foggy, froggy...all those "f" words

Ooo boy...did I wake up in a mood today or what? Too bad I can't just climb back in bed and stay there. Society would be better for it, believe you me.

Really? I should be in a better mood. I had a good weekend with good friends. My good buddy T and I went to go see the Foo Fighters on Friday night. It was an awesome concert. (I miss you T...you should blog again...to keep me company. Think about it?) The wackos from Topeka came over to protest and FF went outside and serenaded them.  LOVE it.

Funniest part of Friday was Younger's reaction to T spending the night.  I no longer have a guest room.  So, I told T she could have the couch or crash with me.  We've known each other since we were 16, we were roommates in college, so it didn't seem odd to us that she slept in my bed.  But you would think I'd told Younger I had decided to roast worms for dinner.  She was positively skeeved out by the idea.  I just chuckled at her as I pointed out that I have known T since I was Younger's age.  It would be like her best-friend spending the night with her 30 years from now.  She seem unconvinced.  Slumber parties are apparently something mothers don't do.

Oh lawd.  30 years?  Shoot me.  Jeez, T, we must have been single-cell organisms when we met.

Then, Saturday night I went to the tackiest dance club on the face of the earth with a good friend whose birthday this week is a mere six weeks after she and her husband split.  So when she wanted to go to a tacky dance club, who was I to say no?  We had fun . . . even if my broken toe and I spent the evening playing pool and not dancing.  I have now decided that the most pathetic thing in the world is the 35+ woman trying too hard to pick-up a man in a tacky dance club.  There were several subjects I wanted to grab by the shoulders, shake repeatedly and shout, "Wake up, woman!  That man you are trying to get is a LOSER! Have some self-respect, remove some of the make-up, and the length of that skirt is doing you no favors.  Try knee length...those of us with some cottage cheese, can't wear those skirts, sweetheart."  Sigh.  Also, can I just say that a post-baby belly does not belong in a spandex dress?  Oy.  That's just nasty.

However, Sunday morning, Eldest and her car had a run-in with a cement pylon in the McDonald's drive-through.  Whatever she did to the car (which had to be towed), is NOT going to be cheap.  CRAP!

So this morning, I woke up after a fitful night's sleep and I'm just in a yucky mood.  Not to mention, I have the froggy, scratchy throat of ragweed season.  Plus, when I looked outside, this is what I saw.  By 8:30 this morning it's not any clearer.  *sigh*  I could really use some sunshine and puffy white clouds today.

A foggy house

a post in which i wine...I mean whine

 Yes. That picture is a warning. I am going to whine. Feel free to stop reading right here, right now. See you tomorrow!

But I figure blogging is my free therapy...where I say the stuff that I'm not quite strong enough to say in the therapy I do pay for. Yeah. Screwed up. I know.

This divorce thing had been years coming. It had crossed my mind in the early 00s, but not too seriously at that point. Then some mild adversity came into our lives (job related stuff) and we drew closer together. The years 2004-2006 may have been the very best part of our marriage. As to be expected, things settled back into the hum-drum. After all, by 2007, we'd been together for 20 years, married for 18.

Then there was knock on our door. The visitor was not unlike those creepy Orkin ads. The ones where the life sized roaches are at the front door? Our visitor was REAL adversity. The child who had previously just been challenge, what with all her brilliance, riddled with migraines, vision problems, ADHD and Aspie qualities. But when we opened that door she was the child with an eating disorder, who was failing classes, who was date raped, who attempted suicide, who was diagnosed with serious a never-ending, no cure, mental illness. Life was bleak. A bleak from which, it turns out, there was no recovery as a couple. I took on this next set of challenges...because as a mother bear there is nothing I wouldn't do for her, even if she drives me to complete and utter distraction. I started up that mountain of issues only to look around and find him, this alleged life-partner, drowning himself in drink. And not only did he retreat into his drinking and stubborn refusal to try and help, he made her worse. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I didn't see (or admit that I saw) that second part until days before I told him we were over.

And at some point there in 2009, not long after our darling girl turned 16, I knew deep down the marriage was over. But two things stopped me from calling it quits then. One, I hate failing at anything and just like I wouldn't give up on her, I wouldn't walk away without fighting for it. But, two, and if the point here is telling the truth I must admit it was a bigger factor, I was horribly afraid that if I didn't just accept him, I would spend forever alone.

The picture the doctors painted of Eldest's future were so desperate and horrid. There were these midnight moments when I believed them (and still do in the worst moments) because I saw the eyes of the other parents in our support group...the parents of teen addicts, teen mothers, runaways, drop-outs, kids who they had to call the police on when they got violent. GOOD people, who had done everything for their kids but like us...JUST like us, damn it...had a child with this illness. An illness that slowly robbed us of our golden girl and left a person we still love but frequently don't like; a person sometimes the irrational shell of who we adore. How does that grow from this little person? I don't know. But I can tell you that it will eat you alive if you spend too much time thinking about it.  (Which is also why I can understand Wasband's drinking even if I can never forgive him for it and the things he said and did.)


So back to the selfish point of this post, the second reason I didn't leave in 2009 is that I knew if I did, Eldest would never spend time with her father and it would all be on me. (Which, when I look back on it now, I know was true then too.) And I thought anyone, any sane man other than the one who was in this mess with me, would take one look at this situation and run. And I would spend forever alone.

