i’m not afraid of dying

i’m so afraid of old age, of aging, of being like my mother or any middle aged woman. i see women out in the world, women in their 50s or 60s and i’m usually hostile to them. i see people with health problems, lame legs, curved spines, weak knees, and i see myself in… i calculate the years. part of me is certain i will age prematurely. that while that woman with the flaming red and edemic leg may be 65, i will be 45 when that shit’s happening to me. just a few yaers away.

every night i go to bed and take an inventory on my life, and i evaluate whether it’s good enough or sucks. i’ve always been like this, which is probably why i don’t sleep, but lately it’s become more urgent. lately, i’m starting to think time is running out for me. i can’t make things the way i want them when i’m old, dependent and weak. gotta save money. gotta lose weight and be healthy. gotta take my vitamins. gotta learn everything about art while i still can. gotta read books. now. wrinkle my cortex into an interesting pattern, so that if for a brief moment, even one day in my life, i become an interesting person before the mental decline.

which, i am also certain, will happen fast and severe. my poor daughter will be left to care for a demented mother when she’s supposed to be doing shit with her life.

wonder what i will tell her…. will i say forget it, leave me in a home and go around the world. don’t waste your life tending to me. or will i be so scared of being alone that i demand she stay near me? i don’t know if either is better than the other.

and it’s not about death, i’m not afraid of death. i’m afraid of being one of those people you see. those people with nothing to live for. walking with canes, legs wrapped in compression bandages, taking all their energy and mental focus to make a run to the grocery store.

but anyway, every night i think about all of this. if it’s good enough, if there is hope for improving my life at all in the time i have left.  i sleep on nights when i think i have time. last night i was thinking not.

insomnia’s a bitch

triggered partly by reading the news story about he chimp lady who revealed her horribly disfigured face, partly by the noisy neighbors and partly by being nervous about work.

i’ll have to fill my prescriptions tomorrow. i need the medicine in the house for nights like this.

almost done with my bamboo ink drawing. looks a bit like ass. maybe i’m feeling like a negative nelly about it because i’m tired and now i’m worried about being too tired to work tomorrow.

i’ll have to get through it.

interesting conversation with a friend today. she says the husband of a mutual acquaintance seems to have lost his mind. she says he smells like b.o. and urine and quit shaving and whatnot, his affect is all weird. i don’t know the wife all that well, but i do wonder if i should reach out to her in some way. that’s got to be tough. but it got me thinking about how little i know about this woman, despite having several long conversations with her. she was always skittish, eye contact problems, nervous talking to people, but seemed nice enough. but in retrospect, she was pretty evasive about her life. i do know that she and the kids moved, and i just found out from my friend that the husband did not move with them. but they moved to town when i did. some vague story about living in brooklyn before here, but nothing about why they’re here, what their background is, she doesn’t seem to have ever had a job, which is just so bizarre to me.

i had asked my daughter why she doesn’t hang with her son anymore, and she said the boy just started acting too weird.

so i’m concerned that something serious is going on. not that i can do anything about it. or should.

egad. if i fell asleep now, i’d get four hours. and work a long day tomorrow. criminy.

i do feel better, actually

venting about that friend in a public forum, one she could potentially see, did make me feel a bit better. sort of takes the piss out of my argument that she’s assy and immature for doing basically the same thing, but twatever.

my new boss asked me to work longer hours “to get you trained,” which i’m taking as a bad sign. a sign that he thinks i’m not doing well and need more training. i don’t know what he expects for what he’s paying, but i guess i’ll see. and i don’t know — and when i say i don’t know, i actually mean i don’t know, not that i disagree or anything — what i could have been doing differently. so i’m hoping that i’m misinterpreting this as a bad sign. because i don’t know that i could do any better.

and i think i’m getting sick. which would suck, being new on the job. i’d have to muscle through it without taking time off. but my kid was sick this week, and now my sinuses kill me.

bastards.

i keep feeling like if i can get enough sleep i’ll be alright, but it never happens.

i don’t know, should i write to her?

alright, since i found that shitass insult on the social networking site, i’ve gotten pissed at that friend all over again. i just really wish i could clear the air. i guess if that this person were interested in this at all, or she’d have taken me up on the offer to talk it out at some point in the future, her choice. her choice instead was to target me with junior high school insults via myspace, so i’m guessing the air is as clear as she wants it.

