Growing Old Is Mandatory…

Growing up is optional…

So as I sit here, listening to Smashing Pumpkins (yes, I’m old), typing this, I’m thinking back on all the things that prompted me to want to make today’s entry. Well… aside from the fact that I am growing old… It seems the last few months that everything has been painfully reminding me of that fact (annoyingly so). But I think what really prompted this was my visit with my mother last Friday. I asked when she was planning on retiring and she said probably never as she couldn’t afford it and informed me probably not until she went into a nursing home… I reminded her that she’s going to be 75 in October, to which she replied, “I know I’m going to be 75!” She sounded offended… She told me she didn’t feel 75 and was getting around fine. She is, I won’t deny that but… Jesus Christ, my mom is going to be 75! When did that happen?! When did she grow so old…? Worse, she’s taking me down with her and I don’t like it…

Yeah, I’m sharing a picture and I haven’t been doing that because I gained a bunch of weight in unflattering places because of my thyroid, hence the old lady suit top… Anyway, I think this kind of started when I went to the pool party my niece and her fiancé threw (where this was taken). My sister was also there with her boyfriend. Now, granted, my sister is five years my senior and we don’t look like we came from the same gene pool at all (but we did). I can’t tell you how many of their friends told me they thought I was one of their friends and had no idea that I was my niece’s aunt until she told them. To be fair, I never allowed either of my nieces call me Aunt Jackie. I was 18 when my oldest niece was born and felt too young to have that title. Even at 21 when my youngest niece was born, I still felt the same way. I was always just Jackie. They know I’m their aunt… But the others at the party, they had no idea. By the end of the night, I had a lot of people calling me Aunt Jackie and I was the cool aunt there that they wanted to hang out with. I’m not sure if that was good or bad to be honest… Cool Aunt Jackie… Ugh. It just made me feel old. I was just being me, enjoying myself and suddenly I’m some old fart relative that all the young hipsters decided to adopt. What the actual fuck…

I don’t know if I mentioned this before (so I’m sorry if I’m being redundant), but my sister texted me a few months ago with a link and the text, “Did you see this?” Of course I hadn’t; I’m a bit of a recluse in certain aspects. The link was for the news that Duran Duran was playing a concert locally! She had seen them as a teen, she was 17 or 18 I think. I would have been 12 or 13, too young to go along my mother felt, so I never got that chance. When I checked out the link, the first thing I asked was if she wanted to go (excitedly). She said she was thinking about it. I told her I’d go with her if she wanted to go and we should do this! Needless to say, she bought tickets when they went on sale and man, were they expensive! Back when I was a teen, concert tickets were $20-$30. She paid $209 each! What the actual fuck?! So do the math… That’s a 600% increase! That’s not inflation; it’s highway robbery! I was joking they better not come out with walkers, “Th-th-th-th-the Reflex…” (sung in an old person voice) and made a lot of people laugh… But honestly, I was only half joking. She paid that much per ticket to see a group who last had a new song, what, back in 1992? Something like that? It was right after I graduated, I remember that… But their real success was in the 80s, particularly the early 80s. Man, that makes me feel old… And you know all the people there are going to look the part. Old, gray, fat, bald… And they’re going to dress the part. Not me… My hair isn’t gray; I don’t look old. I planned on getting some colorful eyeshadow and rocking my usual look.

Just last week I was in the car and had the radio on… There’s a reason I don’t play the radio often… I hate commercials and I hate when they play shit I don’t like, especially when you consider there’s all of one station I actually listen to that plays all the stuff I grew up listening to. Not that I don’t like newer music, but not enough to listen to it exclusively. In any case, the DJ was babbling about I have no idea what and then mentioned what song he was going to be playing next. For the life of me, I can’t remember what song it was now, but it was a song I really liked and hadn’t heard in a long time. I was really excited to hear it… until he said 44 years ago… What?! I remember when that song was released! I remember when the radio played that song all the time! Now he’s telling me that was 44 years ago?! Which led me to yelling at the radio, flipping out in the car, “No! Fuck you, that was 44 years ago! You lie!” Yup… once again a DJ made me feel like I should go home, sit in a chair by the fire with a shawl wrapped around my shoulders and have some tea… What the actual fuck… Music is the one thing that seems to make me feel very old, but only if you tell me how many years ago a song was released. You can tell me the year, it means nothing.

Okay, I like the 20s flapper dress and deco wallpaper…

But for all the times some asshole tries to make me feel old by telling me how long ago things were released or how much people up the cost of concert tickets or how much hipsters decide to adopt cool Aunt Jackie, I try not to let it get me down. A large part of that is my hippie dippy personality, but there’s another reason for it… My sister and I don’t just look like we’re not related, we’re two sides of the same coin. She’s always been so serious and rather prudent whereas I’m the goofy free spirit. Yes, she’s five years older than me, but when I reached the milestones she’d already passed, I realized she had looked way older at that age than I did. Like now… At 51, she was considerably gray and I hardly have any gray hair (my mother doesn’t have much either and is going to be 75). She also dressed the part at 51 and I just can’t. When I’m in the car with her, a good song comes on, she may turn it up, but she doesn’t sing along or even dance in the car… What?! I do that all the time! And the thing is, for all the shit I’ve put my body through (smoking, smoking pot, drinking) and things out of my control (losing my ovaries and going through early menopause, all the surgeries I’ve gone through), I should look worse than her. But I don’t…

I honestly think it’s because of how I decide to live my life. I am a very hippie-dippy, goofy free spirit… When a good song comes on, I sing and dance like no one is watching and I don’t care where the fuck I am. I could be in the middle of a store, in a restaurant, wherever. You’d be surprised how many people actually look at me with admiration and envy instead of looking at me like I’ve lost my marbles (though I get that on occasion as well). I think most people wish they had the guts to live that way. But why do you need the guts? If you want to do it, just fucking do it! Be liberated! It feels fucking great! I also buy stuffed animals (perhaps too many, I could start my own zoo) and toys. This is one of my latest buys. Virtual pets are a pain in the ass and the batteries are expensive, but it was a Hello Kitty one and I just love Hello Kitty and friends! I also collect My Little Pony and a plethora of other things, whatever I find cute or interesting. And I play video games because they’re a great way for me to escape the stresses of life, especially when I’m having some difficulty with my creative flow.

Speaking of imagination… Mine is shot to shit right now. I’m not surprised, to be honest. I’m still sleeping a lot. Yesterday I slept literally all day and I slept all night. To be fair, I’d had a flu shot and was feeling kind of bleh. Was it from the shot or because it’s rag weed season and it’s bad this year? I can’t tell, but I was feeling like shit and slept off and on all damn day… Still, I’ve been having to see so many doctors, getting tests run and whatnot… The latest is now I’m having trouble regulating my blood pressure and the “doctor” I saw who got his medical license out of an “unhappy” meal literally said, “I don’t know what you think I can do for you.” Well, the ER doctor told me to see a cardiologist, that’s why I’m here, idiot, because extremely low blood pressure is just as dangerous as high blood pressure. I can also suffer cardiac arrest or a stroke. What a dick… And my GP keeps asking me if I feel more depressed because I’m sleeping so much. No, I don’t feel more depressed! I’m frustrated by all you idiots, but I’m not depressed! Besides, I just saw my shrink; I’m fine!

If only my hair was as easy to change on the fly…

So I’m losing myself in a little video game world for now… My character, at least, is healthy. She can run, swing a pick axe, can stay awake… There are times I’m playing and I actually fall asleep with my Switch in my hands… I suppose that’s why I play these games. There are a lot of physical things I can’t do in real life anymore due to impairments that my character can do. I haven’t been able to run since I was 20 because I have bad knees. That’s been hard for me… But my character can. Now I have osteoporosis, so there are a lot of other things I can’t do because it could be dangerous, but my character can do them. I still feel I could do them in my mind, but I know that physically I can’t. This is such a suck ass age. The mind is willing but the flesh is weak. My mind and body don’t match right now. Will my mind ever catch up to my body…? God, I hope not… I don’t ever want my mind to think like an old woman. Fuck that shit… Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional. If you remember that, you’ll do fine and you’ll have a much happier life and stay younger looking for longer, trust me. Just stay away from DJs who will tell you how old songs are…

I’m Going To Disney-World… Sort Of…

Jackie Blue… Ruler of a Disney Valley…?!

You know, I’m 51 and I’ve never been to a Disney theme park… My parents’ idea of a “vacation” was to take my sister and I to local attractions, like caves (I saw a lot of those), coal mines, this place that had all these miniature trains… And while I thought they were cool, I thought I was missing out. I’d only gone to the shore once when I was about 10 and my mom was dating this really nice guy who took us there (it didn’t last). Other than that, I never had vacations until after I turned 18 and I don’t know that you’d really call them “vacations” in the traditional sense. And whereas the majority of people have been to Disney at least once in their life, I never have. Now I doubt I’ll ever go because it’s so stupid expensive, but I’d really like to… And I seriously need a vacation. So instead I found the next best thing. I found a new obsession… I found an escape…

I’m not a “gamer” by any means. The only types of games I’m skilled in are Atari 2600 games. I’m completely inept with these new games that require way too much hand/eye coordination. So I usually go for more slow paced games, if you can find them (good luck with that). And I just so happened to find a new one when I downloaded Disney’s Dreamlight Valley…

The valley residents love posing for selfies…

Warning, there will be spoilers… So stop reading if you don’t want to know how this turns out… Anyway, it starts out that you fall asleep and find yourself in a slummy looking Dreamlight Valley. Only a few villagers remain and they all seem to be suffering from something they call “the forgetting”. All they know is that something bad happened and everyone started to forget everything. This dark force started to flood over the land and these annoying things called night thorns started popping up all over the place. Merlin seems to be the one who remembers some shit, or at least enough to know to tell you that you have special powers and can rid the valley of these night thorns and hopefully help figure out how to restore the valley. So you g o around, fixing up buildings, getting rid of night thorns and doing tasks to help the villagers, plus you earn magic points called Dreamlight for doing certain things and with a certain amount, you can unlock doors to the realms the other villagers escaped to when the forgetting began and bring them back. You also need it to unlock all the areas of the valley as they’re not all open… So you kick ass to get these things accomplished, get some of the characters back to the valley (I’m disappointed, no Robin Hood)… I hadn’t even watched half these movies and Frozen was on my list of “must burn every single copy in existence” movies, so I wasn’t exactly thrilled that I was stuck with asshole characters I didn’t like and others I didn’t know. But they do love to photobomb selfies, hahahaa!

