Are you KIDDING ME?!

July 22, 2005

Quick update from the Caffeinated Front.

I am in Houston.  Houston?  Why Houston, Jenn? I am glad you asked.  You see, my sister came to town on Wednesday.  Apparently the general consensus is that I have finally become a bit too stressed and high strung for my own good and needed a calming influence.  That would be my sister.  She has a way of focusing me and getting me to, well, basically chill the hell out.  Clint says she is cheaper than a shrink and not as dangerous as drugs, so he was thrilled that she came to help me find a bit of sanity.

“But, Jenn, that doesn’t explain why you are in Houston right now.” That is what you were thinking, right?

Well, my sister arrives just in time for my mom to have to go to the hospital.  In Houston.  Where my sister just came from.  So, we all load everything up and head down there to be with Mom and Dad.  Mom had to have surgery this morning and is currently in ICU.

You know?  This CHILL OUT plan is NOT WORKING OUT!  In fact, it totally sucks!  I am NOT CHILLED OUT, PEOPLE!

So, in the future, perhaps I will just meditate.  Yeah.  medication meditation would really be good about now.

I will try to check in.  I can check email, but probably won’t be blogging.  Go hang out at my wonderful husband’s site.  He will update you all on what is going on.  Not to mention the fact he is really hot and oh-so-funny! 

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Goodbye, Moto

July 19, 2005

Remember how I tried so hard to get her to hang in there with me? Remember how I held out hope that she would and could make it through this?  Remember how I sat beside her and begged to hear her say, “Hello Moto” one more time?

Clint sent her to specialist.  A person who is well known in his field for bringing phones like mine back to life at least long enough to regain her memory.  I just got this email forwarded to me from Clint:

Dear Clint,

Please accept our condolences.  We’re sorry to report that your

phone is too far gone.  We were not even able to tease it awake long enough

to recover the memory.

If you wish us to ship the remains back to you, pay our basic

charge or else abandon the phone and we’ll re-cycle it for parts. 

Please let us know what you decide. Again, we’re sorry that we couldn’t be of

more service to you.

Bob

Abandon her?  Recycycle her for parts?! OR PAY FOR HER REMAINS?  Oh, what a cruel, cruel world we live in.  Although, I have to at least admit that the specialist did not charge us to examine her.  Only if we wanted her remains shipped back to us.

She’s really gone.  Gone.  And she takes with her all that I held dear to me in our relationship.  Phone numbers.  Pictures.  Memories.  GONE!

Goodbye, Moto.

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Obsess much?

July 6, 2005

I have always been a bit “high strung.” It does not take much to get me anxious about something.  Situations that most “normal people” would either blow off or not even remember.  (And by normal people, I pretty much mean anyone who has not yet admitted they are in fact just as crazy as everyone else but are still in denial.) These are the very things that will make me a hand-wringing lunatic. My mind will wander off on some wild tangent until I become completely wound tight over nothing. 

Remember that time back in 1986 when that girl that you really didn’t know that well said she didn’t like your hair?  Why?  Why would she do that? I didn’t even know her that well.  Is my hair still bad?  What if my hair IS bad and I don’t even know it?  I THOUGHT it was good then.  I never should have told her to I wished bad things would happen to her for being so mean.  What if something horrible happened?  Oh, hell, what if she came to some unspeakable, tragic end because I said that to her simply because she didn’t like my hair?!  I should look her up and make sure she is okay.  I will have to remember to do that tomorrow.

Obsess much?

There are also those things that I actually can fix and yet, they wind me tighter than a drum. Forgot to RSVP to a party until the day before or day of?  Good Lord, that will have me up nights worrying about it until well after the party is forgotten.  How could I be so rude? The laundry is piling up?  Oh my goodness, what am I going to do?  What if Clint is out of underwear?  Or the boys don’t have clean shorts?  Or Gabrie’s favorite dress isn’t clean the very moment she wants to wear it? I look at the laundry and freak out.  The pile is just not going away!  Anxiety attack commence.  Hello?  Wash the damn clothes and move on!  I know that.  Really I do.  But like I said, I have an amazing capacity to be high strung and anxious for no good reason.

