Anger Personified

FOB,

Why did you even bother to contact me if you weren't going to respond to my e-mail? Did you think that this is a game? That you can fuck with my life when you are miserable and somehow I'll make you feel better?

I tried to be polite to you, but this isn't a game. My son and I have built a life without you. I'm dating someone that cares about Zac and I. Zac doesn't even know what a "Daddy" is, other than I call my father "Dad". One day, he might ask about where his biological father is and I'll explain that you can't contact him because you're avoiding paying for child support.

I took down the video of Zac. Don't you dare ever exploit him again to make yourself look like anything other than a deadbeat father.

If you need to contact me again, you can do it through the Texas Attorney General's Office. They will explain how you can pay the full amount of child support and they can arrange supervised visitation of Zac according to our origingal child support agreement.

Your family is welcome to continue to send Zac gifts and ask about him. I'll continue to write them back and send them pictures as often as I can. It's up to Zac as to whether or not he wants them in his life. As for you, you don't deserve anything other than a long stretch of jail time.

B

P.S. - For those with myspace accounts, feel free to add your thoughts: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=50345082.

Topsy-Turvy

The FOB (Father of the Baby) e-mailed me yesterday, from a myspace account no less. He said that he knew he had been a complete and total shit, but that he wanted to help and that he missed Zac. He also said that talking via myspace was probably the safest way to communicate. I dissolved into confusion and anger. "How can you miss someone that you've never known?" Zac and the FOB met once when Zac was six months old. Then an immediate thought: "Is this safe for you because you are still avoiding the Attorney General's Office you shit?"

It was like falling down the rabbit's hole when I clicked over to the FOB's myspace page and read this:

"By the way...The video below of the little boy in his diaper is my son. His name is Zachary Russell, he was born July 8th 2005 in Houston, Texas which is where he lives with his mom right now. In this video he is one and a half and obviously very smart. I miss him alot, and work my job to support him."

Did I miss something? "I work my job to support him?" The FOB hasn't paid more than $20 in child support at any time in over a year. He owes close to $6,000. The video he has up is of Zac identifying his body parts. He can't be more than 18 or 19 months old, even though he's standing and sort of toddles over to the camera on his feet, so I know it's after Thanksgiving 2006.

I wanted to puke. To everyone, he looks like a doting father. What the hell does he mean, "right now" Zac is living in Houston? Zac will live in Houston until I no longer do. He's out of his mind if he believes the delusion that I'm going to move back to New Hampshire to keep Zac close to his family. The man lives in Florida anyways! Why does he care where his son lives?

I wrote him back, but my angry-yet-trying-to-be-polite tone caused all my sentences to sound like a parody of "Dick and Jane" books. "Zac is three years old now. Zac goes to preschool where I work. I work two jobs." I couldn't think of anything else that didn't denigrate down to cursing and wailing on my part. I can't even imagine what kind of help he wants to offer. He closed the door on emotional support when I was pregnant and he stopped returning my calls. He lost the ability for me to be civil towards him when he got fired from his job and didn't call and tell me that Zac no longer had health insurance. I paid over $3,000 in medical bills that year because of him. It's a pretty easy process for him to start helping financially, just send money to the AG's office. Done!

It makes me sick and what's worse is that I know he read it. He hasn't responded to it, but I know he read it. I'm not really sure what I would have to say to someone that tried to have me thrown in jail a couple of months ago, not that he knows any of that. All of this just bothers me.

Probably not coincidentally, my case at the Attorney General's Office of Texas is up for review. Cases for child support and custody are reviewed once every three years. I completed the form and sent it back in. The least I can do is take a morning off work and sit across from a case worker to try and explain why I think the Writ of Withholding should be enforced. It just makes me sick to my stomach.

Expectations

Every morning I open up my e-mail account and expect that I'll see an e-mail from Smith. It's been months and months since he's contacted me, but I still expect that I'll hear from him. It's odd really, how long an expectation can last. I've trained myself not to be disappointed when I don't see anything from him.