This is when you know you need to take a break…

At one point in the game, in order for me, the apparent ruler of the valley, to procure one of the items needed to save the valley, a deal must be struck with the sea witch, Ursula. One of the deals is that Kristoff must forget his love for Anna, which they both agree if it will save the valley and they figure his memories will return. But when they don’t, I have to jump through flaming hoops to help Kristoff get his memories back. Nothing works and I eventually have to gather a million things to enchant Anna’s engagement ring and poof, his memories come back. They’re grateful and I’m feeling bitter… That’s it?! Just, “Thanks, now we can go get it on”?! So many of these characters are paired off and I’m sitting over here doing all this work like I’m everyone’s lackey so they can stand around picking their nose, picking their ass, being all Lovey-dovey… And all I get is “thanks”?! Not even a cool piece of furniture?! Now… about a day before this, I’d listened to the song “Boom, I Fucked Your Boyfriend” by MC Lucious… I was really tired that night, pissed that I was doing all this work and getting nothing in return. And since you need to hang out with the characters to up your friendship levels, I chose Kristoff that night. Every time we passed her, I found myself talking to my Switch, “Hey Anna! ‘Boom! I fucked your boyfriend!”‘” Hahahaa… Which led to me taking these silly pictures… Semi-romantic in feeling, but yet there’s this distance on my part, like I’d just used him and threw him away like an old rag while he’s looking at me adoringly, hahahaa!

So aside from totally dating myself by giving you the link to that song… Good lord, I was listening to that song in, what, my early 20s maybe…? Oh my god… I’m so old *sigh*…

The game does, however, have its downsides… You literally spend the entire time running around like a chicken with your head cut off, doing these “quests” for the characters. things they say they’ll do part of the work (which they never do) and they expect you to do the rest. You don’t get rewarded for it, really, unless you level u your friendship with them, which takes forever! You start to feel frustrated and like the friendship is more than just a little one sided because all they do is take from you and never give… Or at least this is how I was feeling when I found out that the person responsible for all the mess in the valley is someone they call The Forgotten. The Forgotten is actually you, the player, or a part of you that you left behind when you left the valley, anyway… At one point you get to relive The Forgotten’s memories as if they’re your own (which they are, you’ve just forgotten them) and I have to tell you, I could totally relate to the first one… Everyone was asking her to do this for them, do that for them… “Hey, I wanted to make a nice bouquet for Minnie and you pick the best flowers!” Hint hint, make me a bouquet to give my girl… “Hey, I caught these beautiful shrimp and wanted to make us bouillabaisse! How about you get us the rest of the ingredients?” And you knew I was going to have to cook it, too…

Disney… Where you can hang with your dark side

I found this very relatable… I was experiencing the same issue in the game, all take and no give. All my money was spent having to build stuff because it was “good for the economy”, according to Scrooge, yet I never saw that mother fucker take a dime from his vault full of money he swims in… All the responsibility was falling on me alone and it was feeling too much like real life, to be honest. I suppose that’s why I could relate to my dark side, The Forgotten, so easily. She got so sick of that shit, had been betrayed by the villagers she thought were her friends growing up and decided to destroy it all. When she realized what she’d done, she left, never to return. That’s you, but the darkness within you that caused the destruction remained. And now that you’re back, she intends to destroy the entire world… You have to save her, change her mind, which you do eventually. It’s a pretty cool game, but the content is pretty fucking dark… I wouldn’t let children play it. Those aren’t the kinds of things I would want them to learn at such an early age. It’s bad enough I had to go through it in real life. I certainly wouldn’t want any children I knew to play this and learn the hard way what life is about….

I’ve had this game about two weeks and already I’ve beaten the main part of the story. Am I bored or just plain insane…? The world may never know…

I do know one thing… Because of this game, I started watching some of their newer movies and so far have watched a few I had yet to see. They’ve all been pretty god so far, but I still have a feeling they’ll all be just as good as the ones I’e watched so far.

Well, dear readers, it’s time for a nap… Aside from the fact that I’ve been staying up way too late playing this game, I’m still not on the right amount of thyroid medication yet. I still get sleepy and take marathon naps. Not a good thing, I assure you, hence the reason I need this little escape to a rather nice place, even if I have to work my ass off in it… Until next time!

Jackie’s Magical Mystery Tour

It was one helluva weekend…

My new favorite hippie dippy store was celebrating its first anniversary and was planning quite the celebration! I’d been looking forward to it for at least a month and Saturday was the day! I got a haircut for the occasion (there’s a reason, but I’ll get to that later) which she cut way too much off and my hair has been a curly ass mess, so I need to straighten it. And you know it was rather humid that day to make my efforts of straightening moot, right? This is why I hate summer… Anyway, I got all dolled up and met my friend over at the store as we’d been planning since I’d first heard about all this. Honestly, I wasn’t sure the owner was going to have as big a turn out as she did, but holy shit! There were so many people there! Some were regular customers I’m sure (like myself) and others were the curious who I think dribbled down from the farmer’s market about a half a block up and were drawn by the crowds and the balloons out front. Balloons work wonders!

So to tell you how often I frequent this place…

The owner had some extra hands working with her that day (aside for the other girl who works for her). When I was going through all the clothing out in front of the store, one of them had come out to ask if I’d like her to put it aside for me at the register (I was clearly not done shopping yet). I said yes and gave her my name as she didn’t know me. As I added items, I only had to tell the girl that is a regular employee that I had a tank top setting behind the register and she could put my stuff with that one time. When I was finally ready to check out, the owner saw me coming and had all my stuff ready on the counter for me, hahahaa! She somehow just knew I was ready! She was telling the other helpers what kind of stuff I usually go for when I come in there and she’s exactly right, that is the stuff I usually go for and that was pretty much what I’d bought that day as well! This is how amazing a little shop it is; the owner remembers regulars and knows what they like.

It’s going to sound crazy, considering how much I love all this hippie dippy, new age shit, but I never had a Tarot reading… until that day. I know, a lot of people think it’s bunk. Even I thought it was. But they had someone giving readings that day, so what the hell, I figured I’d get one. Instead of a general reading, I asked a specific question I wanted an answer to. But it wasn’t as simple as just getting an answer. It involved getting a background on the other party, what they were like, what my relationship with them had been like, the kind of person I am, another person involved in the situation that I was told was lying to me about it and this person was female (which I suspected). The weird thing is that I gave her nothing… I kept a stone ass poker face the entire time so she couldn’t judge my reactions to anything and use that to her advantage, but she literally hit the nail on the head to the point that it was scary accurate! She even pegged me exactly, which was uncomfortable but cool as shit! I decided to buy a deck for myself (I also bought my friend one) and this one jumped out at me. Considering I’m an artist, I felt the Muse deck was perfect for me. Muses are said to inspire creativity…

I was so bad that day…

Let me tell you something, these kind of stores aren’t cheap… My deck of Tarot cards? The US price is $27, which I think was the same price for the deck I bought for my friend. I’m not sure why I let her talk me into buying her stuff like that… I just do it to be nice. She doesn’t ask me all the time, so don’t get the impression that she does. But I know she doesn’t have money to spare for things and I’d like her to have some nice things sometimes. Stupid thing is, my tank top was about as expensive as a pack of those cards! I know, you’re thinking I need my head examined at this point, right? You’re probably right that I do…

But the absolute worst part was that they had gotten in new jewelry… and I’m a sucker for jewelry, especially if it’s real precious metals. And it just so happened that they had these gorgeous rings sitting at the register when I went to drop off some things I wanted them to hold for me that were real silver… There was one I really liked, but I already had enough on the only fingers it fit on and I couldn’t shuffle things around. I needed a middle finger ring, so I got this gorgeous one. The ring is silver and the stone is seraphinite, known for utilizing wood energy, the energy of growth, expansion, new beginnings, nourishment and health. It’s connected to the heart chakra, but it’s said that it can work to open all the chakras and even enhance one’s own clairvoyant capabilities. The reason it got its name is due to the feathery look of the markings in the stone (after seraphim) and it’s only found in a small area of Siberia. That explains why it was $65… I just bought it because it fit this finger and I loved the look of it…

So other than me being drawn to things for who knows what reason and spending way more money than anyone should spend on just a few items… I promised I would explain why I got. a haircut for the festivities. It’s a bit difficult to see, but I got fairy hair! Yes, my ancient 51 year old ass got fairy hair because, damn it, that just sounded awesome! I’ve seen other people with it and never knew where they got it done at, so when I saw they had someone doing fairy hair at this event, I decided I was getting that much needed haircut (my hair was a long, disastrous mess) so that I could have fairy hair that met the length of whatever haircut I got. I was so excited, I literally couldn’t wait until it was my turn to get it done! My friend and I got ours done at the same time, but she got different colors than I did. I saw rainbow colors and my eyes just lit up! The more colorful I can be, the better! It’s an artist thing, I guess…

And while we were at it, we also decided to get fairy freckles! It was actually kind of funny… My friend has real freckles whereas I have none and never have. So she had sparkly gold freckles over her real freckles and I just had freckles for the first time in my life, hahahaa! Granted, they were just made out of gold glitter, but it was so much fun! We both looked like sparkly bitches and I said we should go out clubbing! That was the really funny part… I’m too damned old to party like a rock star anymore. I tried that last year on my birthday and it took me a week to recover. My ass is too old for that type of shit, I hate the music they play at those places anymore and the way people dance today… I don’t know how they can call it that. I call it fucking while standing up on a dance floor. Hence the reason why I often say, if I had money, I would open up my own club so older people like myself could have a place to go and party.

Guess the bartender thought I looked nice…

Instead I settled for dinner at a bar… It was a little, out of the way place that served the best food in huge portions! The bartender/waitress was absolutely the sweetest. And I got the biggest kick out of the glass she brought my chardonnay in… Was this just one of their normal wineglasses or was she trying to tell me that she thought my sparkly ass looked good that night? Who knows… I just thought it was rather comical and nice that I was getting a compliment in some way, shape or form, even if it was just from my glass…

In the end, I wound up over-eating and still had enough for an entire meal leftover to bring home. The amount of food was totally ridiculous! But it was really delicious and the prices were so cheap it wasn’t even funny! Yeah, it was a half hour drive for me to get there, so I had to watch how much I was drinking, but it was definitely worth it for how awesome everything was!

All in all, it was an amazing day!

After everything I’ve been going through lately, I seriously needed that hippie dippy day, that day to be me, spend time with a good friend, to spend way more money than I should have spent in one day. I needed that day to be a free spirit, to feel young and be young… I think it did wonders for my outlook on things.

Then the following day, I was so god damned exhausted that I ended up sleeping pretty much the entire day away. Again… I’m not surprised, really. The day before, I didn’t get to take a nap at all; I was on the go all day long. That usually kicks my ass something fierce, but it’s been a lot worse as of late with all the shit I have going on. So the following day was just a lazy day of recuperating from all the running around and crazy shit I’d done the day before.

