Lost and Found

I have to put this here, because the friend I am talking about might have access to my other blog.

Facebook can be a dangerous thing. It can lead you to old friends, but that is a double-edged sword. I mean – I found my fairy godfather again, and that was a total win. But I also found a couple old friends that I sent requests to and got no reply. And being crazy, I waver between the totally normal person response of “oh, she probably isn’t very active here and hasn’t seen it yet” to the very psychotic person response of “OMG she hates me!!”

And then I found an old friend that I haven’t heard from in almost 20 years – a friend that I searched for and worried about and missed terribly. He was my best friend. I wrote about him here. Anyway, now that I have contact with him again, I find myself asking what’s next. I mean – I spent so many years wondering and worrying and hoping to find him that I never really thought about what would happen when I did. On one hand, I am glad he’s alive and well (I had serious concerns). But on the other – what is there to say? I’m the same person and yet a different person. I have changed a lot and yet I am the same girl who lost her best friend many years ago. Once the happiness of finding him doing well wore off, I couldn’t help but want to yell, “What the fuck?? Where did you go? Why did you abandon me?”

Way back when, he was in my life and then suddenly he was gone. When I tried to reach him, I couldn’t. I was given a host of excuses and weirdness over the phone from roommates and parents and then that was the end. I backed off for a while and then I tried to find him and couldn’t. I think I wrote once with no reply. And I was afraid to call again after my previous experience. I tried over the years to find him via email and on websites like classmates but to no avail.

And then – boom – through a series of coincidences, I found him. Someone had his email. I sent him an email, saying hi, saying how I had missed him and had been looking for him for all these years. Then I waited with baited breath for a reply. And when it came, it wasn’t the warm, happy, OMG it’s you that I expected. It felt more like a business letter.

It was a bit cold. I keep going back and reading it and when I look at the words, I think, it’s nice – there’s nothing wrong with this. But it’s not the words – it’s the feeling, the tone, I guess. Like it was written by an acquaintance rather than someone who was once the most important person in my life. It came off as a bit condescending – like he was trying to show off or prove something to me. And I wanted to say, are you joking? It’s me! ME!!

And he never addressed my question about what happened. I always assumed it was out of his control – that his parents cut him off from that life (since it was not the best influence on either of us, I could understand that), but at one point in the letter, he implies that it was his decision, and that hurts. I mean – I can understand if he felt that a clean break was the only way to get on with his life, but for someone you once spent virtually 24 hours a day with, I would think a call or a letter might be warranted. Some kind of explanation, some sort of goodbye.

I’m not sure what I had in mind for this reunion. A long slow-motion run toward each other on the beach? No. But I guess maybe I was expecting more than “thank you for making the effort to contact me.”

And I need to remind myself that when we first met, we didn’t hit it off instantly. I thought he was a bit pretentious (which is kind of an odd affectation for a big, rumpled hippy) and odd (which totally isn’t). So maybe this is just that side of his personality showing up without all the constant companionship and good times to mute it a little. I don’t know, but it still leaves me feeling cold.

I have to write back (he does say he’d like to stay in touch), but it’s been almost 2 weeks and I haven’t been able to muster up the energy or motivation to reply.

I’m not sure if this has me down because I am grieving for his friendship, or grieving for the girl I was when I was with him. Maybe a little of both. All the time he was missing, I told myself that I just wanted to know he was OK. And I really did – I never imagined we’d be BFFs again. But maybe in these 20 years, I romanticized it – I turned it into my big, fairytale quest – to find him again and reunite despite the forces that had keeping us apart. And of course, the generic letter kind of takes the wind out of it a little. Maybe I was so caught up in losing him than I never really thought about finding him. Maybe it’s a reminder that I am not that girl anymore and I can’t handle that.

