Mamarati

So, I did something recently that I’m feeling rather strange about. I quit school, basically.

I’m this close to the end and I threw up my hands and said, “I can’t do this any more.”

There are a number of reasons why I did it. It’s actually been something I’ve been thinking about doing since I fell off the roof. I mean, what better time to take care of myself than then? But instead, I did not do that. I took it a little bit slower, but basically kept plowing through. And then all these things started happening with Jacob and the surgeries and the changes in his diet and on and on happened… things I did not forsee. And so, for the last year or so, I think I have been slowly losing my mind.

I mean, there have been actual moments where I have questioned my sanity. Where I felt like I was close to a nervous breakdown or something. I just felt pulled so tight all the time and the only logical next step was to snap. And all the while I was doing that thing… that superwoman thing where you tell yourself that you’ve got your shit together and you can do anything you put your mind to and all that other bullshit that really just means you can be all things to all people but you won’t be worth a damn to yourself.

So, no. I cannot be all things to all people. I cannot handle all this stuff on my plate. I cannot do it all. For now, I have got to focus on my family, my work, my relationships and myself. I wrote to my adviser and let her know I was losing my mind dealing with everything and talked a bit about the stuff going on with Jacob (more on that later, it’s all getting weird with doctors and such) and she was cool and agreed that I need to focus on family stuff. School will be there whenever I’m ready to go back.

The other thing is work. I feel like… Due to the flexible nature of my job, I feel like there have been times when I have given it my all and really thrown myself into it. And I enjoy those times more than anything. But then when things come up like they have lately, I feel like my work suffers greatly. It’s the thing that can bend the most, so I let it absorb the shock of any trauma or stress in my life. I’m lucky to have such a job. But I really miss working. School was not allowing me much room for that. And it’s like, for years I’ve been trying to finish school and something always happens that cuts into it. But still, I keep chasing down this thing that I want to be. This future occupation or career or whatever. And suddenly, I’m like, “Why?” Why do I keep chasing down something else when what I really love to do is what I’m already doing? If I’d just DO IT already. Like, if I would just go on and really give myself to it…

I had the fortune to go to an event recently that was for other folks who do the same thing I do… actually two events. One was specifically for folks that work at About.com and the other was for mommy bloggers. And I talked to other folks who felt the same way I did. Folks who may also have other jobs and maybe right now they are asking themselves if they are ready to take the plunge and do it full time. Leave the day job behind and just do THIS. I talked to some people who had already taken the plunge and they talked about how scary it was to finally realize that they were writers and that they didn’t have paychecks that were written in stone but that if they dedicated themselves to it, they would make it just fine and maybe even be more than just fine. I talked to moms who were contemplating never going back to corporate America in favor of staying home with their kids and blogging their lives and interests. There are sacrifices to be made, for sure… trade-offs. But I think they might be worth it.

And I’m feeling so many things right now… Anxiety. Fear. Excitement.

But mostly I’m feeling this amazing sense of relief. Like this huge burden has been lifted and the pressure is gone. I feel refreshed. I’m sleeping better. I’m thinking more clearly. I don’t feel like I’m running around in a fog. I don’t feel like a time bomb about to go off. I feel like I can finally relax for a moment and maybe even enjoy a few parts of my life. Even though there are still stressful things going on and there’s still that element of chaos, I feel like I can handle it now.

Well, something has gone wrong in the date keeping area of my brain. And it’s been going wrong since I gave up the use of my DayRunner. Actually, when I was using my Mac exclusively, I had iCal and there’s this thing about a Mac… it’s much like opening a book. When you open it, everything is visible and working in just seconds, so it’s like having a paper calendar. That worked for me.

On Windows, not so much. Back in the 90s, I tried to get used to using the Outlook calendar and others. But when you want a quick reminder of what’s on your To Do list and your computer is asleep, it’s a much bigger fiasco. There’s more chugging and churning and time passes so slowly. Like a watched pot that never boils, so were those systems on Windows trying to awake from sleep and open programs without giving a blue screen of death.

So, I ditched any Windows-based calendars and stuck to the devil I knew, which was my DayRunner, classic edition, one page per day.

When I got my iBook a few years ago, iCal took the place of my DayRunner quite nicely.

Then I fell off the roof and had to get the Windows Vista so I could do accurate speech recognition / handwriting recognition. Since I was functioning at a bare minimum anyway during the months and months of recovery, a calendar really didn’t do much for me. I wasn’t making any appointments, going to any meetings, driving. I had to depend on everyone else around me for my scheduling needs.

Now that things are back to normalish and I’m needing to be more productive (I’m back in school full time and working as full time as possible, doing the normal mom things) I’m finding that I can’t seem to get my ducks in a row. My system has been all jacked up and all my habits broken (both good and bad) by the time I spent on bedrest.

