Much better now…

It’s Day Six without HG and I’m doing much better today.  I think actually I’m getting a little used to this being alone thing for awhile.  I guess I had better be used to it, as HG and I agreed that she would go and visit her BFF for ten days every three months or so, as well as have a couple of other weeks to visit her family or go elsewhere.  I guess I needed a few days to feel sad about that and get myself into a space that I feel okay about it.

Relationships aren’t always easy, they require a lot of give and take.  HG gives me a LOT all of the time, and I need to give her what she needs, I’m trying to figure that out as I go.

There are still a lot of things that need figuring and most of them have to do with me.  I have a lot of things to process and solve having to do with my future career moves and such.  So much of my decision making has to filter through the fact that I am a single mom and everything that I do will affect my children and that their care comes first before my personal job happiness.  I don’t care for my Glamorous Waitressing Job, but it works for my family at this time as far as the flexibility goes.  I know I’ll work something else out and I have a few things in the planning stages, it will happen.

Sometimes it just feels overwhelming.

Last night I went out with some friends from work, we went to karoke at a horrible little smoky dive bar that is so skanky you feel like you need to shower afterward.

It was great.

We had loads of fun and I sang several songs and even participated in Suicide Karoke, where the KJ randomly picks a song for you to sing.  Everyone else got easy songs like the Beatles, yours truly gets a Three Dog Night song that I haven’t heard since about 1978.

I stayed out too late and felt a little yucky today from all of the first and second hand smoke that I inhaled, (not to mention the few Vodka presses I had…) but it was well worth it.

We met some bikers and I had a fascinating conversation with one of them and learned all sorts of things about biker organizations.  Did you know that they have charters and boards of directors and dues, and follow Roberts Rules of Order to conduct their meetings? I didn’t.  Anyway, my friend Carrie told the biker dudes that we were all strippers at Starz in Salem.  They’ll be stopping in there next week to see us dance.

A little later, two of the biker dudes wives came over to tell us to stop talking to their men.  Okay.  No problem.  I may be butch, but I’m not taking on a chick who wears leather and rides a Harley, no sir, not me.

This morning I met my dear friend Michelle and her precious, precious sweet baby girl for coffee and then had lunch with my neighbor.  I even did some laundry, took out the trash and thoughfully considered what to do about the backyard lawn that is getting quite long.  I didn’t do anything about it, but I did thoughtfully consider it.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll consider it some more.

Things are much better now.  I think I’ll be just fine.

It’s Day Four

The new prescription my doctor gave me for my sleep disturbances and anxiety worked great to help me sleep; like I could have slept for about 20 hours.  She told me I could decide how much to take (1-3) pills.  I took two, thinking it was in the middle and it knocked me on my ass for sure!  Tonight, I took one.

I think I’m beginning to get used to being alone.  These last two days have been tough because the girls have been gone to their dad’s house and the plans that I had made fell through.  I’ve been spending a lot of time playing around with my Mac and transferring info from my PC.  I decided that I take too many pictures.

My house is a mess.  I have no motivation to do anything about it, no one is going to see it except for me, and frankly I don’t care.  It almost feels like a little bit of rebellion, not cleaning up.  HG is soooo neat all of the time, and keeps our house very clean and picked up.  My not cleaning it up almost feels like my snubbing my nose at her being gone.  Very mature, I know.

I really am a royal bitch.  She calls and tells me about the things that she is doing, and part of me just wants to say, “How nice for you.  I’m just here at home, maybe I’ll do something just as fun like put in a load of laundry!”  Of course I don’t, I just think it, (and write it…)

It’s coming to the home stretch.  I work a double shift tomorrow, then the girls will be back on Monday and the rest of the week will fly by, I’m sure it will.  I hope it will.

Certainly I sound like a spoiled, co-dependent, immature, insecure crazy person.  Well, I probably am most of those things, but mostly I’m just in love with the person who completes my life and not having her around royally sucks.  I know that part of loving someone is supporting and wanting the things that will make them happy.  More than anything I want HG to be happy and fill the areas in her life that are missing in our day to day life.  I want her to feel as complete as I am, even if I turn into a whiny baby in the process.

The good news?  It’s 11:00, and that is a respectable time to go to bed.  Oh, and if you Google “Co-Dependent Support Group Portland, OR” you’ll see my site sixth on the list.

Who knew?