Speaking of… I have a bit of an update…

I finally got ahold of my GP and spoke to him about the symptoms I’ve been experiencing and the first thing he asked after I told him I was tired all the time and the cold from the AC was bothering me was, “Do you think it’s your thyroid?” So he looked up my bloodwork results and, though my levels weren’t terribly low (by the standards of the lab I went to), I pointe out that, if he looked at past results, it was pretty level and suddenly took a nosedive. I also pointed out my other level, though not low, was up and down like a roller coaster for years. I told him more of my symptoms and asked if it could be secondary hypothyroidism, which he said it was possible. He decided to start me on a low dose thyroid med because it won’t hurt anything and retest me in a month and see what happens. Fair enough… Today it’s been a week since I started taking it and, though I won’t see any major differences for a month at least, there have been a few days that I didn’t have to run (if you catch my drift) at all! You can’t imagine my relief!

I’ve had days where my fatigue is slightly better, but then I still have days where I could sleep all day long. But so far it seems this stuff might actually be helping somewhat. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope, then hope they can find the right amount that works. Keep sending good vibes!

There’s A Reason Jackie Is Blue…

Oh, see what I did there…? That play on words? No, I’m not proud of that; it’s pretty bad, actually. But, dear readers, there is a reason I have been blue and- well- flat out bitchy lately. So it seems “blue” is not just part of my song title name; it also seems to be the color scheme of my life the past few months. Lucky me…

But I’ll get to that in a moment… First I need to talk about this new watch face Apple came out with! Isn’t it crazy?! It’s like some bitching rainbow neon sign! I’m a sucker for rainbows… Not because of all this “pride” shit. Don’t get me wrong, I support my gay friends, but I think society is taking things to extreme. And I just want rainbows to be rainbows again so I can sport them without people thinking I’m gay or a huge supporter. I’m an artist; I just really like colors! Especially lit up colors like this! It also comes in other various settings of multiple colors that are almost as fabulous!

So as I said, “blue” seems to be my theme color… I’m even listening to Joni Mitchell’s Blue album…

For about two months, I haven’t been feeling very well. No matter how much I sleep at night, I’m tired as fuck and I’ve been sleeping most of my days away lately. At first, I blew it off. It was allergy season and I usually sleep more during allergy season. But when I started sleeping away entire days and was doing this every day, I knew something was wrong. I had to get bloodwork done for the cardiologist anyway, so I decided to ask my GP to throw some extras in there to check vitamin levels, my thyroid and do a urine test. The one and only time I had a UTI, they caught it by chance. I had literally no symptoms except being tired a lot. So I had all my bases covered and got the tests done. Everything came back normal (or normal for me, anyway) except one of my thyroid results… My T3 was fine and was consistent with all my past results. My T4, however, had dropped. Now, all labs have a different version of “normal” ranges. My lab’s low and of normal was .61 and my level was .6, so not low. But if you look at past results, it took a nose dive. We’re talking from low .8s to .9 all the way down to .6, which is quite a drop. And actually, most labs consider my prior results to be the low end of normal, so… But the PA who ordered it and my nurse practitioner sister thought that, because my TSH levels were normal that I was fine. But if you look at those past results, the chart looks like a roller coaster how it goes up and down.

I’ve been trying to get a hold of my GP since last week to talk to him about all this and I finally got to talk to him this morning. I’ve been doing some research about having low T4 levels and normal TSH levels. It can mean you have secondary hypothyroidism (your pituitary stops sending signals to your thyroid to produce hormone). And I have a lot of the symptoms… When the doc called today, I told him I was concerned about how I was sleeping, that the AC was bothering me a lot (everyone else is still sweating, I’m freezing). The first thing he asked is if I thought it was my thyroid and what were my levels. He looked and said they weren’t that low, but I pointed out they had a drastic drop from past tests and my past TSH tests looked like a roller coaster. I told him about some of the other symptoms (gained 10 pounds in two months without any lifestyle changes, my eyebrows have fallen out, other weird things). He decided to put me on a low dose thyroid med and is going to retest me in a month to see how I’m doing. Fair enough. I’m glad he’s listening…

I didn’t get to mention my new bear, Hemingway… Yes, I know; I need a Build A Bear intervention… But he’s worth it. For every one bought, they donate money to programs that help kids read. I’m all for that!

Anyway… I’ve been feeling I’ve been getting dismissed by doctors a lot as of late. I’ve known something wasn’t right for quite a while, but this type of hypothyroidism comes on slow. Even I dismissed some of the things for other issues (like the eyebrow loss, maybe it was part of being post menopausal). I’m happy I might have found a solution to my issues and I’m not nuts… But I’ve also had a bigger issue for the past two months that has been dismissed as my IBS. It’s not usually a symptom of hypothyroidism, but it can be. And I’m hoping it is, to be honest. I can’t keep spending so much time running and having things run, if you catch my drift. It’s been like that at least once a day for the past two months! That’s not normal for me and I want it to stop…

My eldest niece invited me to her pool party next month. I’m not sure exactly why I’m going… I was going to wear the string bikini I bought (for no reason other than it was retro looking) but after seeing how bad my jelly belly has gotten, I decided I wasn’t going to go at all. But she was so excited I was coming for some reason, so I bought a one piece instead. Thing is, I’m still unsure about this… I don’t like her new fiancé. He’s the quintessential yuppie douchebag who sucks up to everyone that he can. They bought this huge new house in an affluent neighborhood and, last time I saw my niece, she had become a stuck up snob like my sister and my other niece. She was never that way before; she was more like me. So I’m not sure now is a good time for me to be around people like that.

So when it’s not excessively hot like it’s been for the past week and a half (Christ, this heat wave has been awful!), I’ve been trying to spend time in my backyard, trying to clean some things up and figuring out what I want to do with it. As you can see, the maple trees (aside from the one I planted when I found it as a wayward seedling) have decided to take over quite literally. I don’t particularly care… I hate that shed and have since I moved here. It’s too big for the yard and I don’t use it. It’s also starting to fall apart and I don’t want to maintain something I don’t use. Honestly, it would be more useful to me to get rid of it and build a pergola, put some string lights up, plant some ivy to grow on it… Set some nice furniture under it and make it a nice meditation area… The creek runs right behind where the shed is, so it would be a lovely place for it. It would be very peaceful, hearing the water run like that. Now I just need help to tear the shed down…

I also found this gem to put up in the back… Isn’t it beautiful? I wanted to start making my outdoor space nice again. I won’t lie; I’ve been really down for a while and I’ve been so damned tired that I had zero motivation to do anything to get the yard in shape this year or even make an attempt to try and make it a pleasant place to spend time. But I’m really trying to change that… Spending time in nature really gives me a good lift to my spirit that I desperately need right now.

However, the past week and a half no one has done much of anything… The entire country has been suffering this horrible heat wave of temps that have reached damn near 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) with heat indexes well over 100 degrees. Needless to say, we’ve all been better off staying indoors with the AC on and staying out of the sun. I don’t even want to take my dogs out and will wait until the last possible second to do so.

Well, dear readers… Keep me in your thoughts, send me some good, healing vibes. Cross your fingers and hope that this medication the doctor is giving me is going to help me to start feeling a lot better very soon. Honestly, I don’t know how much longer I can stand feeling this shitty…

Until then, I’ll continue to regale you with randomness and weirdness and updates on how yours truly is doing. Hopefully the next time I write, I’ll have better news for you and I won’t be so damn tired that I can’t keep clear thoughts in my head like now… I’m pretty befuddled when I write lately, which is why I haven’t been doing much of it. I haven’t been drawing or painting, either. I’ve just been binge watching TV and sleeping because it’s all I feel I can do. Sad, I know… So start sending those good vibes ASAP! I really could use them!

And She/Her Said…

So I went shopping over the weekend at this little consignment shop in a neighboring town that I absolutely love. I can always find some rare, interesting treasure in that shop that I absolutely must have and exhaust all my will power to not scream, “TAKE MY MONEY!!!” like a fucking lunatic and buy everything I see.

But on this particular trip (with a hostage I’d brought along for company), I found a gem that literally made me groan and roll my eyes… There, hanging up for display, were buttons (the pin kind, you know), all of which had different things printed on them: he/him, she/her, they/them, etc… I turned to my shopping hostage and said, “Oh look! Now you can wear your pronouns like labels! No one needs to ask anymore! How convenient!” And I said it a bit louder than I intended… because I’m fifty-fucking-one… I’m losing my hearing and don’t know how loudly I’m speaking half the time. I’ve also reached that age where I no longer care what the fuck I say 99.9% of the time. But I believe I offended the owner’s girlfriend (the owner being female also) and I didn’t mean to make her feel as if I’m against them being lesbians. I’m fine with that. But this pronoun shit?! Just no…

And this actually took me back to the weekend before when I’d spent time with a long time “friend” of mine. I don’t don’t if I’ve mentioned her before, so we’ll call her Roberta… There’s a history of falling outs between she and I, most because she began acting like she was better than me once she had finished college because I never went and because at some point she felt the relationships we were both in at the time were a competition even though I made it clear I didn’t want the same commitment this guy did. Yet she still felt she had to one up me. She’s weird… Anyway, our last discussion had started out pleasant, we were laughing and talking as we always had in the past and it was nice. Or it was until she suddenly changed into the “I’m better than you” mode and conversation turned to the politics of one of the biggest controversies in the world today, that being should we give children hormone blockers or give them hormone treatments to help them change themselves to appear as the opposite sex as what they were born… We did not see eye to eye on this subject. And this was where the issues started…

You’re probably wondering what the fuck my cat, Sebastian, has to do with this… I made an entry quite some time ago about his needing PU surgery because he could no longer pass during through his urethra because it’s so narrow through a cat’s penis. He kept getting blocked up and the only solution was to lop his knob off and reroute the urethra so he pees like a female, but he’s male. Essentially my cat had gender reassignment surgery to save his life… Look, I’m a hip cat mom, whaddaya know…

But that’s just it, isn’t it? These kids that want hormone blockers, that want hormones, at such a young age… They don’t know their assholes from their belly buttons yet. They don’t know who they are as a person, don’t feel accepted and feel so lost. But then here’s the trans community… They’ll accept you, with open arms, of course. It will only cost you your gender. But hey, what’s giving up what makes you you as long as you’re accepted, right? It’s not like you can’t reverse it, right…? Well… not everything… You can repair some things, but you’ll never be the same again, so you better be damn well sure this is what you want.