In writing all this out, I’m wondering why I feel the need to justify or rationalize my decision to buy a DayRunner refill. Do I feel guilty because I like paper? Do I feel like it’s an oddity since I’m such a computer nerd and yet I crave hard copies of parts of my life? I’m not sure, but I just know that this is not the year for me to be unproductive. This is the year I get it all done.

On top of that, after some hemming and hawing and much complaining about the way Vista behaves and after counting in my head all the hours that are wasted on extra clicks, clicks, clicks, clicks… After realizing that my system is loaded with more RAM than Vista can even handle and has way fast processors and still it is just so slow and clunky… After thinking about all the ways Vista is not intuitive and after way too many times thinking in my head, “If I were on my Mac, I would just do x, y or z and this whole thing would be overwith, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO here I am still waiting on Vista,” or, “Why did Vista just do that? I did not tell it to do that. I did not tell it to reorganize my desktop icons or save that file there.” I decided to just break down and buy a MacBook.

So, I look forward to joining the ranks of the productive again. Some time around the 14th, I will be there. Until then, I will continue to curse, throw my hands in the air, bang my head on the keyboard and sigh exasperatedly at this piece of crap machine.

In other news, I did not take many pictures at Camp Baby. I was too busy talking and well, I was just tired the whole time I was there. I did manage to snap this shot, confirming that I am the master of Wii Bowling and that Heather is a looooooser. Actually, I’m not that great at bowling on the Wii. Jacob is way better and beats me all the time. Somehow on this night, however, I managed to get like 5 or 6 strikes in a row. Odd.

Also, the lasagna of last night… I really love the food saver machine. I really am contemplating doing more bulk cooking. This will probably be doubleplusgood when the new computer gets here since nightly cooking tends to break into my most productive work hours. I’m on a roll between 4 and 6 — in that hyperfocused zone, you know?

lots of stuff going on as usual. I can barely find the time to think. I’m so friggin’ tired. Basically, though:

• flus and colds at both houses
• MRSA at the ex’s house so J was with me without a break for weeks
• hurt my thumb and couldn’t type for a few days
• stomach ailment requiring multiple poo samples from J
• five or six days ? out of school in the last few weeks for J
• stray orange cat gave birth to three kittens either premature or just way too small and two didn’t make it
• the one that made it cries all night and has a hard time finding a nipple and she doesn’t want to take care of it

I am exhausted and behind in school, behind with where I want to be workwise, haven’t been in the mood for any good lovin’ and I’m just generally worn out and grumpy. Having the kittens and worrying about them making it has been stressful. One of them could just not find the nipple at all and had such a weak suck. I think it must have gotten a chill since the mom cat kept leaving them at first. I was worried that she had another one in there.

She literally gave birth to one on the couch sitting between me and my boyfriend and if I hadn’t looked down and seen it I wouldn’t have even known. That was Thursday night. She didn’t have the other two until Sunday!! The whole time inbetween she was acting crazy and was glued to my side, meowing over and over and over. I felt so bad for her although she didn’t seem to be in pain. She was just doing that “talking” meow or that meow they do when you’re getting canned food ready. I’d say something to her and she’d just meow back again and keep meowing at me.

There are not enough hours in the day for all this stuff sometimes.

I will write more later (famous last words) but right now I’ve got to get the rest of my reading done and post some stuff for a group project. My saving grace is that J’s stepmom isn’t working in an office this week and she’s offered to pick him up every day from school this week, so I’m going to blow it out and get caught up. Yay! I’d feel bad about not seeing him except he’s been over here so much with the MRSA stuff being over there, so I know he misses being over there and misses his sister, especially. No guilt. That’s my new mantra. Or credo. Or mission statement. Whatever.

No guilt. I’m tired of guilt for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nothing I do is that friggin’ bad.

I have a lot of reading this semester. I’m only going to be able to see about an inch in front of my face when this is all over. I have to remember to look away. Focus. All those eye exercises you’re supposed to do when you’re on the computer and read too much.

I don’t have much time to make a long post, but let me get some random thoughts out of my head…

There’s been a flu outbreak over at J’s Dad’s house. This is on top of the MRSA that his dad has. I’m not kidding. MRSA.

So, J has been over here hopefully waiting it out. He was sick last week, but it was mainly just sniffles and snot and a headache. He’s about 99 percent better now, so I’m hoping that he will avoid this flu. We’ve had enough illness. Of course, as soon as it’s done over there, J will pick it up at school and then it will go around here. That would be about the Murphy’s Law way, no?

I’m still cold. We figured out the science behind relative humidity and the fact that there is no humidity in this house, relative or otherwise. Now we just have to settle on a humidifier, which we haven’t done. I almost burned up a pot boiling water and of course that’s a huge electricity waster. But that was experimental anyway. We just wanted to see if it would actually make me feel any warmer without changing the thermostat and it did. Bonus: No nosebleeds in a week and my eyeballs don’t feel like crunchy little cheese puff balls. Bad news: Until we purchase a humidifier, I continue to feel frozen and miserable.