Day Three, and a Meme

Bucky sent me these great interview questions that I’m supposed to answer honestly. I’ll do my best…

* You are a character in a classic sitcom. Which character, and why?
I would be Samantha Stevens, for all of the obvious reasons; she could do the coolest magic, wiggle her nose, had great hair, and those outfits? Cool. The only thing I wouldn’t be able to deal with would be that husband of hers. He, would have to be turned into a toad. Permanently.

* Who will play you in the movie of your life, and why?
Well first of all, I can’t possibly imagine anyone ever making a movie of my life, (how boring,) but if someone DID make a movie of my life and I was to choose who to play me it would have to be either Faith Ford or Kelly Ripa. And yes, I know they played in a sitcom together but that has nothing to do with my choice. I chose Faith Ford because people have told me in the past that we look alike, and Kelly Ripa because I think she is quirky and cool. The only other person I would consider would be Hillary Swank, because obviously, our bodies are nearly identical. (HA-HA!!!!)

* You are going to be stranded on the proverbial desert island that
just happens to have electricity and media players. Which book, CD,
and movie do you take with you? You get one of each.
Book: A Course in Miracles because it would probably take years on a deserted island to read and understand it. By the time I was rescued, I would be very spiritual sound. CD: The Sound of Music soundtrack. You just can’t get tired of singing along with that, come on. Movie: Gone With the Wind, because it’s so damn long and so, epic.

* Which would you choose: fabulous wealth and a normal lifespan with
aging, or normal income and a perfectly youthful body for the rest of
your life (normal lifespan, but you don’t get pruny at the end)?
I would much rather have the fabulous wealth and age. I certainly don’t love the signs of aging, but it’s the story of who I am and of my life. With fabulous wealth I would be able to make other people’s lives better for them, as well as be able to see the beautiful places in our world that I might not otherwise be able to see.

* If you could live in any other time in history and place in the
world, when and where would that be?
I have to say that I’m torn between two times of history. The first would be during Pioneer times in the late 1800’s, you know, Little House on the Prairie times. I would have loved the adventure of traveling to new untouched territory and making my own way in the world. The other time period that I identify strongly with would be the middle 1940’s during the WWII era. I loved the culture, (the clothes,) and most importantly the hair styles of that era. I would have definitely been a Rosie the Riveter type of gal, all while bouncing a baby on my hip and cooking up some meatloaf.

And that. Is all.

I spent the day doing a little work, shopping, visiting with my friends Wendy and Karen and their precious new baby, going to the doctor (new drug, let’s hope they work…) and more shopping. Okay, my shopping consisted of buying several books (three cheesy brain candy novels and a book on Lesbian Relationships,) and something for HG. Nothing exiting, really.

And I’m getting by. Only six days left.

I’m so fucking pathetic.

Oh, and I forgot. I’m supposed to put in the rules for the Meme:

So, you wanna play along?

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me, please.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions of my choosing.
3. You must update your blog with the answers to the questions. Whether you like them or not.
4. You have to include this explanation, and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

It’s Day Two, and a Rant

And so far, I haven’t come apart at the seams. I did however forget about DD#1’s piano lesson and haven’t yet helped DD#3 study spelling words, (HG does that.) I also had trauma when American Express didn’t post my payment and sent me an e-mail stating I had an outrageous balance, not fun. Then I hit my knee so hard on the little control thing for my trailer hitch inside my car that I couldn’t breathe. (I also yelled at DD#1 and had a very near panic attack.)

But I’m putting that all behind me.

Good things abounding. Last night I finished a book I was reading which was light and cute and funny, (Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella.) Today I dropped the girls off at their respective educational institutions, went to the market, came home, read up the house, dressed and made coffee. LeLo and Wink came for a visit, we almost won $20,000.00 playing scratch it’s, she gave me a nice Mac lesson and we had a lovely lunch surrounded by all sorts of scary suburban types. LeLo was a little frightened, but I held her hand the whole time. (Not literally people…)

I’ve also had the opportunity to have lovely e-mail chats with two of my readers and invitations from friends who feel sorry for me like me.

It’s all good.

Now, I have a rant.

I have taken ssue with some things I overheard on the Today show today.

Why are they making a big deal about women breastfeeding other women’s babies? Women have done that for millions of years without any issues. After all, human milk is made for human babies. People don’t have any problem feeding their baby milk that comes from a COW, but balk at feeding their baby milk that comes from another human? Please. Corporate pharmacuetical companies created negative propaganda about breastfeeding fifty years ago and generations of people have suffered the health consequences from that.

