exists. I know. I suck. I blame the hippies and their damn patchouli oil that stink up our office.

See? Hippies. (side note: these particular hippies, while colorful were actually not at all smelly)

As usual I'm fully off my train of thought here. Surprise, surprise. I guess not EVERYTHING changes.

Okay. The point. Facebook in all it's amusing sadism, thinks I need to be "friends" with my ex-husbands new girlfriend. I'm sure she's lovely. In fact, I bet she's perfectly nice and I probably WOULD like her, but hello? Awkward much? Yes. Today they recommended we "reconnect" for the ten thousandth time and I noticed that her profile picture is one of her and J together, posed all couple-y in front of a landmark.

In all the time we were married, in all our road trips snaps, in all the family vacation photo's there are maybe two or three pictures of J and me together. Okay, maybe four. He refused. Flat out, absolutely NO FUCKING WAY refused to ever be photographed on any of these trips. Not alone, not with M, not with me and really, really never all together in front of some commemorative scenery.

Thirteen years of snapshots of scenery and not a single damn human in any of them. I quit asking. Quit wanting to be able to show people those photo's that no one except your Gram ever wants to see anyway (and here we are in front of a shrub! and this is us with a highway guard rail!) because I got tired of hearing "no" over and over. Instead M and I would do long arms of ourselves or she'd pose and I'd shoot. It's like he was standing outside our lives the entire time. When I sorted through the (oh dear god, the number!) photographs from before we went digital do you know how many I found of us as a family? A dozen. Or less. He simply wasn't interested in standing beside me to mark some little event that years later you look back on fondly.

And yet, two months in, there he is with his new love. Standing in front of a scenery marker, arm around her. Saying "look! we went somewhere and it was fun and we enjoy each other's company!".

Why wasn't I worth that same? Why wasn't the fact that I wanted it enough? What did I finally manage to say with my leaving that I couldn't say with my begging?

Don't misinterpret. I'm not jealous or...whatever else is not jealous but implies that I have a problem with them going places and enjoying it enough to want to remember it. I'm so very much happier where I am. But I don't understand. I can't wrap my head around why I had to dismantle our lives to finally get him to acquiesce to the tiny things that would have maybe been the Dutch Boy's finger.

I can't help but think that I really wasn't enough. That I am not enough. It's a fucked up smack to the face to finally begin to feel worthy of the happiness you've scratched out to then be confronted with the evidence that you've finally won a battle you're not fighting anymore. Or maybe lost it. I'm not even sure anymore.

Da Who Dores

My make up is all fucked up, y'all. And I blame Christmas.

I've resisted very heavily the idea of putting up any and all decorations for Christmas. I haven't written a single card, I've only just barely wrapped any gifts and even those only because they had to go in the mail. I didn't make a single cookie and the only person I've wished a Happy Christmas to is the Salvation Army Bell Ringer (put a nickel in the pot, save another drunken sot).

I tell people it's because there isn't anyone going to come to my wee little house on the east end of the world, but the truth is it's because I simply couldn't bear it. Christmas is about Family, and even though I've got an amazing bunch of friends (and Shush, let's not forget him), my family is far away. M is far away. The idea of a Christmas morning with out her...well. Let's just say there isn't water proof enough mascara.

But still, I missed it. I missed the hassle of figuring out why there are three rows of branches labeled "N" and none labled "L" and I missed the stupid string of lights that has to have it's plug's angle JUST SO or it doesn't work. It didn't feel right though, some how, to put up the decorations made of glued macaroni and glitter. Somehow, that tree leaning lopsided in my living room made Christmas too real. Made it too hard. No go. I'm Grinching it. Fuck those stupid Who's and all their Who Spirit, Mama isn't interested.

On his way home this morning Shush called me to tell me he was bringing home Something that had been given to him by a friend at work and while he didn't know what it was there was a lot of it and I was under strict instructions to open it today.

He carried in boxes and bags and laid them on the living room table. A half dozen happily wrapped boxes (with ribbons AND bows. Show off).

The biggest box was to be opened first, he said, so I did.

Y'all...this is where the tears started.

There, inside a that cheerful Santa paper was a Christmas Tree. A gift from a girl I've never met but who somehow knew exactly what I needed. Box after box contained ornaments, lights and even a star for the top of the tree, somehow chosen in exactly the colors I would have picked.

I can't even begin to tell you how much it touched me. Here, somehow, was the whole meaning of the holiday. The proof that even when you're alone, you've got someone, somewhere thinking about you.

the F-ing X-mas F-ing Spirit.

There are two things in this world that I believe above all other - badly fitting underwear will ruin an otherwise amazing outfit and Nice Matters.

This holiday season I'm pretty well on my way to Poverty. Well, not WELL on my way, but certainly within the Poverty Metropolitan Area. It's okay, I'm happy. I like my job despite the fact I work for about $2/hr when all is said and done. There are more important things. Like not being homicidal. But when it comes to being all Holly Fucking Jolly, I'm just...not. I put up a string of Christmas lights so that we're not the Scrooge House and I wrapped and mailed the presents, but if it were up to me, we'd all just sleep in and then eat waffles in our pajama's on Saturday just like if it was any other Saturday of the year.

Call me the Grinch, it's okay, I can take it.

But, in true Grinch Spirit, my cold, black heart grew a few sizes this morning when a Tiny Tim-esque boy held open the door at the Quick Trip for an elderly woman with a walker and an oxygen tank. Seriously, Kittens. How much more Tear to The Eye can we get? A kid the size of a hedgehog wrestling the door open so Grandma Moses can buy a 4 Loko and a pack of Marlboro Unfiltereds? It was fucking beautiful, that.

Lost

Sometimes I sit and stare at this template for a while and then, dejected, exit.

It's not that I don't have things to say (seriously, me?), it's more that...I want to say things I can't. The random musings that almost to a one will cause someone to be upset with me about all, or part, or whatever they think it is that I have said.

It's like I've lost my FuckIt.