I think the stray orange cat that has been hanging around is pregnant. She seemed to be entertaining some noisy suitors in the last couple of weeks and now she’s puking every day and is in love mode 24 / 7. I wish I’d taken her to the SPCA or something, but I kept holding out hope that the neighbors who may or may not be her owners would step up to the plate. I don’t know why I thought this, though, because they don’t even have electricity or running water half the time. Why do I think they can take care of a cat? I just really try to have faith in people when given the chance.

Plus, around here, it’s like cat central. And I never know who owns any cat. Except Hopper because he actually wears his tags and I’ve met his people. But the other cats in the neighborhood roam free and tagless and I never see them emerging from any home or hanging out at any particular place regularly. Truth be told, they all hang out here. So, it’s hard to just say, OK, you’re going to the SPCA so you can go to a good home instead of roaming around here catch as catch can. But like, the grey guy that was hanging around all last year… I thought he was a stray maybe and there were several times I thought about taking him in. Come to find out, he belongs like 10 houses down and around a corner along with 2 other grey cats just like him. I’m glad I didn’t take him.

I have taken a few though, and they’ve all originated from that one cursed house. Just like I believe this orange one did.

More later, I need to go get the boy and mail some of my Amazon stuff off.

Mental note to self, talk about Jacob taking the personality test. Nuts. Completely nuts.

I think I’m just not going to hold it in this semester. I’m going to just go ahead and make all my complaints known here and then when I graduate, I’m going to bundle them all up and send it to the Blackboard folks and let them do what they will.

Design is not an easy thing. I understand this. But since I’m on the outside looking in, I get to vent. Ha.

I really wish that you could override your professor’s preferences for the look and feel of a course. I would rather set my own colors, fonts, spacing and other preferences.

I would also like it if the message boards had different views available. I think that the view I’d like, where it’s kind of like a big FARK thread — all on one page — kind of works but if you read it like that I believe it doesn’t count you as “attending” the class or whatever. Like it can’t count your page views in the same way. Which, of course, would be ridiculously stupid, since I am indeed reading all the posts.

Also, in the message boards if you click into a thread you have the option to go to the “next thread.” Unless the thread you’re in has a reply. If you click “next post,” then the “next thread” option goes away and you can only see the replies and then when you’re at the last reply in that thread, you have to hit “OK” to go allllll the way back to the discussion list to see ALLLLLLLLL the discussions. Click. Click… Clickity Click. I’m going to have carpal tunnel syndrome when this is all over. If you click on the link of the replies, however, it will leave the “next thread” link. I don’t understand why. I mean, I would assume using the navigation links would be preferable. But no.

Oh, and speaking of the discussion list… the messages are jammed so close together and the “unread posts” number is so far from the titles of the threads… so I can’t easily see which threads I need to click click click click into. It would help if there were alternating highlights / colors on the titles so you can see what lines go where.

Also, the message composition window takes about a hundred years to load every time. And I’m on a very fast connection with a very fast computer. I feel sorry for anyone out in the sticks on dial-up or on an old machine.

I think that’s all the complaining I have to do today.

I really really dislike the click click clickiness of Blackboard.

It’s unorganized.

It’s not intuitive.

It’s inconsistent.

It’s framey.

It wastes my very valuable time. And isn’t the point of taking online classes often to save time? Isn’t it usually the method of choice for the person who already has irons in the fire???

I really really really dislike it.

Frames.

UGH!!!!!

Blackboard and Windows Vista should get married. They have so much in common.

So I’m doin’ real nice with this writing every day thing, huh?

Noooooooo.

Let’s see what my excuses are…

On 11/5, which was what? Monday? I was working on school stuff and then I had to make crazy allergy jelly (recipe) and then I had to make a roast (recipe) and then I had to make bread (recipe) and collard greens (recipe) which take forever to clean and remove the stems and such.

And then I was tired, but I started watching this show about children in India who are born to mothers in brothels and I couldn’t stop watching that…

But my boyfriend went to bed early and so I couldn’t get to my computer to write…

And… yeah. All that.

Then on 11/6, which was yesterday. I was working on more school stuff and researching how to dry fruit when you don’t have a dehydrator and then I was cold so I went to take a bath and after that I started watching this documentary about Scrabble nerds and fell asleep during that.

Which brings me to today.

Oh, but look, I’ve written today. How nice.

See you tomorrow.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Why is the pot pie meal at Boston Market $4.99?

Is the pie tin lined with gold or something?

And when did Country Crock decide to make side dishes like potatoes? When the war on trans fat began?

I guess you have to diversify when your bread and butter (haha) is under fire.

I’ve been reading a lot for school and I have just not wanted to write too much.

And I hate that because I really do have things to say.

First, let me say this… I give up on dieting. I cannot do it. I like food so damn much.

It’s torture.

I’m not that fat. I have to stop trying to be this girl I’m not.

