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Archive for October, 2009

Wouldn’t it be nice if at birth we were all given a manual, a how to manual, and when we came up against something we weren’t sure how to handle, we could just look it up in the manual.

Like how exactly do you deal with moving out of your boyfriend’s house because you found your own?  I mean, that was the deal. I move in here until I could find a place I could afford.  I found my new house this week.  I’ve got a week to 10 days before it’s ready for me to move in.  So where is the chapter in that book that tells me how to transition from living with him to living alone?  Where’s the chapter that tells me he will still love me even when I’m not sleeping next to him every night?  Where to find the answers to questions such as “What’s for dinner? Where are my jeans? Can you help me with my homework?” when someone else has answered those questions for 2 months?  Where do I find the reasuring words “It’s all going to be ok. Nothing’s going to change?”

I sat down today, pen in hand and started to write all that was on my brain.  I’ve been in a funk for the past few days.  I thought it might be my medication, but even with a couple tweeks to my cocktail I’m still feeling out of sorts.  Then the thought occured to me that  maybe it’s not my cocktail that is off, maybe it’s the people around me. I mean, I can only take so many pills and if people are still assholes, well all the pills I swallow won’t change that fact.

I needed to vent, blow off steam, expell all I’ve been keeping inside just dump my brain if you will.  Rid myself of all this frustration I’ve been keeping inside.

Dear, well, you know who you are.  You make it your business to know everything.  Even things that are none of your business.  I used to share a lot of things with you, a lot of things about my life. Sure I’d been warned, but I ignored the warnings.  Then I figured out that you weren’t asking about my life because you actually cared, you were just asking because you were nosy.  My life is not 100% open for public consumption.  Burn me once, shame on  you. Burn me twice, shame on me. But don’t be pissed when I shut you out. It’s your problem.  I unfriended you and blocked you as well on Facebook.  I’m shutting you out.  I hate being used as a source of your gossip.

To the person who peppered me with F-bombs a few weeks ago.  I understand people’s need to vent about situations. But there is no need to drop that many eff bombs at me because you’re mad at something out of my control.  I could have helped but after that conversation I was a whole lot less than inclimed to lift a finger for you.  I could probably forgive and forget if you would just say “I’m sorry”.  Saying “It wasn’t directed at you” is not the same.  And because of all that, I refuse to grant you any personal favors.  You can not pepper me with f-bombs and expect me to be your BFF.

A few months a ago I wrote a blog post that  you didn’t agree with.  You jumped my shit, and you’re allowed to have an opinion different from mine.  I respect that.  What I don’t respect is you throwing things in my face that have nothing to do with what I wrote.  When you crossed that line I had nothing to lose.  I stopped pretending I accepted what you were doing in your life, when in fact I believed to my core that what you were doing was selfish, and disrespectful.  You blew up at me and then shut me out of your life.  I barely notice.  I still stand by every word I said.  Your guilt trip won’t work on me.

To my ex husband, telling the girls that you are ‘trying to save up child support’ is not the same as sending child support. It also sounds less authentic when you tell the girls you are going to remodle and add on to your house.  Oh and telling them you know that child support would make their life here so much easier, adds a rather pleasant touch to that whole bag of lies you’re trying to sell.   The only thing that money you’re saving in your pants pocket is supporting would be your balls if you actually still had them.

To everyone out there. When I am being quiet and not joining in it does not mean I’m in a downward spiral.  Sometimes I have nothing to say.  Sometimes I know it’s better to keep my mouth shut.  Sometimes I know I’m in a manic or depressive stage and that my perception of things is skewed so I stay quiet.

Unfortunately for you, this is not one of those times.

Halloween is sneaking up on us. Ok, more like rush at us like a freight train.  Well, maybe not that fast.  Whatever.  It’s coming.

This was our last weekend to have the kids before the big wear-funky-clothes-and-go-door-to-door-begging-for-candy-from-strangers night.  We spend months if not years teaching our children ‘don’t take candy from strangers’ and then one night a year we dress them up and send them out to do exactly what we’ve taught them not to do.

