Feelin' Alright

We’re feeling good, we’re feeling alright
We’re feeling good, we’re feeling alright

Well it’s about that time for us to look around and meet somebody new
Let’s all welcome in familiar faces, perhaps somebody who,
Has got a conflict in their life
Tell them you’re sorry, but there’s ways to change the wrong to right
See we can sit in a distant haze and watch rain clouds pour thoughts of greatness to help our troubles sail real far away.
Well it’s a struggle everyday we’re stressing, but what’s a life without dedication?
I’m trying to pick up the souls intention to soak in music relaxation

We’re feeling good, we’re feeling alright
We’re feeling good, we’re feeling alright

In a moment I’ll be on my way, to better days, while life is changing
And even though I’ve had my share of pain, I’ve been sympathizing and realizing
I’ve got a feeling that we can be a better friend
Simply complimenting every now and then
In the morning I wake up and miss the night before
Cuz I love the music more and more
See we can sit in a distant haze and watch rain clouds pour thoughts of greatness to help our troubles sail real far away
While it’s a struggle everyday we’re stressing, but what’s a life without dedication?
I’m trying to pick up the souls intention to soak in music relaxation

We’re feeling good, we’re feeling alright
We’re feeling good, we’re feeling alright

The Internet Is A Wonderful Invention (& How Drama Can Heal If You Trust In What's Right)

I finally have the internet at home again. Whew. :) I missed having all this information at my fingertips for almost a month. I didn't miss how much time I spend on the internet procrastinating.

Since our move, my husband has really gotten a lot of clients for tattooing. That means I have been really busy drawing the tattoos for the clients. It's such an exciting time for us now because of how the tattooing business is going. My husband decided it was time for him to cut the business ties with an old friend of his, the guy who essentially taught him how to tattoo in the beginning. My husband had hoped that the two of them would be able to build a business out of tattooing, but his friend consistently would use up all the materials needed for tattooing on free/extremely low cost tattoos and then my husband would have to take money out of his pocket to replenish the materials needed because his friend would spend all the money he would earn on bullshit. His friend NEVER EVER put in money that he earned to get needles and tubes and ink. NEVER. If he got materials, it was because his mom would pay for it all. It got tiresome to keep putting money into a black hole like that. So, my husband requested to split all the tattooing equipment up (most of it being OURS) and the shit hit the fan between the two of them. His friend accuses my husband of "Fucking" him. Gee, I wonder why? He's no longer getting a free ride on us, so now we're Fucking him? If he had just done what my husband asked and put HALF of the money he would earn back into materials for tattooing, there wouldn't be ANY problems with the arrangement. How it ended up being in real life, WE were getting royally screwed. This guy lives with his dad, no rent, no food expenses, no bills at all (mom or dad pays for everything the way he's got it now) and WE were using money that we needed to go towards bills and rent and food just to have an opportunity to try and make more money to make up for what we were constantly having to put into the tattoo business. But the guy would still use up all the needles and tubes and ink by the time my husband had a day off to do tattooing. Plus, this guy would never really push himself to get better, and I'm of the opinion that my husband has exceeded his friend in technique. The last tattoo the guy did on me I told myself was going to be THE LAST for a while. That was even before the whole splitting-up-of-the-tattoo-equipment and shit-hitting-the-fan drama. My husband's friend is holding a grudge against my husband now. What was said after my husband wanted the equipment split up is the drama that I speak of.

It's been weeks, almost a month and a half, since my husband told his friend that he wanted to split up the equipment. I didn't know when that was exactly, until a friend of mine told me she had something to confess. On the 4th of July, our husbands were out getting beer, and the tone in her voice made me want to scream and cry and go numb. She said that she felt that she was keeping a secret. She said that she felt that we were too good of friends for her to keep such a secret from me. She said that I deserve to know. All of the indicators that she's going to tell me something I don't ever want to hear. I told her that I didn't want to know, holding my head in my hands, heart beating so fast and hard. She started saying the words I didn't want to hear: "The night that [your husband] got a hotel room...." and my ears started to ring. Heat and freezing cold climbed up and down my body. I never wanted to hear this kind of thing about my husband. Not him. I could trust him. Not the only man I've ever been able to trust. NO. God, no. "....well, [your husband's friend] said that [your husband] had a girl with him." Fuck no. Not this. "But I want you to know the whole story, the circumstances." She told me that my husband showed up at his friends house, they all had intended on doing mushrooms. They all took a tiny bit, and proceeded to get drunk, too. My husband and his (tattoo buddy) friend got into a huge argument about the tattoo equipment and my husband left. In fact, my husband left to come home to me that day, after his two days of being gone. All the guys that stayed (and took more 'shrooms) kept telling my husband that he was a "Pussy" for going home to me (how sweet to know that he still came home to me even when everyone else tried to shame him for it). After my husband left, his tattoo buddy gathered everyone around and said things like "You don't know, I know that fool...he's got pictures of other girls on his cell phone...he had a girl in his room...naked pictures of the girl in his hotel room...." But the whole confession was grounded around my friend's disbelief. She didn't really believe this guy who was so extremely mad at my husband, but thought I deserved to know what was going around about us. She also told me that the rumors of my husband leaving me were circulating well before he took his two day leave. The rumors spread were about how he already had left, moved somewhere else...all before anything had even happened. I guess there was so much talk about us that the people who knew us the best were really confused. Oh, it just goes to show just who these people, rumor spreaders, are. Which is why I felt caught in the miserable position of going out on a limb and being trusting towards my husband....or having an angry confrontation with my husband about just what the hell went on when he left. I sucked in as much oxygen as I could to stop a knee-jerk reaction from ruining our 4th of July. My friend hugged me and told me she was very sorry for putting this on me, that she felt terrible but felt in her heart that it wasn't true. I just kept asking her to help me convince myself it wasn't true......to stop the voices in my head telling me it's no surprise since every man has always cheated on me ("what's the big deal? it's not like i'm special or anything," voices speaking in my head). I had to mentally fight hard against the ol' hard-wired voices. I got to a point where I wanted to hide away and cry my eyes out, but I wouldn't let myself isolate myself because I knew it would just give the old voices more strength that way. Instead, I surprised myself. I text-messaged my husband while he was still away: "I love that I can trust you." I got no response right away, which worried me. Did that mean he knew that I knew? Was I going to have him come home to me tonight to confess what he did? Did he really do this to me? When our husbands returned, I just kept breathing in deeply and smiling and looking into his eyes. Was there anything hiding in there? My judgment was so clouded by my own personal herstory that I didn't really know for sure. My husband brought up my text message saying it was like a back-handed compliment. What really helped me relax was the fact that my husband thought that I was implying that he better not do any hard drugs. I knew that if my husband had any kind of guilty conscience about other women, he wouldn't be able to hide it. I knew instantly that since he interpreted my text message the way he did, I could probably trust that what was being said was pure rumor. I decided to let it go. I even decided that if I couldn't find a good way to bring it up, I just wouldn't.