Why do I think I have to be that girl???

More later. I mean it this time.

I need a change in strategy here for parenting.

I really do.

It’s not that things are bad right now… They really aren’t. Jacob is doing well in school and we’re fine…

But it’s me.

And he is starting to cross into this… independent place. I can see it. It’s funny, though. On the one hand he does things that remind me of a 2-year-old, and the next he’s showing maturity more his age or beyond. He’s still got some of the little kid in him, but it’s vanishing quickly.

So, I need to allow this transition to take place and I need to be the calm one around here.

I know this because I did it before and it worked. I had some happy days in there.

Keyword being I.

ME.

I did it before because I’d read this book and I got all fired up. It was ScreamFree Parenting.

Truly one of the best books I’ve ever read with very sound logic and it’s like every page is a lightbulb moment for me.

Then there’s bridging the gap between practice and theory. I didn’t do so well putting it into practice. I mean, I did. For a while. But then I stopped.

So I’ve got to start again.

Because I need to focus on me and Jacob needs to focus on Jacob. I’m about to be very busy with school and work. And I want to be able to focus on those things because they are important to the future of this family. To ME.

So, I’m reading it again.

And I’m starting again.

New Year.

New habits. Old habits going away. Fresh start. All that stuff… good things.

Very good things…

Today, I got a lot of stuff done. A lot of stuff that I have been meaning to do forever. And of course, because I did all that, I decided that I should start a new project, that is bigger than anything I have done before.

Because I’m about to start school (have I mentioned the 17 hours? I’m sure I have at least 17hundred times, no?) and I will just have all the time in the world for new work projects.

What am I thinking?

It’s just such a good idea.

In other news, the boyfriend and I just went and bought a new bed. The old bed sucks so bad, it’s like this antique size that you have to have special made and of course that costs more than a house. So, the bed-buying thing was freaking me out… I mean, it’s not like buying an mp3 player or something where you can go online and find out what a bajillion people think is the best one and there isn’t an army of bed nerds on here doing a point-by-point review of every mattress that has ever existed…

There’s not that. Just a bunch of crap about how many coils you should get and to avoid lots of toxic materials and whatnot.

It was worse than buying a bathing suit.

Until we went to the little ole family mattress joint up the road… and then things got really easy. These guys have been in business for a long time. They didn’t give us any crap or put any pressure on us… just told us which beds sell well and then told us to go lay on them all.

So we ended up getting this Simmon’s BeautyRest bit with a pillow top… it’s soft because of that, but then underneath it feels all firm, like it’s not going to give way too much and be saggy in spots or anything like that.

All in all we spent like $600 bucks (half of which was a Christmas present from boyfriend’s dad) and it’s the same mattress that Sears and all those corporate type stores are selling for twice as much (or more).

I feel fine.

Well, actually I don’t feel fine yet, because the mattress isn’t going to be here until Thursday… but I feel good about the decision at least and it was a lot less painful than I thought it was going to be. I was bracing myself for a full-on nervous breakdown.

We went to Taco Bueno and had celebratory tacos.

[protect]

Then David and Brandon came over and had drinks and played Scrabble and the Wii.

And of course because I was tipsy I wanted to have that fun, uninhibited kind of lovin’ with boyfriend later… you know, the kind of lovin’ that comes when vodka makes me forget what all my flabby parts look like hangin’ in the breeze…

Good stuff.

More in a bit, need to get Jacob into bed. He came home sick from school today and he’s so stuffed up. Not so stuffed up that he can’t play Grand Turismo, however. But definitely enough to miss school.

[/protect]

I find it really hard to type when my hands are so cold. I’m going to have to get gloves and cut the fingers off or something.

Why am I always so damn cold?

I am trying out Qumana. It’s not a drug or herbal supplement to help raise your metabolism so that your body generates more heat. No.

It is an offline blogging doohickey. It doesn’t work with the new version of blogger, however, so I will have to wait to use it here. They’ve got to figure out the bug and get a new version up or something like that. I’ll wait.

It works with my wordpress blogs at work, though, so I kinda like it. I can just save a bunch of crap that I haven’t fleshed out completely and come back to it later instead of letting it hand in my mail folder, which is kind of like a dead letter box at the post office. I might as well rename my “do something” folder “do nothing.”

I procrastinate.

I think that school will help this. I’m taking 17 hours this semester, and it seems like the more shit I have to do, the more shit I actually get done in all areas of my life, no matter how frazzled I may seem.

I’m looking forward to it.

We went out of town to visit my boyfriend’s family and were away from home for like 20 days or something. I didn’t work much of those 20 days. I am about to feel it in my paycheck.

I know Will must have some gloves around here that I can alter.

I’m going to go look for those and then I will be back…

I keep having this hope that I’m going to be in the mood to sit down and recap everything that’s been going on in my life.

But I have officially given up that hope and am just going to move forward.

I’m such a slacker.