Next time you're at L0we's, pick up some wood to build yourself a cross with

I’ve been failing at the Constance thing – I know. When I started it, I thought, this is a great idea – I can safely vent! And don’t get me wrong – lord do I want and need to vent. I get all riled up about things and can’t wait to come here and spew it all. But then by the time everyone goes to bed, or I finish work, or I get home from carting everyone around, I’m so damned tired that I just swallow it down. And then put food on it. So my diet is working out like. . .well. . .shit.

The irritation is usually the same thing over and over – the husband. I’m so sick of him. Entirely, totally sick of him. I’m sick of the martyrdom. Seriously, I am either married to Jesus Christ himself (unlikely) or a big whiny baby (dingdingdingdingding!!) Why is it that when he “cleans the kitchen” he calls it “cleaning the kitchen for me”. Not cleaning the kitchen because it is dirty, but FOR ME. The implication being that it is my job and he just did me a big favor by doing it for me. Um, no.

First off – the antiquated “woman’s work” attitude is ridiculous and – frankly – offensive. And it’s going to get him punched in the big, stupid face one of these days. Second – for the sake of argument let’s say that it IS my job. That I don’t work full-time and drive just as far, and get the kids ready in the morning and drop them off and arrange any necessary childcare and pick them up at the end of the day and do 90% of the grocery shopping (and 100% of any other shopping) and 90% of the cooking and 99.9% of the cleaning and 100% of the doctor’s appointments and 90% of the dealing with the kids. It’s MY job to clean the kitchen and he did me a huge favor and took it off my hands one night. You know, if the kitchen had no counters, floors, refrigerator, table or food. But those dishes got into the dishwasher in an amazing fashion. And he did it all FOR ME.

And because of that, I should overlook the fact that he leaves dishes and cups all over the place (including outside), and every single time he opens a bottle of beer, the bottle caps end up on the counter, on the floor, on the coffee table, on the couch, but never, EVER in the garbage. And that he never puts his clean laundry away (and then bitches about how we need to get the laundry put way – yes – that would be the “royal we”). And that he leaves his underwear on the bathroom floor every day. No exaggeration - EVERY SINGLE MOTHERFUCKING DAY.

You;de think that living like a prince, he might not be a complete fucking asswad, but you would be wrong. He gets so stressed out by the kids and I find myself getting stressed out. Because even when they aren’t irritating me, I am trying to keep them from irritating him. No one wants that. Because once he’s irritated, hoo-boy. There’s no in-between with him. It’s zero to Psycho in 0.3 seconds. And the distinguishing factor in getting there is HIM. His comfort, his convenience. The kids can be burning the house down around him, but as long as no one is interfering with his tv-watching or internet car shopping research, then all is fine. But let one of them get too noisy so he can’t hear, or ask him for some root beer, or anything else that interferes with his doing nothing and watch out. He screams and barks and is hateful.

Funny, though, if the kids are carrying on I yell at them – I get yelled at too. Even if they are doing something that could result in injury or damage. Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that something interrupted his hockey game (or whatever) and by god, that shall not happen! So he screams things like, “I am sick of all the screaming (oh irony)” and “I can’t ever just relax (what is this thing relax?)”

We saw a counselor for a while and it helped a bit. I was fully prepared to take some responsibility for our problems. But as it turned out, she backed me up about a zillion percent. Not that I am perfect and don’t do anything wrong, but she agreed with me that that kind of shit is NOT acceptable. It’s demeaning to me – putting me in the same category as the kids (aka his subordinates). It’s not supportive. It reduces my authority in their eyes. And it hurts. Which makes me want to hurt him. Badly.

Sh backed me up on so many things, and she got to witness the way he turns everything around. He likes to play the “you can’t be madder at me than I am at you” game. As in – if I try to bring something up to him – no matter how calmly and kindly and using “I statement”, he gets more angry than I am or could possibly be and then I am afraid and then it stops. Not physically afraid, but just not wanting to deal. Because he is louder and meaner and I was beaten down psychologically for years by my mother and it sends me right back there. So he gets mad and clams up and refuses to be an adult, and then convinces himself that if he is mad, there must be some reason, then gets all self righteous about it and then holds a grudge and then gives the silent treatment. So then because he’s mad, I have to get on with life, because life goes on, and he gets to go back to doing nothing only now with an attitude and convinced of his terrible plight of having a nagging harpy wife. And guess what? He never had to answer the question of why he left the spilled coffee on the counter, or whatever.

