Archive for April, 2011

Thanks so much for all your insightful comments regarding the bullying. Many of you had a lot of great anecdotes as well as a lot of great suggestions, and I appreciate it.

I contacted the school superintendent, writing a scathing e-mail that described in great detail the insults and texts that my son has been receiving throughout the school year.

I didn’t hear back from him, but he must have passed it along, because almost immediately, I heard from the school principal, who was most apologetic and promised me that the students the J-Man named would be dealt with swiftly and harshly. She also plans to meet with the J-Man on a weekly basis in order to find out how things are progressing.

The J-Man, unfortunately, is horrified by this turn of events. Even though this is all supposed to be confidential and his name is not going to be tied into the reprimands, he feels that he’s going to catch flack from the students who get into trouble and that he’s going to be known as a snitch or a baby.

I don’t know whether this will come to pass or not, but I told him that this all has got to stop, and that the principal has to get involved either way.

Hopefully I did the right thing. It’s so hard to know what to do.

In other news, the Easter Bunny visited the House of Trance, and Jesus Pole-Dancing Christ, have we got candy in spades.

My mother, who in her heart of hearts believes I am still twelve, made me an Easter basket and filled it to the brim with chocolate. I got a large chocolate bunny filled with almonds, a box of Cadbury eggs, a box of Cadbury caramel eggs, and other sweet treats designed to rot my teeth and make me fat.

My mother, who KNOWS I am trying to eat healthy and exercise, always is there with temptation.

I would love to say that I exercised a little willpower and did not succumb, but yesterday I ate the entire chocolate bunny and four, count them, four Cadbury eggs.

Gluttony. Pure gluttony.

I was so freaking wired that I was actually running around the basement, desperately looking for something to clean. I don’t understand why people bother smoking crack when they can save some cash and just buy a lot of Hershey bars and coffee.

In other news, there is a coyote problem in my area, so much so that people with pets or KIDS under 25 pounds have been advised to keep their little rug munchers inside, lest they get snatched.

I am so not used to all this freaking nature, particularly when it’s ugly. I don’t mind the sweetly singing birdies and the nice little hooty owl in our front yard, the adorable scampering squirrels or even the groundhog/gopher thing I spotted last summer. But coyotes? This is not the wild west, but suddenly I want me a shotgun.

Happy Tuesday. May your yard be free of varmints.

I’m about to go on a tear about Other People’s Children.

I stupidly raised my kid to be nice, respectful of others, and well, not a douchebag.

What has this gotten me? It has gotten me a sweet, albeit meek and mild child who has become the target of every rotten little miscreant in the Indianny school system.

A recent text: “Go rape your mom.”

A recent nickname: “Gaymo”.

Add that to “fag”, “homo”, “queer”, “faggot”, “fatass”, and “gay”.

My son is ostensibly not gay, in fact he’s quite enamored of the little girl across the street; but I shudder to think of what horrors an actual gay child would face at that hellhole of a school.

“We have a zero tolerance bullying policy”.

My big, cornfed, white ass.

I have contacted the guidance counselor on several occasions, to no avail. I have met with his teachers and this has been equally useless. Next I am going to the principal. I am offically fucking Fed Up.

My child comes home in tears. “Why do they hate me? They don’t even know me.”

The truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell him. I have told him to ignore them. I have told them to tell them to shut up. I have, in an angry moment, told him to tell them to go straight to hell.

Where are the parents of these children? What are they teaching their children? Does hate spew from the mouths of their spawn at home, too? Does hate spew from the mouths of the parents?

I think we can all agree that it must.

To call a child that is kind and sensitive a “homo” and a “fag” is ignorant. To belittle any child, gay or not gay, is equally ignorant, and I feel that the teachers and administrators, who surely cannot be both deaf and blind, are just as much to blame for letting these slurs slide.

I realize that this is backwards Republican Indianny, but that’s no excuse for backwards bullying. Do they also use the “n” word at this school? Somehow, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

I am tired of my child coming home in tears, or worse, coming home early vomiting his guts out from an anxious stomach that even psychiatric medicine can’t cure because he’s being worn down to a frazzle. I am tired of worrying that he isn’t safe in gym class. I am tired of watching his sad face.

I am tired of this bullshit.

I am reaching the point in which I want to go down to the bus stop and literally shake these children, scream, “What the hell is wrong with you?? Go rape your mom??”

I want to call all of the parents (who probably would not give a fig) and say, “Look, ma’am/sir, your little sweetheart is a crapweasel. Raise your child to have some manners and decorum before I call the school superintendent, the school board president, my congressman, whoever; and have him blackballed from the school system. We’ll see how you like homeschooling the little shit.”