I feel good this morning.

That is something I do want to talk about. I’ve spent a few months waking up and already having a headache, backache, neckache, general feeling of tiredness and whathaveyou… and I think the new pillow and getting some good sleep have helped a lot.

I think I also needed a vacation. Or more like, I really needed boyfriend to have a vacation with me. Like, we used to do a lot of tromping and stuff, and we haven’t done much of that because it’s been hot or we’ve been broke or just whatever… and it really feels good for us to have some time off and just go somewhere where we don’t have to worry about the house or work or anything like that.

Other reasons I’m feeling good:

Jacob is happy, despite some of his trouble at school and at his dad’s… he seems resigned to his current fate and I can see he is struggling to accept responsibility for all of these things. It’s supposed to be a struggle though, no?

Boyfriend and I are doing great… it’s two years now that we’ve been together and it just gets better every day. I worry less and less about all the stupid things about my body and my general personality not being acceptable to him and just all those insecure things that I’ve harbored for so long inside me… I feel like I’ve found my match in life, where I can be myself and not try to be anything else and it really does give me this feeling of completeness.

The election. How awesome was that? I have this little feeling of hope inside now and it’s a good thing.

The Wii is exciting and fun to have around. It’s kind of a good workout. Much more involving and physically engaging than other game systems that just make me feel like a couch potato.

School is about to start and I’m excited about that. I’m excited about it like I haven’t been in a couple of years. For once, I feel like my direction is spot on. I feel like I’m following a dream I’ve had since I was a child and instead of feeling ridiculous about it, I feel great. I just got off the phone with the financial aid office and my tuition is covered as well as books for 17 hours and that’s such a relief to already have that handled. I can’t wait for it to start, and of course, for it to finally be over… I’ve been chasing this piece of paper down for so long.

Work. Work is still work, and I got a raise of sorts, so that’s good. Every little bit counts there.

Speaking of which, that’s what I need to be doing right now.

I have no idea where my cord is. Damnation. My camera cord, that is. I took some pictures recently and I know there was one that I wanted to get on here.

I will worry about it later.

I am going to have to get up and get my little blog-about cheat sheet…. but the cat is so cozy right next to me and I am all wrapped up burrito style in my fish blanket…

Maybe I can get the boyfriend to go in there and get it for me. He’s up doing laundry anyway.

That or in 11 minutes when my battery is out and I have to get the power cord, I will get it.

I heard a cute exchange between two kids about 5 and 6 today at Lowe’s. The boy says, “Aren’t these things supposed to be in the jungle?”

The girl: “What are you talking about?”

The boy: “These chimpanzees.”

The girl, rolling her eyes in the most exasperated girly way: “They’re called pansies not chimpanzees!”

I just thought that was too cute.

I also saw a cute exchange between a girl and her grandma in the bathroom… it was like a freezer in there and the girl was telling her grandma to stand under the vent to feel how cold it was and she was so enthusiastic about it (the grandma) and hooping and hollaring standing under it. Then the little girl was using the hand dryer and making her hair do crazy things and the grandma was just laughing at her, like serious belly laughing. And then they trotted off together arm in arm to find grandpa and look at cabinets.

It was really sweet.

I miss that I didn’t have ties like this to family ever. A little with my grandma when I was very young… she would take me to garage sales and I had a lot of fun at her house, but then…

nothing. Nothing really after about the age of 7 or 8.

OK, had to get up to get my cord, so got my cheat sheet…

Not in any specific order…

We got a TV. I would link to it, but I really don’t know the specifics of it like say… the boyfriend might. He’s been researching this TV forever. It was like 3 grand or something the first time I think he showed it to me and he’s been threatening to buy it for a while. If it ever got below a thousand dollars, he said he’d buy it.

So we’re sitting here on a Saturday morning and he’s going through the sales flyers and low and behold, he announces that we have to go to Fry’s because the TV is $999. (Well that is below a thousand, right?)

I am beside myself with anguish. Oh what horror. Fry’s. I hate going there, please don’t subject me to that trauma, I say.

No, that is not at all what I say. I say something more like, let me just call David and get some clothes on and I’ll meet you at the car.

I love Fry’s. They have much fun geek stuff there and it is like a very special field trip. We’ve been going to a fancy one lately that has coffee, so that’s even more of a bonus.

So, then we discover that it’s cheaper at Best Buy, so we decide to go there. We go to one near our house, but they only have the display model, so we have them look at another one and they find one that is reported to have two in stock so we head there. The two they have in stock are also floor models, so we head to yet another, after confirming that they have one in the damn box.

We waste some time sitting in massage chairs, first, though.

Then we get to the third one and low and behold, it is there, in a box, fresh and shiny and new and waiting for us.