He pulled this shit right in front of her and she stopped him and pointed it out and the sad thing? I didn’t even notice it. He’s trained me not to. The other thing he does is resort to the “well you’re not perfect” defense. LOVE that. I know I’m not perfect. Far from it. But we’re not talking about that right now.

He needs medication. He was one something for a while years ago and it helped a lot. But then, being all-knowing, he decided he didn’t need it anymore and stopped. And we all suffered. For years. I tried to talk to him about going on it again, but he refused. He didn’t need it. He’s fine. I even tried to frame it as it not being a personality thing, but as a survivor of a devastating and crippling accident – it’s natural to be depressed (by which I meant “raging asshole”) But I got, Who am I to talk. I need something.

When we were seeing the counselor, she told him e needed something, too, and he finally went and got a prescription. But he’d run out and not get a refill. And then he’d finally get one and run out again. And eventually he just quit. And I don’t know if I have the energy to try again. We had to stop seeing the counselor because the insurance wasn’t covering her and it was expensive. So now we’re back to where we were – him being and asshole, me wavering between wanting to kill him and wanting to walk out. Hi not understand why I am not interested in sex. Me being less interested in sex than in cooking and eating my own foot.

I want it to work – I really do. And the thought of divorce makes me sick. But I also know that I probably made a mistake way back when. That if we hadn’t jumped in with both feet and started immediately living together that it would have been easier to leave a long time ago. That we probably wouldn’t have stuck with it, because it’s easier to walk away from what you have little investment in. But we did jump in and I did stay and we did get married and I really do want to make it work. But god it’s so hard.

There’s so much more to say, but it’s late and I’m tired and I have to get up tomorrow and start all over again.

Burning Questions

Why is it that I end up bitching and berating myself every Sunday for “not getting anything done”, when in fact, between Friday and Monday, I:

1. attended a political rally

2. went shopping for a birthday gift

3. stopped at the card store for a group card/gift that somehow I – the one with the longest days and commute – ended up being responsible for

4. spent 3 hours decorating for a banquet, including lifting/carrying/assembling large, heavy objects

5. prepared two breakfasts, two lunches and two dinners for four people

6. went grocery shopping

7. put the groceries away (the part I hate)

8. did some minor housecleaning

9. wrapped presents

10. gathered signatures on the aforementioned group card/gift

11. printed photos said gift

12. took the girl to a birthday party, and

13. did five loads of laundry

Meanwhile, my husband doesn’t seem to be at all bothered by the fact that he did almost nothing to reduce the giant pile of renovations that need to be finished. Sure, he hung some Roman shades, and that was apparently enough work to require him to do a lot of resting.

I guess I should giver him credit for getting up off his ass (after I called and warned him I was on my way) and helped carry in the groceries. It would have been nicer if he hadn’t gone immediately back to the couch where he had been laying while I put them all away.

And the rousing, snoring napfest while I cook dinner is always a lot of fun, too.

And why can’t he think once in a while and anticipate things. Like if I am at the store, I might come home with bags that need to be carried. Or that if I am not home and the boy is at a friends, that perhaps he should keep the phone handy in case anyone calls. You know, instead of heading into the basement for hours with the phone way upstairs out of hearing range so the friend’s mom has top call and call and call at exactly the time she said she would call before bringing him home, causing her to worry that no one was there and screwing up her schedule. You know – stuff like that.

And I wonder why he can’t take the kids nonsense for more than 5 minutes. As long as everyone is behaving – fine. But when they act up, as kids do, all it takes is five minutes and he’s either screaming or giving in to something he should not. Like he’s the only person in the place who gets irritated. He’s also the only one who hates traffic, gets frustrated with crowds and is annoyed by slow service. Or at least he thinks he is. He doesn’t seem to understand that we are ALL affected by such thing, but the rest of us choose not to act like big babies and just fucking deal with it.