I am so, so angry.

It is a horrible feeling not to be able to protect one’s child. And maybe he is a little thin-skinned, and maybe I am, too; but maybe it’s because neither of us would dare lash out the way the J-Man is being lashed without mercy.

He came home at ten yesterday morning with severe stomach pain, puking constantly, red-eyed and lethargic. I wanted to choke something.

This morning he went to school as he always does, with a hopeful heart, that maybe today will be different. His ability to bounce back astonishes me. I am not so resilient. I am holding a big grudge.

I wait by the door every day at four o’clock, hoping for good news.

Maybe today it will come. Maybe today they will find some compassion in their hard little hearts.

I just wish that parents, rather than worrying more than anything about teaching their children to excel in sports or academically or socially, would first teach their children to be kind.

I think that’s really what it’s all about.

Thank you for your comments, and for indulging me in a little self-pity. Trust that I don’t fall into it often.

Anyway, enough of that.

So about two weeks ago, I got a bug up my ass and decided that I had to go blond. Not just blond, but platinum blond, which is probably the hardest shade to achieve, particularly if you’re sporting dark red hair, which is probably the hardest shade to get rid of.

I have a sick addiction to hair dye and I cannot be rehabilitated. I cannot have the same color for more than six months without lusting after something new. People, I am Lady Clairol on crack.

No matter how much I know about hair, and believe me, I have learned quite a lot during my twenty-five years of hairdye addiction, I have consistently flown in the face of hair health and common sense and done what I should not do, which is over bleach, over process and do shit that is best left to the professionals.

The really stupid thing is that I have a really talented friend who does my cuts and color for free, yet I took on this undertaking myself so as not to bother her with what I knew would be an exhaustive process. (Plus I knew it would be an interesting challenge. I won’t lie.)

I wound up bleaching my shit three times, coloring twice, and using a toner once. My hair, which is strong like de bull, is actually still healthy and free of breakage, but my poor sensitive scalp actually is sporting scabs. Scabs.

Yeah, I know. Gross.

I went through shades of horrid orange and banana yellow, but now my hair is actually a nice-toned blond – not quite platinum, as you can see, except for the roots, but pretty close. The picture makes it look sort of yellowish, but it really isn’t. Once I color again when it’s time to do my roots, I will have achieved platinum.

The only bad thing about the blond is that it makes me look even whiter.

I cannot take a non-blurry photo with my cell. I just cannot.

Victory is mine.

Then I swear I’m going to leave it alone (except for touch-ups) for at least a year, and I’m going to take care of it with protein conditioners, and I’m not going to blow-dry it, and I’m going to be good.

You read it right here.

And again, I urge you, don’t try this at home. I received constant advice from a long-time professional via text as far as removing the orange/yellow, and I think weaker hair than mine would have fallen right out.

That, plus scalp burns are not fun.

In other news, the J-Man’s grades are as follows: four As, two Bs, and a C. I am so happy with this stunning turnaround I could poop my pants. Just a few weeks ago there were Ds and an F and I was livid and things were icky and and tense and horrible. Go, J-Man. Rock on with your bad self.

In still other news, things I am a little bit obsessed with include: reruns of Will and Grace, Say Yes to the Dress, Quaker Oatmeal Squares, ruby red grapefruit juice, re-checking my kid’s grades on the parent spy system, cranberry mandarin candles. The TranceCave II reeks of cranberry mandarin.

I had some kind of super seizure last night and royally screwed up my back, so today’s agenda includes lying down, some sitting, a little more lying down, and maybe some groaning.

Happy Sunday.

“Sorrow drips into your heart
through a pinhole
just like a faucet that leaks
and there is comfort in the sound
but while you remain half empty
or half full
it slowly rises
your love is gonna drown.”

-Death Cab For Cutie

Forgive me for quoting Death Cab For Cutie, but I love that song and find it appropriate.

I joke about having this wild swinging life and schtupping the 21-year-old, and I’m not complaining.

No, I’m not complaining.

Sometimes, though, the sorrow drips in, and I think, “I’m never going to find something real” and I realize just how impossible that would be with the cards I’m holding, and then I look at my life, a long, hard look; and it makes me sad.

Again, I’m not complaining. I don’t hate living here. My mother, for all she gets on my nerves, is my best friend. I will not mind growing old with her. I will not mind taking care of her and my stepdad as they age.