We have it hauled out to the car and find that it won’t fit in the back of the Outback. They cut the top of the box off and it goes in. Boyfriend drives and David rides in the front and I have to ride smooshed up against the back window. I felt like a kid again. You know, back when it was not against the law to throw your kids in the back of a station wagon…

We decide we need a cord of some sort to ensure proper installation of the TV, so we go to Fry’s anyway. I don’t care if we really need the cord or not, I’m just happy that we will be going to Fry’s after all.

We pick up the cord for way less than seems possible and I pick up Kirby Canvas Curse for the DS (which is completely awesome) and David picks up a game as well (I can’t remember what game it was that day… there are so many game buying days, aren’t there? We’re really pretty bad about that.)

We go outside and…

The car won’t start.

For real. The car that holds the 190 pound TV is sitting in the Fry’s parking lot and won’t start. And it’s hot and steamy in the car. And I’m pissed.

Here is the deal with my car. Someone who owned the car before me installed an anti-theft system. And it’s like a little code.

To start the car you have to first pull on the brights, push in the clutch and then turn the key. The brights have to be pulled the whole time this is going on. Sometimes, it trips if you don’t do it just so. It’s very finicky. Once it’s tripped, you have to reset it and try again. Resetting it is a mystery. It involves…

I’m not really sure. Sometimes you can mess with the door locks and the ignition. Sometimes you can roll the windows up and down. Sometimes you can mess with the hatch. Sometimes you can disconnect the battery. Sometimes you can say a special prayer and light a candle. Hell, I don’t really know. I mean, at one time or other, all of those things have either worked or not.

It’s like my car runs on Windows.

It’s just that evil.

So we go back into Fry’s and leave the battery disconnected (this after my boyfriend had to go back in to buy a set of sockets to even disconnect the thing in the first place) and I drink the rest of my coffee and we mess around with the massage chairs. (The massage chairs at Best Buy were way better, fyi.)

We go back out and it doesn’t start after hooking the battery back up, but then my boyfriend starts bouncing up and down on the hood and I turn the key and it starts. Yay.

I get back in my smoosh position in the wayback and off we go.

We get home and carry in the thing, which takes all three of us and my boyfriend has a good time hooking up all the wires, because that’s what he lives to do… drive fast and hook shit up…

And since then, I have had some of the best video game playing moments of my life.

And we got to watch Lost in HD this week, which would have been good, except it went so fast that I hardly had time to notice all the little things like how you can really see Kate’s freckles.

So there’s the TV story. It’s so monstrous in our little living room, but holy cow it’s a beautiful thing. I’m watching way too much TV these days.

And we’re getting a DVR because I’m all addicted to Grey’s Anatomy and Lost, of course, and now, thanks to David and a marathon where I stayed up till 5:30 in the morning watching on DVD two entire seasons that I missed: The Office.

I have even sunk so low as to buy the episodes I’ve missed this season on iTunes. I even watched all the episodes with commentary. I love this show.

It’s scary, the Dwight character… OMG, he is so my brother. My brother is just a freak who is totally not in touch with reality. I see Dwight doing stuff and I am like almost sick to my stomach with how much he is like my brother. It’s nuts. Especially since my sister and I were just going on and on about how he’s so unlike any person we’ve ever known in our lives, and how we were glad, though, because it means there aren’t other people like him out there… because that would just be truly scary.

And now, I realize, there has to be someone out there that is just like him because they’ve modeled an entire TV character after him.

I don’t want to know who that is, but I feel for all the people who are forced to interact with him.

I wish I could “expose” myself here and point you to my brother’s blog. He doesn’t know I know where it is… but you would just double over at the asinine stuff he writes in there. And he works in customer service for a computer store (not Fry’s, btw, thankfully or I would have to stop going there knowing they hired jackasses like him) and he writes about his customers in his blog like they are the lowest form of life ever.

Now, I totally get those tech support blogs that talk about the insane phone calls they get from people… but this is different. Different because he thinks he actually knows something… it’s like the highest form of hipocrisy I’ve ever seen.

Bleh. I don’t even want to get started on that. I could go on for days.

Other news… [protect]

Jacob… he’s done some funny stuff lately.

First, there was the lunch issue. He’s been on Adderall for a couple of years. There is a long entry to come about that whole issue, but I am not ready for it yet… suffice to say it will come.

At any rate, I’ve been worried about his weight for a while because it decreases his appetite and he’s such a small guy anyway. Now, I’ve taken him off the meds and wow, is he a different child. Miracle of all miracles and I’m so glad. Like I said, more about that later…

So, now he is eating like a haus and he’s tired of all the bagged lunches and loves the school food. I’m not extremely picky about what he eats, either, since he weighs like 5 pounds and you can see every rib he’s got. So if he wants to eat the school food and he will eat it (key word being WILL) then I’m all for it. So I tell him that I will put money in his account and he can eat school lunch every day. He’s excited about this.

So, there’s this system online where you can pay and it will email you when the balance reaches whatever you set. I set it at like 8 and 4 bucks. I get an email that it’s at 8 bucks… but I’m confused, because I just put 35 bucks in the account like a week ago. Then, the next day I get an email that it’s at 4 bucks.