I wonder how my cat is doing without me. Zac and I officially moved out on Saturday into our apartment, much to the cat and the toddler's dismay. Every time we would come back to the apartment after an errand, Zac would look at me and say, "OH...we are going back THERE again?" almost like it was a question. He expected to go play at Nana and Papa's house, where there are entire television stations devoted to shows he loves that his Mom can't get with the stupid basic cable package. There are also two more adults for him and no roaches to contend with. I think the bugs bother me way more than they bother him. He hasn't even noticed them yet, but he does notice me screaming, "You will die today!" while brandishing a large can of Raid.

I don't think it's too much to expect an apartment without cockroaches. Manfriend came over yesterday and opened up a drawer to find roach droppings intermingled with the cutting knives. A roach crawled up on my hand at the exact moment I was asking him what the funny black spots were. I happened to be holding a large butcher knife at the time and almost sliced Manfriend's stomach open as I screamed, "Oh dear God! Get it off me! Get it off me!" over and over and lurched back into the dining room. Fortunately, my apartment is so small that you can be standing at the stove and hand someone a plate of food at the dining room table. It's like living inside an Ikea showroom, only with more cockroaches and less Swedish wall art. All of my dishes went into the dishwasher after the roach incident. I'm lucky that I only have four plates and two bowls, or that could have been a more time-consuming endeavor.

Tonight Zac and I are sleeping at my parents' house. I have to go to my fundraising class and Zac is getting the privilege of being the center of my parents' world once again. We've slept in our own apartment for two days and I expect that Zac will be loving every minute of attention that he can get from his Nana and Papa. I know that he'll definitely be excited by Noggin and a couple games of Candyland.

Definitely Not Married

I've had the strangest occurrence in the past week or so. Three people that I respect and work with on a daily basis have asked something along the lines of: "So where is your husband?" or "You and your husband create such beautiful babies, you should have more."

Uhhh....who said that I had a husband?

I usually scrunch up my eyebrows and look confused, which somehow prompts people to continue speaking trying to clarify themselves by saying, "Well, we've heard you talk so much about your son and...." They just seem to trail off as they realize they've backed themselves into a whopping stereotype. It's a hole that's hard to get out of once you've sunk into it.

Usually at that point in the conversation I'm silent and cock my head to the side, waiting for them to draw the link between my son and my invisible husband. Sometimes I'm kind enough to say, "I don't have a husband," but really, what I want to say is, "He can't be here right now. His day job of caring riding unicorns on rainbows and sprinkling fairy dust on good girls and boys keeps him away from home quite a bit."

Yes, I have a son. No, I do not have a husband. In fact, it's taken me three years to become comfortable with the identity of "single Mom". I'm not sure why these professionals would assume that just because I've procreated that I would have a partner in my life. Is it because I, like them, have a professional job and manage to get to work every morning without syrup or applesauce on my shirt? Is it because I'm not on public assistance (anymore)? Or is this just one giant stereotype that to be a successful woman with a child that I must have the financial, emotional, and legal support of a husband? No one has ever mentioned anything about be having a "partner" or even acknowledged that I could be anything other than perfectly heterosexual.

Although it is quite flattering that someone would assume that I'm married rather than trolling for dates on cheap internet websites (oh wait...umm...I guess I hide that well). I should say that it's flattering that I'm able to keep my work life separate enough from my private life that what goes on after work ends is kept to myself. That's been harder to do now that Zac attends preschool at my organization, but it's possible. Not only is he the only blond kid at the school, soon he's going to be the only blond kid at the school wearing a shirt that says, "I have no Dad, but my Mom is hot."

Still Here

I'm still here, alive and kicking. I am seeing a chiropractor for my neck and shoulder. He x-rayed my neck on Saturday and said that some of the bones look like they narrow at the beginning of my spine. He recommended me stretching and continuing to come in for adjustments.

