Update

Hmm...how did that month happen to go by? What was I doing during December? It's interesting that I don't remember.

Here are some updates on life, in bullet form because I woke up this morning fearful that I was going to click the wrong button on the GMAT and fail miserably. My brain needs a little organization, and possibly some anti-anxiety medication:

• I turned 28! I've heard good things about this age. I'm looking forward to leaving 27 behind, even if it does push me one year closer to 30.

• FOB has started paying child support. Right before Christmas I received $170 from the Attorney General's Office of Texas. I assume that either it came from the FOB or the AG's office luvs me and decided to share their Christmas spirit.

• No, I don't know how to format this so the bullets are closer together. I've been trying. Looking at the html didn't help me much. Sorry.

• I just got back from a whirlwind trip (or two very long plane rides early in the morning where I showcased my refined ability to sleep while sitting up in an uncomfortable position) to Seattle for Christmas. Seattle was snowy, icy, a little foggy, and all together filled with precipitation in a multitude of forms. Turns out that a state that gets snow once every five years doesn't have a fleet of snow plows on hand. Parking lots, side streets, and residential areas went completely unplowed for two weeks. While walking in the parking lot of a mall on Christmas Eve and navigating the slush, ice, and water holes, Zac fell down in an ankle-deep hole in the ice. His pants got soaked from the water and he cried. I wanted to cry as well. I had forgotten to where my waterproof hiking boots because only in Seattle would appropriate footwear to a major shopping venue require five eyelet holes.

• Seeing my extended family was great, although a couple of cousins seem to not recognize me. I spent a good five hours at my great Aunt's house repressing the urge to say, "Hi! I'm B. We spent 18 years eating Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner together. This is Zac, my son. He's three and a half years-old. Last time you saw me I was pregnant on my way to Hawaii. I know I've probably changed since then considering I was a giant whale while pregnant, but can you at least pretend that we're related?"

• January 8th is GMAT day. It makes me a little sick to my stomach to think about.

• Although I like to martyr myself by saying "I have two jobs, and I'm forced to volunteer to support a Montessori school, and waa waa waa...my life is so hard," in actuality, Pier 1 has dropped me down to 1 or 2 shifts a week, for a grand total of 6-8 hours of work. I'm wondering whether to see this as a blessing or if I should get a third job. I didn't really view my paycheck from Pier 1 as "extra money". I viewed it as a way to pay my cable bill and keep the electricity on.

• Still dating Dew. We are officially "in a relationship" on facebook. There was actually this funny moment where he and I debated over e-mail the merits of going public with our relationship on a social networking site. For Christmas he received a set of keys to my apartment, just in case he ever needs them. He's officially the first person, outside of my father, that I've ever keyed. At least now he can lock the door behind him when he leaves at 6am. I'm practical if nothing else. Dew has started blogging.

Perfection is a Tough Place

I probably could look back in my personal history and pick a worse time to be studying for the GMAT exam. There is the time when I took the GRE. That was pretty awful. I was pregnant in my first trimester with Zac. I did fairly well considering that I had to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes and only briefly glanced at the review book. Looking back, though, I was only two years out of college and had been teaching English and learning a hard language. If my brain is a car, it was finely tuned and running smoothly then. I can't say as much for my brain now. I frequently forget where I park the car and have been known to fall asleep while sitting up. Really, the only worse time than now to take a graduate entrance exam would have been the periods when I was severely depressed and in and out of hospitals.

Yet I've decided to study for a difficult exam and enter graduate school, upon admission to the school of course, in summer 2009. I've been debating this decision for the past six years. I graduated college in 2002 and finally, just finally, decided that this was the year that I should get a graduate degree. It feels like now or never, even though rationally I know that isn't the case. I just feel committed. I bought a study book and CD. I have asked my people to be my references, for the first time ever. I've requested copies of my transcript to be sent to various schools. I'm farther along in the process now than I've ever been in the past. Usually I just look at programs and dream wistfully about possibly studying again in an academic environment.

Thinking about getting a MBA has been completely new to me. I always thought I'd get my masters in public policy or international development. I didn't even think about a MBA until I was sitting in my last fundraising class and the speaker talked about getting her MBA because it was one of the most widely recognizeable degrees across the non-profit and for-profit sector. Something struck a chord in me. Maybe it was because I'm feeling so burned out. I thought I was dedicated to non-profit work, but all of the work on nights and weekends, the fights to earn a decent market wage, and the non-existent benefits have started to wear on me. If I include my senior year of college when I did an internship for a non-profit, I've been in the non-profit field for seven years. Eighteen months of that time, I lived in Mongolia and ate more sheep meat then one person should consume. Since I've been back in America, I've been my own administrative assistant for longer than I care to admit. I'm getting tired of working alone in a office. I'd like to work collaboratively with a team, to be excited about going to work, to have coworkers that I can talk to, at the very least professionally.

Part of wanting a MBA is wanting the chance to experience another kind of work environment. I'm ready for a change. God help me, though, this change is coming at a high cost. I feel like I need to be on top of my game to pull off working two jobs, "volunteering", and studying for the GMAT, and applying to schools.

Last night I stayed up later than I wanted working on a short essay for an application to a "Women's Weekend" at one of the schools I'm applying to (all three are in the Houston area. I can't imagine moving right now, not when I still have boxes that I haven't unpacked and roaches that I haven't killed yet). I was invited to apply for the weekend, which made me instantly long for Smith. I realized that in my essay about why I would like to pursue my MBA at such and such business school, I didn't even write about their support of women professionals and how much their active recruitment of female MBA students means to me. I didn't write about it because it feels instinctive to me. I'm more shocked when colleges DON'T do that. Only 30% of incoming MBA graduate students are women. It's an understatement to say that I appreciate institutions supporting the advancement of women. I was spoiled by attending a college that was dedicated to that purpose.