The kids won’t be with us this year, and since it was cold and wet and raining and the weekend before Halloween we thought it was the perfect day to take them to the pumpkin patch because we’re good parents like that.

There happen to be a corn maze there. Of course that’s where the kids wanted to go. Pumpkins? What pumpkins?

Don’t you want pumpkins for Halloween?

Yeah, sure whatever. Can we go in the corn maze?

ADD much?

We let them go to the corn maze.  We sent a 14-year-old boy, followed by his 12, 10, and 7-year-old sisters.  The male had the map.

Three guesses as to what happened?

They got lost.

In a 10 acre corn maze.

In the cold damp weather.

Did I mention it was raining?

Did I mention there was mud?  A lot of it.

They found every bit of it.

They didn’t however find their way of the maze.

Over an hour later, Brian asked for a map and went in to find them.  It wasn’t hard if you followed the map, watched the checkpoints and listened for them. (They are LOUD with a capital L-O-U-D)

Brian came out of the maze followed by three cold wet very muddy children who were bubbling over with tales of their adventure. They would have stayed another hour if we let them. They probably wouldn’t have found their way out be then either.

Where was the map?

Funny you should ask.

It was in Scooter’s pocket, because ‘it was getting wet’ besides he’s a boy, and we all know men don’t read maps.

We got them all in the car, and headed home to a hot home cooked meal. When from the back seat we hear…

“But I didn’t get my pumpkin!’

Since I am not entirely sure what I can/will be blogging about, I can say with a great deal of confidence I will not be blogging about the following.

• Avitaween I just don’t understand how am jealous of people who can travel across the country for a weekend of drunken debauchery Halloween Party. I mean I totally get why they would want to after all I would give my left arm to party with the likes of Britt, Adam, Hilly, Karl, Poppy and Dawg and Dave. But apparently none of the airlines will take left arms as a form of payment, so I am stuck at home throwing back rum and cokes visiting the pumpkin patch with 4 wild indians children I love to death.
• How wonderful everything is at home because right now it a great big pile of fuck you.  Lines have been drawn, his kids against mine and of course he sides with his as I watch them run over mine and I’m stuck wondering who’s side do I take?  The ones I gave birth to or the person I have to sleep beside tonight?  I think I’ll go sleep in the fucking car.
• Christmas.  I am not even thinking about it.  I’ve got Halloween and Thanksgiving to deal with before then.  Besides when you are a flat ass broke as I am, Christmas is the last thing I want to think about.   Oh and how much fucking fun I’m having in this twisted effed up fun house I’m living in tonight.
• How easy it would be to just not take my medication tonight consequences be damned.  After all they won’t improve the situation any.
• How this clusterfuck is all my mind can focus on tonight and how my blog seems to be the dumping ground for things that suck lately.
• The whole TSA incident.  I had my say once.  The incident seems to still be making the rounds and I’m just about done with it.
• I won’t be blogging about anything I have going on in my head right now.  I’m just to pissed off and tired to watch and filter what I say and tomorrow next week next year someday maybe I will regret it. Maybe

I’m not sure the new dosage of medicine is working, or if people are just annoying as shit and I notice it more.  I have to wonder if I am over reacting to things, to people, to situations.

I don’t know if I’m in a manic phase or if I’m just cranky.  Although I’d put my  money on manic because I have this need to clean everything (even the stove top and under the hood.)  I love my girls and on any other night their goofing around and playing, joking and laughter would be welcome noise of my kids.  Tonight, I just want them to go to their room, watch TV and be quiet.

I have spent the day wanting nothing more than to curl up in Brian’s arms. Wrap my arms around him, feel his wrapped around me and feel safe and loved.  And at the same time I want to shut him out, push him away, act like I don’t care.

The girls were supposed to help me do dinner dishes and I couldn’t stand for them to be in the kitchen with me.  I sent them to watch TV not because I didn’t need the help, I didn’t want it.  I just want to be alone.

Except that when I’m left alone, I get stuck in my head.  I go back and relive some of the worst times of my life, wishing I would have done things differently.  I go back and rerun the scenes through my head, feeling the fear, the anger, the tears whatever, all over again.