Work has been busy and stressful (both jobs). I have all of my things in my new apartment and I'm trying to go over and unpack a little bit at a time. The bugs are thwarting any progress that I can make, though. Every time I open a cabinet, at least two different varieties of roaches and/or ants come crawling out at me. I'm hoping that I can start living in my apartment within the next two weeks. My fundraising class will be over in late October. That will help reduce the amount of time that Zac and I are sleeping at my parents' house.

Until then, I'm just trying not to get overwhelmed. A trip to an urgent care facility yesterday for a shockingly painful urinary problem yesterday didn't really abate my feelings of stress. I'm just thankful that my parents were there to help me out. My Dad came and took Zac back to there house and my Mom stayed with me and drove me home. It was more than I could have asked for and I'm grateful.

Pain in the Neck

For the first time in my life, I feel like my brain hasn't had full control of what is going on south of my cervical vertebrae. Most of my life has been spent dealing with what is going on in my brain, rather than what is going on in my body. My body has dutifully performed all tasks that were required of it, until seven months ago.

I started experiencing severe pain in between my spine and my shoulder blade (I'll leave the medical terminology to those more knowledgeable than myself). It was an intense muscle pain made worse by stress and long hours typing a federal grant. Usually, when I got up from the computer and stretched or went home for bath, my shoulder felt better.

Sometime around May or June, it stopped feeling better. The pain became a constant companion. I was taking more ibuprofen than I should admit to in a public forum and noticed that the pain was spreading to my neck and, most recently, down my arm and through the upper part of my ribs on the right side. Sometimes it's a little uncomfortable when I breathe or when I move in certain ways. I've left work more several times wishing that I could drive my car with my feet instead of my arm.

Finally, after months of stubborn refusal to go to the doctor, I made an appointment to see a family practitioner (mistake 1) that I had never seen before (mistake 2). On the day of the appointment, I was called and told that mistake 1 couldn't see me, but (mistake 3) another doctor that I had never seen before could fit me into his schedule twenty minutes earlier. I hung up the phone, unplugged the iron, decided to wear a different shirt that didn't need ironing, dislodged Zac from his chair and his beloved Wonder Pets, and raced off to see the doctor. When I got there, I waited in the waiting room with Zac for almost an hour. By the time I was finally see, Zac had played all the games he could with the squares on the carpet. He was bored and I was getting cranky.

The nurse that weighed me and took my blood pressure asked what medications I take. This is usually a tricky question for me because some medications are taken "as needed" and I'm never sure if I should include them or not. Just to be on the safe side, particularly since I got a son out of the last potential drug interaction that a pharmacist never told me about, I'm usually on the more conservative end of the patient spectrum and list everything.

The doctor came in and took one look at my list of medications and started freaking out in my direction. "You take too much! This is too much!!" I just stared back at the man that I had now been waiting close to two hours to see. With his wild gestures and proclamations made without any other knowledge of me, it almost seemed like he was worried that I was going to drop dead on the spot. Fortunately, I didn't, which would have been awkward given that Zac was in the room singing "Wheels on the Bus".

"I am under the care of another physician. I'd be happy to give you his name and number if you wanted to consult with him about my medication," I said because clearly I don't write my own prescriptions or just make up drug names to tell unsuspecting nurses. "No, no," he muttered, "That won't be necessary." Then he asked what I had been using to control the pain and I answered him honestly (mistake 4). I had some hydrocodone, also known as I-Love-You-So-Much-I-Wish-I-Could-Have-Babies-With-You Vicadin, from a recent dental surgery that I had been using to control the pain when it was at its absolute worst. Every other time, I used ibuprofen or Tylenol, heating pads, icy hot menthol, and some fervent prayers that I would regain full use of the right side of my body.