Unfortunately, this post has taken me almost two full weeks to write because I just can't seem to find enough time for everything that I need to do. The mandatory volunteer work involved me drafting up a solicitation letter and printing a 1,000 copies of the letter, solicitation card, and envelopes. I had to cut the solicitation cards into thirds and staple the entire packet (letter, card, envelope) together for distribution. Now I need to write another letter for my own organization and make sure that we pass the administrative and site review that's scheduled for tomorrow.

I know that I don't need to be perfect, but I need to be pretty damn good and the realization of that is hard sometimes. In order to make this all work, I need to avoid falling asleep in an idling car for an hour in the parking lot of my son's preschool. I need to keep doing the dishes and unloading the dish washer so the ants don't find Zac's syrupy plates and milk-rimmed glasses. I need to rely on family, friends, partners, and coworkers to help and support me. There is too much to do and not enough of me to be able to accomplish everything.

I'm never going to be perfect.

Can of Worms

Seems like I was right to be worried that writing about my weight would open up a can of worms inside my head. I've started obsessing about daily fluctuations and worrying that the scale is going to keep creeping upwards and upwards. With the holidays coming, I'm wondering how I can possibly keep losing weight. It seems like my best bet would be to maintain until I can figure out how to work exercise back into my daily routine.

When I lived at my parents house, I would wake up early in the morning and go for walks. Now that Zac and I live alone, I haven't been able to do that. I did wake up one morning and put on Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred . It was the first time that I've ever tried a workout video for anything other than yoga. Once I got over the awkwardness of doing jumping jacks in my own living room, I enjoyed the tough workout and my legs felt it the next day. Once I'm able to exercise again, I'm definitely going to be trying out some of the other workouts on the DVD.

Not being able to exercise is the second part of the can of worms I was mentioning before. I can't exercise right now because my stomach is riddled with deep, painful bruises. Short of being beaten, I can't really imagine anything more painful over a large portion of my body. Ahh...vanity. If you can afford to get liposuction or a tummy tuck, take my advice and just do it.

August 29, 2008 - Before Photo

I've been doing lipotherapy since August and each time I get it done (alternating between my genetic double chin and my distended post-pregnancy belly), I'm amazed at how much it hurts. Turns out that the process of injecting a chemical solution into your fat cells to explode the cell walls hurts. Who would have figured? The spa I go to ensures me that the pain is worth it for the results. I am seeing results, but I'll be honest, not being able to bend over for three days and having people ask me if I've been in a car accident when they see my head wrapped up is embarrassing. So embarrassing, in fact, that I didn't want to admit that I was getting it done to my coworkers, or on this blog.

10.29.08 - Two of Eight Treatments

So, yeah. That's the full story. I'm struggling with my weight and getting a cosmetic procedure done to help me with pockets of fat that would be there regardless if I lost 30 more pounds or not. That's my confession. My secret can of worms.

(edited to add: For the love of all that's holy, can someone please comment? I feel like I'm exposing myself to the world and getting 1) shocked silence or 2) extreme boredom. Also, does anyone else think that I have large ears? I never noticed before I started being photographed from the side once a month.)

Less of Me

When I stepped on the scale in August 2007, I weighed 204 pounds. I gasped when I saw the number come up on the digital screen. The last time I had been that heavy was when I was pregnant with Zac. I had just gone through intensive out-patient therapy for depression, lost my job, and was using food to comfort myself on a nightly basis. I knew that it had to stop. At 5'5, 204 was putting me in pre-diabetic, hypertension range.

I started losing weight very, very slowly. I joined WW briefly and then quit, but I didn't go back on Jenny Craig or Quick Weight Loss. I started trying not to binge at night when the panic and sadness found there way back to me.

In September 2007 I started my new job and was able to normalize my eating patterns for breakfast and lunch. Two packets (eventually down to 1 1/2) of weight control oatmeal for breakfast, one morning snack, and a Lean Cuisine for lunch. For dinner I usually ate what my parents made and tried to eat after dinner.

Part of the reason that I haven't written about my weight loss is because it feels like it isn't all completely under my control. In November I started a medication that had a couple of huge side effects: 1) I fell asleep all the time, including while driving a car, during meetings, at work, and while watching tv. It was like I was constantly sedated for about six months; 2) It decreased my appetite significantly. For the first time in my life, I wasn't constantly thinking about food or when I would eat next.

Over the months (and after more than a few flat tires from running into curbs while dozing off at the wheel), the fatigue lessened. I started to feel more in control of my body and what I put into it. I lost more weight and started exercising. I would wake up in the mornings before work and go for a walk that eventually turned into a run.

More than a year later, I've lost almost 35 pounds. I stepped on the scale this morning at 173. That's actually under my pre-pregnancy weight and closer to what I weighed in college while I was working out twice a day.

Now I'm living by myself with Zac in an apartment, working two jobs, and have a healthy dose of mandatory "volunteering" that I have to do and I've found myself slipping back into old habits. Those days of comforting myself with food aren't completely gone. The difference now is that I know what I'm doing and I usually feel sick while I'm eating. and let's call it what it really is. I use the term "comforting" rather loosely, especially since I usually feel sick and angry at myself for overeating. What I'm really doing is binging and I end up hating myself for it. Almost immediately afterwards I wish that I hadn't done it. I wish that I was strong enough to let the urge pass me by.

I have 20 more pounds to go until I get to my goal weight. Honestly, I weighed more than 150 at my high school graduation, so I'm not sure how realistic that number is, but it's just a number to me. I feel healthier than I did a year ago. I'm generally happier with how I look and I don't see myself going off any of my medication anytime soon so at least I don't have to worry that I'll regain the weight from that. I just wish that I had a better handle on the binging and purging cycle. The next 20 pounds by the hardest ones to lose if I don't figure something out.

Karma

I was hoping that I had a little extra karma built up so that when I threw some negative energy out into the universe (aimed squarely at the FOB), it wouldn't immediately come right back at me. As my friend Betsy used to say, "Karma has wide hips and what you send out always comes swinging back around." In my case, it came swinging back around with the flu and diagnosis of strep throat.