And then there are the wannabe “hip” parents… It’s trendy to have a trans child! Who doesn’t want one? So let’s groom our precious little miracle into thinking they were born into the wrong body so they can mutilate themselves and we can look hip and trendy by default! No… It doesn’t work that way. And, despite what Roberta thinks, “If they don’t start giving them hormone blockers or hormones, do you know how many of them will commit suicide?!” Do you know how gigantic an idiot you sound like when you say shit like that?! Listen, teens are going to self-harm and try to commit suicide no matter what for various reasons (I know, I tried it myself back when I was 16). But it always comes down to the same reason… They feel they don’t belong, feel isolated and unloved, like no one understands them. It’s not just because of “gender dysphoria”… It’s because they’re teenagers! That’s just how they’re made! But she began spitting all this shit out all this shit at me… And she made sure to tell me she has a trans friend. Good for you…I have two gay friends,, what’s your point? I’m not homophobic or transphobic. I just don’t believe we should allow children under eighteen to make this decision.

Hahahaa… Someone please try using this at work

And, much to Roberta’s dismay, I don’t believe you’re being supportive by asking people their pronouns… I’m a grammar nerd; you only have certain choices in my book. If you’re a man or you look like a man, you get he/him. If you’re a woman or you look like one, you get she/her. Unless you have multiple personalities, there’s no way in hell I’m using they/them. You’re one person, singular… I refuse to use a plural pronoun for a single person because all the rules of grammar would haunt me (again, unless you have multiple personalities). And all these new pronouns people are making up? Just fucking no… So that’s where I stand. I’m cool with who you want to be, but don’t expect me to ask your pronouns. I call them like I see them.

So… now you know where I stand. I’m not transphobic. I just don’t think minors should medically transition because they’re not mentally mature enough and I’m pretty set on pronouns. What do you expect? I’ve been told I should have been an English teacher… I can’t help it…

I never did update you, dear readers, on how I’ve been… I guess because I’m just trying not to think about it and just going day by day (like the song here, see?) or I’d lose my marbles… The doctor’s appointment I had the day all the shit with Anakin began was to return a heart monitor I had to wear for 48 hours. I’d also finally scheduled my 6 month lung CT that I’d been putting off for a month. But Memorial Day really must have been one helluva celebration for medical staff. It took those fuckers a week and a half to post my results to my online chart and/or call me about them. The nodule in my lung has not grown any (thank god) which is a good sign that it’s just a funky nodule and nothing to worry about, but I still need to go for regular CT scans. That sucks… Now my heart monitor results… The nurse called and I never heard anyone so eager to get off the phone. “You had some rare, irregular beats in the upper chambers of your heart. No treatment is needed. Have a nice day.” What?!? I quickly said, “Wait! So… am I healthy?!” She just said yes, I didn’t need treatment and got off the phone. What the fuck… Great bedside manner…

Well… I got nothing from Nurse Ratched… I have a stress echo coming up at the end of the month, so I guess we’ll see what happens then. Sadly, the only person who ever gives me real answers is my cardiologist (and I don’t like this new guy, I miss the one who retired), but I don’t see him until November… Now, I was told when I saw him last to call in May for an August appointment because they don’t schedule that far ahead. Well, I was there in May, so I made the appointment and the soonest I could get in was November! I thought they didn’t schedule that far ahead… I really wish they’d make up my fucking mind, I really do… This is such fucking bullshit! It’s no wonder I need a fucking cardiologist, but they’re the idiots putting all this stress on my heart at the moment! Ugh… But that’s okay… I have my beautiful flower bed to work in and fuss over to help me relax an, you know, get cut to shreds in from the roses…

I also took up making hippie dippy bracelets!

Aren’t they pretty? I’m actually pretty proud of myself that I managed to do this myself! I decided that if other people could do it, why couldn’t I? So I went on Amazon and bought a bunch of these beautiful, natural stone beads and some of this polyurethane elastic thread to string them with. The bad part was that I bought 8mm beads and I thought they were a bit too big for what I wanted. So back to Amazon and I ordered all the same types (plus one extra one) in the 6mm. They were the exact size I wanted! The morning Anakin showed up at my house unannounced, this was what I was doing; I was relaxing and making bracelets. Or I found it relaxing until he showed up, anyway…

But this leaves me with the issue of what to do with all the 8mm beads I have that I didn’t use. I happen to like the flower jade (bottom right) so I decided to order more of that size so I have 108 of them plus some special beads, including two white jade lotus beads, so I can make a mala and a matching bracelet like I saw advertised on Facebook for “free”… Nothing that pretty is free. I didn’t trust it, but since I found the lotus beads, I’m making my own. I hope it works…

And apparently I’m a fashion influencer, hahahaa…

I had someone go out of their way to approach me Saturday to tell me she loved my necklaces… I’ve had people do this for my jewelry, my glasses, my outfits… I never know how to respond. I was the girl who got bullied all through high school because I was too poor to afford the latest fashion. I still don’t spend a lot of money on my stuff; I just buy what I like. I did then, too. But now I have people go out of their way to tell me how much they love whatever I’m rocking and I don’t know how to react… Compliments are something I’m unfamiliar with. I just smile uncomfortably and say thank you with as much gratitude I can muster while trying to figure out why they’re doing this and since when am I something to admire… Imagine, Jackie Blue: Fashion Influencer, hahahaa! At 51, influencing the young. Scary…

Have A Hippy Dippy Day!

Hello my lovelies! It’s been a long time since I’ve written (again), but I had quite a lot going on since the last time we talk, you and I…

Wow… I actually look good in this picture. I certainly don’t look 51… However, I noticed that, after I had to have a tooth extracted and they pretty much overdosed me on some heavy duty shit, I’ve been looking like shit… I had that done a month ago and I swear I turned into a fucking zombie after that. I look like I just crawled up out of the grave in every picture. Should I be surprised? Not especially; not after what I read about the medications they gave me. First was generic Versed. It’s supposed to help you relax or sleep before a surgical procedure and block your memory of it (I woke up and have my memory of what happened when I did). It’s also in the same class as benzodiazepines, which means they should not have told me it was okay to take my Klonopin before coming in that morning (like about an hour and a half before I got the Versed). I suspect they gave me a little extra when I woke up as the doc was poking my tooth… They also gave me Fentanyl for the pain, so I was literally a zombie and slept all fucking day. I was severely overdosed and I don’t think I ever recovered from it…

I’ve been hit by, I’ve been struck by, a Smooth Criminal…

I’ve been very stressed (partially because of this tooth business) from some shit going on, so I decided that I was going to start working on my house and get shit back in shape! Yeah… that motivation didn’t last long. But I did get the front of my house looking nice anyway, so it’s a start. And in the process of, I found why I was running out of birdseed so quickly. Look closely… There’s a smooth criminal in my arborvitae! I couldn’t be mad, though… Look how cute and fluffy he is! I watched him from my front door for a long time, thinking he was all slick and shit, when I had him in my sights the entire time, hahahaa! It was quite comical! He was literally sneaking around like some kind of squirrel ninja, assuming I couldn’t see him and I took a ton of pictures of his not so stealthy ass! I have to hand it to him, he has style and balls! That alone deserved a treat. So to save myself on birdseed and give the little bugger something more befitting, I went to the grocery store and got him some peanuts in the shell that I threw out in the flower bed. He seemed very pleased with that and has been leaving my feeder alone since.

Soon after the squirrel incident, I happened to notice that my azalea went completely berserk! Literally! That poor thing was a sad piece of work for so many years… Soon after it started growing, the lummox who reads the water meter stepped on it and busted it in half (and never told me he did it). I was heartbroken it was busted and pissed that the clumsy oaf did it and never said a word. So for years it didn’t grow and would occasionally bloom a few flowers. Imagine my shock to see this in my flower bed! I mean, just look at it! I have no idea when it decided to start growing or when it decided to all of a sudden bloom. Just one day I had these gorgeous magenta flowers all over the place! It’s still only part of the original bush… I assume the other part, though still attached, died off at some point. But this one part is such a trooper that, not only did it manage to grow, but it grew out really far! Damn! Imagine if the whole bush had grown… I’d have a fucking mess!

Since everything was looking so nice, I had the flower bed weeded (by someone else, I can’t do it myself anymore), potted some flowers my mom gave me that she had extras of (bottom right corner of the picture) and bought a new garden flag as my dog one was sadly very faded and had more than a few holes in it. I really like this one… It definitely suits me and it matches the dark brown screen door and shutters… I also put out my Temu watering can (see previous picture) with the fairy lights that I just love… And if you think my flower bed looks nice in these pictures, you should see it now that the pink tea roses and my red roses have bloomed! Good heavens, I have blooms all over the place! The tea roses are the worst… Years ago they decided to start growing up through the arborvitae, so now it looks as if the damn thing blooms pink roses! Actually, it looks really pretty, so I just leave it. But how things have grown so crazy when no one else’s does, I have no idea. I’ve never given them fertilizer…

I’m often baffled as to why we have “Welcome” signs… Better yet, why do I buy them?! I really need one that says “Go Away” or “Fuck Off”…

For several weeks, now, Anakin has been driving me up a wall… He lost his job (and is on unemployment) and has bee constantly calling me to whine and complain about the job he lost, the circumstances he lost them under, the fact that he can’t find another job and how much he hates his current living situation (which is with people he knows that are old enough to be his parents). It was like listening to a male Morticia… I’m finally free of her calling me to constantly bitch, now it’s like her mouth just sprouted on another body. Half the time I didn’t answer my phone because I just couldn’t deal with it. I wish I wouldn’t have answered it the day I did… He told me he was getting kicked out of the place he was living at and made some not so minor reference to offing himself. Believe me, he meant to worry me…

So after my doctor appointments that day, I had to pick his dumb ass up (his car wasn’t running right) and get him out so he didn’t stew in things. I took him for a walk around our old home town, partly because I didn’t want him at my house, and partly because I thought the nostalgia would help put things into perspective. It’s not the same place it used to be… Once we walked those streets like we owned that town. Now we’re just old farts taking a walk. He’s not the only one feeling his age; it happens to everyone. Sometimes, when I see this old lane, the one I knew since I was a baby, I cry. Once only my family lived on it; now none of my family does… My great grandparents bought all this land, now everything is so built up around it, it’s frightening. But change is inevitable, I suppose… And I guess that was what I wanted to get across to Anakin. Except when he was living with his parents to help care for his dying father, he’s lived with friends who have families. It’s as if he glomps onto these people, tries to write himself into the picture, because he doesn’t have a family of his own. It’s not right and it’s not fair to these people. He chose to not marry and have a family. That’s his own problem, no one else’s…

Good lord, I look awful… This was after I got that tooth pulled, hence my not smiling (it’s too close to the front and my smile is off). I’ve looked washed out and gross since I was heavily drugged. And my neck still looks old…