"You have been abusing a drug to mask the pain?" He shouted at me. "You have no idea what could happen to your body with all of these," he sneered and gestured again at the sheet of paper in front of him that listed my medications "in your system". I had had enough with this doctor. First he had tried to shame me because of the medications I was taking to treat an unrelated problem, then he says that I'm abusing medication and possibly an addict. "Well, there is no way that I'm going to prescribe you anything thing with codeine in it. You have full range of motion in your shoulder and neck. Most likely, you aren't even in pain at all, but I'll send you to x-ray and write a referral to an orthopedist if you think that you really need it."

I was crying by this point, in front of Zac, who always gets upset and concerned when he sees me cry. I had put up with the pain for so long thinking that it would go away. Now I was being told that not only would it not go away, but I had a doctor that didn't even believe that I was in pain.

So that is where I am now. The results of my x-ray were normal and I have pain almost every day. Gradually, I've shifted from being controlled by my mind and my depression to being controlled by my body. Even my eyes have rebelled. I've had two bouts of pink eye and my eyes continue to be red and irritated. On Sunday I wore contact lenses for the first time in over six weeks, but I'm back to glasses after a hard day yesterday with contacts. Most days, I want to curl up in a ball until my body decides to stop hurting. I've reached my breaking point and I don't know where to go from here.

Mush

I haven't been writing much on here because my post-Ike brain has turned into a large pile of mush. Immediately hitting publish on the, "When, for the love of God, are we going to get power?" post my Mom called and said that the power was on, but that I shouldn't get excited because it was on once before for a crushing 15 minutes of glory before it faded back into nothing.

The power has stayed on.

Every day I go home and revel in electricity. If it wouldn't be weird and slightly dangerous, I'd roll around in some electrical currents and declare myself part of the post-Industrial Age. I love it. Zac loves being able to watch Thomas the Tank Engine videos on the computer and I love DVRing all of the TV shows that I haven't been able to watch this week.

What I've realized is that there is a huge problem with prioritizing the restoration of residential power. The problem is that people go back to work without working stop lights. On Monday it took me an hour and a half to get to work, then almost two hours to get across town for a class I'm taking at Rice University, then an hour to get home at 8pm. That's over four hours in the car. Driving home from my class, I had a complete meltdown. As Oprah would call it, it was an ugly cry. It involved me sobbing in traffic with my eyes to bleary to count the number of electrical and semi-trucks that I passed on my way back to the house.

I'm not even sure that I want to take this class. The class is the second in a series of five classes to earn a credential for non-profit fundraising. I took the first class last spring when I only had one job and a firm knowledge of where to find a clean set of sheets. Now I have two jobs and a class that meets twice a week for two hours. Add in a heap of boxes from the upcoming move this Saturday and suddenly my stress level went from "noticeable, but tolerable" to "holy shit, my head is going to explode as I ram into the back of the SUV going 5mph on the freeway". I had to cancel my therapy appointment, that's how stressed I was. I couldn't imagine trying to go back out into traffic to meet with my therapist and discuss how stressed I was. Simple coping methods of lavender-scented baths and warm heating pads were not making the grade.

Enter a man that I'll call Dew, simply because the name "Frost Heaving" would be too long of a nickname, although I love a great double entendre. Dew and I met about three or four weeks ago. We've gone out on several dates and I've had a great time. Whenever he hears that I'm feeling stressed, his first question is always, "How can I help?" He's asked that a lot in the past month, particularly during the evacuation and week of indoor camping with no electricity. He came over to my parents' house on Tuesday for a frantic packing session that involved twenty cardboard boxes and a lot of children's toys. All of the boxes are now stacked in my parents' dining room, although with the furniture and boxes that I never unpacked that are in the garage.

As of Saturday, September 27th, I'll officially be living on my own again. Zac and I will be living with my parents part-time until the end of my class, but I'm excited and more than a little overwhelmed at being a lease-holder again. Electricity and cable bills are not something that I've missed having. Independence and the chance to walk around naked are though, so there is a positive side to everything.

If I could just get my brain to start working again, I'd be great. Until then, I have to deal with the feeling that I'm swimming through fog while trying to form a sentence. Fortunately, I have a lot of time on the road stuck in traffic to figure out what I want to say.