I knew as soon as I woke up on Saturday that I had strep. The last time I had it was my sophomore year in college when my tonsils constricted so far that I was having problems swallowing. Not surprisingly, I had a tonsillectomy at the age of 19 and not had strep throat since then. Any idea how hard it is to actually get strep when you don't have any tonsils? It's pretty hard. Doctors actually treat reoccurring strep infections with tonsillectomies. I was unlucky enough to find a way around the lack of tonsil problem and still contract group A streptococcus. I've been on penicillin for almost a week and I'm still sneezing and coughing out chest congestion.

Regardless, someone looked cute on Halloween. I actually went to a wedding right after work on Halloween so my parents took Zac trick-or-treating. The Yankee in me died a little bit when he told me that he wanted to go as a cowboy. "Cowboys say 'Yeee-Haww!'," he'd shout at me, usually while driving. So, one night at all-purpose store, we picked up a cowboy hat and vest outfit.

I was told that he had a great time. My Mom said that he would let her hold his hat, but he never once relinquished his candy. He's a very smart cowboy.

Fortunately his costume is so big that two years from now he can be a cowboy again. At the very least, he can learn to dress stylishly in a vest and jacket for kindergarten.

"Where are my feet Mom? Nana and Poppa buried my feet!! Good thing I have this candy."

Sorry for the late posting of Halloween pictures, but it's been a rough week. I'm hoping that by sometime Sunday I'll start feeling better. I have a fundraising event tomorrow morning and working at Pier 1 tomorrow night. In lieu of karma, I'd settle for some more energy.

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.

Day Seven

Words can't even really describe how surreal it is to have power and Internet at work and complete darkness at home. I went out to dinner last night and came home around 9pm. Zac was in bed asleep and my parents were back in their bedroom. No one seemed to notice me hollering into the moonless night that I didn't have a flashlight and, "Hello??! Can someone help me?" went unnoticed. I eventually found my way back to my parents' room and stole one of their flashlights so I could get ready for bed.

The week of not sleeping well as finally caught up to me. I got out of bed this morning, but had the strange feeling that I would fall asleep while driving unless I got back into bed. Sure enough, that's where I went and it was lovely. I called into work around 10am and finally woke up around noon. I blame four days of sleeping next to Zac and three days of having to try and fall asleep with my neighbor's generator parked directly outside my bedroom window. It's like having a Harley idling next to my night stand, except this Harley runs 24 hours a day and keeps food at proper temperatures for refrigeration and freezing. I'm told that it also runs a tv. Bastards.

When we heard on the battery-operated radio that it was going to take days, even weeks to fix the power, I don't think anyone really believed it. The power goes out, then comes back on. That's the normal way things work in the industrialized world. This voyage into indoor camping has got to come to an end soon. I miss frozen food and a microwave. I really, really miss watching tv after I come home from work. I miss showering without a flashlight.

I guess that's just tough for me and the other 61% of Houston-Galveston area households that don't have power. We are officially in the plural now. It has not been just one week - it's been weeks since we've had power at the house.

Luxury Camping

My Dad figured out how to manually light the pilot light on the gas water heater, so now our house has warm running water, in addition to the flushing toilets and gas stove that we had before. Even without power, the hot shower and the bowl of oatmeal that I ate this morning make me feel like I'm at a really nice camp site. The cooler filled with ice, soda, milk, cheese, and our leftovers from any meal that we make only heightens that feeling. My Mom keeps wondering if we should be spraying bug spray more liberally, given the amount of standing water still in the immediate area. I keep wondering if we should be doing more hiking and maybe making S'mores at night.

I'm back at work this morning. There is power and internet here, although a strange lack of employees. I work in East Houston, but a lot of the employees live south, closer to Galveston. I'm hoping that their houses or cars weren't damaged in the storm. For me, the bad part about having to drive 20 miles each direction is that I'm going to need gas fairly quickly. There are limited gas stations that are open and all of them boast long lines of cranky car owners.

It's all to be expected, though. The local city government tried to keep people away from their homes as long as possible. The "All Clear" message hasn't gone out yet and as of the last time I checked, only 37% of Houston has power. Galveston is still completely underwater, yet there is a primal urge to return and survey where you have staked all your hopes and dreams.

The national (and now even the local) media has come down very, very hard on the people that chose to not evacuate, even after the mandatory evacuation order was issued two days before the storm. I understand why they didn't leave, though. People are wary of the media since it's wrong so much of the time. We evacuated for Hurricane Rita and at the last moment the storm veered east and slammed into Beaumont, TX. Even for this storm, they had predicted a 20 foot surge into Galveston. The highest storm surge was recorded at 13 ft. So imagine you live on the island and your house is on 17 foot stilts. Would you evacuate, knowing that so very often the media is wrong? Yes, there both the mayor and the governor called for an evacuation of all coastal areas, particularly Galveston island. Yes, about 40% of the island's inhabitants either couldn't afford to evacuate, didn't want to live in a shelter, physically couldn't evacuate, or just simply chose not to. But let's not call these people "knuckleheads". I'm talking to you Governor Perry.

More people died on the freeways from dehydration and car accidents during the evacuation for Hurricane Rita in 2005 than died from damage caused by the storm. It's understandable why people would chose not to participate in another evacuation. Unless you've been in a car for 40 hours in 100 degree heat with no air conditioner, sleeping on the side of the road, and forced to sit in a gas line for hours on end, perhaps you can keep your judgements to yourself. I wish the search and rescue teams the best of luck. They have done an outstanding job rescuing more than 2,000 people. I'd also like to congratulate the 60,000 people that didn't need rescuing after choosing not to evacuate.

Hurricane Ike

Nothing like a mandatory evacuation to stop regularly scheduled blogging. My parents, Zac, I, and two cats evacuated on Thursday, September 11th, to San Antonio, TX. What should have been a three-hour drive on I-10 took about seven hours. I learned an interesting lesson during that time: it's not actually using the computer that hurts my shoulder and back, it's sitting hunched over for a couple of hours at a time.