Now then, give me a good reason to be a bit uptight and you better be prepared to medicate me or get the hell out of my way.  (Sorry, Tommy, but some of us actually do better in society with a bit of medicinal help.  Feel free to preach to me about the dangers of addiction.  I’ll shove it right back atcha, honey.) Suffice it to say that when I have good things happen, things that I am actually excited about, I become an anxiety-ridden freak.  I do not have time to be an anxiety-ridden freak when I am staring down the barrel of an already missed deadline.  NO TIME I TELL YOU!  Joshilyn Jackson had a blog entry that nailed it hysterically.  (Read the comments, too.  They are great!)

So here I sit, well past the deadline I imposed to get my chapters to my agent.  Well below the word count I promised my writing buddy I would have completed tonight.  Several hours short on sleep.  So I blog.  Not write what I am SUPPOSED to be writing.  I Blog. 

Raise your hand if you predict I will be lying awake tonight obsessing, freaking and doing a major amount of hand wringing because I DID NOT WRITE like I was supposed to do.  And that I will completely become anxious over what my agent must think.  And what I will tell my writing buddy.  And how, oh for the love of god, the world is going to come crashing in around me tomorrow because I chose to BLOG!

Put your hands down.  You’re going to make me worry about why you are all ganging up on me.

**For the record, the reason I am blogging right now is because I stayed awake last night obsessing over the fact that I had not written anything on my blog in days and while the last entry quite possibly garnered me the most private emails from the most people than from any other post I have ever written, it can’t just stay up there forever and I really must put something else up but what can follow something that touched so many people?  Yeah.  Welcome to my world, people Scary, huh!

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Who the hell do I think I am?

July 1, 2005

Last week I got a nasty little email from someone (a stranger no less) that confronted me about a project I had in the works. I am not going to waste the bandwidth copying it here. But there is a point to bringing it up. In the email the person asked me (in quite the nasty way) “Who the hell do you think you are to do this?” My first instinct was to fire off my own response pretty much questioning that person’s parentage and telling them where to go and how to get there. But calmer heads prevailed and I kept quiet.

But it really did get me thinking. “Who the hell am I?”

Well, I am a wife and mother. A sister and daughter. A niece. An aunt. A cousin. A friend. Those are a few of my labels. Those are easy. But that doesn’t answer the question of who I am.

I cry when I hold a newborn.

I laugh at the silly and the immature things in life.

I get angry when someone kicks the underdog.

My attention span is short but my patience is long.

My feelings can get hurt too easily, but my will is strong.

If I love you, I do so with all of my heart.

Friendship means everything to me.

If you cross me, I won’t hold back in letting you know how I feel.

By the same token, when I appreciate you, I won’t hold back my gratitude either.

So, “Who the hell am I?”

I am that 8th grade girl whose best friend became her worst enemy in a matter of days for reasons that were never clear to her, so she always blamed herself. The young girl who will always have a part of her think it is her fault now when a friendship goes south.

I am that 16 year old teen who immediately had a crush on that 16 year old boy at a high school party. The girl who blushed every time that boy looked at her. That 16 year old girl who still blushes when that boy she married looks at her that way after all these years together.

I am a woman in her mid-thirties who still feels like she is playing house when she talks to her friends about mortgages, parenting and about the best school districts. A woman who wonders at what age she will finally feel like a legitimate adult.

I am a daughter who is watching her mother be destroyed by a disease that has no cure, no chance of improvement and does nothing but destroy. The daughter who still wants to crawl into her mother’s lap and have her make it all better but finds herself doing all of the comforting in their relationship.  whose mother passed away in Jnauary of 2006 after a 6 month stay in ICU following complications after surgery (made worse by her MS).  But still that little girl who misses her mother’s hugs more than anything in this world.  Just trying to navigate being a motherless daughter.

I am a mother whose baby died way too soon. A mother who is raising her three children, but still says a birthday prayer on her son’s birthday. A mother who will always hold a spot in her heart for all 4 of her children.