And the “giving in” thing? Will end on one of our deaths one day (I’ll leave that up to you to guess whose). Because I don’t like to hear the whining and crying and begging and pleading, wither. But I can far more easily ignore it, take the child into her room (repeatedly) and hold fast. Not him. He can’t ignore it, because the noise is interfering with his hockey-viewing pleasure. And taking her to her room would require him to get up off his ass and also walk away from the game. So, first he tries screaming, which makes everyone in the house who is not a four year old girl nervous and anxious about the impending volcanic eruption of misery (and just pisses off the four year old), and then eventually he just gives her what she wants, thus rewarding her asshole behavior and training her to do it more. Which, of course makes it hard for me – primary caregiver (though equally working outside of the home). I love that.

He’s also training his 11 year old son to leave his clothes all over the bathroom every morning. That’s fun, too.

Ok, I’m done.

And I know you are sick of hearing about Jane, but I have one more thing. We had the banquet on Saturday and afterwards we were cleaning everything up and Satan – I mean Jane – was gathering up all the centerpieces, which where blue/yellow gift bags with a few latex balloons tied to each. So, I started gathering them up and we wee taking the weight bottles out of each and she started folding up the bags with the balloons still attached and stacking them. And the girl comes up and asks if she can have a balloon. I kind of tried to brush her off, since I know Satan, but she cut one and gave it to her and then she gave one to a little boy, too (they were the two youngest). But then another of the younger kids came and asked and she sort of muttered, “I knew this was going to happen”. She gave out a couple more, but then she gathered them up and took them into the kitchen and put them way back in the corner – out of sight. Now what in the holy blue fuck was she going to do with those balloons??? I mean – they’re latex – they’ll be on the floor tomorrow! It’s not like she paid for them – they came out of the “fund” (which we had to sell hoagies to replenish, because the money seemed to disappear into thin air), so seriously - WTF? I personally, would have been hading them out to all the kids – one – kids get a kick out of a damned balloon, and two – it would be one less thing for me to clean up/throw away, etc. Why can’t I stop saying WTF???

Jane the Stupid

While I'm on the topic of Jane, I thought I'd share with you a few examples of how clueless she is:

Since her husband is the pack leader (or something like that - he’s not the den leader, thank god or nothing would ever get done, but he runs the pack finances, quite poorly, I might add, and handles the re-charters and registrations, etc) - she has pretty much been able to take charge of whatever she wants. And for the past four years, she had made the programs for the yearly banquets. And in every single one of those programs, "wolves" has been misspelled. Wolves. Not antidisestablishmentarianism. WOLVES.


She used to run the PTA fundraiser every year and the kids can earn prizes for selling. One year, instead of the usual crap, it was nice school merchandise – hats, shirts, bags, etc that would be embroidered with the school name and mascot. Once the orders were turned in, she had to submit the school name and choose from their huge library of mascots. Our school mascot is a cougar. But when the boy’s shirt and hat arrived, they looked like this:



That, my friends, is a bobcat.


At one time, my husband coached a soccer team – not because he is remotely interested in soccer, but because there was no coach and the boy wouldn’t have gotten to play if no one had stepped up. So we did it one year and I had a little season-end party at the Dairy Queen with treat bags and trophies and ice cream, and the kids loved it. I was new to the evil sports parent phenomenon, though and didn’t’ realize that Jane was seething because she wasn’t in charge (though she had ample chance to step up and take care of the team before we did).

The next year, we had the team again, and I was pregnant. Jane and a minion decided that my pregnancy was ample reason to hijack the end of season stuff. So when I started letting folks know what I was planning, she informed me that they had already done everything – planned the party, ordered trophies, etc. I was a little pissed, but I let it go because it wasn’t worth it. And when the trophies were handed out? Two of the kids’ names were misspelled.

Those are just a few of many.