We were lucky to find one of the last hotel rooms in San Antonio. Unfortunately, the hotel didn't allow any animals, regardless of the circumstances. Even begging didn't help. There was a firm "no pet" policy that a harried night manager was not going to bend for a car load of hurricane evacuees with very old cats. The cats stayed in a kennel for four days, which probably had more room than three adults and a toddler had in a hotel room with two full-size beds. It's not that I don't love my family. I do. I just love them more when I we have doors that can be shut between us.

Zac has weathered the evacuation remarkably well. He got to sleep next to his Mom for four nights. I can honestly say that I've haven't cuddled that much, for consecutive nights, in over five years. It wasn't enough to sleep near me, or even have parts of his body on me. No, he wanted to meld our bodies together. He had his arm wrapped around my neck and his feet on the small of my back. At one point, he ended up perpendicular to me and kicked me in the chin repeatedly, waking me up as close to cursing as I could get while sleeping next to my parents and supposedly asleep first born.

Not that I can complain much. The drive back took only about four hours. Our house avoided significant damage. My Dad has been helping the neighbors rebuild their fences and find tarps to cover the patches of their roofs. We lost all of the food in our refrigerator and freezer. The power is still off, although we have running water. The lack of power has been giving me a certain amount of flashbacks to Mongolia, but I'm making it through. I'm supposed to be back at work on Wednesday, provided work has power.

Until then, I'll be huddled around a portable 2" tv player, waiting to hear news about when power might be restored and trying, for the eighth time, to explain the concept of electricity to a three year-old that just wants to watch Dora and doesn't understand why the adults are holding out on him.

Endurance

Somewhere between 6:45pm and 7:00pm last night, I hit the wall. My eyes could barely stay open and I was pretty sure that any stemware that stood between me and a chair would be broken on my way down off the step ladder. Normally, I wouldn't be around large quantities of fragile items, but yesterday was my second day at my second job.

Getting a second job sounded like a good idea. I would just work a couple of extra hours around the holiday to pay for unexpected expenses (like a $450 a/c repair on a car that has already had its a/c system repaired three separate times). I also wanted to pay down debt that has been mounting up lately (see unexpected car repairs and root canals). With those lofty goals, I reapplied at a Pier 1 store close to where my parents live. I worked at a Pier 1 store in New Hampshire. Apparently it is a disastrous combination to mix hormonal women and household decor: no less than five of us got pregnant within four months. I found out that I was pregnant with Zac within weeks of another associate finding out that she was pregnant with twins. It was baby mania accented with the smell of lavender room mist spray.

Fast forward four years and I'm back working at Pier 1. Oddly enough, inflation has had the opposite effect on salaries for sales associates. I'm told that the phrase, "cost of living" doesn't really exist in Texas. It's more for Yankees and their delicate sensibilities than for people living extremely close to large forces of nature, like category 3 hurricanes. You just have to suck it up and put your plywood purchases on a credit card down here.

Anyways, I've worked a lot of long hours at my primary job this past year. One of the reasons that I got a second job was because I knew that it would force me to balance out my life. I couldn't work 12-15 hours at the job because I would have to leave and work 4 hours at another job.

Something happened along the way, though. Somehow I forgot about the wall that long-distance runners hit when their glucose levels dip too low and they feel like they want to lay down and cry. I hit the wall. I couldn't wait until 10pm to eat. I felt like an out-of-shape runner trying to do a 10k. I don't have the same endurance that I did when I worked two jobs in New Hampshire. I require more sleep now and certainly more daily calories than before. While eyeing the red tile under a breakfast table for a cozy spot to lay my head, I thought, "I need to start training for this. I need protein snacks and shot of glucose every 3-4 hours. I need more water and maybe Gatorade. Maybe then I'll be able to make it until 10pm without breaking three wine glasses and a ceramic vase."

I Heart Erica

Look! Twin Diet Coke bottles. It's like we were meant to be...

Since my last post was exclusively devoted to my reunion (and no, Brian doesn't look identical to the way he did in high school. He had blond hair then and fewer wrinkles (and I mean that in the best way possible because he has laugh lines around his eyes and mouth now, which I think look great)), I didn't post much about my mini-reunion with Erica.

Erica and I met sometime between the ages of 11 and 12 (we think). We met at one of the Methodist church dances that were organized monthly at different churches in the Western Washington area. She lived about two hours north from where I lived, but after our first meeting, we felt drawn to each other. I remembered asking for her address so we could communicate in-between dances. At that same dance, I had my first kiss with a boy that went to Erica's church. I won't post his full name here to avoid a repetition of past run-ins with google, but nevertheless, when Erica said his name I remembered him immediately.

We communicated through letters for a year or so and then lost touch with each other. Around Christmas time this year, I got a message from her on myspace. She said she woke up one day and remembered my last name, which hasn't changed through the years, as her's had. She typed my full name into myspace and only had one hit - my page. After a coincidence like that, she knew that she wanted to contact me and reconnect.

When I got the first message from her, I think I almost fell off the sofa. Memories of church dances, slow songs, first kisses, and letters came flooding back to me. It's not that I had forgotten about her, it was just that she was pushed into a recess in my mind. What's even more amazing than her finding me online has been the friendship that has developed (or redeveloped as it were).

Her unconditional love has redefined me as a person. When I say that I never knew people could treat each other this way, I mean that in both the negative and the positive sense. I've been hurt so badly this year by cruel, insensitive people, yet they've been overshadowed by these brilliant points of light. She's one of those points.


Why yes, I was a little drunk and more than a little tired in the above picture. At least Erica is looking fabulous. I love this picture of her and her husband, Rodney, below. Rod waited to meet me in person before asking if he could "friend" me on myspace. For the record, I said yes to his request.

Anyone recognize what's in the background of that photo?

Deep, Cleansing Breath

I need to take several deep, cleansing breaths in order to post the photos from my reunion. Photos from the reunion can also be given the title: "Ways to turn memories from an event into self-loathing, with one easy flash" I've mentioned several times on here that I lost 25 lbs over the course of the past year. Going from what I thought was severely overweight to pleasantly rotund. I mean, I dated at both weights and couldn't see any noticeable differences. I still don't look at myself naked after getting out of the shower and I still have to have the lights turned off before, during, and after any form of physical intimacy. That much hasn't changed. Nonetheless, I have photographic evidence that I have a long ways to go in my struggle against the bulge. I'm built like a brick.