but GRRR…. i have not only not done anything to hurt this person, but i’ve been a GOOD friend to her. part of me wants to just reach out and say that, just for the sake of saying that. just to let her know that it’s not cool and it’s not fair.

and part of me just can’t believe the person i knew would do that. that there must be some kind of explanation for this, that someone I hung around with for so long is not such a loser as to act out like a teenager in a public forum. and if she is, to be called the loser that she is for it. not just to call her that but to itemize all the ways her loserness has expressed itself over the last couple of decades. to rip into her and expose who the real “idiot moron” is.

see, for a number of years i’ve been interested in taking the high road, not acting out when slighted, not showing anger. and you know what it got me? my offer to talk it out with this person got me called “idiot moron” on a huge public web site. i’m not being facetious at all. i really believe this shit happens because i don’t speak up when i need to. if i put her in her place right then and there, at least i wouldn’t have been targeted later. but i set the precedent by letting people walk over me.

it’s easy to say forget it, don’t worry about what someone like that thinks and in most cases i can do that, but when i have been friends with someone for that long, it’s not as easy to just let it go.

so anyway, i’ve come to see the folly of my ways. it’s a holdover from the zen days, my live and let live attitude that i developed and my silly belief that expressing negativity toward someone is wasteful and futile. so i didn’t, and who’s worse off for it? right. so lately i’ve been going the other way with this. lately i’ve been reminding myself to get pissed and show it when i’m slighted. proportionately to the slight. it’s natural, it’s perfectly normal to confront a person who’s wronged you.

but is this person worth the energy? would writing to her get it out of my head any more than writing about it here? doubt it. and she made it abundantly clear that she does not care how any of this impacts me.

i’m big on not sharing my feelings with people who don’t care about them.

 

 

and bad things are happening too

today sucked again. i found out that the income that came in this friday, which was supposed to be about $700 was in reality about $380. on friday night, we went out to eat, and got a bottle of vodka. saturday, i spent cash on needed but not urgent things. because i thought there was $700 in the house, and that another $600 was coming in a few days.

and i have been with the same guy for 15 years, and i have tried every possible strategy i could to come up with a way to budget so that we don’t go bankrupt. they all failed. he didn’t tell me about the $380. he insists he did. and he is hassled and put out by the fact that i am budgeting this money to pay for his food, which i make for him, and to pay for his daughter’s food, and the laundry, and the clothes. he acts like an obstinate teenager. then calls it “abuse” when i get pissed off about this.

we have spreadsheets. he doesn’t use them. we have calendars. he doesn’t use them. we had Micr*soft M*ney. he didn’t use that. we tracked the spending on paper. he didn’t enter any income on the paper sheets. he never adds up receipts. he never pays a bill, of any kind, ever. not once.

ever.

his bills.

my job.

so what’s wrong with me? what’s wrong is that i will always, no matter how hard he makes it for me, i will always manage. i will feed, clothe and shelter my child, who is his child. and as long as he is living where his child is, the utilities will be paid and he will have a place to sleep. irrespective of whether he contributes 50% to  that or not. and he doesn’t.

and fuck him for that.

what’s wrong is that despite days like today being commonplace around here, i still hold out hope that at some point he will grow up and pay his bills, budget his money, quantify every dollar, prepare food, buy food, budget for food, devise a coping strategy when there isn’t enough money for food, and i KNOW it will never happen. i know from 15 years of experience with this person.

i don’t love him. i don’t expect love or respect from him. i just want to get through the day. i want a budget and an itinerary and  a clean house. i feel that i’ve already given up love. i have given up respect. i have given up caring. i have given up reliability. i have given up co parenting. i have given up sex that’s worth the time spent on it. i have given up everything a person expects from a husband. now, all i ask is a decent room mate.

and i’m an asshole for that.  oh, i’m ABUSIVE for that.

shitwad.

that’s not what i want to talk about though. what i really want to talk about is why it is that i can know all of this about this guy, and still be here.  because until i do really get into that, i can’t fix that.

i’m concerned with this economy the impact of moving either us or him out, maintaining two homes and having enough money to go around, when we don’t even have enough for this one home.

but on days like today, i can’t help thinking there has to be a way i can rid myself of this albatross, some way i can live in a house free of this shit, and just collect the child support which won’t be enough, but at least i’d have my day-to-day dignity and no one monkeywrenching every strategy i try to get on top of the finances. yeah, he will still act like an obstinate teenager with having to pay child support, and he probably won’t do it but whatever. it’s not the dollar amount that matters, he needs to understand taht he has to be reliable to his child. give the same amount, every week, without fail, and in spite of any obstacles he had. he won’t understand that, and he will view it as me imposing some unreasonable conditions on his fatherhood. but here’s the kicker: he’ll do all that in his OWN HOUSE.