I am a mother who does her best to raise her children without screwing them up too much. A mother who questions most parental decisions, yet still watches her children thrive in spite of it all. A mother trying to find her own way as a parent, yet still falling back on the lessons learned from her own childhood.

I am a drug addict who fights daily the battle to make the right choices when I am under immense stress and try to not take the easy way out. An addict who, when she feels back into a corner, can easily forget how bad it can get but quickly recall how good it felt. But an addict who is 8 years clean, nevertheless.

I am a writer who puts her heart into her words and even when she gets paid for her work still wonders if she has any talent. A writer who tries to ignore the critics, yet hears their voices the loudest.

I am all of those things and so much more. Want to try to slam me down by asking me “who the hell I think I am”? Bring it on. I’d be more than happy to tell you.

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I get by with a little help (?) from my friends

June 27, 2005

Sometimes you have days when all you need is a kind word.  A shoulder to lean on.  The understanding of close friends.  You know the times when you just need to unload your pain and your frustration out on someone who loves you unconditionally and accepts you for who you are?  Those times when you just need that special someone to understand?

Today I did just that.  I shared with a very good friend all that I had been going through in the past week and a half and opened up my heart to her.  I just knew that if anyone would understand, she would.  She listened, gave me great advice and reassurance and told me she wanted to think about it more and that she would check in with me tonight.

Which was why when I checked my email just now (certain I would hear encouraging words from her before I went to bed) I ended up simultaneously spewing coffee out of my nose while wetting my pants with laughter.  She said exactly what I needed to hear to put everything in perspective for me and get me to see the big picture.  I have included in my extended entry the entirety of her email.

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Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of my life (UPDATED)

Editor’s note:  I took down the post about the drama I came home to.  Not because I regret posting it, but as I said…drama begats drama and I just don’t want to use my blog to publicize the nasty crap that happens in my life.  And frankly, I don’t have the energy for it right now.  I would much rather share with you the fun times from vacation.

I will post more later today.  I am off to go pick up my precious puppy!

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My skin doesn’t fit

June 13, 2005

This weekend was a rough weekend for me.  You see every now and then I go through these tough moods.  It’s not a bad mood.  I associate bad moods with being totally irritated by and with other people.  This isn’t like that.  I feel more like a caged animal.  Pacing.  Restless. Out of sorts.  It’s as if I don’t fit in my own skin.

I am not sure if it is a normal feeling or an addict feeling.  It does feel like I am jonesing for something, but I can’t say what.  Thankfully, my family knows when I get this way to just let me be.  If I am pacing, leave me alone.  If I am ranting, let me rant.  If I am crying, what the hell did you do to me?

I was that way most of the weekend.  I really hate this feeling because I don’t know what to do with it.  Fresh out of rehab, I would hit a meeting.  Now, I just pace and flitter from one thing to another.  Concentration has been way out the window as well.  Thus, the reason for no posts.

One thing that actually did help was that I got a really good cry in on Saturday.  You see, our next door neighbor passed away last week.  It totally broke my heart when his wife told me.  He was an amazing man who lived an incredible life.  He was born in Italy and lived there until coming to America in 1976.  He was such a generous man.  To say he would give you the shirt off of his back was as true a statement as any that could made about him.  Clint and I went to his funeral on Saturday.  We absolutely love his wife.  I have every intention of convincing her to adopt me, by the way.  If a funeral could be “good”, this was it.  We learned more about this man that day than we had in all the years living next to him.  The funeral had laughter, tears and such fond memories.  It truly was a tribute to this wonderful man.  The cry was good for me.  So was the laughter.

It also intensified the restlessness.

Am I the only person who goes through these phases of feeling like her skin doesn’t fit?  That restless feeling?  Jonesing for something but you don’t know what? 

Share with me if you understand.  But please, be patient with me if you don’t.