The day of the reunion started out with Erica and I driving from norther WA down to Auburn. In theory, it's a 90 mile drive that should have taken us an hour and a half. In reality, Seattle traffic is the only place worse than Houston. A full three-and-a-half hours later we were stumbling from the car going, "Is this really Auburn. I thought it was just a mystical land of fairies, little leprechauns, and mascots named after a popular brand of condoms. I wasn't sure it even really existed."

After a brief rest in the hotel, Erica and I started getting ready for my reunion. I was about eighteen times more nervous than she was, of course, and pretty much felt like I was going to vomit the whole time.
Applying eye liner while feeling like you might get sick to your stomach is a skill that I picked up while pregnant, driving down the freeway, trying to make it to a lunch shift on-time. Clearly, it's a skill that continues to serve me well. Erica snapped this shot as I was getting ready to head out the door. I think she was grabbing her chap stick and the camera that would forever immortalize my downfall as a fat drunkard.

The choice of dress for the evening was almost exclusively chosen because it covered both my arms and my legs. A burlap sack would have done as nicely, but probably would have been less comfortable against my armor-wielding undergarments. But, I'm avoiding the inevitable, let's introduce the cast of major players at my high school 10-year reunion.

In a coming blog post, I'll have to show you the picture of the last time my ex-boyfriend, Brian, and I saw each other. We were in Hawaii and I was almost six months pregnant. I teased him mercilessly at the reunion because he didn't recognize me in Oahu. I'm pretty sure he recognized me this time before I threw myself onto him and gave him a big hug. He was late coming into the reunion, so I had resigned myself to not seeing him. Yet, he suddenly appeared, and it almost felt like we were back in 10th grade math class again, even though he's married to a wonderful woman and I'm a a single Mom to a kid that dumped yogurt on my pillow this morning. All that aside, it was great to see him. As I said, I think I possibly jumped on him in excitement.

Then there was Sean. Sean and I met our 7th grade year in Honors Reading and Language Arts class. He was a staple of my junior high and high school years. Seeing him at the reunion, so clearly having such a good time, convinced me to let go of my occasionally uptight demeanor and just go a little wild. I'm not sure either one of us meant to get as wild as we did, however.

I blame Jared, the guy on the far left-hand side for buying all three of us a shot of tequila with a wedge of lime. It makes me a little sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Yes, I was one of "those people" that goes to a reunion and gets drunk. I'm also one of "those type of people" that gets a little crazy when I'm not caring for a toddler or rear-ending school buses. I have my priorities.

From left to right, the men in this photo are Jared, Sean, Scott, Jake, and Quang. Jake was one of my first boyfriend in the seventh grade. I think we lasted all of two weeks. His wife is quite possibly a saint for going to his reunion 8 months pregnant and letting me rub her stomach while sputtering, "Did Jake tell you that he was my first boyfriend?" and trying not to spill Bud Light on her shoes (and they were very nice shoes. Did I mention that she's possibly saint-worthy? There were a number of pregnant women there that seemed to fit that category. Aside - where the hell did all those pregnant women come from? Holy moly!!)

You can tell it's getting later in the evening. I'm openly sporting my beer bottle in the photos and there are fewer and fewer people in the chairs behind us.

Kalae, the woman on the left, turned into a supermodel at some point following high school and Rachael is looking amazing (in general), but also for having a two month-old son. She mentioned the fact that she was feeding and didn't get to enjoy as many beverages as the rest of the crowd seemed to be enjoying. Poor woman.

After the reunion, we went to a house party where there were several more alumni that didn't want to pay the cost to go the actual event. I have to mention Derek S., and what he said to me when I showed up at his house on Friday evening. He said, 'B...I've been waiting for you. You don't know how many conversations you've been a part of since you've been gone. I've been waiting for you and now you are here." Ok, granted, Derek might have been a little high (he would have had to be to not punch me in the face after singing the chorus of "In the Navy" to him twenty times after he told me he joined the Navy and went around the world for five years.)

Since Erica went back to the hotel, I don't have any pictures (she was the designated photographer for the evening) from the house party. What I do have is the embarrassing memory of having Brian drive Sean, Darin, and I back to the hotel in Auburn. Brian didn't have more than one beer the entire evening, so in addition to being the girl that didn't drink in high school that got sloshed at her reunion, I'm also the drunk ex-girlfriend that possibly said something along the lines of, "She didn't even know that I dated women until my plane landed in Seattle" and forced Brian to console me by telling me to remain true to myself. I nodded and wobbled into the hotel with his words.

Erica decided to celebrate by catching me in the act of returning to the hotel at 3am, after I had managed to change into my pajamas:

I'm so embarrassed at the fact that she's taking my pictures that I'm trying to cover my face (not actually stop myself from getting sick, which is the alternate interpretation of this picture).

When an evening ends like this, you know you've had a good time. I'm glad I went, self-deprecating humor and potential blood-alcohol poisoning and all. I only embarrassed myself a handful, or ten, times and at least I have the luxury of living over 2,000 miles away from anyone that might try to tease me about what happened. It was a good reunion.

I'm Doing What?

I'm going to my ten-year high school reunion on Friday, August 22nd. It's a little bit shocking still to me, even though I have had the plane reservations for a month now and just bought the incredibly overpriced event tickets for myself and a guest. I'm staying with my friend Erica in Western WA, not particularly close to where I grew up and went to high school. Actually, it's far enough away that we got a hotel room for the night in the town where the reunion is being hosted.

At Erica's request, I looked for some old pictures of myself. The only problem is that I had packed everything in boxes in preparation for my August 1st move that never happened. Since my new move date is September 21st, I just decided to leave everything packed because, really, how often do you need to look at ten year-old photos of yourself? Well, the answer is: not very often unless you have a high school reunion coming up and someone wants to see what you actually looked like in high school. THEN and only then, will you need photographic evidence that you look like a different version of yourself than you do now.