I’m like, what the ?

So I go online to see what the deal is and I see where you can be all Big Brother like and check what your kid is eating. I look, and every day he’s got his lunch on there which is like 2 bucks and then he has alacarte [sic] which is $1.

?

What is he buying every day in addition to his lunch that is $1? It doesn’t specifically say…

So I ask him what he had for lunch that day and he’s like, pizza or burritos or chicken nuggets or whatever it was that day… and I’m like, is that it? And he’s like yeah.

So I ask him again when we get home and he confesses that it’s cookies.

But not just any cookies… these are the best cookies ever. They are crispy around the edge and soft in the middle and they’re “even better than yours” he tells me.

Nice. That’s going to win my heart and mind. That’s going to make me want to let you spend an extra dollar every day.

So I go to lunch with him that week to see about these cookies and I don’t know if you’ve ever had my cookies, but let me tell you — they are delicious. And these are not my cookies at all.

He tells me that I just came on a bad day.

Mmmhmmm. I tell him to stop buying so many damn cookies. One pack is 50 cents, and that’s as far as I’m willing to go.

So that’s settled, right?

Until he comes to me the other day with $3 of his own money and gives it to me and I’m like, what is that for? And he tells me that it’s for cookies. Because he “may have” gotten more than he was supposed to on a couple of days.

Funny.

I don’t care about the actual cookie consumption, I mean, I know he eats the rest of his food, too… it was the budgetary thing I was concerned about… so I thought it was cute that he knew to bring me some of his own money and take responsibility for that act.

Now, the online system has changed and is actually showing what they buy… I guess I wasn’t the only parent who was curious about how the funds ran out so quickly… so here’s the rundown:

09/07/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

09/08/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    CHIPS/CRACKERS - $0.50  

09/11/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/12/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    BAKED CAKE - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/13/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/14/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/15/2006         Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/18/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

09/19/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/20/2006         

    Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/25/2006      Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50  

09/27/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

09/28/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50  

09/29/2006      Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

10/02/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

10/03/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

10/04/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)

I hope the pre tag works… I have no idea if that is still compliant these days…

Ok, so then last week, he comes out of school and he’s been crying… he’s so upset and I ask him what’s wrong and he says that he has detention.

I say why, and he says that he got his name taken twice and he said something he wasn’t supposed to.

JUST GREAT, I think.

Yes, I cuss like a sailor, (I’m working on it!!!!) so, of course I’m wondering what it could have been that he said… did he say clusterfuck? bullshit? bitchass? hot diggety damn? jackass? I mean, there are so many options here… my mind is just racing.

So I say, well, let’s go talk to the teacher about this so I know just what it is that I should be concerned about…

She says that he said buttload. Buttload.

Phew. My mind is at ease. I can handle buttload.

He also constructed one of those paper popper things (learn how to make your own here: http://nerds.unl.edu/pages/sciencedemos/paper%20popper/pics.htm)

And he was popping it after the teacher had told him to stop. That peeves me way more than buttload, I have to say. Not the popper part, because those are cool and paper manipulation helps him express his creativity and further hone his fine motor skill. No, it’s the doing something after someone told you to STOP IT that I am concerned about. This is a problem we have been working on since like, the dawn of time.

I noticed that while I was talking to the teacher, she seemed to be smirking a little at telling me he said buttload. I note this and promise self to get full story from Jacob when we get in the car.

So here is how it went down…

They were taking these benchmarking tests (in math) for the oh-so-lovely TAKS and the teacher asked him how he thought he did and he said “I think I probably missed a buttload of questions.” The teacher told him that wasn’t appropriate. No big deal.

But then, later in the day, in English class, the teacher asks the kids if anyone can name a compound word. So Jacob volunteers and she calls on him and he says, of course, “buttload.” And the class busts out in riotous laughter… and she takes Jacob’s name.

I resist the urge to wet myself laughing in the car and tell him that if a teacher tells him it’s not appropriate to say, then he shouldn’t say it, blah blah blah on and on. He says he didn’t mean to say it again, but he always likes to get his hand up in the air first and then when she called on him he was on the spot and it was the only word he could think of.

He continues to cry and freak out thinking that his Dad is going to like, kill him over this, but even though his Dad can be a bit uptight sometimes, I know that he will find this very humorous.

And he does. He was cracking up. Thankfully, because Jacob was really torn up about it.

So I grounded him from his video games for 3 days and he served his detention and there you go.

Of course, it doesn’t help that he overheard all four of his teachers laughing about it in the hall because even they thought it was funny… but whatever.

Fast forward, or slow forward really, to the very next damn day… and he has detention again. (sigh)

But whatever, I mean, this is a kid who got kicked out of kindergarten three times and had detention almost every day of second grade… right? I’m trying to be optimistic…

So he doesn’t really know what it’s for, the detention… so I say, well, let’s go find out. He knew that one time his name got taken was for turning around in his desk when he wasn’t supposed to and he’d been told to face the front… so we just had to find out what the other offense was from the librarian.