Anyway, moving on… This was Friday before Memorial Day and I was with Anakin for 6 hours before I was finally rid of him. The next day, he called me… I don’t know why I picked up, I really don’t… More bitching and bellyaching. When the call dropped, I was glad until 30 seconds later when there was a knock at my door. Guess who…? He stayed for fucking 8 hours!!! He never asked if he could stop in or even alluded to the fact that he might. He was pacing around my house, picked up a letter I had on my coffee table the my uncle wrote me and started reading it, then he went out in my kitchen and started going through my meds reading off the names on the labels asking what they were and what they were for!!! He’s never been that fucking rude! I have no idea what the fuck was in his head that day, but I was fit to be tied! Who the fuck does that shit?! And I’m sure he knew I was irritated because he kept asking me if I was okay… Big no…

Holy shit, the first time I didn’t get sunburn…

The next day was such a nice day, I decided to go to the zoo (and amazingly didn’t get a sunburn for once). But it wasn’t just because it was a nice day or because I wanted to be out in nature and among animals… I wanted to avoid Anakin for a day. Which I did, with the exception of a phone call and some texts…

But then Memorial Day came and guess what… You guessed it, Anakin again… I couldn’t help it, I completely lost my fucking shit on him. I’d be surprised if the whole town didn’t hear me flipping shit on him for invading my privacy, intruding on me, not calling the place I told him to call to get a place to stay (the same place my brother lives at has two rooms available) and much as he still denied it and said he called the guy, I told him I know he didn’t because I’d stopped there after the zoo and asked him myself. Then he tried saying maybe he got the number wrong or his phone was fucked up and I freaked on him about that. None of those were the issues! He just doesn’t want to live on his own because he’d much rather glomp onto someone else’s life and write himself into their lives and families! And even after all that, he had the audacity to sit here and waste 6 hours of my day! And still didn’t think I was anything more than peeved! Unbelievable!

And so, I did the best thing I could have possibly done for myself… I walked down into the creek that runs past the back part of my yard and, cold as it was, I stood in that icy water and just breathed…

Ever since I was a little girl, the creek has always been a sanctuary for me. We had one that ran through our property when I was growing up and I was forever in it no matter if it was warm enough or not. I would often go sit on the monstrous slabs of slate and think or just let my mind wander. It was almost like meditation, I suppose… Even now, at my advanced age, allI need to do is step into that water and I’m instantly at peace with everything. I guess that’s why, even though it was too cold, I decided I needed to go in the water (barefoot, of course). That cold, running water helped wash away some of the stresses of Anakin and I felt more like my hippie dippy self again… Perhaps I’ll have to build myself a place to sit near the creek down by my house…

There Is, Indeed, Phuckery Afoot…

I love this adorably, properly dressed cat!

Yes, dear readers, there is, indeed, phuckery afoot… And if you find some, you can blame it on all the crazy shit we’ve had going on in April. There was a pretty hefty earthquake in New Jersey (that’s unusual) a few days before a total solar eclipse ran across the east coast, which hasn’t happened in well over 100 years and Mercury is in retrograde. I know… A lot of people think that kind of thing is bullshit, just like they think people acting crazy during a full moon is crazy. All I can say is, go work in a nursing home for a while. You’ll know when it’s a full moon without needing a calendar to tell you so. They all act like lunatics every month the night of the full moon and there’s no explanation for it. Just as there’s no explanation for retrograde behaviors…

So I’ve been on hiatus for a while again, but it’s not without reason… I hadn’t been feeling very well for a few months and it was getting worse after TJ moved into his own place until one day I felt so bad I had someone insist upon taking me to the urgent care. They did an EKG and, as I knew, my T waves were abnormal as they’ve been for about a decade (no surprise there, whatever it is they do). But my Q waves were also off, so the doctor wanted me to go to the ER. I was willing to go by squad as she suggested, but I think she still felt the need to scare the shit out of me, “If you don’t do this, you could die!” Jesus Christ, doc, dial it back a few notches, I already said I’d go by squad, good grief! My stuff at the ER (EKG and bloodwork) were a bit off but I wasn’t in immediate danger, so I was sent home and told to follow up with my cardiologist.

The day I had my appointment, I stopped in the hippie dippy store because I had something to drop off to the owner. I casually told her what was going on so as not to play the “pity me” card (something I loathe). She could tell I was scared, though… I did a bit of shopping (this gorgeous necklace being one of my finds) and before I left she asked if I wanted her to do a quick healing, so I said yes. I won’t turn that down. Any help I could get I was going to take.

She also gave me this pink quartz heart (for free) for my heart… I was so touched by this act of kindness that I held it in my hand all the way to my appointment and also all the way through my appointment and the EKG they did. Now… I know the nurse practitioner I saw doesn’t trust the ER because she said they don’t always get the electrodes in exactly the right place (you’d think they would with being an ER) on the EKG, so she ran one again. It literally showed not only no issues with my Q waves but also none with my T waves when they’ve been messed up for a decade at least. Coincidence? I don’t think so… You can’t tell me different people in the ER, the nurses at my GP’s office and all the people my cardiologist’s office were all wrong and only this one guy who did my EKG that day is the only one who knows how to do it correctly. In fact, the only thing wrong on it was that my heart rate was one beat slower than the lowest they’d like it to be, which is no big deal. But I was puzzled as to how my EKG could just magically be fine. She told me stress could have caused all those issues with my waves being off (I asked), but I really didn’t fee any less stressed then than I did before walking in that door. So you can call it bullshit if you want, but whatever it was the hippie dippy lady did, it seems to have actually worked! I wasn’t much of a believer in that aspect, but I can’t deny it now…

As I said, I have been pretty stressed since TJ moved into his own place. I feel bad for him… He moved back here because he missed home and I’m the only one that bothers with him. His father, the Sponge, still wants nothing to do with him. He’s been struggling and I’m the only one who can help him and I don’t have the means to myself. Morticia went through this period where she started calling me again. Of course this was during a period of bad health again,,, And instead of doing something about it, she was calling all her friends looking for pity, which none of them would give it to her. Understandably, every single one of them didn’t want to hop on board the pity train and told her to see a doctor, which she already had. Why she called me, I’ll never know. She knows I don’t give her pity and I tell her flat out her doctor is a quack. Edema in your legs that bad can mean a plethora of issues, none of them good. But her doctor knew it wasn’t congestive heart failure by taking her vitals… You can’t tell by that! You need an EKG and specialized blood work to check a certain heart enzyme for that, none of which was done. I told her to get a new doctor as that office was the same one my great aunt and late brother-in-law went to. Guess what killed them both…?

I’ve also been having some strange visitors… It started with the female cardinal (above and her mate you can see as a speck of red through the branches). She came every day, now several times every day, to cheep loudly and peck at the window like she’s knocking. She won’t stop until I get up, go to the window and acknowledge her. At first, everyone thought she could see her reflection, but I didn’t but that… This window is behind an overgrown arborvitae. It gets little sun back there and, as you can see, the window is filthy from the snow and tree gunk I haven’t ventured back to wash off yet (it’s just now starting to get warm enough to bother). So I opened the sheer curtain to see if it would deter her. Nope… That’s when she started coming multiple times a day. She’s my “peeping tom”, always looking in the window like she wants to know what we’re up to. Then, just.a few mornings ago, I heard a very distinct coo from the outside of the AC unit. I jumped up and looked out the window and, sure enough, there was a mourning dove and his mate! I was so excited! I told them it was a safe place to nest here and I think they’ve done just that because I’ve been hearing the cooing and I’ve seen them a few more times. In fact, I hear one of them now as I type this. It’s so nice!

And heaven help me, I’m turning into my great aunt, the old lady who liked to sit at her kitchen window and watch the birds flock to her feeder… Except I put my feeder out front under the arborvitae since the birds are nesting there (less for the moms to have to travel). I do have one out back, however, outside my kitchen window… It needs a bit of repair before I can start putting feed in it again, but I can see myself being just as nuts. I was when I had it filled last time… “You’ll never believe it, I saw a tufted titmouse today! I haven’t seen one in years!” And yes, I can identify a lot of birds just by looking at them. But on the off chance we get an unusual visitor, I keep my field guide to birds that I used long ago for an 8th grade project in the dining room so it’s handy and ready to look up whatever newcomer I get… Jesus Christ… Have I really turned into that much of a fucking old lady?! Next thing you know I’ll be putting out a bird bath, suet, the works! Don’t get me wrong, I love wildlife and I love that it shows up at my house. But if I turn into a crazy bird lady, I’m going to drown myself in whatever ornate bird bath I buy for the little feathered fuckers…

But enough about birds… Let’s talk about the crazy bird lady herself, hahahaa! So a few things (aside from the fact that I guess my ticker is fine)… I got new glasses! Aren’t they funky?! You know, I’ve had the thicker, plastic frames (of varying types) for probably close to a decade, now. And much as I loved them because of their shapes, I was really getting bored of my last pair and the fact that every time my face got sweaty, they’d slide down my nose and fall off. I was done, I wanted to go back to a pair with nose pads. And I was thinking I wanted round frames again, but whenever I’d gone to places with round frames that I’d tried on for shits and giggles, they looked bad. Thankfully, my eye doctor gets funky frames and these babies caught my eye. I just knew, these were the ones! Even the woman helping me agreed and everyone at the office that saw them loved them! I’ve gotten so many compliments! I do with every pair I get, even from strangers, but this pair really makes me feel great! My only issue is adjusting to how light they feel. It’s like I’m not wearing my glasses. It’s weird…

I also had a birthday a few days ago… Aside from asking for every one of the Animal Crossing LEGO sets (which I did get and build), I had found this on eBay… It’s an original 1977 pressing of Dennis Wilson’s solo album Pacific Ocean Blue… Not many sold back in the day, so if you can even find an original pressing, you’re usually paying a lot of money for it. This one was $76, but I put it on my birthday list because the vinyl looked mint in the pictures. You can’t imagine how surprised I was that this was one of my birthday presents! And one of the first things I did was take it out to inspect the vinyl. “Mint” is actually a poor description of this vinyl… It’s positively virgin!!! It looks as if a needle has never even come within 10 feet of it! It’s so damn beautiful that I was positively beside myself! And I promise you, it’s going to stay that way! I have this album in my iTunes library, so I can hear this masterpiece whenever I want. It would sound richer on vinyl, but I can’t compromise it…

But by far the best birthday gift I got was the one the universe gave me… I’ve always wanted to see a total solar eclipse, but they never come anywhere near where I live. In fact, the last one we experienced was back in the late 1800s! So yeah, we don’t get them often… I would have had to travel quite a few hours to get into the path of totality, but 92.6% was pretty damned close! I knew about this eclipse for over 15 years and it was the only reason I was looking forward to turning 51, because it was going to happen on my actual birthday. How cool is that?! That’s one hell of a present!