So here I am after the leap...and the midnight moments still come...and I am filled with this sticky fear. A house...alone.



Photo from here.

There is a line in the song Anyone Else But You by The Moldy Peaches (from the Juno soundtrack) that sometimes fits me perfectly . . .

shiny, happy fits of rage

Not proud of it, but, oh, so true.

power struggles, teen style

Well, after a bit of a scene on Friday evening, I took Eldest's phone. Actually, I broke Eldest's phone. Intentionally. Not one of my prouder moments. The whole evening was pretty much a nightmare.

She is now phoneless. And I swear to God, she thinks the world has ended.

She is using every ounce of power she has to try and get that phone back...so far, she's going to fail out of school, not learn to drive, stop eating, she's depressed, she's scared something will happen at school and she won't be able to get a hold of anyone to help her, she's sad at night and needs to talk to someone, she wants to transfer immediately to the public school, she feels nauseous. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Do you know what my response is? I say, "I'm sorry about that, honey."

Yeah, I lie. I. am. not. sorry.

Showing why I love her, Janie took me out Saturday night and got me schnockered. I needed a release from all the kid-crapola. We went to a party at our hairdresser's house. His crowd was a hoot. It was gay boy heaven. Jane and I had major fun meeting Ty's guys. We were disappointed not to have been there the night before when, apparently a gay porn star was over and was swinging around his xtra large member before climbing neeekid into the whirlpool. There were boys with see-through shirts and leather (probably pleather) pants, shiny silver tops, wearing eye make-up and sparkles. Hoo boy. But Ty made the yummiest punch with a punch, evah. It was orange and cranberry juices, vodka, Grand Marnier, cinnamon and lots of fresh cut-up fruit. Mmmm.

I love my Ty. That boy can cut hair.

Ty's punch (and a beer at "The Peanut" after the party) caused fur to grow on my teeth while sleeping. I was not a perky mommy on Sunday during Younger's volleyball tournament. And truthfully? Most of those refs are pretty lucky I did not steal their damn whistles. Have you ever listened to whistles in a gym when hanging? Bad, bad idea.

Sorry to blog and run, but I must go say, "I'm sorry you are missing your phone, honey," 40 more times before bed.

*sigh*

Yup. That's a drunken house.

one down...

...and one to go.

Car-man talked to Eldest about the beer can. He did this after (1) I had confirmed with the girls that he hadn't talked to them yet and (2) I said to him, "Did you talk to the girls about the beer can yet?"

His talk to Eldest, conducted 3.1 seconds after (2) above, went like this:

Car-man: Hey, Eldest. Sorry about the beer can in your car. I'm not sure how it got there.

Eldest: *shooting a grin at me*

Laggin: *looking at Car-man like: That's it? You've gotta be kidding me!?!*

Car-man (to me): What?

Car-man (to Eldest): It shouldn't have been there. But I don't know how long it was there or where you found it.

Me: It was under the drivers seat and you were the last to drive the car. Gee, maybe it was MY BEER, even if it is YOUR brand. Or maybe it was Eldest's beer can, cuz she drinks and all.

Car-man: Sorry. It's probably mine even though I don't remember how it got there.

Me: *wtf????* That's SOOO much better.

Car-man: *confused look on his face*

Me: It just sounded like one of Eldest's apologies.

Eldest: Yeah, Dad. *in mocking voice* It's not my fault the beer can is in your car. I don't know how the beer can got there.

Car-man: *looking shocked as he realized how badly he'd done this*

Me: Maybe you can do a little better in your apology the second time around...with the other kid...like actually take responsibility for your actions?

I guess I was still a little pissy. Eh?

i'm intimidated

Monday.

It will be a big day.

It will be a career first.

And frankly, I'm a little bit scared.

Monday I argue my first case in front of a United States Court of Appeals. I will be in the Ninth Circuit, to be specific. (The Ninth covers Washington, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, California, Arizona, Hawaii and Alaska.)

This is the most liberal of the federal circuits. And I'm going in there in a business dispute over the sale of distressed mortgages. Great. Perfect timing, no? At least it's an industry dispute...meaning no consumer issues are presented. That's good. I don't need to be strung up as the poster child for an industry gone to hell.

This is a rather large step for me.

In my area of specialty, most cases settle. It is a rare case that goes up on appeal. It is even rarer to have a federal case on appeal. (And in case you are reading this Charley, you live in D.C. Of COURSE you have federal appeals. But out here in the hinterlands? It's rare.)

I've argued cases in state appellate courts. And I've attend Federal Appeals hearings before.

But Monday, I put on my big girl panties and go do it all by my lonesome. It only took 17 years as a lawyer to get here.

And why am I wasting this time blogging about it, instead of reading the 90+ cases I have to review for the argument? (Yea. You think I'm kidding? Nope. See those notebooks sitting on the footstool? They are full of the case law cited in the parties' briefing.)

So seriously, I gotta go work.

But first. I had to tell you that I'm a tad bit nervous.

a visitor

Crazy came and visited our house last night.

She cast about noisily; whipping the winds. She was the cause of frenzy among the furies.

I hate it when crazy is with us.

In her aftermath there is thought and silence and effort.

Headaches.

Crazy never resolves. She never offers solutions. Instead... Tears are shed. Intentions are stated. Hearts pour forth. But Crazy remains true to her own wild ways.

She's gone now.

If only I knew how to lock that bitch out.

It's a scary house.