February 2nd, 2004
I had a pretty busy, if boring, weekend. Friday night I took Jackie to Denny�s for dinner. I had a bacon cheeseburger and she had cheese sticks and chicken fingers. That�s so good for our diet. I�m such a good mom.
After that we went back home and watched �Beetlejuice� for the 15th time. Jackie watches movies over and over until she can�t stand them anymore.
Saturday morning I cleaned my filthy house. I did one of my favorite activities. I pull out a huge black garbage bag and I walk around the house picking up useless crap and I throw it in the bag. I get rid of a lot of junk that way. I also cleaned out the area underneath the bathroom sink, and I cleaned out all the junk from Jackie�s filthy room. Jackie became grounded for Saturday when I found gerbil food in her underwear (!) drawer.
I guess she let her gerbil Rene� play in her drawer. Geez. Her room was way too messy, and since I had to tell her to clean it up 4 times, I went ahead and grounded her from movies too.
Next, we braved the cold and did laundry. Now we�re going to the place by Lisa�s house because the other Laundromat doesn�t have a bathroom. If you know Jackie you know she has to go to the bathroom like every 15-20 minutes.
What slowed down everything was the thick layer of ice on every freakin thing so you had to be mindful not to fall and break your neck every time you step outside.
We watched �Cops� and �America�s Most Wanted� Saturday evening.
Sunday we got up and went to clean Grandma Lue-Lue�s house. Hey, guess what? The snowplows don�t go into her neighborhood. A thin layer of ice coated her entire street. It might as well be a foot of ice on the street. It was treacherous.
We ate McDonald�s. Grandma like�s their Big Breakfast, while Jackie like�s the hotcake�s and sausage platter. I of course had breakfast burritos because I�m trying to cut down on bread in my diet.
After we had breakfast I got to work. I emptied her bathroom trash. I took out her kitchen trash. I threw away the doggy doo paper. I swept all her floors. I did her dishes. I mopped her floors. I put down new doggy papers.
I was too tired to give the dogs a bath so I sat and rested on her couch for a few minutes.
Grandma gave me gas money and I was on my way.
I should mention Grandma knows that Terry is back with Renee and she is on the warpath. She told me this over breakfast. She had called Dom, Renee�s soon to be ex-husband, and he told her the same thing. Mindy and I kept the secret from Grandma and now she is furious.
�Why would he lie about it, Grandma? Unfortunately, this is something we thought might happen.� I mean, after all, Dom has nothing to gain by telling us about it.
So, the secret is now between Dom, me, Grandma and Melinda.
Still no phone call from Renee. It�s not like her not to call.
We all kind of think something is up. That something is Terry Wayne Hoses being at Renee�s house. That something being that conehead bastard eating up her food and using her and taking all the attention that should be going to her kids and soaking it up like a dry sponge.
It makes me want to go visit. Just pop in and say hi and to let her know she isn�t getting away with anything by not telling us.
If only she didn�t live 4 hours away.
�There�s nothing you can do Lissy. It�s her life,� Mindy reminded me last night.
I know I can�t live her life for her, but can�t she put her kids first instead of this sleazeball-white-trash-redneck-hillybilly- inbred-mother-f-er?
Crap. I hate him!
I missed �Survivor� Sunday night. I love that show.
Oh, my neighbor is giving me her huge, beautiful entertainment center sometime this week. They are moving to an apartment in Arnold and she doesn�t want to take it because it will be too big for her living room. I�m so happy!!!!!
It�s just gorgeous.
My right eye is watering again. Why in the hell does this happen when I come to work and only when I�m at work?
Mr. Pretty isn�t around to blow air in my eye so I guess I�ll have to take care of it myself. Sigh.
My ex, Uranus, has been on my mind a lot lately. I think about the beginnings of our relationship, and it�s funny how we had so little in common and yet the few things we did were big things. His father kidnapped him when he was a year old. Dad just didn�t bring him back from visitation one weekend. He skipped town with Uranus and for the next 9 years he moved from one place to the next, always a step ahead of being found. He told Uranus that his mother was dead and that he was never going to see her again. What a cold-hearted bastard.
I can�t imagine then how traumatized Uranus was when he was found by the police and told his mother was ALIVE.
I imagine also that it was weird going from a house of sin back into a house whose occupants strive to live a pure life. Uranus�s mom and step dad are Mormon. Uranus� dad is not. Uranus�s mom and step dad have always lived a wholesome life, not exposing kids to any sort of filth and certainly not anything that would jeopardize a child�s innocence.
Uranus� dad did filthy things in front of him, in addition to smoking pot; getting falling down drunk and regularly he cursed at Uranus.