We recently had a scout meeting rescheduled to a Friday and we missed it due to a complete brain fart. And did we ever pick the one to miss. We went last night and found out that it was all drama all the time.

It seems that one of the moms (we’ll call her Kathy) brought her son (and daughter came along too) and she appeared to be drunk. She was slurring and acting all friendly in that drunk BFF kind of way. And understandably, the others were concerned about her driving in that condition.

Anyone who knows me knows that I hateHateHATE druk drivers, so I agree with their concern. What I don’t agree with, however, is the way they dealt with it. Now, by “they”, I feel I should tell you that I am referring to one woman in particular (we’ll call her Jane). She’s the epitome of (to me, anyway) the evil PTA mom. She’s mean and judgmental (and not in the normal way people judge other people – in that evil, I am better than you way) and she take pleasure from other people’s misfortune. And while we all love a little gossip now and then, she is one of those gossip-mongers that devour rumors the way I devour chocolate.

Anyway, back to the meeting. If I had been there, as uncomfortable as it would have been, I would have approached her and told her I thought she had been drinking and asked to drive her home. She may have refused or gotten upset, but it would have been (to me) the right thing to do. Maybe then, I’d try to reach her husband or something. And if that didn’t work, then stronger action may have been required. But I wasn’t there. Instead, Jane decided that the prudent thing to do would be to call the police. I am not sure exactly what happened when the police arrived (I didn’t get the whole ending of the story), but apparently, she took a breathalyzer and failed miserably (and also had a mixed drink in a container in her bag). Being a big fish in an asshole-infested small town, the cop shard this information with Jane, which appalls me. He also shared that Kathy told him that she was having marital problems and that was why she was turning to alcohol. Again – appalling that this information would be shared.

So now – after the fact, Jane is congratulating herself on caring so much for the kids that she saved their lives. And I agree – some of it was concern for the kids, but I guarantee that she enjoyed calling the cops more than anything else. You see, Kathy is a bit “different”. She dresses a little outrageously – biker-ish, short skirts, lots of kooky hats, wild boots, etc. I guess certain people would call it a little bit trashy. And I’m sure that Jane felt superior to her because of this. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve sometimes looked at her outfits and thought, WTF? But it was never – to me – a statement to her character. I have always liked her. And I just don’t know that Jane would have been so quick to call the cops if it had been anyone else. And as for the kids, I imagine that (at least making an attempt at) handling it quietly would show more concern for the kids than having the police come for their mother right in front of them.

And I know that I am making a judgment by saying that, but the entire time that Jane was talking about the incident, 10% of what she had to say was about drinking and driving. The other 90% was about everything else – her personality, the way she raises her children, what she wears. She said more than once, “she was wearing that cowboy hat – taking it on and off” and that when the cop asked if he would recognize Kathy, Jane’s response was “Recognize her? Of course you’ll recognize her. She’s the only one wearing a cowboy hat!, as if “cowboy hat” is synonymous with “bloody chainsaw”.

I’m not condoning Kathy’s behavior – far from it. But it seems pretty clear to me that this is a woman who needs some help and support. And since this happened in a group of people that have been together in scouts for quite a few years, I think it’s a shame that she got none.

A Constance is Born

Ok, so the one thing I really miss about the old place is the ability to lock up single entries. I’m pretty open on my blog, because I don’t really have anyone reading that shouldn’t be (no husband, family, etc). but it’s a constant worry that someone will find it, so I always used to lock up any entries in which I talked about anyone who wasn’t “my domain”, meaning friend and family, or anyone who wasn’t easily generic-ized. I often write things that people might not want to read, but if it was unlocked and someone did read it, it; wouldn’t be the end of the world. I’m pretty forward and outspoken about my feelings, so generally, it was nothing I wouldn’t say to anyone’s face. But if what I wanted to say could really hurt someone (whether the person I was writing about or someone else indirectly), I locked it up.

Sometimes I find myself being unable to update because there is something that I want to get off my chest but can’t because of the “locking” issue, thus a new Constance is born.

More soon…