As is usual when we get any kind of astronomical event, it turned cloudy… But in a way, that was alright. It gave everyone the opportunity to get pictures, not just people who had special lens covers (thanks to my new neighbors for giving me an extra they had) for their phones. When the sky had a thin enough cloud cover, you could look at and take pictures of the eclipse, so even if you didn’t have glasses like I did, you could still witness something so amazing and beautiful! Plus the cloud covered pictures make it look kind of ominous, like the apocalypse all the Bible thumpers thought was coming because of this eclipse. Seriously… to think that in this day and age when we know what causes them… Unreal…

So I’ll leave you, dear readers, with a picture from my birthday party in my Animal Crossing video game. Zell (the antelope) hosted my party this year, but my best buddy Punchy (the blue cat) was there and so was Kabuki. It was really fun, actually! These are some of my favorite villagers that I adore. What a better way to spend my special day!

Hello, My Lovelies!

How are you today, dear readers…? I hope you’re having an absolutely lovely day today!

I can hear you all now… “What the fuck has Jackie been smoking and why isn’t she sharing it with us?! That must be some good shit!” Um… recreation use hasn’t been legalized here… yet… So no, I haven’t smoked that little bag of indica I have, not yet. But you didn’t hear me say that… hahahaa!

Actually, this is a natural high and for so many reasons! It was a really rough road to get here, but I figured I would share the reasons for my happiness since I’ve been on such a downer for a long time.

Admittedly, some of this is due to the fact that last Sunday I made another trip to the local hippy dippy store and spent more money… which I shouldn’t have… In all fairness, I went to get TJ a “room warming” gift, something to help chase away the blahs of living in a one room place that was most of the way underground. Like I wasn’t going to find things I couldn’t resist, things that called to me and made me feel better! So yeah, I spent money… It’s a good thing I did buy TJ a present. I’d been in one of those rooms about 30 years ago and they were depressing then when the walls were a bright cream color. Now they’re gray and make the place really dank and depressing. Good thing he needed supplies. We ran to Dollar General and while he was getting what he needed, I was getting some cheap decor to liven the place up. I couldn’t stand the dank. And it’s not good for his depression…

But I’m getting ahead of myself… TJ moved into a room last Monday! It’s not awful… It comes with a bed, microwave, mini fridge and TV (with cable) and has its own toilet and sink (shared shower). My mom bought him sheets, I bought some decor and a pack of printed colored paper to make shapes to just slap up on the wall for now until I can paint him some landscapes or something. I told him not to tell Morticia he was moving. After everything that happened, she didn’t deserve to know. She never even gave him a key, for Christ’s sake! And she’d been trying to get him out since he moved in. So that afternoon, while I was there, she texted me to sarcastically tell me it was nice of TJ to tell her he was moving out. I played dumb only because. I was there with him and it wasn’t the proper time to get into scream fest with her. “What?! What do you mean?” She told me he moved out and couldn’t even say anything or give her the respect to tell her… She tried to call me after that text, but I made an excuse as to why I couldn’t talk. We will have that conversation, but it wasn’t the proper time or place.

This really stuck in my craw (man, I sound like an old lady saying that)… She actually thinks she deserves respect?! For what?! You treated him like shit, made him your slave, flipped out on his ass for no reason in your drunken rampages, couldn’t even be bothered to give him a key to come and go as he pleased then blamed him for your plans being ruined when it was your own doing because you didn’t give him a key… Why the fuck should he respect you?! You never respected him in any way. All you did was use and abuse him. Respect isn’t just given; it has to be earned. I’m sure that’s something she was never taught or never learned. Or maybe the alcohol has killed off enough brain cells she’s just not coherent enough for this to make any sense.. either way, I made sure TJ knew all of this. I know he told me he did, but I still didn’t trust that he did. I made sure to drill it into his head that she’s an asshole and in no way did he need to respect her because she never earned his respect. Honestly? I’ll tell her that right to her fucking face… She doesn’t deserve anyone’s respect. All she knows how to do is lie, manipulate and treat people like shit to get her way.

She hasn’t actually spoken to me much since that weekend when all that shit went down. I don’t care… She’s been too busy using the friend she calls a fucking idiot… And she is a fucking idiot if she can’t see she’s being used. But I digress…

She texts me now and again, randomly… But the thing about these texts, they’re not subtle at all. The one she sent: “What’s going on?” I replied, “With?” She answered, “You.” At this point, I’m pretty sure she knows something, but I’m not giving her anything. I reply, “As far as what?” She asks how I’m doing, how certain family members are doing… I did tell her I was stressed to see what would happen and, sure enough, she was pushing to find out what. I told her it was a lot of things going on. Then she plays the good “friend”, wanting to know if there’s anything she can do to “help” I told her no, I was just going to have to wait until these things worked themselves out on their own, “but thanks for the offer”. She was fishing… I know she was fishing… But that’s fine… She can say whatever she likes about me, spread ugly rumors and whatnot. She’ll be sorry she did it. I took pictures before I left her place with TJ, In particular, the refrigerator. You wouldn’t believe the amount of booze in there. And it would only take one anonymous call to her employer to have them check her Yeti cup or smell her breath to know she’s drinking. She’s also wanting to apply for disability. I’m sure they’d love to see those pictures… And she can say all she wants that she keeps it there for when the kids visit. Only one of her kids visits, rarely, and he prefers beer, which she doesn’t have…

So now that I’m getting my ducks in a row and I’m feeling good about myself again without Morticia in my life, I’ve decided to make some crazy purchases to treat myself for putting up with her bullshit all these years… Like this little guy…. Admittedly, it’s more useful than the Google one my niece bought me (the one and only Christmas present she ever bought me because it was on sale and she was working seasonal help at Target and got a discount) and I thought $100 wasn’t bad for an Apple product. But Siri is an idiot… I’ve looked all over the internet and tried every solution, but Siri is too fucking stupid. Even if I say, “Siri, play Passion Pit (the name of a group) in my library“, he tells me he can’t find that in my library… If I ask for a specific song, in my library, he can’t find that, either. He’s apparently geared to find anything in Apple Music (which I don’t subscribe to because I like owning music) but couldn’t find his ass with both hands within my own phone. And all the solutions I’ve read and tried have failed. Ugh…

I also got this little thing called a Furblet… While a normal Furby doesn’t have a name, a Furblet does. This one is Ray-Vee (I guess because he looks like he’s going to a rave?) and he’s supposed to interact with the large one. I got the large one interacting and recognizing the small one, questioning if Furby shrank, saying, “Hello, little guy!” But Furblet just seemed to space the fuck out and didn’t want to talk to the big one. So either I have to keep trying or I’m just going to end up getting another big one. My curiosity to hear them yammer on together about nothing is way too great! As long as they don’t start talking about global domination, we’re okay, hahahaa! I would have worried about that more with the old ones than the new ones. The new ones like to repeat the same shit over and over again, most of which is about pizza or throwing you compliments. And, occasionally, he likes to yammer on about being president of the moon one day. Yeah, sure… why not? If they start getting too uppity, ship all their asses to the moon where they can fight to the death to see which one becomes president. Just don’t forget to send along the Star Trek fight scene music so they have something to duke it out to!

But that’s not why I’m feeling good today… Yesterday was such a beautiful day! It was warm, sunny, the air smelled good… I opened up my house and aired out the winter stank… It smelled like spring had sprung even though it’s weeks away. Spring is a wonderful time for me. I always feel so rejuvenated in spring. It’s as if I feel reborn with the Earth. I often wonder if it’s because I was born in spring as I hear this from a lot of other spring babies. Maybe this happens to more people than just spring babies…? I don’t know. But the way things were yesterday… I felt so amazing that it carried over into this morning! I feel very much alive, as if I’ve been reborn! I suppose that’s why I’ve always loved spring so much. You can’t beat that feeling… I might sound like too much of a hippie, saying I feel that connected to the Earth, but I really do, especially in spring. It’s a feeling I just can’t put into words and I really wish that I could so you could know…

Oh yes, I almost forgot… Miko came home…

Not that I wish to end this on a somber note, but I felt it was important to add this somewhere. I also have her partner in crime, Nobu’s, ashes and paw prints. It’s sad and I cried when I happened to look at her paw prints and saw how dainty her feet were…

But despite everything, I know I did what was right. She was suffering and ready to go. And to be honest, I think these past 5 years, she’s missed Nobu the entire time. When I told her she’d cross the Rainbow Bridge and get to be with Nobu again, that seemed to make her feel very much at ease. Do I believe it? I’m an atheist, what do you think? But it made her feel better, knowing she’d see him again. And who knows? Maybe I’m wrong and she’s with him again, running and playing together without pain and dementia. That thought makes me happy to think about, so I just keep it in my head. At least she’s home, just not the way we wanted her to be… Baxter seems to have come to terms with it finally and so has Roxie. That’s all I can ask for. Depressed pups are the saddest thing ever.

Jackie Has Left The Building…

More specifically, my brain has left the building and it’s not coming back until I flip shit and end things once and for all. And when I do, it’s going to be the most epic shit show this world has ever seen… I’m considering buying a toy microphone for the occasion just so that, when I’m done having my say, I can drop the fucking thing with an expression much like this one and walk the fuck away….

My “being a bitch and knowing it” face….

So what brought me to this, “I’m being a bitch intentionally” state of mind you see here? Well, dear readers, buckle up…. It’s a bumpy ride…

As you may (or may not) know, my sort of/kind of stepbrother, TJ, has been staying with Morticia since about a week into January. That was when he moved back into the area and, unfortunately, the place he had set up fell through (which I thought was a good thing, it’s a shady dump). The first night he was here, it was so fucking cold and he had to sleep on the street, huddled with strangers to keep warm. He never thought to call me, but he did almost call his father, the Sponge. I’m glad he didn’t; he’s an asshole that probably would have flipped the fuck out on him. I was talking on the phone with Morticia when I found out and she offered to have him stay with her since her place is large enough and better equipped where mine is not. She could also use the extra money… Everything was going great! TJ vacuumed every other day, shoveled snow, did dishes, took out garbage, all without being asked, If she asked him to do something, he did it. He bought food, take out for them both, paid her $500 for January and again for February and paid $400, half the cost to fill her kerosene tank that she swears someone had siphoned fuel from… I don’t buy that. Her trailer is so old (from 1979), can you imagine the gunk people would be sucking out of that tank?! I think she let it run low because she couldn’t afford to fill it and used that sob story to get TJ to help fill it. And who’s to say that she even paid $400 herself towards the fuel…?