The bottom line in this “issue” is that our society has so sexualized women’s breasts and diminished a women’s power of birthing and breastfeeding that it has somehow now become “taboo” to do something that our bodies were designed to do. We have medicalized, intervened, and demeaned women’s bodies (in regards to mothering,) because that natural reproductive power that women posess is so fucking threatening to men; they took it away from us.

And how did they do it?

They dangled a false carrot of empowerment and freedom in front of us to make it look like they weren’t controlling us. They traded us the “burdon and restrictions” of birthing and breastfeeding for turning over our personal freedoms, choices and power and ultimately denying our natural God given instincts.

Women are routinely screened for HIV during pregnancy. I have other issues with this, that I won’t get into now, I’m just circumventing the HIV issue of sharing breast milk. There is nothing wrong with a healthy woman breastfeeding another healthy woman’s healthy baby. Nature intended babies to be fed human milk, and however a woman chooses or needs to achieve that, so be it.

End rant.

Co-Dependency Sucks

HG has a lot of free time on her hands, and frankly, she gets tired of doing the laundry all of the time, and I’m only so entertaining for so long. So every few months, she gets a hankering to take off to some far-off and exotic place where there are no soccer practices, no Dancing With the Stars marathons, no spelling words to teach, and something other than Macaroni and cheese for dinner.

Yes, she trades all that the suburbs has to offer, in order to drive ten hours to spend nine days visiting her BFF in the beautiful Golden State. There she will no doubt, bask in the sun while drinking her favorite beer, hanging out with the person she likes best in the world.

And where does that leave me?

Oh, right here in my bed, on my precious MacBook, spending most of the morning crying, and the rest of the time with a terrible migraine-like headache. Only now, after several Advil and two cups of coffee do I feel a wee bit better, and it’s almost 2:00 in the afternoon.

Shower? I don’t think so.
Depressed? Just a bit.
Anxious? Completely.
Drugs? Out.

It’s not like we’ve never been apart before. We were apart here, here, and here. Every time sucked, but somehow I managed to survive it. Every time is hard(er,) than the last time and I can only attribute that to how completely co-dependent I am, or maybe I’m dependent, I get so confused on which psychosis I have. Whatever I have, It. Just. Plain. Sucks.

It brings me to the reality that I, need to get a life. A life outside of my kids and their schedule and my wife and her boobs. Oh did I say that out loud? No wonder I get more hits off of the google search of “world’s greatest boobs.”

Perhaps I need a hobby. Other than photography and blogging and reading books. Something that gets me out, among my people, doing something. I could volunteer. Hell I could get a new job. One that doesn’t involve waiting on anyone. Maybe I could join the Peace Corps. I wonder if they have a Portland office? Probably not.

Centering your life around a person can leave you feeling quite lost when they are not around for NINE long days. It’s like my life is a puzzle. Each person or experience put a piece in me, but for so long there was a piece missing and that piece was HG. When she’s not here, it’s like that piece of the puzzle is removed and I feel incomplete. No one likes a puzzle with a piece missing. Really, no one does, and HG is a huge piece, huge. Like right in the middle.

I know that it’s important for us to each pursue our own interests seperate from our relationship and frankly we spend more time together than most couples, which may be what is the problem. Because really, I’m not all I’m cracked up to be, and my kids, well, they’re a nightmare. It amazes me that she even sticks around at all, and I guess if she’s only going to leave for NINE days, I should be thankful that it’s not nine MONTHS.

I’m sure she’ll come back, her name is on the mortgage, and someone needs to pay that sucker. I’m certain she cares more about her credit than sunshine, beer and BFF’s. I hope so anyway.

So my assignment?

I need to occupy the time that I would otherwise be occupying with HG (and her boobs.) I need to find something to do for the next NINE days. Tomorrow, I work. Thursday, LeLo is visiting me. That just leaves, hmmm. SEVEN more days to occupy myself. Ideas? Anyone? Anyone interested in an impromtu visit to a pathetic lesbian in the suburbs of Portland? Takers? You can let me know…

The time is now, 2:20, which is time for the DD’s to come home. Oh happy Mommy times, here we come.

I guess I’ll make the bed now.

Spring Skiing

We had a beautiful day at Mt. Hood Meadows on the slopes. The girls did a fantastic job and the weather was magnificent. It was so warm that I wore only a t-shirt and my Columbia shell without the liner. No hat, half the time I took my gloves off because it was so warm. Incredible.

I had one small, okay not small, but rather large fall.