The next day, I passed in and out of depression. I fought really hard to keep my mind positive, but I couldn't stop going over all of the information I had. Once I got my mind to really disbelieve what was said, I was too angry at my husband's friend to not say anything. Another one of my husband's friends was having problems and had asked if it was okay to come to our house to talk to us and to figure some things out. This friend has had a meth problem, on and off, and he reached the point to where he was really reaching out for help. He came over that night with his girlfriend so he could get some sleep and start the coming down process (he knows we would just let him sleep and sleep because we both know how miserable detoxing from meth is). My husband asked his friend a question regarding his tattoo buddy and whether or not they did meth together as a way to explain his tattoo buddies' extreme change in attitude (I suspect it's meth. Everything points to meth. I'm not stupid when it comes to meth because I don't want that shit around my family). Our addicted friend claims that they never did meth together, and my husband said "Well, I don't know what it is, but [tattoo buddy] sure is acting weird." And that's when it came flying out of my mouth. "Yeah, well he's been talking some serious shit." My husband asks me what I heard. He already knows who I heard it from. He wants to know why I didn't tell him right away. "Because I didn't want to accuse you of anything," I told him. "Basically, [your tattoo buddy] is telling everyone that you're fucking around on me." My husband squished his face up, "Wha..? That's not true." I told him, "I decided that I trust you. I didn't believe what I heard." Even though it had taken me a lot of internal dialog and agony to get to that point, it was true. Why should I believe things I hear coming down the grapevine from someone I was pretty sure had gotten back into meth? Why would I believe anyone who was so angry at my husband for such selfish reasons? I told my husband that I didn't care if the two of them reconciled, I didn't want his tattoo buddy in my house. I don't need that shit. I don't need anyone in my house who is so disrespectful. My husband shook his head, "That sucks to hear, because I just texted him today asking him when this bullshit is going to be over. Now.....I don't know...." My husband told me that all this time he was afraid I'd find out what he really did. The 'shrooms. I told him that he was silly for being afraid to tell me that. He said that I always got weird when he talked about doing 'shrooms, but I clarified, "I'm just not at the point in my life where I can do that. My mental status would not benefit, and I think it would be bad for me right now. But it's natural. It's not like meth or coke, it's not extremely addictive. I've told you before, I'll be the *babysitter* if I'm around, but I don't want to do 'shrooms because my head isn't in the right place." I've always been overly responsible about my mental status before doing anything hallucinogenic. My hormones have been going haywire for months now, I just knew it would be a bad idea. What's even more funny about the scenario is that he didn't even trip on the 'shrooms. He didn't feel anything, which is why he ended up coming home to me, but he still felt guilty about doing that and not telling me.

The days that came after all of this drama where worth the agony. All of a sudden, the love that he said he didn'y have enough of for me came shining through. I don't know if it was because he was relieved to tell me what he'd been trying to hide from me (the 'shrooms) or if it was because I said that I trusted him in such a trying moment. He knows my herstory. He knows that every single man I've ever been with has fucked around on me and that it's extremely hard to trust men for me. Whatever it was that sparked in him, his heart is more open and his love is more flowing. It's something that you just come to know in your partner. The intensity of love and how it ebbs and flows in your lover. I'd kept telling everyone how I felt like my husband was reserved, holding back his love. He'd had this skepticism in his eyes that just plain hurt. There was no way to explain this to him. After that one night, all his skepticism and reservedness just fell off. He's had a couple of *blow up* moments where he said really hurtful things, but not since that night. Also, in those moments where he said the hurtful things, it really felt as if the universe was trying to take care of me, or speak up for me. After he'd be pissed off at me, our friends would come to see me and couldn't keep their hands off each other. Both of the times he blew up at me, another person or people would immediately come into our house with an intensity of love that I rarely ever see in other people. One of my husband's tattoo clients wouldn't stop talking about his woman the whole time he was here getting a tattoo, saying things that I rarely ever hear men say.

So, I am happy. It's the first time I feel like I can say or write that without it being only partly true. There is no But to this happiness. My husband and I just celebrated our 7th anniversary the other day.

Checking In

We have yet to get the internet at our new home, but things have been going pretty good. I love our new place so much! There is still the endless chore of trying to find a place for everything, but that's been part of the fun for me. It's been a nice distraction to everything that was going on just before we moved. A couple f times we got into discussion that led to him yelling things at me, but I'm about to call him on it all, call it all bullshit, because that's just what it is. A big huge glaring double standard that he's trying to pull off. Not going to happen, no matter how many non-verbal threats and indimidations he sends my way. For a while, it felt as though I was demoted to Girl Friend status. I can't explain it any other way. He'd decided for a while to test me or something, and he was out almost ever night after work. Now that we've moved, he enjoys coming home because it's nice and quiet and relaxing, but he still wants to test me by wanting to go to the bar with his buddies. I just don't like it. I don't like that he does this when we have no money and so I can't invite myself because he's not paying. That sort of thing. He's really trying to get as much as he can out of me and he wasn't putting anything out there for me. Until we had a somewhat short but intense talk where he started yelling at me, but amazingly enough, he's been more giving ever since. It's just more scary for me to speak up for myself while he's been using the "I told you I needed some change" speech anytime I don't like what's going on. But I'm still a part of this marriage. I am a human being with feelings. I mean, I love that fucker and it had been pissing me off that he was acting so immature about every damn thing and using his "Confusion" to get away with being an ass. I'd had enough and so I pushed. I pushed him into a conversational corner and he raelly lashed out at me, but he's not being quite so immature anymore. and he's being more loving. For the past few days, after cornering him and really making him talk to me, he's cracked open that heart of his again. Which is nice.

I've also been drawing a lot these days. My husband has been getting tattoo clients, and I've been the one drawing the art for the tattoos. It's really inspiring and invigorating to be doing something that I'm good at and to be getting paid for it. My husband has been telling me how jealous he is of my drawing abilities trying to make me feel good about myself. Which is sweet.

Everybody Needs Money

We are approved to get into this house and so now the search for the money to get in starts. We only have a few days, really, but I am staying positive. We will collect nickel and dime until we come up with the money that we need.

We got a letter from the Dept. of Treasury informing us that our stimulus check is being diverted to the Dept. of Education for my student loan in default. Agh! We have an Injured Spouse form on file, sent in this year, after we filed our taxes though. I'd read that we would have to file another Injured Spouse report, but looking at the form, that makes no sense. I'd have to fill in numbers for monies that we have not made yet. I got the IRS on the phone and they put the case up for review. I have to wait 30 days to find out anything. The only thing I was able to verify was that we do in fact have an Injured Spouse Report on file. So, then what? Ugh, it's not even a whole lot of money because it got reduced because I don't work, so what the hell? Why does any Dept. of Anything think that that money should be diverted when none of it is technically mine anyway? They're trying to not play by the rules. What a pain in the ass, though. We really needed that money, once again, and now we're scrambling to find a way to move into this new house. It wouldn't be a problem if we weren't having to pay for first & last months rent. At least the owner is willing to let us pay in 3 month payments, but it still makes it hard to come up with the money because it's almost as much as our rent here. At least we were able to give the guy some money. We're so close. So close to getting out from under our housing problem.....it's very challenging. I know this whole thing has been a serious challenge from the start. Not just monetarily challenging, but spiritually challenging as well.