that’s what i want.

but seriously, in the worst recession since the great depression, what i want and what is possible are different things.

so i am left to try to be divorced, while living under one roof.

which is the place i am in, repeatedly.months go by, i get complacent, i live like i’m married, then days like today happen when i am reminded that i do not have a partner. i do not have someone who will cooperate with me on parenting, house work, budgeting, or love me.

so how to solve this? how do i avoid that complacency period? that time when i go out, but i take him with me, that time where i fuck, but i fuck his fat smelly ass.

it’s like i keep waiting for something to happen to make things different. and i am perpetually thinking that something is changing, that this job will bring in enough money to leave, or this person i’m associating with may open doors…. but it never happens.

and my feeling is, i can adjust to any reality, as long as i know what it is. people do it all the time, they raise kids as single parents. it happens. why do i have to go through the whole wringer of the divorce process just to establish a dollar amount and physical custody of a child? can’t we just agree to that, and not involve the courts?

the idea i usually come back to is that i have to bite the bullet and just move out. even though i can’t afford it. even though i can’t get housing. even though i can’t make enough money to support my child and myself. that i should just do it and let chips fall where they may, and be uncomfortable with no internet connection and no phone and no tv and on food stamps and section 8.

to do that i would have to get legally divorced.

to get legally divorced, i would have to submit to an audit and pay back taxes.

oh, and i’d have to MOVE! ugh. i’ll tolerate any hell if it means i don’t have to move.

because he’s got a sweet deal here. his electricity will never be shut off, he never has to pay any bills or even know what they are, he never goes to teacher conferences, he never enrolls her in her activities, he basically works, gives us what he thinks is appropriate, which is decided that day, and eats and sleeps here. i take care of everything else. that’s a pretty sweet deal, if you’re a mooch by nature. so as long as i allow him to reside with his child, who is always going to reside with me, this is how things will be.

i can’t plan anything. i can’t commit to anything, including a work schedule. which means i can’t keep a job. i can’t consistently keep food in the house.

etc.

and if i were to force a move, i’d be dealing with the same shit. but i would be alone in my house with my child. and no one would call me abusive for providing.

good things are happening

the good shit is that i ditched that horrid job at the law office. i now work at a place that i can be proud of, and has potential for me for growth. and even if that were to not happen, it’s still a cool little place, local, i don’t have to drive. so that kicks ass. the lawyer wants me to come back into the office, ostensibly to show him what is  where in his office, but in reality it’s most likely to ask me to sign a statement, which i will refuse to do. i anticipated this since i saw that he had the sick lady whom i replaced  sign a document. but whatever it is, i have no reason to sign it. i have no reason to treat this any differently than a routine employee separation, which requires no one to sign anything. nothing he’d ask me to sign could possibly be in anyone’s interest but his own, so fuck it. so i always thought that he’d give it to me on my last day, which i would take and not give back, as proof that he’d asked me to ____ (whatever it is). part of me looked forward to it, because i don’t imagine he’d have any idea what to do about that. but it’s not worth the drive in, so it won’t happen. i told him i’d be in touch this week. i won’t be.

enough about him. there are places i can go with this new job. the people there seem like minded and at the very least, it’s local. i don’t have to drive there. but if it turns outt o be what it seems to be, i can really take off running there. there’s a studio upstairs and an unused warehouse, and i can wedge myself in as a buyer for natural and sustainable products. i even thought about it this morning and thought, i make my own cleaners at home. i can bottle that shit and sell it! the owner does that, sells shit local people make so hello… i can make some stuff. so can Mr Lucretia. i can also organize bazaars and flea markets and classes for that warehouse. the owner is down with all of that. and if it works out, it will be reflected in my salary.

everything’s coming up me.

moreover, i have an opportunity to live a way i’m happy with. i’ve struggled for how to word this, but it’s been a constant frustration of mine that i spend so much time doing such pissant work, be it domestic or some wage slave know-nothing job. it saps my energy and my brain power, to where i have nothing left to dedicate to creative endeavors. and it’s fucked up, not because i have projects that i miss working on, but because that shit is how i view myself and i feel like a loser when i don’t do the shit. it’s always been hard for me to focus on things that make me happy, to develop skill and/or talent for anything. it’s been a struggle for most of my life, but mostly since having the child. when i started taking art classes and found that i have some talent and it makes me happy, i hoped i could go somewhere with that, even if it was only to continue doing it, get better and enjoy it. but like i do with everything i like, i stopped doing it, except for my weekly classes. and my free time was wasted writing for you people, and reading dumbass news stories online.