And yet this entire time she was telling me she didn’t want people to think she was taking advantage of my brother… Well, stop taking advantage of him! I’m sure people won’t think you are if you stop doing it… In any case, it wasn’t long before the bitching started… It was bad enough that she called me every single fucking day to bitch and bawl about how much she hated her job, but then she started bitching about TJ, like weird things… My favorite was that he would hide out in the hallway and listen to her conversations. You know, I’m often on the other end of those conversations and even I’m not interested in them. So what makes her think he is?! See? It doesn’t make sense… In fact, all her bitching just sounded like her fucking paranoia coming to a head all over again and I just didn’t want to get in the middle of that crazy ass shit… But guess what… Yeah, you know what’s coming…

Can I manifest things out of my life instead…?

Morticia had been pressuring me to have TJ spend the night at my house for some time because, “You don’t understand, Jackie; I’m used to living alone…” Ugh… Every time she tells me I don’t understand something, which is several times a day, I just want to slap the fuck out of her… She knows every reason why it isn’t practical for me to have TJ stay the night here; she just doesn’t care. Besides, isn’t he paying to live at your place…? Anyway… Saturday the 10th, I had a lot of plans, but I put some of them on hold so I could at least have TJ come down for part of the day. I wasn’t sure what time as I had to take two of the dogs for nail trimming in the morning and there were a few other things I wanted to do in the morning, but I’d let him know when I figured everything out because Morticia was going to bring him down and I was going to take him back up (he doesn’t have a car here yet). What I didn’t expect was a phone call from Morticia at 8:20AM, telling me TJ was out of control and demanding that I do something. Um… What the actual fuck?! I’m sorry, you don’t call me and demand anything… When I got this book that day, it made me wonder if it would end up being like that episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Mind And The Matter” and maybe instead if manifesting things into my life, I could manifest her out of it because that’s how bad the rest of the conversation went…

So I’ll make this easy… Her side: She asked him what time she was supposed to bring him down here because she had to pick up her antibiotic she didn’t get the night before (she “fell asleep”, but she had quite a few hours to get it before that)and she was only running out once. He said he didn’t know, we hadn’t discussed it. She told him he should find out and he snapped out on her, told her he was angry and was going to walk away before he said or did something he was going to regret. His side: It’s pretty much the same, but she got snappy with him as soon as he crawled out of bed and gave him an attitude, demanding he find out what time I wanted him here because she was only running out once. She picked the fight, he was getting angry but had enough sense to tell her he was and that he was going to walk away from the situation to cool off before it escalated. I think that was a very mature, adult thing to do. Much more mature than the one who called me up to tattle tale on him and have the nerve to say he was the one acting like a child. Really… I had no idea walking away from a heated situation to avoid it escalating and informing the other person was being childish. Oh, and the reason she never picked up her meds? She didn’t fall asleep. She passed out drunk…

But because Morticia was so demanding, I changed all but a few of my plans (two of which were errands I had to run). So the dogs still have long nails… And it’s all because she was freaking out like a looney and I didn’t think it was good for TJ to be there. After how the Sponge treated us, neither of us needs that. She actually texted me at one point, when I said I was coming to pick him up, to say she was going to call me! I told her I was busy. I wasn’t that busy, I just didn’t want to listen to more of her crazy bitching. Then she tried to make me feel bad, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be an ass…” Yes you fucking did! And when I found out what really happened, how badly she’s been using him as her “slave” (for lack of a better term) and how much money she’s swindled him out of already, I was livid! So guess what… I took TJ to my favorite Japanese steakhouse for dinner… I made sure to post pictures of the food, of me, one of us together… She didn’t like a damn one of them, as I knew she wouldn’t. Every time I post pictures of my food from there, she asks, “Why didn’t you take me with you?” Um… because it’s an expensive restaurant and you’re a fucking mooch? You’re not getting an expensive free meal out of me, fuck off… So I intentionally posted those pictures to piss her off…

My new hippie dippy bracelets: the green and number 7 ones

It was late by the time we got back from dinner, so despite my not wanting to, I let TJ spend the night. I really don’t have room for over night guests and I only have one working toilet (I can’t afford to replace the other that’s crusted up with lime from the hard water right now). And he had to sleep on the living room floor… I know he didn’t mind, but with 2 cats and 3 dogs, I foresaw disaster. Especially with Baxter… And I was right… TJ was rudely awoken by Baxter giving him a wet wily at 3AM. My dog is weird… He used to wake me up like this as well and still does on occasion. With TJ on the floor, it was like an open invitation to Baxter, hahahaa… Anyway, I let TJ stay the entire day, but by 8PM, I had to text Morticia to ask when was a good time to bring him back up. Mind you, I hadn’t spoken to her since I picked him up and that was very little. But I had no choice… I had a funeral to attend Monday morning and I couldn’t have him here and try to get ready for a solemn occasion. The response I received was “whenever”… Okay… that’s pretty vague… So I took him up a bit later than when I texted her, dropped him off and thought nothing more of it. Or I didn’t until the following morning, anyway…

For a person who claims their IQ is as high as mine, Morticia certainly is fucking stupid… She’s often made Facebook posts that were subtly aimed at certain people and would always tell me that person would know it was about them. Which makes you wonder why she did what she did…

The following morning, the morning I have a funeral for a dead relative to attend, I see this lovely piece of shit on her Facebook… My reaction? “Oh HELL no! Who the FUCK does she think she is?!?” I immediately texted her at 5:05AM… I know she was up, she’s always up that early. I asked, “What’s up with that Facebook post?” I wasn’t fucking around. It took her two and a half hours to respond, “Nothing to do with you, why?” I wasn’t buying it. So I asked what was going on. She said she didn’t want to talk about it because she was still pissed and it was obvious everyone else’s shit matters and hers doesn’t. Yeah… Tell me it’s about me without tell me it’s about me… So I let her have it, reminding her that I had a funeral that morning and my place is very small (unlike hers) and having someone else here in my way when I’m getting ready would be bedlam. She said it wasn’t that, she knew I had the funeral. Which, in the end, I didn’t attend… She had gotten me so whacked out and upset that my IBS kicked into high gear and I was afraid to stray far from my bathroom… Luckily I had family to make my excuses for me and my family is fairly understanding. I haven’t had an easy time in general with being mentally ill, let alone having IBS on top of it. And to make matters worse, my mental state seems to control my IBS symptoms. I just saw my GI doctor on Friday and, unfortunately, there’s nothing he can do to help me. I just need to learn to get a grip on my mental and emotional states better.

She tried calling the next day, but I wasn’t having it… I was still too angry about the entire weekend and that post to boot. Did she tell me she had made plans when she was texted? No… Had she ever given TJ a key to get in even though he’s paying rent? No… Did she specify a time that would be good because she’d planned to go out? No… In my eyes, she ruined her own plans…

And what were those plans, you might ask…? Well, I found out when TJ told me she flat out told him that post was about him (but if it’s about him, it’s also about me since I was the one who wanted him to come back because I had a funeral to attend). Her “plans”, which I’m sure were last minute, were to go to a bar with the friend she was forever telling me was a fucking idiot. And not just any bar… It’s a private club she and her ex, Gomez, belong to, a place he goes to pretty much every day. She’s been talking about him an awful lot lately and not in a good way. Can we say stalker…? And it doesn’t surprise me, really. TJ confirmed that she’s been drinking. She even takes alcohol in her travel cup to work. I had a suspicion she was drinking again, especially with how defensive she got about it. She’s been lying to me and herself…

I texted her and told her I was sick. And I was… sick of her fucking shit… She asked what was wrong with my stomach (it was my gut) and I said it was probably stress. She thought it was from the funeral and I said not particularly, it was a lot of things, just a lot on my mind. She wouldn’t let it go, wanted to know what was bothering me. So I told her… I told her that I felt she was demanding I do something when she called that day, that TJ was not my kid, I was not his keeper, nor was I going to have it that way, that they were both adults and capable of working out any issues they have between themselves and I didn’t like getting put in the middle of things. I also told her that he wasn’t threatening her, as she felt, that saying he was angry and needed to walk away from the situation was a very adult thing to do and she should have just left him alone and let him go cool off, that calling me (which I’m sure he heard every word) was probably the worst thing she could have done as he heard her complaining about him and that she should have texted me to let me know they had a fight and nothing more. The excuses I got were plentiful… She wasn’t being demanding (oh, if she could have only heard her own tone from someone else’s mouth), she only called me because she took it as a threat, she was scared, she knew I could calm him down. She said she was glad I said what I did about him not being my kid and not being his keeper, that he’s not her kid and she’s not his keeper either, she was glad I agreed (when the fuck was this about you?!?)… She tried throwing the “pity me” card, she tried laying on a guilt trip… and I wasn’t having any of it. I– AM– DONE!!! After all that and the things I’ve been contemplating the rest of the week, the other things I’ve found out, I can safely say I’m done. I know she still owes me $800 yet that I loaned her for that car, but I know I’ll never see it anyway. I’m going to call it an acceptable loss, flip the fuck out on her and say good riddance to bad rubbish. No matter how I get her out of my life, whether I do it nicely or I flip the fuck out, it doesn’t matter. There will still be a harshly worded Facebook post about it because Morticia is so wonderful. Nothing is ever her fault. She sounds like the sperm donor…

To add injury to insult (yes, I purposely typed it backwards), I had to have my girl, Mike, put down on Valentine’s Day (of all days). She hadn’t been doing well and it was a matter of “let’s just get through the holidays”. Valentine’s morning, I woke to find she’d chewed herself open so badly she was dripping blood… That was enough… So at 5PM, she was at the vet’s. She wasn’t scared, more curious of all the other smells in the comfortably decorated room. I promised her I’d be there with her every step of the way and I was, except when they had to take her out and put the IV in. I told her it was because they thought mommy was a sissy and couldn’t handle watching that, but they didn’t know I wasn’t a sissy… I was waiting when she came back. The vet came in soon after, offered his condolences and we talked a bit. I was stroking her head and holding her paw as he began putting the medication in. Soon after he started putting it in, I saw a tear run down her face… I didn’t know dogs could shed tears… And now I can’t unsee it… I felt the moment she slipped away. And when I had time to myself to say goodbye, I sobbed like I never sobbed before, not even with Nobu. I know she missed him and wanted to be with him. I know she was suffering. I know I did the right thing. But god damn, this one hurt so fucking much…

Furby… The only toy banned by the Pentagon…

So I did what any other irrational bipolar person does when they’re grieving… I bought stupid, meaningless shit. That night, the stuff I bought, it meant nothing. However, this one seemed to help… I watched a YouTube video of an artist revamping two different styles of Furby into things that were more horrifying than the actual product (if that’s possible). But I thought the latest model was kind of cute. His mouth doesn’t move (something I always found off-putting). Instead, his ears wiggle and light up, his feet move and his eyes, instead of looking like they are plotting to kill you at any moment, look bright and cheerful. He’s been very helpful, actually. He’s funny she makes me laugh, he gives me someone to talk to so I don’t feel lonely, and he has a mode with guided meditation and mild exercise which is great for someone like me. Yes, I realize how old I am… But sometimes you just need something childish to ease your grief, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll get the other one (the other one is purple) so I can have them talk to each other and listen to their inane ramblings so mine can stop yelling, “Huh?! What?! Speak up!” Really, Furby… You have such big ass ears… I’m the one who’s 50 and needs to wear hearing aids…

In the meantime, I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing to alleviate stress…

I found there’s this app called Hidive and, not only do they have all 105 episodes of the original Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman, but they also have all 85 episodes of Battle Of The Planets! Guess who’s binge watching until they feel better?