If anyone out there has money they can donate, possibly in exchange for some kind of original artwork or photography, I can be contacted at A.mazingAmazon77@gmail.com. I really feel like it's not fair to ask for money from anyone, because everyone is in this sinking boat of financial insecurity. But I have to ask because if I don't I feel like I'm not doing everything humanly possible to make this work. I added a donation button to this blog even though I don't expect anything from anyone. Like I said, I'm just doing everything I can do. I plan on opening an account with an online shop to sell my artwork, too. I've had plans on doing so for a while now, I have no idea what's been holding me back from actually doing it.

I have a strong positive feeling that we're going to be okay, that we're going to get through all of this.

Gratitude

After days and days of feeling like a broken record in my head, pleading with my Higher Power to help us, I got some really great news today. We were approved by a private owner to rent a little house in a really great area close by. It's up next to the foothills of the mountains here and it's not too old of a house and it's situated right next to a beautiful park. I feel like singing! I feel like my head is above water at the very least right now. Such relief!

I have this brand new Gratitude for Everything. It's a beautiful day and I'm feeling more and more love as each day goes by that my husband has been back home and things are turning around. My husband seemed really reserved when he first came back home, almost as if he was skeptical about the love I show for him. I could feel him making conscious efforts to not tell me he loved me. Maybe we say it too much, or maybe not. After every phone call...whenever we leave each other...just because...at night going to sleep. When you really love someone, you don't really feel like you say it too much. But when your faced with thinking about whether or not you love someone or whether or not they love you does saying I Love You ever become conscious enough to think about how many times you say it. I was thinking about it and so was he. I made a conscious effort to keep reminding him that I love him so that he would have to think more consciously about whether or not he loves me. I know he loves me. Because I can see it trapped up inside of him when he's trying to not let it show. When he's trying to act like a bad ass because he needs to exert some of that manly authority. I know my husband so well, I know that I need to let him say stupid shit. I just have to. He's what I would consider more evolved than his dad and his grand dad, but I still have to let him say stupid things. And, on occasion, I have to let him do stupid shit. That's what he really wants from me. Permission to be a dumbass from time to time. I get it. Every night after work last week, he had to go to hang out somewhere. I know it was him testing me, mostly because he ended up wearing himself out. On the last night that he took for himself, he went to a friends' house that I was worried about. The friend that gave him the advice to leave, to make himself happy, to do what he wants because we're such different people and so on. He said he was going to be there for a couple of hours. I didn't complain. I gave him space, but after 2 1/2 hours, I tried to get a response from him via text message and got no reply. I called after no response and his phone rang and rang, no answer, go to voicemail. I must have called a hundred times before trying to call someone else to hear someone else's voice. I was in a panic. Was my husband fucking with me, fucking around? Hurt? In jail? The worst case scenarios running through my head. I finally decided to track my husband down, but I didn't have his friends' phone numbers. I had to call the one person I knew would answer, ask her for someone else's phone number to ask him for the phone number to where my husband was at. Everyone was cool about it, didn't give me any weirdness due to the circumstances, except when I called the number where my husband was at. The dude kept hanging up on me. I texted him "I just want to know if my husband is okay" and all of a sudden I'm getting a phone call from my husband. Hubby says "_____ says you're calling him..." and I say "Oh thank God you're okay..." My husband has a surprised tone of voice "I'm over here" and I tell him that I had been trying to call him and didn't know what happened to him and that I was worried to death about him and he apologized telling me he got too drunk from playing beer pong. Beer Pong. :( Anger flashed through me, but I was still so relieved that he was okay that I didn't even think about giving him a hard time. He promised he would be home as soon as he could, after he ate something. I let another hour pass by before I started calling him again and he didn't answer AGAIN. I texted him, "you said you were coming home and now you're not answering me" and he calls me (after I'd been calling over and over for the last 15 minutes) and says he's on his way home after he gets some gas. I can hear his car running in the background so I know he's telling me the truth. It was a fucked up night, but I think that my husband got something out of his system (he was miserable the next two days for lack of sleep and abusing his body) and I made it very clear that it's only okay to get obliterated with his friends if he lets me know, or else I'll start calling everyone because I give a shit about him and I worry. Just because he wants to be able to hang with his friends does not mean he gets to forget about who's waiting at home for him. That particular night, our son was waiting up for him. When I let my husband know this, I think he felt bad because I could hear it in his voice. It was also the night that helped soften the edge between us, somehow. After that night, my husband let go of that weird reservedness a lot and has been smiling at me more. With us moving soon, he's not going to be able to go to hang with his friends after work for a few nights. He's going to have to help move us out and in. When we get moved in, I'm sure he's going to want to spend some time in our new place. I can see us doing a lot of mending with this move. Figuring out how to put some balance back into our family.

Swimming Upstream

I feel like I should post something. Write. There is so much going on. But there is so little being done.

My husband is stuck on going to my parents vacation home. Only for the summer, he says, but then what? Then what are we going to do? There is no work out there, in the middle of no where. I just learned about how the feds are probably going to go in to the town and evict the tribe that lives out there. That means no more casino, no more jobs on this side of the river. All of the work on the other side of the lake, on the AZ side, is seasonal. The authorities are corrupt as all hell. The area of small towns along the river there are dubbed the meth corridor, or something like that. Not a good place for two ex-meth addicts to go to for any extended amount of time. When there's nothing else to do, it's a very dangerous mix.

My husband keeps telling me I'm being negative because I don't want to go to this no-where place for the summer. What it all comes down to is is he's being selfish. He wants to be irresponsible and make bad decisions and refuses to listen to people who've really tried to make living in that little town work. There is not enough money is that town for the people who live there now, where and how would would we come up with the money to fuck off all summer and then return back to the city? We can't. And he's trying to drive this family into this little town that is hard to get back out of. People he's talking to are telling him to go for it (or, if they aren't he's not hearing what they're actually are saying and he's projecting what he wants to hear over their words)...and people that I am talking to are saying that there's nothing out there, no work, nothing for kids. But I know all of this. I have spent my entire life visiting this place, my dad's family tradition that started with his grandpa. I know what it's like to be in the heat of 120 degrees in the summer there. My husband has never been there in the Summer, and he isn't going to like that it's not the mild Fall weather that he's used to.