When I look at the photo above I see a young woman at the ripe age of 17. She's almost shining with possibility and promise. She didn't know what was ahead of her, all she knew was that something - anything had to be better than what was behind her. If someone had told her on her graduation day that she'd be pregnant in six years and a single Mom within seven, she would have laughed and maybe squinted her eyes a bit with the secret knowledge that she always knew her life wouldn't turn out exactly the way she thought it would. She knew that much, even if she had faith in the world to always protect and comfort her.

In high school, I was the girl that used too many big words and read too much. I didn't fit in with the athletes, the party crowd, the super smart kids, or the drama kids. I didn't have many friends and I was cruel to some of the ones that I had for petty reasons. I joined every single club and after school activity with the hopes of boosting my resume enough to get a scholarship to an out-of-state college. I was so busy and so involved with my boyfriend that I never really had the time for friends.

In preparation for my reunion, I've had to go through 12-step processes with several of my fellow classmates. "I'm sorry I was needlessly cruel to you," I'd begin, "I'd like to apologize for my behavior, even though I know it's been so long and that there is really nothing I can say or do to make it better. I'm sorry if I hurt you." Paused silence as I listened to their reply. "No, I'm not in AA. Why do you ask?" The conversations only got better from there. They were humbling, to say the least.

With my conscious as clear as it can be, I feel ready to board the plane on Thursday and head back to the place where I grew up. I can't call it "home" because it was only ever home until I turned 17. My parents moved from the Seattle-area to Houston when I was studying at Oxford during my junior year of college. I manage to go back to Seattle once every couple of years to see my extended family. This time, I hope to see some friends that I've lost touch with and maybe make some new acquaintances. Although I'm an older, more cynical and heavier version of myself now, I have a freer heart and a kinder spirit. I know that I don't have to fight for my place in the world and I'd like to be able to project that somehow.

How I present myself now can't be much worse than I how I presented myself in high school. Some people from those days will remember me looking like this:

"No invader beats a RAIDER. We'll go down in history!"

Anything has to be better than my body dressed in a colonial outfit, brandishing a sword to fight the marauding Native American warriors away from the Western outposts, with a giant head and felt hat. I actually made a kid cry once when I waved at him. I'm not sure he gathered all the racial and socio-economic problems latent in having a high school mascot called the Raiders in the same town where all of the junior high schools are named after Native American tribes. If he had, we both might have started crying. To that little boy, I was just a scary giant head with bushy eye brows floating above a disproportionate frame. My little boy would laugh at this photo and not believe it was his Mom under that costume. He sees me as a set of open arms that are always ready to hug him and voice that's ready tell him that I love him.

Unquestionably, my life has improved since 1998.

What's Going to Work? TEAMWORK

At this point in my life, I can honestly say that I'm being held together by pins, needles, and the dedication of hundreds of caring medical professionals. Never before have I needed so many people to maintain a semblance of a functional life.

Let's count up the "ist"s,"ioner"s, and "tor"s that I see on a fairly regular basis:

• Psychiatrist
• Therapist
• Pharmacist
• Optometrist
• Opthalmologist
• Chiropractor
• Dentist
• Endodontist
• Gynecologist
• Family Practitioner
• Orthopedist (possibly soon)

If we add in Zac's list:

• Pediatrician
• Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist

We get to the surprising number of 13. It takes 13 different medical specialists to keep me and my son healthy. The latest round of medical treatment led me to the optometrist and her partner in crime, the opthalmologist. Don't let the similar names confuse you. I found out that it's bad form to assume that they are the same profession. I had to go see an actual medical doctor, that would be the opthalmologist, to diagnose bacterial conjunctivitis in both of my eyes. I didn't have full out pink eye, but I had red, watery eyes for at least two months before finally taking an afternoon off and going to see my eye care specialist.

I'm back on antibiotics for my eyes. I put eye drops in four times a day. My chronic v problems are still lingering. An interesting side effect of taking 10 separate rounds of anti-fungal antibiotics is that hair starts becoming brittle at the ends. An afternoon at the hair salon and I came out with most of my hair gone, back to a length that I hadn't seen since I graduated college.

So, that's what's going on with me. I'm falling apart at the ripe age of 27. I rock.

Filling in for B....

Approximately 2 hours west of me B is sitting on her couch. Surprise Surprise! (Just kidding B!)

I received a phone call tonight that B is having shoulder pains and numbness in the hand. She has visited her chiropractor several times but has yet to receive any long-term relief. B asked me to post and ask if anyone has had this problem in the past, and if so, what type of doctor you saw for help. Also, has it gotten better?

I was going to use this opportunity to also give out all of B's most dark, deep secrets but my four year old is currently being entertained by the electronic babysitter so I should probably cut that short. Maybe.

--April

Still Struggling

My fear of abandonment has been well-documented on this blog. This past year has taught me to never take someone for granted because you might not get the chance to tell them everything you wanted to say. You might not get to yell or scream at them and tell them how much they hurt you.

I have a friend, whom I'll call Jory. He and I were friends for over a year. We hung out on New Year's Eve together and I liked having him in my life. He was one of the few people that would come to my work to go out to lunch. I trusted him and enjoyed spending time with him.

In early April I wrote a post about the behavior and actions of jealous women. About two days before I wrote the post I got a call from Jory's on-again-off-again girlfriend. They were definitively "on-again" when she called me. Jory actually warned me before it happened that she might call since he found her looking through his phone. She had found my number and quizzed him on who I was and what I was doing as a contact in his phone.

The call went something along the lines of this:

Crazy Woman (CW): "Hi, you don't know me, but I think you know my BOYFRIEND *emphasis not added* Jory"

Me: "Hi CW. I don't know you but I've heard a lot about you. I do know Jory. How can I help you?"