Sometimes I just wish I’d have done the other, too. The married thing.

I did have the chance, more than once. It didn’t work out as planned. Maybe it could have? Maybe my heart was afraid, and maybe I was emotionally immature, and maybe now that I’m finally ready for something like that to come along, maybe it’s too late for me.

And like I said, I am reasonably happy here in the basement with the cats and my kid and my parents. I don’t get much money from Social Security, certainly not enough to strike out on my own, as much as the desire knocks frantically at the walls of my heart. I don’t drive, so there is the constant, nagging matter of transportation, as this city has no public transportation. During a good week I have four or five seizures or less, but during a bad week I have ten seizures or more, so it is important that I’m around people at least some of the time. Necessity dictates that I must be here, and it’s not the worst thing, for the J-Man or for me.

Sometimes, though, I see people my age living and loving and having what could be construed as normal lives, normal coupled lives or normal single lives, and it tweaks at me a little. It threatens my tear ducts to watch.

I want to be one of those people, those people that go to Ikea together and rent movies together and make joint household decisions and share in the child-rearing and drive all over the place and hey, while we’re at it – don’t piss their pants while having seizures.

Sometimes I covet that so badly that I stop breathing for a moment or two. A father for my son. A husband. A license. A home of my own. A family.

These are things that I once believed were a given but somehow slipped between my fingers and landed in the dust.

I am not complaining. I appreciate everything I have, because I really do have a lot. Compared to so many people on disability, I have so much.

Sometimes, though, during days like today and for no reason at all, I feel like my love for those I have is going to drown in sorrow.

I loathe feeling sorry for myself, but I will allow myself the occasional day to wish and to grieve, to think about what could have been and to mourn what was.

This morning I woke up with a scorching migraine, the kind that makes me lose my will to live and makes me want to furiously beat my head against a wall in an attempt to excise the evil demon within.

Since I don’t do anything half-assed, I drank three cups of coffee, took my migraine prescription, and popped three Vicodin. This seems to be the only cocktail that works for the bad ones, and it also has the wonderful side effect of making me pleasantly stoned.

The only downside to this is that when I’m on Vicodin I want to eat everything within a five-mile radius. Although I walked/ran on the treadmill for an hour today, I consumed cereal, a bagel with cheese, and oh, twelve Double Stuffed Oreos, so I do believe I canceled out that workout and then some.

The stoniness has since worn off, and I am now spending my time picking my nose.

You read right.

I finally took the big steel hoop out of my nose yesterday, replacing it with a cute little rhinestone flower stud, because well, it just looks less hard. I guess I’m getting softer in my old age.

Anyway, the stud I got is a nose screw, which has a small twist of metal on the other end of it. Unfortunately, this was made for someone with much larger nostrils than I possess, for instead of the twist curling up on the inside of my nose, it reaches all the way over to the other side of my nostril, making me feel exactly like I have a big old hard booger in my nose.

I know you’re happy to have received that pleasant little bit of imagery.

It’s maddening, and as a result I keep jamming my finger up there to twist it around and try to adjust it for optimum comfort. Still, it remains uncomfortable and is frequently making me sneeze.

Poor me! My nose is too small! In a moment I will also complain that my breasts are too big and my ass is too firm.

Right.

In other news, the J-Man got into a fight with a kid on the bus yesterday, and said child yelled, “Well, at least my mother’s not a fat whore that gets raped by black guys.”

Well.

I haven’t been raped by any black guys, last time I checked, and I’m really not a whore, unless you count my adventures with the 21-year-old; and I wouldn’t call a size 10 or 12 THAT fat.

I asked who the kid was, so that I could glare at him in an evil fashion next time I see him. This may not seem like much payback, but then you haven’t seen my glare. It has driven grown men to their knees.

I have come to the conclusion that most little boys my son’s age are, in fact, rotten to the core; and that most of them have no home training nor manners nor morals. Are they being raised by wolves? Perhaps. Have I lost all patience with them? Certainly.

Junior high is a battlefield.

Happy Tuesday.

Earlier today my good friend Sue chastised me for saying something bad about myself. “Words are powerful, man!”

I agree, and therefore I have a few choice words for the weekend.

I am going to win the Powerball this weekend.

I am also going to receive all of my back child support.

I am going to have some stellar sex all weekend long.

I am also going to reach my goal weight. Without exercising.

This weekend, it is going to get ridiculously warm and stay that way.

My child is going to have straight As on his next report card, and on every report card hereafter.

My mother is no longer going to criticize me.

My hair is going to turn a lustrous shade of platinum blonde with no effort required on my part.