I have reason upon reason for not giving up and moving out to this tiny town. I just talked to someone today about getting into a house with NO credit checks, and something we could afford. But my husband sounds irritated and says he still wants to leave town, but he'll look at the place. I promise him that I'll come up with the money to take a vacation at the vacation home if he sticks with me in getting a place to live first. He says he just wants to live out at the vacation home. Why is it that so many other people get it, that this place is a RESORT TOWN and nothing more, great for retirement and vacations, which is always bad for family living. There's an issue where the tribe on that land has borrowed so much money and hasn't made any good on their loans, taking up loan after loan to cover for loans they've already taken out, and they're facing eviction from the land by the feds. The feds never gave them this land, they bought it with loans, and now the feds are going to be taking it back. The past 3 or so years, the suits have been coming out to the land and surveilling, and the older folks who know what's been going on know that the feds are going to be taking all this river front land back. The land is going to be preserved, conserved by the feds, because that is what the white people in the retirement community out there want. No more development, they say. All the meanwhile if you talk to one of the Natives out there, they will promise that they are doing this, that, and the other to develop to make it more comfortable for family living. They need more year-round consumers while they've still got this land and these businesses. I can see all of this very clearly while my husband can't because all his knowledge of this place is though visiting a whole 7 or 8 times. Once in the spring, and the rest of the times in the fall. Not during the extreme times of weather out there. He has NO IDEA.

Soundtrack

...and half of learning how to play
is learning what not to play
and she's learning the spaces she leaves
have their own things to say
then she's trying to sing just enough
so that the air around her moves
and make music like mercy
that gives what it is
and has nothing to prove

she crawls out on a limb
and begins to build her home
it's enough just to look around
to know she's not alone...
-Up Up Up, Ani DiFranco

Ache

Another night alone. Another morning I can't motivate myself. Doesn't matter how I appear, I am depressed to the max. Nothing is as it seems. It's hard to take deep breaths. My heart has been racing for hours upon hours, running a race I'm not sure if it knows it can't win. I need support from the man who isn't here. A man who vowed to take care of me. I have to wait until tonight to see him, but he's said he's coming home. He said he wants to stay a family. But my heart is weary and my brain won't let me not think about whether or not he'll do this again. Will he? I didn't. I promised I wouldn't. I'm also pretty sure he promised he wouldn't do this to me, too. But that was then, and now and now, and it's easy to forget promises you've made years ago. But it's what I need to be thinking about when he comes home. I must confront him and tell him he has to promise to never walk out. Never try to get anyone else involved because it's not THEIR life. Just because someone doesn't have anything invested in something does NOT mean they aren't biased. Easy for me to see, but something I must teach my husband. We have to talk about giving, too. The main thing I want from him is to promise to not get any other people's advice concerning our marriage ever again. "Other people" could be anyone these days. Mentally instable people giving advice about other people's lives is downright dangerous.
Maybe I should go back to sleep. I got more sleep last night mostly because I'm exhausted, but being awake and not having this man around that I miss dearly is just too heartbreaking. Nauseating.

Suspense

The hubby called at final last after one of the most excruciating nights of my entire life. Not much sleep. Nothing to eat. But he's probably coming back, he says. He just needs a big change. He doesn't want to head into something that is going to make me unhappy, but the way things are now, they can't stay like this. We can't stay here, we're getting evicted. If our cars are found, they'll be taken because of the new law about insurance (and we haven't made payments on the cars for a while now) which makes our registration "invalid." We do have money that we haven't paid for rent and have put aside now for whatever we have to do next. We'll be just fine. But he's scared. He's confused. He's been talking to a certain friend that discovered Europe a couple of years ago on his honeymoon (but they got divorced 9 months after getting married, great guy to get marital advice from, eh?) and this guy has been planning on how to get back to Europe ever since. Well, he's single, not one string attached to this guy. My husband has a fucking wife and kid. Two chains attached to that ball. That's just how life is. My husband and this guy got to talking about if he actually went ahead and left me and his son, that they were going to make due until November and go to Europe. Really, though? I told my husband that that is something that parents do after they've raised their children. He said he knows, he knows. That was only IF. But since he's probably going to be coming back tomorrow (because he's got to stay away for one more day for whatever fucking reason I don't know...to prove a point? To keep control?), the plan to go to Europe doesn't seem likely. Or something like that.
I've been miserable. I've wanted out of town, too. Most of my life I've wanted out of the area I grew up in. I moved to LA to get out, but had to move back. I've had my sights on getting out of state, even, which we've tossed that idea around as well. EVEN moving to Canada. Thinking about getting the hell out of here is not new to me. My husband is suffocating. I get it. So why did he have to bring a bunch of other bullshit into this? Why did he have to leave for a couple of nights just to get back to the same ol' thing that we have talked about for years? Why did he have to put me though this when I've been very clear about when and how I would be on board with moving out of town? I really thought it was more about trying to get me to get a job, the way he made it seem. Or, that he was regretting being such a young Dad and that he thinks he's missing out on something. But he's doing this because he's scared. Threatening to bail on his wife and son because he's scared. What the hell? But that's what my mom and my brother just kept telling me, that he is probably scared. That he'd probably come back and that he'd probably do the right thing.

But now, he wants to plan a move that is scary, but not any more scary than the situation we're in. The situation with moving into my grandparent's house is more scary than this idea. My parents have a mobile home on land they own next to a well known lake. It's a sleepy town, until the weekenders come into town, or until holidays come around, but it's quiet. It's in the desert, next to a lake, lots and lots of nature. My dad has already said a couple of weeks ago that why don't I take my son to their vacation home for the summer, let the boy run around. My dad hates my husband, last night's events won't help one bit, but there wouldn't be anything my husband could do or say that would make my dad feel any different towards him. It's my dad. My husband has tried to show respect for my dad, but my dad is a dickhead, like most guys. So 'round and 'round it always goes for them. I know that my dad is going to be resistant to the idea, but my husband wants to move to the vacation home, try to find a job across the lake (which is not in california) at least for a little while. If my husband fucks off for the whole time and we run out of money, it's MY turn. I'll do this with/for him, but he's got to put forth the effort to actually get a job out there if that's where he wants to move toward. I could move across the lake, out of california, if that's where this ends up leading us. With the way things are here, I'm not sure where our son is going to be going to school next year anyway, and I would rather be living somewhere we can afford. I'm not trying to run our family all over the place, but there are many kids who survive going in and out of schools. They probably learn how to make friends a bit easier than kids who never move out of the school group that they've been in for year after year. At least that is how i imagine it. Even if the education isn't as great as it should be where ever we end up, I shouldn't discount myself as a teacher and the things that I can teach my son as grows older. Real life stuff, and real education instead of what tends to pass as education in some schools.

I'm terrified of what's to come. I'm miserable and I feel stuck, but I do know that I want my family to stick together and see the hard times through. There will be good times to come. But I am scared, still. I'm scared of standing up to my dad, which is what I will have to do in order to move into the vacation home. The vacation home never gets any visits anymore. Only on Thanksgiving, really. So, this place is sitting there empty for about 360 days a year. Plus, if we've got no where else to stay, why couldn't we stay there until we got on our feet again? Finding a job will be difficult. It's hard to find a job everywhere now, but across the lake is absolutely booming. It's not like it used to be when I was younger, there is so much on the other side of the lake, I'm pretty sure my husband will be able to find something. Gas is more expensive there, too. There's a ferry that crosses the lake several times a day, and there's a route (rte 66) that goes around and over the lake. Gas will be an issue if he doesn't find a job, so will food. The way I see it, it will be temporary. If things don't work out out there, my grandpa will be out of the other house at some point and we might have to come back to town if my husband can't get work out by the lake. All of this because my husband can't stand living life the way we're living. Which I understand, but I didn't set this situation up like this, he did. He got us into this place and into two cars worth of debt while I dragged my feet and was nervous about living above our means. He's finally coming closer to MY way of thinking, and the irony of him threatening to leave and claiming it's because we're such different people now is that HE's changed to be more LIKE me. I'm holding in there for our son's last two weeks of school, which was the deal from the beginning of the year. We make it to June, our son gets out of school, and then we move because we can't afford to live here. What if my dad threatens to not let us stay there? I'm going to have to cross the bridge when I get to it, I guess.