So, we get to the library, and she’s all… well, ummm… you see… I really hated to do it, because I don’t generally like to give detention to kids for… umm… READING… but he was reading… and umm… he was supposed to be watching the movie.

My thoughts? Well, it is a library. And well, how about you don’t let them check out books that they are all excited about and then make them hold them on their laps while they are supposed to be watching a movie. How about check the books out after the movie? But whatever. He should have some self-control, right? So I say thanks and look at Jacob all stern like I mean it and we leave.

So I say, what was the movie about? And he’s all… it’s about the Dewey Decimal System. And I already know all that stuff and I was bored and I had a WWII book and…

Yes, nuff said. I mean, this child is no stranger to the library, right? And when I homeschooled him last year we went all over the Dewey Decimal System and he knows all the numbers and where to find everything and… so I can see his point.

But still, he should have listened to the librarian. She has a master’s degree, you know? Haha.

(I don’t have this on my list, but I need to talk about that, too… school. my school, I mean.)

So he did his detention and continued his groundenation and there was that.

I just thought it was so rich that he got a detention for reading in the library. Who does that happen to?

This is turning out to be the longest entry ever, eh?

So, one more thing about Jacob… this really pissed me off. I would have given him detention for this… Brandon comes over and he’s my Big Brother (the TV show) buddy. But he hasn’t watched the season finale yet. So we’re sitting here and Jacob is sitting with us and I’m like, OK, so you don’t want me to tell you what happens? And he’s like, NO, I don’t want to know who won because I haven’t seen it yet.

And Jacob blurts out, “Well, Mike won it.”

Just like that.

I thought I was going to smack him down. OMG. So I sent him to his room and was apologizing profusely to Brandon… ugh. I hate that. And we’ve talked about this since the dawn of time as well… about not ruining a movie or TV show for someone when you’ve already seen it. He’s turning out to be one of those talkers, and I can’t have that! You know, those people who talk all through a show or movie, who are all, where’s he going? what did she say? or when they’ve already seen it, they’re like… oh watch this it’s so funny, he says blah blah blah and then the place blows up. Or like, he’ll describe an entire movie or book by its ending. Oh, the book where the man flies off to the moon in the end and leaves the whole world behind? Is that the book you haven’t read?

I’ve got to break him of this habit or he’s gonna be “that guy.”

No one likes “that guy.”

On another note, I’m really sad that James didn’t win Big Brother. I liked him a lot. I liked his game. He was funny.

—-

I see on my notes I need to talk about Christina’s computer. She has Windows and she has also lived with a few guys throughout the life of this computer. These guys like to look at porn, and so of course, as a result, her computer is just littered with spyware and all manner of maliciousness. She brought it over for the boyfriend to fix and we’re going through and getting rid of all the crap she doesn’t need… and we find a folder on there that belongs to her ex-boyfriend… this guy lived with us when we were roomies and when my boyfriend was staying (not ever going back to his apartment) and it was like… a hell, all of us in that apartment, because he’s one of those loud, know-it-all fratdaddy types… and also because no one knew how to clean up after themselves or load a dishwasher correctly… but whatever. I digress… It really wasn’t that bad, but it was just like — not much square footage and lots of people and animals and everyone with a different schedule, etc.

So, like, I know this guy, is what I’m saying.

Or I think I do… My boyfriend opens up one of the movies just for shits and grins and it’s a dog and a woman… OMG, I about flipped out. You hear about these things, and it’s shocking enough to hear about them and know that this goes on in the world, but this was the first real, moving picture moment that I ever had of some barnyard porn and it freaked me out. I wanted to go scrub my eyeballs. It was horrifying.

And then it took a minute for it to sink in that this guy used to live in my apartment. Ick. Eww.

And the titles of all the movies were out there and there had to be over a hundred of the things.

And I’m not one to like… rag on someone else’s taste in porn, because everyone who looks at it has their own special flavor or whatever, no? But animals? Come on.

It was kinda funny though.

—–

Two more neighbor child stories… that I forgot to mention in my other neighbor child entry.

First, there was the English thing… I think I mentioned that I don’t really want Jacob to play with them too much and so every day after school he just says he has homework. Which is generally true, so that’s OK. He’s not lying.

One day, he was inside doing his homework and the kids were out in the front and he’d already told him he had it, and so the child with the grill was asking me when he would be done and I said I didn’t know. Then he asks me what it is that he’s doing.

Me: Math, Language, etc.

Grill: Language? What language?

Me: English.

Grill: English? Like they say over there? (And he’s pointing across the street from me, which is where my Hispanic neighbors live.)

Me: Huh?

Grill: Don’t they speak English?

Me: Ummmm, well, actually they speak Spanish.

Grill: Th