but being with like-minded people during work has the potential free me up to do shit, in a way i can’t really explain. it seems like a nurturing environment. art is on all teh walls. all the people i asked about this owner guy had nothing but nice things to say about him. if i can somehow incorporate my own knowledge and interests in my work, i won’t be so drained. i can get ideas while working and not forget them by the end of the day, like is happening with me now. and again, even if that doesn’t happen, i still get to work with artists and crafters on a regular basis.

but i really want to be one. if that happens before i die, i will be a happy woman.

my friend is an asshole

onto the friend.

ass.

it bugs me, even though it’s been a long time. and even though i knew for several months how this person truly thinks of me.

we’d been friends for 25+ years. speaking to her about her life, and my concern about some parts of it was reduced to bullying and judgment. actually i can’t even say it was “reduced” to bullying, because that implies that there is some kernel of validity to that, like there is with teh judgment. which, by the way, i totally owned and offered to talk about that and clarify it so that the person would be (hopefully) comforted, and even if she was no longer interested in still being friends, i didn’t want to leave things giving her the wrong impression. then the accusation of bullying came. which she knows fully well is way off. and it pissed me off. i invest over two decades in a person to be called things that both of us know aren’t true, just because she was in a tough spot and overwhelmed? uh, no. not by a long shot. and let’s not forget that this person has a history of histrionics, was once diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (i mention this not because i view mentally ill people with –ahem– judgment, but to illustrate how evident this person’s antics were to outside observers as well). desperate, drunk, middle of the night phone calls, disappearances and whatnot. i don’t mind dealing with shit like this with my friends, but i will not deal with it AND be called things the friend knows i’m not because i’m not totally down with every life decision. and mind you, if not being down with certain decisions of friends were really a problem, one does not keep the same friends for decades. that’s just how it goes. so the fact that we’d been friends that long makes it worse that she said this, not better. it makes it less understandable that she’d think this, not more. this was several months ago.

but she had a baby in the meantime and i was wondering how she was doing. you don’t stop thinking about a person just like that when shit goes down. so i was hoping she was happy and doing well and decided to check her myspace. dumb mistake. some stupid shit on there, a veiled insult directed toward me, just like when she got mad at me and changed her status to “bullied.” stupid enough, but easier to write off when you think that maybe she was still pissed at that point and it’s alright to spout off dumb shit when you’re mad sometimes. even though, yes, it’s very lame, very 8th grade. but today i find that veiled insult, calling me an idiot moron, “you know who you are.” and it bugged me. yeah the insult bugged me, but mostly i was disillusioned with my friend. i don’t want to think i invested that much time and energy on someone who communicates via myspace like a fucking 8th grader. i’m embarrassed. i wish i was never friends with her. she’s almost40 and she’s using some internet module to say something to me that she was given the opportunity to say directly to me. part of me was holding out some hope that we’d work it out at some point in the future. that we’d hear each other out and even if we didn’t remain friends, we’d at least clear the air. but i look at that myspace profile and i see nothing there that i care to communicate with. she’s not someone i’d hang with anymore. her tastes in movies and books are stupid. her concerns and her beliefs are banal. her priorities are nothing to me. and if i were to have met her today and see her for what’s there, i’d have no interest in a conversation with her.

and that right there hurts. i’m sad that my friendship is really over. i’m sad that it apparently never was what i thought it was. and like i said, i’m embarrassed to have ever been associated with such a loser.

“up here, i’m already there.”

it’s working out nicely. the dick boss gives me unpaid time off, and i have a new job by monday. beautiful. so much so that i wonder if he will think i’m full of shit.

i don’t care. like kramer says, “up here, i’m already there.” he will be back from his trip on monday, when we will discuss how to replace me. he procrastinated talking about it this week, even though he was working while he was away. he said he would call me while i was in the office yesterday, and he did not.

the only thing that matters is, i have that other job now, so i don’t have to humor him. if he starts to give me shit or be wishy washy, i can just leave. so i’m in a good position.