Night Night

The asshole that I am married to just came and went with two days clothes. I just found out that he has been thinking of leaving me. Talking it over with everyone, except ME, to see what the consensus is. Survey says: people don't understand why we've lasted this long. People he's talked to: his buddies, one of which was married for 9 months and bailed for their own reasons. Not OUR reasons. So what the hell does anyone else have to do with US?!

I'm beside myself with grief. I intuited something was wrong, but he wouldn't really talk about it with me. He would get angry and say hurtful stuff, and so I'd shut that shit out. But if I knew that he was seriously thinking about leaving, I wouldn't have done so much shutting out. I'm far from perfect, but so is he. We're only human. I can only support him if he respectfully communicates with me what he needs from me. I didn't know he was talking to everyone else about leaving. How fucking grand.

Chances are, he'll be back. But then what? I'm so incredibly hurt, but also relieved that it's not about another person. I asked. If he's telling the truth, he's not seeing anyone else and it's purely about being too stressed and somehow, he's questioning whenther or not he's IN love with me. He says he LOVES me, but doesn't know if he's still IN love with me. Which is the most retarded thing I've ever heard. Not the first time I've heard this sort of thing, and I've always thought that the whole Love/IN Love thing was a cop out for feeling overwhelmed. Sure, I'm more than overfuckingwhelmed. I am more now than I was earlier today. But I knew something was up. I just would have imagined that he'd be discussing OUR MARRIAGE with ME and HIM, not other people who have nothing invested in OUR MARRIAGE. I just think he was trying to get permission from SOMEWHERE to bail out. In a divorce culture, that's not hard to come by.

"Strong possibility I'll be back in two days saying 'What was I thinking?'" he said as he's packing his clothes in a backpack. "I just need a couple of days to think." Whatever. A few years back, I threatened to leave him. He was verbally abusing me and I was getting more scared of it escalating. I didn't really want to leave, because we have a son and he loves both of us and it's not fair to him to not really think every little thing through. I had been thinking about leaving him for months, but I didn't go discussing it with everyone because I wanted my heart to lead me. I don't need anyone else to give me permission on who to love. My family put a lot of pressure on me to leave, in their own way. So, I leaped. I packed up some shit and was out for two days. My husband cried and begged me to stay with him. I was amazed. I thought he wouldn't care. Honestly. It didn't go down how I imagined, and I was immediately drawn to come back to him. But my mom told me to stay one more night away, if not more. I went to go see my husband and I left him crying because I thought I was taking good advice. I working on the basis that I was somewhat afraid of my husband. Totally different scenario than what he's giving to me tonight, but he's also doing a lot of referencing back to the night that I left him. Saying things like "I always told you that there would come a day when I would leave you like you left me." He's had it in his mind for a long time, when he's been angry at me, that he would get revenge. I'm POSITIVE that he's going to learn what revenge is really like. It's bitter. Not a hint of sweet. The only thing I could do when I left him for those two days was sleep and cry. And think about him. He's had it in his mind that when I left him for those two days that I somehow enjoyed that. I didn't. Not one bit. But there was no explaining that to him because of the torture I put him through. I took our son with me and that was torture to him. I don't blame him. I would be as savage as a lioness if he wanted to take our son with him like I did. But he has no basis for it. I was afraid of him back then, he's stressed and exasperated today.

One other thing he brought up was that he feels like he's not living his life. Working too much and not enough living. Hasn't gone anywhere (oh, I guess Hawaii wasn't anywhere) and he feels like he's missing out and has missed out on phases of his life because he was so young when we met and soon after had our son. BUT THAT WAS HIS CHOICE. I gave him the CHOICE. Where did we meet, you ask? On a tweek binge on the STREETS. He was REALLY living it up then, wasn't he? Totally going PLACES. FUCK!! It just makes me want to scream. It's been 7 years since he's been off the streets and he's already forgotten how family life saved him from that life. I took him in and hid him in my room when no one else would let him sleep under their roof. I did it against my parent's wishes in their home, and he argues on and on about how my parents never help out (uh, but they are and they have) and how I never stand up to my parents for him (but I DO ALWAYS but he's never there to see!!).

All this I write, yet I will still beg for him to come home. I love that asshole because I know I can trust him more than any other man I have ever known. I have serious issues with trust. I apologized to him a lot tonight for my bullshit. I know when I've given him undeserved bullshit, and I've done it enough to apologize for. But when he comes back, he's going to be sorry, too.

Funky

What to do with my big fat funk? It's been impossible for me to get my head turned around. I look in the mirror and I see a wash of gray over my eyes, always a visual cue that I am in a terrible no good mood. My eyes are usually green. Sometimes blue. Sometimes gray.

I've noticed that there's something different about this downward spiral this time. I am used to the old feelings of self-hatred and I don't go into these thoughts without being self-conscious. It's the double whammy that keeps me informed as to how ridiculous I feel and it also keeps me feeling stuck in insecurity mode. But, see, I'm different now than I used to be. I have this urge to say Fuck It and come back into admiration of my Self....but it is this feeling that seems to be generating from the outside. It's like I feel Big Hate radiating from my Core but I can feel a gentle nudge of Self Love pushing in.

I don't want to let myself get wrapped up in hating on my Self for the stupid reasons I have been letting float around in my consciousness. Toxic bullshit. But at the same time, I haven't been able to let go of the insecure thoughts. I try to distract my Self from my thoughts for long enough by thinking of all the radical feminist knowledge I have learned, which helps ease some pain, but the issue of Insecurity is huge this time. There's lots of whacked-out hormones surging through my body (my last Depo shot was in January) and so I can recognize that maybe I wouldn't be feeling so terrible if I weren't dealing with that...but I refuse to silence my Self by chalking at all up to hormones. No, it's part of the reason why I am so inconsolable, but not the only reason.