CW: *obviously a little taken aback at my lack of surprise and shock at being called by her. She probably didn't realize that this wasn't the first Crazy Woman that I've had to talk to on the phone* "Umm...What is the nature of your relationship with Jory?" and she begins to speak really fast here, like all of her words were smashed together, "You see, because he's asked me to marry him and bought me an engagement ring and I want to know who you are and what the nature of your relationship is with him."

Me: *now really surprised* "Wow....Congratulations. My relationship with Jory is none of your business."

CW: "It is my business. He wants to marry me. Were you with him last Thursday night? Why won't you just tell me!?"

Me: (thinking, "She really is crazy. Disentangle yourself from this conversation immediately) "Jory and I are friends. I was not with him on Thursday. Never call me again."

CW: "Ok" - hung up.

I called Jory after she hung up the phone, but he didn't answer. He actually never answered again. She accused him of cheating on her with me and he decided that the "safest" course of action was to prove his love and devotion to her by cutting out all female friendships, including ours. He was just gone, this person that I had considered a good friend. I never even knew what had happened.

Then Smith left in the same way, without ever saying goodbye. I didn't even realize that people could treat each other like this. It never occurred to me.

Jory called me a week ago. He and CW had broken up in showdown that involved police, kids, and a follow-up visit from Protective Services. Crazy Woman isn't just an acronym with this woman. He called to tell me how upset he was, not by the five months that had passed since he stopped speaking to me, but about losing her. He drove past the gym where they work out, saw her car, and was physically sick.

I'm supposed to understand. He's made that much clear to me. I'm supposed to understand what he did and forgive him for his trespasses. I'm still struggling with the forgiveness part. I don't really want to listen to him talk about CW. I don't really want to hear him blow off my feelings by saying, "I wouldn't worry about it," like they don't matter. I'm torn between believing that everyone makes mistakes and deserves a chance at forgiveness and protecting my heart from someone who clearly isn't invested in treating it well. I'm still struggling.

Free Money!

I haven't been able to write because I'm in the midst of having a $300 panic attack. Normally my anxiety costs me little beyond an upset stomach and calorie consumption in the form of chocolate chip cookies. Not this time.

This time I was sitting in Zac's room, folding up his fall and winter clothes that might have a prayer of still fitting him when the temperatures dip under 90 degrees, when the feeling that something was wrong hit me full force. My chest tightened up with every pair of pants that I folded. By the time I got to his closet, I was breathing in and out of my mouth with my hands on my hips trying to not hyperventilate. I was scared, panicky, uncertain, and bowled over by the immediate sense of wrongness that packing Zac's clothes was inspiring. By dinner time, I was crying freely and nonplussed by Zac's refusal to, once again, eat anything that doesn't come out of a box produced by Nabisco.

The feeling lasted on throughout the week. I decided to do some more research on the apartment complex that I had put down a deposit for. Before deciding to rent the place, I had toured at least 30 other apartments. In the Greater Houston area, there are two types of apartments: 1) Luxury units that I can't afford; 2)Old and shabby units that have appliances older than I am. Since I'm not made of money, I went on a quest to find the nicest old and shabby unit that I could find within my budget.

I thought I had found it. It was a complex about 6 miles from where I work. It was built in 2003, has a beautiful floor plan, great amount of square footage, and comes with a washer and dryer. I jumped on it. The thing about the housing crisis, even in cities like Houston which have been largely inoculated against the economic problems of the rest of the country, apartments go fast. Even the apartments that I looked at three months ago are now completely full. They've started waiting lists on places. Fewer people are moving out and purchasing homes. I was tired of finding a nice place only to learn that they didn't have any units to rent. When I found out that this apartment had units available, I couldn't go and cash in my money order quick enough.

That's the first problem: the apartment doesn't take checks for the application fee ($85) or the deposit ($200). Both the application fee and deposit are non-refundable within 48 hours. I had to get separate money orders for each. The second problem is that the apartment is located in an incredibly depressed, poor part of Houston. I figured that I would trade grocery shopping at night for a washer and dryer.

That didn't quite work out though.

In my haste to secure the apartment, I didn't do enough research. When I started researching the complex, I found out that it wasn't just the sale of drugs that was the problem, both in and outside the apartment gates, it was blatant drug use that most people complained about. People openly smoking weed and blaring their music. Car theft was one of the most commonly reported crimes, followed shortly behind attempted murder.

It's taken a couple days to realize that there is no way that I can move into this place with a toddler. I'm not even sure that I would move in if I was living by myself.

What's interesting is that prior to this period in my life, I never second-guessed myself. I knew within the first two days of my visit to Smith that I was going to go there for college. I didn't hesitate before signing up to go to Oxford for a year. I think I maybe looked at Mongolia on a map before I joined the Peace Corps (maybe). I have always been the type that just jumps and hopes for the best.

Lately, my jumping has been off-target. I second-guess my decisions now after a string of life events seemed to indicate that I need to think more before making life-changing decisions. Although, I also think that I need to listen to my instincts. Something is telling me that it's wrong to move into this apartment. It was an instinct that drove me to research the place further. I often wonder if I should listen to my instincts more, like I used to before I ended up alone with a child.

The only way I can wrap my mind around a $300 mistake is to think of other times that I've given away money to large corporations or governmental entities. In so certain order, here is a list of the times that I seem to be giving away free money:

1. Car Insurance Premium ($500). I've hit two cars in the past 12 months. ($500 x 2 = $1000) for the privilege of getting my car fixed by the company that I pay $102 each month to.
2. Health Insurance Co-Pays ($25 - $45). I see my primary care physician at least twice a year ($25 x 2 = $50) and I've seen my OB-Gyn at least four times in the past year ($45 x 4 = $180).
3. Dental Insurance Co-Pays ($75-$600). I'm not even sure you can call these co-pays. I'm still at a loss to figure out what exactly dental insurance really does. I had six cavities filled (approx. $400), two root canals ($150 x 2 =300, not including the crown) and one root canal redone ($75).
4. Speeding ticket ($225 fine), Driver's Safety Course ($25), Request Copy of Driving Record ($10).
5. Failure to control speed when I rear-ended a school bus ($195 fine).
6. Three year gym membership to a place that I'm lucky if I go to once every three months ($49 x 12 x 3 = $1764)
7. Ez-Pass sticker on my car to be able to drive on a tax payer-funded toll-road ($40 x 4 = $160)
8. Apartment rent on the apartment I subleased for 8 months when I moved back in with my parents ($75 x 8 = $600)
9. Fees on a potential apartment. ($85 application fee + $200 non-refundable deposit = $285).
10. Fees on new potential apartment after getting the shit scared out of me by researching the first potential apartment ($35 application fee + $75 administration fee + $150 deposit = $260).