The government is not stupid and wrong.

Yes, folks, words are powerful. Enjoy some weekend affirmations of your own.

Happy Friday.

When I moved out of the ‘hood, I believed that the constant presence of police cars in my life was over.

I was so, so very wrong. Here in the idyllic suburbs, it appears that just beneath the smiling white surface lurks plenty of problems that keep the officers of the law plenty busy.

I have three little anecdotes that have happened just in the past two weeks.

Number one. The kids in the dead end (cul-de-sac if you’re fancy) have taken to playing with Airsoft guns. There is nothing soft about these guns, which shoot hard little pellets that could easily take out an eye and that leave actual welts on the body. I have discouraged the J-Man from playing with the kids when they are using these guns, but I know full well that he sneaks off and does it anyway, so I’m sure that I will soon be spending a happy day in the emergency room with my half-blind child.

Anyway, one afternoon, the kids were gleefully shooting at each other down in the dead end, and about a half an hour later I received a panicky phone call.

“MOM.”

“WHAT?”

“Mom. The cops are after me!!!” *sob*

“WHAT?!!!”

“Some lady called the cops on us, and we ran, and they’re chasing us!!”

Now I had problems with this for a multitude of reasons, primarily because he was playing with the damned guns and had run from the fucking police, but what was I to do?

“Turn yourself in.”

“NOOOOOOOO!” *sob* “They’ll take me to JAILLLLL!”

“They’re not going to take you to jail. You’re 12. Just come home.”

We went back and forth over this for about twenty minutes, but to make a long story short, the police called off their search for the dangerous juvenile criminals, and the fugitives made it back to their respective cribs without anyone getting capped or taken to the big house.

So, there was that.

Then, there was this. Last Saturday, the J-Man, bless his trouble-seeking soul, spent the night at a friend’s house. Said friend lives down in the dead end. Apparently that night a rogue band of teenagers were out playing mailbox baseball. Remember that from your rash youth? You take a baseball bat to a mailbox, and, SMASH.

Now, the next morning, my kid and his friend were outside playing with a couple of other kids, just when one of the victims of said mailbox vandalism discovered that her mailbox had been killed dead. She saw the kids playing, made an assumption, and promptly flipped out.

She called them everything from little bastards to little fuckers to fucking troublemaking Mexicans (a couple of kids were of the brown variety), and she immediately went over to one of the mother’s homes and began to curse her out.

Well, I never.

Upon hearing about this from the J-Man, I called the mother in question and got the skinny.

“She’s psychotic,” she said. “I’ve had problems with her before. She hates children. She once threw a ball at my son’s head because it landed in her yard. She accused me of stealing wood from her garage. She’s nuts. I called the cops.”

And the cops came. This is how little the police have to do in Buttfuck, Indiana – they arranged for some detectives to come and investigate the fallen mailbox. I imagine it was carefully dusted for prints and placed into an evidence bag.

Unreal.

Then the other night, at about two AM, the entire block lit up like a Christmas tree due to about five squad cars and a paddy wagon coming to curtail a domestic dispute across the street. There was screaming and yelling and carrying on, and someone was removed from the household in what I can best describe as a major fracas.

It’s just like being back in the ‘hood, except without the black people.

I think I’ve seen a black person here in Buttfuck once. He was wearing an argyle sweater.

In other news, the J-Man and my mother are having a fitness competition. They are attempting to see who can use the treadmill, lift weights, and do the most situps during the month of April. I’m happy that this has come to pass – for the J-Man because he sorely needs the exercise and for my mother because she needs weight-bearing exercise to manage her osteoporosis. So far the J-Man’s up to about a half hour on the treadmill at three miles per hour, and my mother is up to… fifteen minutes at 2.2 miles per hour. Well, every journey must begin with a small step. I think that she will work her way up as she goes.

In still other news, Skittles the cat has developed some sort of bizarre attachment disorder in which I cannot leave for one moment without her pounding on the door like a crazed lunatic.

She sleeps with me. She sits at my feet while I eat. She waits outside the door, scratching and crying, while I smoke. She sits in my lap while I use the computer or watch TV. She is no more than a foot away while I work out.

She has always been a happy, friendly cat who has wanted a lot of attention, but this is getting ridiculous. I feel like I have a baby.

An extremely furry, twenty-pound baby.

This morning there is a two-hour school bus delay due to intense fog, so the kids are out playing in the street. I predict that the cops will be called any second now, so I’m off to go look out the window like the nosy neighbor I am.

Happy Thursday.