I let myself believe that my husband was into ME. You know, the real ME, aging changing ME. I once felt secure in that. But I can't get there now. Not after the BARELY LEGAL girls staring back at me. I want to lash into my husband and ask him if it's really true that he prefers little girls. But he would react to the words "little girls" as if it were preposterous, because I know him so well. So, what words do I use? What words to I use especially when I believe those girls are little girls? They're supposed to be *pretending* to be girls half my age (though I know that many BARELY LEGAL girls aren't 18+), and I'm not fucking stupid, that is the allure. My husband got the primer to verbal abuse like every other man out there, so I have to think very carefully about the words I use so that they aren't turned on me to make me feel even worse than I already feel. I can usually turn to compassion/vulnerability, to clearly express that I am a vulnerable person and to bring the human element to focus. But in this scenario, I am already way too vulnerable as it is...I can say with the utmost of seriousness that it would really dangerous to my Self if I were to receive the usual rhetoric that he throws at me with regard to my self-esteem. He hates it when I don't feel good about myself, he wants me to just be happy, but he refuses to contribute in any positive way. I just can't see any way of getting what I need right now. I want to be admired. I need to be held. If I am to continue and give my All to our marriage, then I also need to know that he will do the same and that my requests for non-sexual physical contact and admiration won't be regarded as unimportant, you know, because they aren't his particular needs. It feels really basic to me, what it is that I want and need from him, but he resists so adamantly. It feels like I'm speaking in a foreign language. Or, he just states that he's not the type to be huggy or kissy. Damn it, I'm not asking to be smothered, I'm asking to be admired. And if admiration just isn't there? Well, that's what breaks my heart. That's the source of my fear in going into any of this shit with him. It's like I have to wait until the right time to actually get him to engage with me in regards to my needs...and most of the time I end up getting more hurt by trying to bring up my needs. He goes on defense by acting smug and totally independent from me (as if he controls his own happiness, so why can't I?) and/or pushes a lot of blame and hurtful words upon me. Every now and then, the right combination of everything comes together and we hash shit out. I just don't feel like I'm going to be able to ground myself out any until I get some resolve. I'm no longer willing to dwell in misery like I used to.

I just don't feel sane right now. I feel like if it's not one thing, it's another. I'm so incredibly fed up with bullshit.

Pornography Happens To Women

Pornography plays a big part in normalizing the ways in which we are demeaned and attacked, in how humiliating and insulting us is made to look natural and inevitable.

...

And think about pornography as a new institution of social control, a democratic use of terrorism against all women, a way of saying publicly to every woman who walks down the street: avert your eyes (a sign of second-class citizenship), look down, bitch, because when you look up you're going to see a picture of yourself being hung, you're going to see your legs spread open. That is what you are going to see.

Andrea Dworkin
Pornography Happens to Women

Heartache

I had the flu yesterday, thank goodness it only lasted a day. I feel much better today, physically, but emotionally I'm a wreck.

My husband called me up yesterday while I was feeling sick and told me that he was going to be hanging out at his friends house. The whole, you're invited too, but I don't want to hear about how boring it is if you go, thing. Feeling nauseas already, I was heartbroken that he didn't care how I was feeling and that the only thing he cared about was joining the guys to watch the stoopid UFC fights last night. Not that I was sick or anything. That little fact wasn't going to make him change his plans. Naw. Well, whatever. I dealt with it, even though I was really sad that he didn't come home a little earlier than he did to see if I was okay, nor did he bother to answer my text messages most of the night. I had been sick all day, sleeping most of the day away, and I stayed downstairs to wait for him in hopes that we'd spend a little time together. But when he did get home, after midnight, I was still up, but he wanted to go straight to bed. When he got home, no kisses or hugs, not one touch. We went upstairs and I basically cried myself to sleep because he was too oblivious to know that I wanted, no, needed some love. Of course, men can't comprehend "love" without thinking "sex" and so he thought since I was sick all day that I wasn't up for his idea of "love."

I woke up at about 4am to the sound of my husband barfing his brains out. I got up, rubbed his back, asked him if he needed anything, and cared for him. Way beyond anything he did for me while I was sick. I was feeling better at that point, because this flu only lasts for a day, and so it wasn't much trouble getting up to help him out. I felt bad that we'd all gotten the flu (it started Thursday morning with our son) but was relieved that we'd all be done with it soon. A little immune system boost. We fell back to sleep about an hour later and I woke up this morning at about 9am. I was still bitter that I didn't get any love the night before, and here I was taking care of him and trying to help him feel better when he wouldn't bother with me the day before. So, I got up, and I came downstairs, and the urge to go through his car came over me. Last night, I kept wondering what the hell he was up to the he couldn't bother to respond to me....and I still don't trust him after finding cigs in his car. My imagination tends to get the best of me, but I also know that when I intuit something's off, something is usually off. I got into the trunk of his car, noticed that there were things moved around from how those things usually are, and lo-and-behold I found a "barely legal" porn mag. Unbelievable. So hurtful. I tried to keep myself together because I know my husband is upstairs with the flu, but a part of me turned sadistic. I took the mag, for disposal, and I went upstairs. I asked him how he was feeling. "So-so" he said. "Well, I know you're not feeling good, but I just want to say SORRY for not being a TEEN, BARELY LEGAL....." my words get caught in my throat. "You went through my car again." "I have every right." "That's funny cuz that's been in there for a while," he practically chuckles through his sickness. "I'm not hiding it from YOU," he said, "it's hidden from other people...." And all I could think about was how fucking sick it made me to think about him getting off to girls almost half my age. Girls who've never had kids, let alone HIS child. Girls who I could never compete with, physically.

And the self-fucking-hatred begins.

"Those bitches don't take care of you when you're sick, they don't do your laundry or take care of your child!!" I screamed at him. "I don't know what you're talking about, I don't feel good." "Oh, I know you don't feel good, but I'm hurt that I have to think about you getting off to girls half my fucking age! I will NEVER look like that again! Because I had YOUR CHILD!!"

Why the fuck can't he be more respectful? I've had to confront him so many times about his use of porn, and he feels justified about it.

"It's not fair! I don't lust after other MEN!" I'm thinking about this one guy that befriended me on myspace. I never had a thing for him, we were both online friends because we were both married and this guy read all my ranting and raving I needed to vent, which my husband never listened to me (he does more now than he did then) and I really needed someone to talk to about shit that was never going to be appropriate to talk to my mom about. My mom is the only other person on this Earth who will listen to me when I need it. My husband is never consistent in listening to me, and he likes to push blame on me if I'm upset about something and would just like to talk about it. So, I wrote to this dude online about things that no one else would listen to me about and I was able to at least feel heard. I always was open about my communication with this online guy to my husband. My husband didn't really like it, and he would use that to point the finger at me when we got into arguments. But I was always honest. And I held my word. My husband asked me to stop writing to that guy, and so I did. I told the guy that it was time to cut ties, no problems, totally understood, and that was it. We no longer have any communication with each other. NONE. Not even a little bit. Because I am willing to admit that me writing to another guy could be hurtful to my husband. So, this is all running through my head as I remember how many times my husband has told me that he would rather me be happy than upset and that he'd stop using porn, or that I could block porn on his computer (which I did until he needed the password to install something on his computer that was work-related, and I haven't blocked it again since, out of trust, goddess knows why...) if that made me happy. He's promised to stop using porn a few times. But he's always broken that promise.