Let's add that all up and we get to...$5,529. Provided I stop rear-ending vehicles and getting fined for going over the speed limit, I could drastically reduce the amount of money that I give away.

Put into this perspective, line item#9 appears minor in comparison. Losing $285 on an apartment where I might have to deal with weed-smoking, car-jacking neighbors, doesn't seem that bad. In fact, it might be one of my better decisions to let the money go. Instead of donating to charities, I might just start donating to corporations, just to do my part to keep the local economy afloat and all.

Justice

My therapist accused my of trying to change the FOB by teaching him a lesson. I told him that I cared less about the lesson and more about the retribution.

My nature I'm not a venegeful person. I believe in seeing the good in people and beauty in the universe. That faith has been severely challenged over the course of the past year. Hopefully, when I'm old and gray, I'll see 2008 as the year that I lost my childlike belief that "good things happen to good people. As long as you continue to be good, you just have to wait for the good things to happen."

Sometimes you may have to wait a long time. In the interim, things like your car a/c will go out three times in a week or your vagina will develop its own ecosystem that is openly hostile to the area of delicate skin around it. It will become the Iran of your body. You will be one missle-test away from deciding just to nuke the whole damn region and revisit the issue in 500 years. Even then, with the threat of nuclear war dangling below your belly button, fate has no need for "niceness".

I always believed that if I was "nice" enough or "good" enough that the world would play by the rule book that I imagined was fair. My rule book is simply, really. If I'm nice to you (both the world at-large and individuals), you will be nice to me and not do things like end a relationship without saying good bye, abandon a child, or cause a school bus to quickly apply its brakes while turning right on red.

The cliche that you can only control your reaction to events dawned on me after I called the Attorney General's Office on Wednesday. The AG's office had issued a Writ of Withholding for the FOB's wages back in May. He had used his social security number on a job application in Florida and it was flagged for back child support due. The name of the place that the AG said the FOB worked was ridiculous. It sounded like a name of a seedy strip club, but I had faith that child support would begin to flow like a river around a sea of half-naked women.

I waited 45 business days for FOB's employer to start garnishing his wages. That's a little over three months in calendar time. It's also the legal length of time given to employers to begin garnishment. On Wednesday, the interim ended. I called the AG's office and asked them if there were any new developments on my case. Their answer was "no". The P.O. Box that was listed as an address for the employer didn't seem to actually exist. The AG didn't have a phone number or a home address for the FOB and didn't have a way to contact him. Funny enough, I don't have that information either. Nor does his family. It's almost like he's avoiding child support, which isn't surprising. I'd avoid owing the government $4,000 if I were in his shoes.

The AG representative told me that there was nothing more that she could do. They didn't have the means to investigate the case.

I hung up the phone and experienced rage like I have never experienced before. In those moments of sheer anger, I realized that I would trade monthly child support for justice. Imprisoning a man for non-payment of child support always seemed silly to me before I became a parent. You can't earn more than $.28/hour in jail and a criminal record made it more difficult to get a job afterwards. Then I became a parent and I understood that it's not about the money. It's about honoring commitments and responsibility and the FOB is the one person in my life that is legally bound to follow the rules of being "good". I wanted justice, just this once. I wanted retribution. I wanted him to go to jail and sit there every night thinking about the child he created.

So, what directly influences justice in America? Money. I could write a whole other post about the flaws of the American justice system, or I could start calculating how much money I'd be willing to spend to find his ass. The number got to be pretty high in my head, especially considering the fact that I put off going to see the Ob-Gyn for three months because of a $45 co-pay. "I have good credit," I thought. "I've always been so good about making sure my I pay my bills on-time, even if it meant that money was tight until I got paid again." I could get a loan. I could find him.

Before I did that I did a little more searching on his employer. Turns out that the AG had the full legal name, which didn't come up in any google searches because the business was doing business under a slightly different name. Some creative typing later and I was staring at a well-design website for an upscale restaurant chain. The FOB doesn't work at the store where the P.O. Box used to be located (two years ago, before the company moved its corporate headquarters). He works at the store an hour a way, in central Florida.

I called the AG's office back and gave them all the information I had, including the name of the FOB's manager and phone number to the restaurant. I asked, not particularly nicely, that they begin enforcing the court order and hold the FOB in contempt. I got a lot of excuses that primarily involved not having a home address to serve an order to appear in court paper to the FOB. I'm not sure how much easier it could be, though, to call up an employer, say you are with the AG's office and get the home address that an employee listed on their W-2.

The AG's office has 15 business days to determine the course of action regarding enforcement. In three weeks, I'll know what I need to do next to find justice. I've been good and nice long enough.

Three

This is from Wildflower's wedding. Thanks so much to MNS for sending it to me. I look like I'm actively trying to wrestle Zac to the ground because he didn't want to stand still in the picture. He wanted to run around and play at the "party".

He's turning three years-old tomorrow. I can't believe what a little person he's become. He loves to tell stories that usually end with him trying to catch something or stop something from falling. He now has two imaqginary brothers, Sammy and Arthur, who play with him all the time, but that doesn't keep him from looking up at me sweetly and asking, "Will you come play with me?" everytime I'm within 50 ft of him.

Lately he's been obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine and can tell you the names of all the engines, trams, and diesels. Before I started watching the tv show and reading the books, I couldn't have even told you the difference between a tram and a diesel, but I can now. I can also tell you all of the names of everyone on "The Wonder Pets" and "The Backyardigans".

Three. Wow.