I love my girls.  I love Brian. I want them around, I need them to understand it’s not them at all.  I want them to hold on to me and bring me back to life, and yet, I can’t be around them.  Their noise grates on my nerves.  Their inability to give me what I want due to my inablity to ask for it makes me want to shut them out, push them away.

I have to call the doctor on Monday and report in as to how I feel.  Is wanting to push the pedal to the floor and run over (and by run over I mean floor it and don’t let up) all the idiots on the road a bad thing?  Then yeah, we need to make more changes.

I find myself not wanting to be alone, wanting the stimulation of human interaction and  yet, the very interacation I want pisses me off and I push it away.  Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Tomorrow Brian’s kids will be here so it will be a full house with everyone home.  I had better get it together by then or it’s going to be a really long rough weekend.

Every now and again something someone says or does or whatever reminds me of something from my past. (How’s that for a lot of somethings that amount to well, nothing?) So I travel back and wander peeking in various windows of my past.

Until I find some fucktard thing I did that could have turned out so different than it did. Like in a good way. As in nobody got hurt or died or lost good kind of way.

And I obsess about it.

And by obsess I mean, well obsess about it until I have worked up a really good guilt trip. And I begin to wonder why it is the people in charge of things like life, let me walk around unsupervised most of the time.

The girls’ dad and I used to have some whopper fights.  Violent and loud and break the furniture, holes in walls kind of fights.  At the time I used to think it was best to get the kids secured in a bedroom and then take him on to prove I wasn’t afraid of him.  Or the time he locked me and kids in their bedroom and stood outside telling them that I was a slut and a bitch and whatever else he could come up with.  I sat in that room and asked him what he was trying to prove and why was he doing this?

What Ishould have done, that time, and every time, was just ignored him and walked away.  I should have taken the kids and walked away.

I should have taken the higher ground.

I wonder now just how scared the girls will be in the future from the past I put them through.  I wonder what their future relationships will be like because of the things I did.

Or didn’t do.

What about all the manic episodes they have witnessed me go through? Will all the times we got in the vehicle and drove around town because I needed to be moving all the time will be etched in their minds forever?  I wonder if all the things they have witnessed in their life will have lasting effects on their life.

Of if they think less of me as a mother because of the episodes.

Will they grow up and remember a crazy mom with mental issues, or will they remember the calm happy normal years instead?

Will they grow up remembering the fights between their parents that they witnessed?  What about the violent fights their dad has had with the girlfriends he’s had since then?

I know we all have rough times in our childhoods.  I think my girls have had more than their share.

And I feel it’s my fault.

That somewhere along the line I failed them.

Things are better now.  I’m on medication. I’m half a state away from their father.  They don’t witness violence or mood swings every day.  They know who’s coming home to them every night.  They know that they will go to sleep and wake up in the same bed.

But is that enough to erase the evil, the stains of the past?

I can only hope.

I’m going to pipe in here, even though I’m not sure I have anything to add.  I guess I’m just voicing an opinion without pointing any fingers.  Well, maybe a few, but that’s later on in this post.

This weekend I saw this tweet come across my Tweetdeck

.

Several people were already RT-ing this all over the Twitterverse.  I read Nic’s story on her blog. I felt the anger and the fear and the anziety she felt at the airport that day.  The story she told was very real and believable, and moving and my heart went out to her.

And so, I RT’d her story on Twitter

and Facebook

Watching the tweets spread the word like wildfire, it was no wonder this blog post went viral.  And in watching the tweets retweeting and retweeting and with each retween the anger rising.  Then is was suggested someone contact TSA.  Then TSA’s website was tweeted and is was suggested everyone contact TSA and demand an explanation at the very least.  It seems that a lynch mob was forming.  And from what I could tell, that mentality was beyond Nic’s control. She asked that her tweet about her experience with TSA be passed along.  From there it just snowballed.

TSA did respond.  They posted their answer on their blog with their video of the situation. I will admit that when TSA’s rebuttal first surfaced, I read it, but didn’t watch the video.  Their response sounded like a typical spin job by a government orginazation. It was later that I went back and watched the video. Their video does not support Nic’s story 100%.  The video does not show her anxiety, her stress, her confusion that she felt.  The video does not follow Nic the entire time and therefore nobody can be 100% sure what happened at those times.