It's soo incredibly hard for me to not self-hate when I find pictures of girls in my husband's car that I would need a fucking time machine to look like that again. It's just not going to happen. And it's like torture. It's cruel. It's demeaning. And I wonder what in the hell did I ever do to deserve this? I do all the hard work of taking care of him and I am still marginalized. I can't open my body up to him fully with all of this in my head. I constantly feel inadequate by fucking design. I'm tired of being marginalized even though I try to do everything he fucking wants. I'm just tired of being a woman right now. Tired of feeling like this. Tired of wanting admiration but not getting it. Tired of busting my ass so I can find pictures of other women in my husband's car. I've been cheated on too many times, verbally abused and physically abused by different men...when do I get the love that I deserve? When is it that I am going to be admired as much as I deserve and work hard for? It's hard not to take my anger and turn it on myself.

And with the way things have been lately, I am fed up. I have been using every ounce of energy I have to try and come up with a way that I can make money, while he throws our money in the garbage to buy porn mags. TYPICAL FUCKING MALE. I'm really not sure at this moment how I am going to get myself out of this intense anger. I thought writing about it would help. But I am still just as hurt and just as irate.

DreamLifeDream

Sometimes I feel like I am living in a dream. I feel like I will be able to wake up one day and things will make more sense.

Nah.

It's the way things are. And it's extremely hard to participate without feeling so skeptical.

[I keep deleting shit right here.]

Change is on top of me. On top of my family. It has always been easier to deal with change before. But now, I am where I want to be and I need to not be here. It's hard to look towards life-altering options that aren't very appealing.

When we eventually move out of here, it could possibly be by eviction. The last few day of the month are heading out and with a new month comes unpredictability. How many days past the new month will go by before a notice is posted? How many days do we need? I read online that the 2nd phase of eviction is up to the management to start, needing a disinterested 3rd party to serve us a notice (personally?) and then we will have anywhere from 5-10 days to "answer" the notice that needs to be filed in court. Otherwise a judge declared default against us and we will have to vacate by such time as judge rules. If we are able to file an "answer" to the notice in time, we will have a week or two before the case is seen before a jury...? Something like that from what I remember. What I want to know is, will our apartments take the payment just after the new month? We could borrow a little money from someone and use my husband's 1st June salary check with what we have saved to pay May's rent. Ugh. If we can pay rent in that 5-10 days before having to answer the court, will they take it from us? We should be getting that stupid stimulus check in June, so that will help us make June's rent. But my husband has been expecting that check in May even though I've told him that is not how the schedule is posted on the fucken IRS website. Since a few of his buddies got theirs early, he's been sitting back expecting his. I mean, he could have called the IRS to get more info, see if they need paperwork from us (the Dept. of Education has one of my defaulted loans as has been chomping at the bit to get money out of me), since our situation is much different than anyone else we know. I try to talk with my husband about what we're going to do and he tells me there's nothing he can do. Which is bullshit. I'm writing about something that we can do right here and he can't think of this? Dammit. I've been pissed and freaked out for the past few days because of all the times I've caught my husband telling other people about our situation as if he's bragging or something! Sure honey, go and purchase another 30 pack of shitty beer I wouldn't touch if I had to, so you and your buddies can sit around and drink it all while I listen to you talk about our life as if you are giving up. Fuck. When I call him on it, the first thing he says is "Stupid." Like, how could I accuse him of giving up? Well, the fact that I'm sitting here freaking out and you have nothing to offer me, only "I can't do anything about it right now" and the way that you've been talking about our situation has indicated to me that you are giving up. OR, hey, maybe I'll go with the surprise theory. You're going to surprise me with some grand idea that will make everything okay. Not.

My mom is going to be moving my grandpa out of my grandparents house so that they can be closer to each other in a retirement/nursing home. The professional conservator found a place that could take both of them, my grandma with her needs and my grandpa with his need for independence, and my grandma has already been moved in. My mom and I aren't sure when we're going to be moving my grandpa out of the house, but the house has been offered up to me and my family to live in to fix it up. Because I sure don't want to be living in that neighborhood really at all, but not for long if we do move in at all. There used to be nothing wrong with my grandparents' house...until my uncle tweeked it out. On top of the house being tweeked out (meth smoked inside; *custom wiring* inside and out!; tons of crap on the property) my uncle believes, and so do both of my grandparents, that the house belongs to my uncle. My grandpa went and recently re-did their will to explicitly state that my uncle gets the house after they die...probably because my uncle is instructing my grandpa to be a pain in the ass because my uncle is getting screwed out of his comfy lifestyle by this whole conservatorship. So, I've been having nightmares about being terrorized in my own home, my home being this ambiguous place around me. I also refuse to let my son go to that school district, so I am going to have to pull some shit like using someone else's address or try my best to get a transfer. There's no openings for transfers at my son's current school according to the newsletter we got a month or two ago. But, I really need to be talking to someone about this, but it's another one of those dream-like situations. I feel the need to be smiley and "everything's just peachy" towards my son's teacher, but I really need to be talking to her about what my options are for next year for my son. If we end up needing to move in to my grandparent's house, I am not going to take him to school there, so I will need to be planning ahead since there's only 2 weeks of school left for me to approach my son's teacher about this.

This change that is upon me and my family is harder to deal with this time because of how I feel about my son's education. I argued to stay here until the end of the school year, but now I want to stay close so that he can at least stay in the school district. Faced with how incredibly BAD some surrounding school districts are here, I feel really lucky to have had my son in the school he's at now. I'd like to keep him there if I can. I feel like, since the school has already placed him in a class for the next year (the school newsletter stated so), I should be able to continue bringing him there as long as I transport him. Makes sense to me. He's already been there, been counted for. But I know that in order to legitimately keep him there, I have to jump through hoops of paperwork and chance. This issue is hardest to deal with because I want my son to excel and not be bored because he has been on a certain learning level (expectations are high here) and I don't want to hinder that momentum by putting him in such a disadvantaged school district. I know I start to sound prejudice, but I've lived in this area for most of my life. I know what neighborhoods are not as educated because of the violence that ignorance can breed. Those kids don't have much interest in learning because of the socio-economical environment as well as attachment disorder because of how much their parents work or how absent their parents are....all drawn together due to economic hardship. The 'hoods become a place where the ignorant rule....and I can't apologize for that nor can I let my son participate in that. The patriarchy is bad enough, I don't need it super-sized. I'm well aware of my faults in thinking this way, I know that people come out from 'hoods and ghettos to be really smart and ambitious, what it is that bothers me is the city management. It's not always that I hate all the people in these bad areas, it's the management of these areas. How violence is reacted to and perpetuated at the same time. And, seriously, this happens all over the place. It's corrupt and it's shameful that elected officials will take so much advantage of poorer communities (doesn't have to be too poor, it just gets more opaque the richer the neighborhood). I wish I knew more statistics and facts to back myself up, but I don't have time for that. I'm looking at being evicted, no matter how positive I am going to try and be, and I need to figure out how to get my husband to get on board here.

Crazy Rain

All this rain really feels symbolic to me. This morning when I was getting my son ready for school, it even started hailing. Little ice cubes on the ground. The forecast is calling for lightning and thunder.