Silly Adult… Decision Making Is For Grown-Ups…

For all intent and purposes, it actually is hilarious that I’m legally an adult when you take into consideration recent events…

Much as I hate to admit it (and will deny it under certain circumstances), I’m going to be 51 this year. I’ve walked this Earth over a half century. And in that time, I have, for the most part, raised myself as I had shitty parents who had little to no interest in me and what I did. Like everyone else, I faced some difficult decisions that could have been life altering in detrimental ways, but I always made the right choice in the end. Did I make some minor mistakes along the way? Sure I did; no one is perfect. Did I learn from them and not to make that same mistake again? You betcha! Did it alter my life in detrimental ways? No… Those decisions I was always smart about. I was never one to make such life altering choices with my heart. I always took out the emotional equation and thought things out logically and made the choices that were in my best interests. I was never really equipped to make choices any other way.

I’m guessing this will be expected from me soon…

As I’m sure you’ll remember (if you’ve been following my blog for a while), my mother comes up every Friday afternoon for a few hours to visit. The last few weeks haven’t been the greatest visits, I can tell you that… And this past visit was a fucking disaster… Giving me advice is one thing, but if I’m not asking for it, don’t give it. Don’t push your ideas and hatred of someone off on me as if you expect it will suddenly change my perspective of that person, as if I’ll suddenly see the light and shun that person just as you did. And then to get nasty and snippy when I try to explain my point of view… You better know that shit is going to be coming right back to you, especially because you’re in my house. If you don’t agree with me, that’s all well and fine; you don’t have to. But you will not get nasty and snippy with me about it in my own home or I will tell you to get the fuck out and I don’t give a shit who the fuck you are…

That goes for half, steps and those that are close enough

The heated discussion with my mother was about my brother. Didn’t know I had one, did you? Well, technically he’s not legally my brother as my mother never married the Sponge (his father) but common-law marriage was still a thing back then and they were living together long enough to be considered as such, so technically he is my stepbrother in that aspect. I also have an actual step brother and sister, but that’s a story for another time… Anyway, he was the reason for the heated discussion a few days ago. My mother has known for some time that he was planning on moving back to the area because I thought it only fair to tell her. She and the Sponge have been estranged from him for quite some time. There’s a lot of bad blood between my brother and the Sponge, so I felt it best she know he was here just to be cautious. I didn’t want there to be any accidental run-ins between the two of them and her not being prepared. It could get extremely ugly and no one wants that, believe me…

So my brother, I’ll call him TJ, is about 7 years my junior. His father, the Sponge, moved in when I was 12 (nearing 13) and TJ was 5. TJ had a horrible life… His mother was a useless piece of shit that made it clear to him she liked her daughter from some other guy better than him. The Sponge got him every weekend, of which he left TJ with his parents (they were a real fucking prize, let me tell you) so he could be at our place and be a shitty not wannabe father to me. He would sometimes bring TJ over for a few hours, but it wasn’t even that he didn’t know how to be a father; I don’t think he wanted to be one in general. And so, as TJ grew older, he started acting out. At first it was small thing, then bigger things as he grew older. You know, kids… if they’re not getting any attention at all, they’ll get it in any form they can, even if it’s negative, because at least someone is seeing them, someone is paying attention, someone knows they exist… TJ and I had different ideas on that aspect. He was so desperate for the Sponge’s attention that he began going through mine and my mother’s things, began stealing some of our things (weird things, but I chalked it up to curiosity about girls because it’s not like the Sponge ever had “the talk” with him), called my mother a bitch and a whore to her face (okay, I’ve said nasty things to her face, but those things I kept in my brain). And he got beaten… I’ll never forget; I was 17 and I could see out the window… The Sponge had TJ down on the walk out in the front of our house. TJ was only 10. He was in the fetal position, crying, as the Sponge repeatedly punched him. I didn’t know what to do. The Sponge had been reported for abuse before when TJ went to school with bruises and black eyes, but he always got out of any charges. And had I called the cops, then I would have faced his wrath as well as my mother’s. That was something I didn’t want. Unlike TJ, I liked it better when they ignored me. It was better than the physical abuse from my mother and the verbal, emotional, mental and psychological abuse from both of them. I tried to stay low on their radar; TJ did not. Any attention was good attention in his book, I guess…

When TJ first sent me a Facebook friend request, I was leery… I hadn’t spoken to him or seen him in well over a decade. My mother had found out and told me to ignore it, claiming he only wanted to know the whereabouts of her and the Sponge. This seemed utterly ridiculous to me as the last time I’d seen TJ, he was wary of me even though I was kind and friendly towards him. I accepted his request anyway and we’ve been chatting that way for the past several years. He apologized for his misdeeds back in the day when he would steal things from my room, which I was able to forgive him for. I’m old enough now to understand why he did such things. I also learned a lot about the psychological damage the Sponge inflicted on him. It runs so much deeper than it does in me, which I expected, truth be told. Honestly, I’m not sure how he survived all these years without taking himself out… But he and I are of a kind. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. And, I suppose, we’re both waiting for the day that the Sponge just keels over. I don’t think either of us want to miss that. It’s the same way I feel about the sperm donor that is my other parent…. You don’t want to miss that day so you stick around just to see it.

So… TJ moved back to the area from the state he was living in at the beginning of the month, Unfortunately, the room that was supposed to be available for him to rent when he got here wasn’t available (he’s been getting the shaft from these people ever since). Unfortunately I don’t have room at my place to accommodate another person, but Morticia does and she was nice enough to take him in. But it’s been a month and the asshole that’s supposed to be renting him the room is still giving him the run around and is talking to him in an unkind fashion when he calls to inquire about said room. I’d like to help him, mainly by confronting this asshat face to face and giving him what for. TJ is a little timid after growing up as he did with the Sponge as a father, as you can imagine. But I take confrontation as a personal challenge. And this was what began the discussion between my mother and I on Friday…

In a nutshell, she doesn’t want me helping TJ because she thinks my helpfulness will be misplaced. In fact, she doesn’t want me to get involved with him at all… She was actually getting rather nasty and snippy about it when she gave me her reasons: he went through my stuff, he stole from me… I reminded her that he had done the same to me as well and reminded her that she was the one who told me that children will seek out negative attention because it’s better than none at all and that’s probably why he did those things. Still, she said she can’t forgive him. I asked if she thought people couldn’t change and she said she didn’t believe they could… So I asked her about the Sponge, did she think he changed? She said he did, but let me tell you, absolutely not! He may have mellowed a little, but he’s still a horrible dick fuck… And besides, if we’re supposed to judge our current views on people by their past experiences, I would have stopped speaking to her and the Sponge long ago… Between all the abuse I received, the fact that she forced me to work Saturdays at her part time job and kept my wages, stole my money when I was out of high school and had a job, lied and manipulated me to get me to stay home so I could get a job to help her support the Sponge instead of going to college… Having her get arrested in front of me at 22 because she was passing bad checks at the grocery store, lying to our boss about where she was and where I was going when I had to bail her out… If we’re judging by past deeds, I should have cut them loose decades ago.

And it seems the Sponge really hasn’t changed any… My mother made mention Friday that he had said something towards me and that, “He just doesn’t understand”… It took me a while to get out of her what was said. Apparently he’d told her he felt I was “making too big a deal” out of this thing with my back, that I’m 50, I should act 50. He’s allowed to act old because he’s in his 70s. Ass fuck, you’ve been moaning and groaning every fucking time you get up out of a chair and you literally have nothing physically wrong with you other than being fucking fat! And you’ve been moaning and groaning since you were 50, so fuck off! I have good reason! Going through surgical menopause makes me (internally) about the same age as him, which made my already bad knees worse, gave me osteoarthritis in my spine (to go with the slight scoliosis) and osteoporosis which is worse in my spine. I know he didn’t say it as nice as my mom put it, but hey, at least my MRI “made it real” for him… I guess I should feel privileged…

See this picture…? It’s my brain, currently… It just keeps mulling things over in my head like a person running on the symbol for infinity and getting nowhere fast. Actually, I think it’s more like running on a Möbius Strip…

So I’ve been having all these thoughts running (like this sadly trapped person running and going nowhere fast) through my head for days. And I realized something. IT’S NEVER GOING TO END!!! Until they’re both gone (hopefully they go before I do), this will never end! After all these years… I’ve been out of the house for over 25 years, I’m going to be 51 this year! My mother needs to stop trying to manipulate me and the Sponge just needs to keep my name out his mouth! I’m not a drug seeker or a hypochondriac! I waited 4 days to go to the ER for my back and I went on Christmas Eve! I wouldn’t have done that had it not been excruciating, moron! And my mother… Considering her checkered past and the fact that she chose and abusive sponge over the safety and mental well being of her 12 year old daughter… Well, you’re not exactly in the position to be giving advice, especially the unsolicited type…

My bestie always finds the best gifts! .

I can’t tell. you how many people have said, “You wait… You think you won’t cry when your mom passes away, but I know you. You have a close relationship with her. You’ll cry…” Aside from the fact that I’m a sociopath and I’m not very emotional because I just don’t have that capacity to be overly emotional… I’ve always said I won’t cry. I didn’t cry when she went in for her triple bypass… Part of me was expecting her to die, to be honest. I was prepared for it. But when you get right down to it, I won’t cry because I’ll finally be FREE! Free to enjoy the silence, to not deal with the manipulation, to not have to deal with the Sponge anymore (when she’s gone, he’s on his own). No more unsolicited advice and getting pissed off that even at my advanced age, she still feels the need to argue her side, thinking I’ll cave and give in to make her happy. You’d think after almost 51 years she’d realize… She was a shitty mom. There was so much damage done that not even therapy seems to be able to undo a lot of it. I don’t care what she wants… I’m capable of making my own decisions and she needs to stay out of it. If I make a mistake, oh well, it’s mine to make. Hopefully it’s not a big one, that’s all…