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A hypothetical message to my children

June 10, 2005

For the record, it is not…I repeat… NOT appropriate to laugh at your mother if she were to say, wet her pants while jumping with you on the trampoline.  If that were to happen, let me just tell you right up front, holding your sides, while rolling around and writhing in hysterics will NOT endear you to her. 

I’m just saying.

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Tequilacure

June 3, 2005

There is only so much naked, ice-cream eating dancing to the 80’s that one person can do.  Yeah right!  I am so not finished yet!

I got a Manicure!  And a Pedicure!  And a Tequilacure!  (Okay, I totally made up the word tequilacure, but seriously, what can’t tequila cure?) My toes are now a yummy hue of purple.  I have never gone purple on my toes, but I am living on the edge, people.  I sort of like my purple toes.  But for the record, Clint totally doesn’t appreciate my purple toes when I thrust them up onto the dashboard of the car in front of his face for him to admire while he is trying to navigate rush hour traffic.  What?  I was just showing him how yummy they looked.  How was I to know he thought my toes on the dashboard were “distracting his driving.” And the manicure?  Totally cute.  French manicure with just the perfect length.  Not too long that it makes typing difficult.  Not too short that it wastes my time.  Just perfect for drumming on my keyboard when I am stuck for a word so that they make just enough noise for me to tune them out but loud enough for the dog to freak the hell out trying to find the source of the noise.  (I find my amusement in simple ways.)

Apparently I needed this break more than I realized.  I have had people make comments like, “You look so different!  Is it the hair?  New outfit?  No, wait!  You aren’t foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.” Or ever the popular “Hey, I totally didn’t know you weren’t a bitch in real life.  You’re actually pretty laid back.” And then there was my all time favorite, “Oh for the love of God are you doing drugs again?  You look way too calm and relaxed.  Just say no, Jenn.”

I am thinking of sending my sister child support payments and just having a kid-free summer.  I don’t think she will go for it, but it is worth a shot.

Oh and speaking of things that freak me the hell out.  (No, I really wasn’t speaking about things that freak me the hell out, but I was reaching for a segue.  Do you mind??) I happened to catch Hit Me Baby (1 More Time) last night. WTF?  No, really…WTF???

I would like to say I handled this as an adult, but I would SO be lying. I admit it.  I was totally confused when I saw this. I am all “Who the hell is that?  Is that Brent Spiner?  What the hell is this?  Why is he singing 80’s music?” And then I get a close up and see something more like this and am seriously confused and more than a little freaked out.  No, really, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?”

Then I hear the announcer.  “Let’s hear it for LOVERBOY!”

WTF?  *faint*

Loverboy?  As in THIS Loverboy? Best known for this album cover?

Talk about freaking me the hell out.  I began to shout, “Noooooo!  WTFWTFWTF??  They look so OLD!” Then I dove behind the couch to hide from the horror of the moment.  After a few moments curled in the fetal position and sucking my thumb, I came back out.  Only to hear that after 22 years Tiffany is singing again.  And not in a mall. 

I am afraid. Hold me. 

I think I need my Tequilacure again. Bartender, hit me baby 1 more time and make it a double!

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Time off for good behavior!

May 30, 2005

Did I mention that I was going out of town for a week?  And that the week I was going out of town started last Monday and I would be getting home yesterday?  Did I? 

Oooops. My bad.  Let me fix that.

Hey, Internet, I am going out of town.  I will be home yesterday.

Better?

But see it is even better than that!  I went out of town with 3 kids and a dog.  I came home with a dog.  That’s right.  I finally made good on my threat to drop the kiddos off on the side of I-45 and make them walk home.

No, not really.  Geez, people!  But I did leave them in the very wonderful and very capable hands of my sister.  FOR A WEEK.

That’s right A WEEK of no kids.  No bedtimes.  No planning if I want to go out.  No fights to break up.  No whining to deal with.

Just one week of ME TIME.  (Just don’t tell my agent or she will expect a lot more work out of me now.)

And you people expect me to BLOG when I could be running through the house naked listening to 80’s music while eating ice cream for dinner?  Yeah right.  I love you all, but not that much.  I have naked running and ice cream eating to do.

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