What is so interesting is that years ago, I would ski and totally wipe out, get up and ski the rest of the way down the hill, no problem. Now, at twenty-eighteen, I wipe out and I lay there for a minute, wondering if I broke my neck, or my back, or my head. I don’t think I did any of those things, but damn, I’m sore today.

It really sucks getting older.

We skiied for a solid five hours. Stopping only once to feed the children some extremely expensive french fries and for HG and I to have a Bloody Mary or two. The Bloody’s were damn good and the girls finished their food before we finished our drinks. DD#1 said, “If you guys would hurry up and finish your Margaritas, then we could go back to skiing.” To which I told her that we weren’t drinking Margaritas, we were drinking Bloody Mary’s, and how on earth was she going to go to college if she didn’t know the difference between the two.

Sigh. I guess I have six more years to school her on the ever important science of mixology. I may want to teach her to cook while I’m at it, but the later isn’t quite as relevent. After all, there is always food in alcohol, but never alcohol in food. So really, which of the two is more sustainable. Exactly.

Today, HG and I are driving to Lincoln City to spend the night with some friends who invited us down to share their condo. Yes, we live our lives like rock stars, always doing something rare and exciting. There’s a casino nearby. Perhaps I’ll really live on the edge and play some roulteet. Maybe I’ll even get lucky? I don’t know, that might be way too much excitement for one weekend.

Perhaps I’ll have a Margarita?

Good times.

The Mac 12 Step Program

Perhaps my next 12 step program will be the one where you give up PC’s and go to the light side. Recovering from PC’s, the program.

Things are actually going pretty well, thanks mostly to LeLo, who continues to call me a pussy, which of course motivates me to not give up.

I have my Word, Excel, etc. for Mac installed. I have my Mac Procare installed. I have some of my bookmarks added. I managed to transfer HG’s music and picture files onto an external hardrive and sync it with her new Mac, as well as load her songs onto my iTunes.

And I was iChatting with LeLo and HG yesterday while having a beer and lunch at McMenamins Pub. We tried video chat, but HG and I were doing something wrong.

I can iChat send LeLo photos right through the chat. How cool is that?

I’m loving it so far. But my PC is still sitting here gazing at me, wondering whatever in the world she did wrong.

Today is a day away from computers, we’re off to spring ski.

It’s going to be BEAUTIFUL.

Ciao y’all. Happy Friday.

Mac Anxiety

The “switching” is causing me much anxiety.  I know I’ll get through it, but I think I need support.  I need a “switching” support group.  And I need some instruction.

All of those years with my PC.  I had the first version of Windows, which replaced my DOS from 1991.  That’s a lof of years in the Bill Gates Empire.

I’m not a computer genius, but I do know my way around my PC.  And now I feel like I’m in a foreign land.  A scary foreign land where there is NO RIGHT CLICK BUTTON.

I’m a right click button queen.  I’m a right clicker.  And my new Mac.  Has no right click button.

Someone help me.

HG went shopping…

And we’re now officially, “switchers.”

I’m a little nervous. I haven’t even taken mine out of the box yet. And I don’t have a fear of commitment, but it’s just scary, you know???

HG is all into hers,

Oh my.

Switchers.

Gratitude Post

April 17, 2007

I am grateful that:

1. I finished and e-filed my taxes.
2. My daughter’s are healthy.
3. I was able to parent help and be with DD#3 today.
4. My anxiety seems to be lessening.
5. I have a beautiful and wonderful wife who adores me and is committed to me.

I am visualizing:

1. $18,000.00 in my savings account.
2. More inspiration about my guide book idea.
3. The IRS accepting my return without issue.
4. Continued healing and growth in my relationships.
5. A happy, healthy birth for my friends Karen and Wendy.
6. Peace in my body.
7. Peace in my mind.
8. Peace in my heart.
9. Love for people who don’t agree with me.
10. Harmony and love in my relationship with my wife.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

I am grateful:

1. That I have a home that I love and one that I share with the people that I love most in the world.
2. That I have supportive friends in life and in blog.
3. That someone loves me as much as HG does.
4. That my friends Karen and Wendy had a healthy baby girl.
5. That my XH and I had a healthy, friendly, e-mail exchange today, one that actually made me smile and chuckle a little bit.
6. That I have everything that I really need.

I am visualizing:

1. Safety for my wife as she travels.
2. Money flowing in freely and easily.
3. Inspiration from many sources to guide me.
4. Happy, healthy children.
5. Me: Calm and at Peace.
6. Me: Secure and Connected.