Nic later offered an apology and an esplanation of a sorts. It was the best that she could considering she was in the middle of a shit storm that had taken off and beyond her control.  She had people who had gone to bat for her, had her back, and were now feeling betrayed.  The mob mentality turned on her.  In light of the TSA video there were people out there who didn’t know who to believe or what the middle ground was between the two sides of this story.

This story took off and spread like wildfire.  It took on a life of it’s own. Once it was out there, it couldn’t be taken back. It’s funny that for all the people who were ready to defend Nic and railroad TSA, once the video came out, they disappeared.

This is similar to the Rush Limbaugh’s bid to buy into the St. Louis Rams I am not a Rush fan, but the man wanted to buy into a football team and keep them in St Louis (although I wonder why, they suck this year, but whatever). Somebody somewhere said that once upon a time in the past, Rush made a racist remark.  The NFL said that if he was racist how could he support a sport that has so many African American players.  Of course Rush asked them to prove it, and they couldn’t. But the idea of the posibility that he could have, might have, made a racist remark sometime in the past, was enough for Roger Goodell to refuse to allow Rush to buy into the NFL at any level.

The point here is simple.  With the explosion of media networking sites, any and everything becomes news. Everyone becomes a reporter of life around them.  While we are inundated with ‘news’  and information from everyone everywhere, little to none of it is fact checked or regulated and therefore it may or may not be true.  But of course if it’s on the internet it has to be true. Right?  Maybe not.

I haven’t nor will I pass judgement on Nic, or TSA.  They both have their version of the story and like any story, the truth lies somewhere in between.  I will continue to follow her on Twitter, and I will continue to read her blog.  But along with everything else I read I will remember that it is filtered through their eyes.  It’s up to me to figure out what I chose to believe as fact, and what I believe is their truth.

Dear B,

Let’s be honest, yesterday sucked.  Big hairy sweaty balls sucked. Does it matter who said what to who?  Does it matter that my feelings were hurt and I gave you the cold shoulder all day?  Does it matter that the medicine the doctor gave me to help me sleep helps me sleep but turns me into a blubbering bitch who can’t stop crying.  Not so much. None of that matters really.  They are just minor details in the mess that we made of yesterday.

Last night I slept in the bedroom down the hall.  I thought one night apart might give us both a little space.  The offer was enough to bring down the walls we both had been holding up all day.  At the end of the day there was still I love you’s from both of us.

Both of us got our feelings hurt. Both of did the hurting. Neither of us was very nice, or forgiving of the other.  I just want to take a  minute to say I am sorry I was a cold shouldered, short tempered, weaping bitch to you yesterday. I hope that you can see behind all the ick from yesterday, and see the heart that beats beneath.  The heart that loves you.

All my love for the rest of my life,

Becky

Lisa @ Princess Buttercream wrote a post about her on line persona and name.  I am in the same boat she wrote about.  I have spent a lot of time on Twitter as of late and I’ve made a lot of new friends who know my Twitter name, Ms Batman. Which a year ago made perfect sense to me, well, it still does, but well, now,I just don’t feel the need for a nickname.  There are people out there who don’t like cutesy pseudonyms To be clear, I don’t blog so they will read my blog, although I would like it if they did, because, well I read their blog religiously.

Anyhoo, I have outgrown the need for the name Ms. Batman. At least on my blog,  At the time it was cute, and I was still in the honeymood stage of a new relationship.  Brian added me to his phone plan, got me a new phone and said it was my Bat Phone.  Hence, he became Batman, and I became Ms. Batman.  But that was 3 years ago.

At 41, if I’m going to write on a blog on the internet, and I believe what I’m saying, I should be able to stand behind my words without standing behind a pseudonym.  If I’m going to own my words, I need to own myself. If you are friends with me on Facebook (and you really should be, I’m that awesome *cough cough*) my real name/location is there.  I’m not that hard to find, and I don’t hide very well.

So, to those of you who are just meeting me and finding my blog, via Twitter or Facebook.

My name is Becky and I’m a blogger.