When Uranus was reunited with his mother, we shall call her Lana; he was sort of brainwashed and shell-shocked. It was very difficult for him because he missed out on some very important years with his mother and siblings. Worse, even though his step dad was a very good man and he took very good care of the family, Uranus resented him.
Uranus�s mom had gotten him back, but the damage had been done by his real dad. Uranus always felt left out and never really felt like a member of the family. He hated his real dad for what he did, and yet, I think he secretly longed for his father. I think he even romanticized what happened to make it more acceptable, and he struggled within himself for years to reconcile reality with the truth.
I know what it�s like to feel like you don�t fit in with your kin. I identify with the struggle�s Uranus deals with. Even now he doesn�t fit in really. He�s not an active Mormon in any sense. He doesn�t associate with them, doesn�t ever go to their church, and doesn�t hold anything Mormon dear to his heart. He just lives life his way, and I suppose that I definitely understand that drive.
I don�t fit in with my Pentecostal family, and I don�t jive with my Mormon ones either. I just want to live on my own terms. Maybe eventually I�ll find a church I feel comfortable with, but it�s going to take me a long time to do so.
I have issues with religion. I don�t want to be a member of a religion that conflicts with my own values. Yet I worry that my own values are offensive to some churches. I don�t believe in judging people unfairly, I don�t believe in going along with what everyone else thinks, I don�t believe in rejecting people based on their personal values.
Well.
Sometimes I think I have more in common with him than most people in my life. It hurt me that he considered me fat and happy. Now he�s pudgy and losing his hair. We both grew up in a strict religion. We both had crappy childhoods. Oh, and we�ve both had a near death experience. He almost died in an accident at a logging mill about 4 years ago. His head got crushed. He was in a coma. I remember crying because it took that event to prompt me to forgive him. He almost had to die for me to forgive him for all that stuff he put me through.
I prayed he�d live. I knew what it was like to grow up without a father and I didn�t want that to happen to Jackie. It�s a hard life, having one parent or worse, as in my case, none.
We might be divorced, but I know even if he�s not good at showing it, that we both love Jackie.
Lisa�s going to Florida. I meant to call her yesterday. I tried to call her but right when her answering service picked up, Jackie sprayed her little friend in the eye with some Strawberry Body Spray so I had to get off the phone and go flush his eyes with water. That kind of distracted me from calling her back.
Have fun. Send me a postcard, or better yet put some sand in one of your empty film canisters and bring me some.
I�ll miss you.
I have to talk about Amy now. I haven�t spoken of her before, but I feel the need to now.
Once upon a time, I was 19 years old and very confused. Most of my life men had did me dirty, and I had just lost my boyfriend to my best friend Summer.
I was scorned.
I hung out with my gay friends a lot that summer. I met a girl named Amy, who swore she was straight. Amy had just broken up with her boyfriend, so she was free to screw around all the time. And we did. We spent a lot of days down in the Central West End sipping cappuccino or eating at one of the cool restaurants with Fred and Jeremiah. Fred was the funniest gay guy I knew. He had this lisp. That darling. He was so cute.
My friendship with Amy was based on a lot of things, and we never had a dull moment when we were together. We had a mutual distaste for most men (who were straight and mostly pigs) and we preferred to spend our free time with men that were gay. It was a blast. We spent a lot of weekends in the city or in East St. Louis at City Center watching drag shows.
My life was pretty good during that time. I was pretty happy. Of course I was doing other things that was stupid, like a guy here or there whom I just happened to take a fancy to so I slept with him. I did other stupid things that I�m not proud of.
In the end I�d just feel guilty or sleazy so I�d end up back with Amy before the week was out, tearing up the city.
Our friendship started to feel a bit tense. I thought maybe we were having differences when in fact we were becoming attracted to each other. Who can explain attraction to the same sex when you haven�t lived with it all your life? When you were taught it was wrong and deviant? I didn�t care that Amy was a woman; I just loved her in all her butch glory. I didn�t care that she was a girl. I just cared that she loved me too.
Things happened. Things got weird. We eventually drifted apart because Amy thought that it was too weird between us and couldn�t deal with it.
Now, all these years later, I find her on the Internet. Turns out, she�s gay. She�s in a punk rock band. She�s deliriously happy.
I�m happy for her. I�m glad she found herself. I will always care about her. Amy, if you�re out there, I want you to know that I loved you completely as a friend. You meant a lot to me. Thank you for staying with me through all my hard times. You were a godsend to me. You looked out for me, even when I wasn�t taking care of myself. Thanks.
09:57 - Tuesday, Feb. 03, 2004
Recent entries:
What you missed - January 16, 2012
%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
%%older_entries%%a rant from a few weeks ago - August 17, 2010
%%older_entries%%Tired - June 20, 2010
%%older_entries%%A beautiful lie - March 11, 2010
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