i’m hoping that this new place is at least moving in the direction of where i need to be. i want to be doing something for money that doesn’t drain my time and attention and energy, so i can still play music and do my art, and develop those things. right now, i am not, and i think it’s the environment i’m in. so at least these people are crunchy and there’s art on the walls.  today, velvet underground played most of the day.

the people are friendly, i will have to get used to that. and i will hope that my unfriendliness isn’t a problem. it’s not that i’m not nice, i’m just not personable… is that it? i don’t know, but i don’t chitchat well with coworkers, and i almost pathologically don’t want anyone knowing my business. so i don’t share at work as a rule. the result of that is that no one gets to know me and don’t know how to take the things i say or do. i’m hoping the friendly camaraderie atmosphere doesn’t mean i have to be a different personality. because i don’t fake it well.

anyway, i’m in limbo now, ostensibly serving out my notice at the law office. but up here, i’m already there.

so i scored an interview

at a job that’s in town. it starts immediately, and my boss at the job i hate is on vacation. that could be awkward.

he gave me forced, unpaid time off for his vacation. a vacation he obviously knew about, but didn’t give me any notice. so i guess that actually does free me up to start immediately, doesn’t it?

i was so happy to not have to go to that place that i forgot to be pissed that he’s forcing me to take unpaid time off. hmph. and i suppose if i really want to be cool to him and not quit right away with no notice, i could do both jobs for a week. HA. let’s see if i can finagle that. i’ll offer to take 20 hours a week for the first two weeks, then  go up to 40, so i don’t leave my  last place high and dry. which will make me look considerate.

so i hope i do alright at this interview.

i haven’t been writing because i’m feeling like there’s nothing to write about. and my earlier theory that i should sit and type and see what spills out seems to be a bust. because look at what i’ve come up with.

bah,

i left art class last week, knowing i had to go to work, thinking, “this should be my job. i should draw for a living.” i joked with my instructor and he said, “yeah, and you could make it your job if you want.” but he was being nice. not only am i not very good, but you can’t get work. everyone is good at this. everyone but me.

but it still served as a reminder that i’m going about my whole professional life wrong. i work these stupid know-nothing-but-steady-paycheck jobs because i have bills to pay and this is the easiest way i know how to get that done. but it makes me unhappy and when i’m in the studio i’m truly happy.

i’m not saying i should try to make art my job somehow, i know that’s not feasible. but i should at least get the fuck out of the law office. god, no one there has any personality. i was going to type soul, but i don’t believe in souls. but still. whatever that shit is, that shit that makes you interesting, they don’t have it. and their friends don’t have it. no one i see in my normal day has it. no one has any interests or livelihoods. no one talks about anything but people. and sometimes people they don’t even know. apparently there is a couple called “john and kate.” i take their word on it.

so yeah, it’d be great to get this gig in town. it’d also be great to do my art more and take that somewhere and do something with it so there is something more to me than how i make my shit-low paycheck.

eew

so i went to see my mom and sister, and my sister’s kid. the kid was cute as hell, but egad…

the house is so run down and actually smells. the bathroom, and this happened when i lived there too, had tiles coming loose, and a shower liner duct taped to the wall over it to protect the wall behind it. the toilet had inch-thick gunk at the bottom. the furniture was all old as hell, the same shit that was there ten years ago. and just for clarity, it’s not the type of furniture you keep for ten years. the storm door’s handle broke, so someone installed a new one, above the broken one. the carpet was smelly and covered in spots. it was depressing. going there is always depressing, but this sucked because i now know my mother is old and needs to get her ducks in a row for when she can no longer work. she can’t get anything for that house in its present condition. that bathroom wall needs to be replaced outright, they need to quit replacing tiles and just replace it. better yet, gut the room and remodel it. my mom was always like that. so resistant to solving problems, just let them stretch on indefinitely. and the house was always so damn dark.

on the way back, i drove past the house i really grew up in, and showed it to my daughter. i showed her my school and pointed out the rooms i went to various grades in. she’s like, “noooo! you didn’t go to fourth grade!” i’m like “yep, i did. right there.” i showed her where my girl scout meetings were, my piano lessons, where i used to shoplift candy, where i fell off my bike at  6 am while my parents were hung over sleeping and screamed until my father woke up and came to get me, the chinese restaurant that my school used to get fortune cookies from for the chinese new year. i’ve done this a few times, driving through that town. it’s usually depressing. but yesterday it wasn’t. the kid was full of questions. and her father wasn’t there to poo-poo everything.

then i came home and got drunk, and was still in bed by midnight. lovely.