I also had a dream a few nights ago, I can't remember exactly when it was, of trying to fly in a stunt plane. The goal was to get the stunt plane running so that a few of us (not sure who was with me, but I was not alone) could take flight in this little old fashioned airplane. The kind that has no cover over top, a bi-plane. After many exhausting attempts at trying to get the plane to run, it finally starts up and we take off. I can even feel the G's as if it were real. We take a huge sweeping upward turn, and I can feel the wind on my face and I can feel my tummy drop as we make a circle in the sky....and then I can see the plane from a distance and it crashes to the ground. My perspective is once again first-person and I am not hurt. No one is hurt. I am confused by what just happened, but the feeling of flight stays with me. I wake up. I still felt the confusion and flight mixture after waking up. I usually don't remember my dreams and so I didn't put much thought into this dream because it seems somewhat banal next to other symbolic dreams I've had. But, looking back now, I can see what my dream was telling me.



Stay on the ground. Run on the ground. Know that I will return to the ground if I try to leap...right now. The ground is representative of what I already know. What I know really well is ART. I started a few complicated drawings after that dream, without the analysis I write here to motivate me. I just dove back into my drawings. It's been calming for me to focus on something that isn't so overwhelming (how to get money?) and from the few days of drawing, I've cultivated the courage to do what I need to do to learn how to tattoo. If I learn how to tattoo, I'll be better than all the artists combined in our group, and I'll also be able help my family with income. Doing something I am most familiar with: ART.

It's not like this is a new idea to me, it's that I've found this source of courage that I wasn't able to find a few months ago. I do feel like ART is supposed to take my life somewhere, I just wasn't able to visualize how. Until recently. I can learn to do something ritualistic that is also outside of business-as-usual.

BUT, that new tattoo artist of ours seems to have taken a nice chunk of money that should have gone towards needles & tubes, and is mysteriously missing. Not entirely missing, but he isn't being honest. My husband's friend has finally felt the burn of dealing with this guy, my husband threw out the ultimatum that we'll separate all the equipment out and go our separate ways, but my husband's friend finally understood just how important this is to us, and that if there is going to be fundamental differences between our goals and his, we're moving on. My husband's friend lightened up and apologized, as far as I know, and we've all just accepted that the new artist has had his way with our money and it was a relatively cheap lesson learned. I swear, I feel like I'm dealing with some real naive idiots sometimes. SO, I'm all charged up and motivated to learn, but we have no needles and no tubes. Which means, no tattoos until SOMEONE comes up with some dough to buy needles and tubes with.

My husband had a talk with his friend about all this dramatic business bullshit, but I think I'm going to have my say, as well. We're trying to build somewhat professional business here and I'm not going to sit by and let anyone sabotage that. I see tattooing as a way of making money in a way that is a lesser compromise to my ideals (sort of...in some ways it can be a total compromise of my ideals) than to work under a large corporation or even a semi-large company being used as a disposable person as a way to create massive profits for the ones at the top. My mantra these days is cutting out middle-men. How to do it and get away with it. As often as possible. It's hard to actually do and live that way. I wish it were more accessible for more Americans to live this way. The way that our system has gotten under our feet like a roaring rapid river....it's taking us places we collectively don't want to be! And, who's to blame? (Ah, the American way! Who's to blame?) There is no clear-cut answer. But there should be more accessible alternatives to living the status-quo. I can't do certain things I'd like to do here, because I live in an apartment, but I do what I can. I wish I was able to do more. I wish I could compost without being threatened eviction. I wish I could have an animal companion without being threatened with eviction. Threats....everywhere......if one does not conform to the status quo and does not have enough money to finance opting out.

Also, we were not approved by that property management company for the little house and so now we are trying to figure out how to stay here for another month. Or, whatever. I'm trying not to stress out about money, about the management here, about our situation...but I'm just going to have to try to keep myself from going over the edge since I can't help but worry. I am staying mostly positive all day long, assuring myself that life goes on and we'll be fine....we'll be fine.........

What A Headache

Yesterday, amidst everything that is going on with us, my husband decided that he was going to take his day off, and do nothing. Nothing. The night before yesterday, he was telling me how he was going to be getting information and figuring out what we're going to do and all of this stuff. Yesterday came, he slept in, and when he came downstairs he declared that he wasn't going to be doing anything on his day off.

I tried not to feel too discouraged, but all day long I felt tired and I just wanted to curl up and hide away and sleep the day away. I'm totally depressed, and knowing that nothing got done yesterday is making me feel depressed and manic at the same time today. I'm not manic-depressive, but I can feel my heart beating and I feel on edge and I know that I'm really depressed right now, too. There's literally nothing I can do to stop the feeling of sorrow once it comes with that blast of heat in my face and behind my ears. I feel a bit short of breath. I'm doing everything I can think of to try and not have a real medical nervous break down. We don't need that on top of everything else. I need to stay strong. I need to stay positive and driven. But, dammit, I need my husband to be in step.

He's calling me up earlier today and asking me if my dad would co-sign for us. I know that would be a Hell No. My dad would rather invite me and my son to live with them (my mom and dad and brother) than he would even start to think about helping us out. Because he hates my husband. My dad will do (or consciously not do) whatever it takes to push our relationship over the edge. He still thinks I'm going to "wake up" one day and leave my husband.

We had someone willing to co-sign for us, but when he talked to his mom about it, she told him that they'd lose their housing assistance since he's on the paperwork for that. We couldn't put him in that position, even if he were still willing to help out. But, there's always my favorite misogynist. :-/ He is going to talk to his wife (even though he'll talk all day long about how he doesn't need his wife's permission for anything....) to see if they will co-sign for us. I hope that they will help us out.

It's not like we're looking to screw anyone. But, when I talked to my mom a few days earlier about whether or not she'd co-sign, she said she couldn't but I could tell she was saying no because she didn't want to put herself in the position of getting shit from my dad. I am thinking that if nothing else works out, I will try to see if my mom or my dad (or anyone else we know who owns their own business) will just agree to verify that I work for them and so we can get approved for the little house without getting a co-signer.

Everything else here is too expensive. Also, we've already paid the fee for the credit check, it would be too expensive for us to keep applying for other places when we know what it comes down to. Most places/people won't even talk to renters with as many lates as we have (only because the management here is disclosing that we've had so many lates even though we've had this arrangement and they're making more money off of us that way!), which is what a few other people we've called have said.

I just wish that my husband hadn't chosen to be lazy yesterday. I'm going crazy today because my husband didn't DO ANYTHING yesterday and then today he's calling me up to ask me to get my family involved, because he's already asked all of his family, done what he could do....essentially dumping on me again because he's at fucking work and he should be working. Needs to be working. It's that his tone has changed to being more negative and he's trying to ignore the fact that my family has never been as helpful as his family has because my family thinks that what his family does is "enabling" (to an extent, they have enabled my husband to DO NOTHING in the past) and his family wonders why my family won't help out, ever. My mom will do things like buy us groceries and gas, which is really expensive and helps us out a lot, but she doesn't like the idea of handing over cash because she will always see that as enabling a bad situation to continue. I understand why she thinks this way, but I really really need her help right now. And, getting our rental application approved is only step one to the problems we are facing. We are also in a bind as to how we're going to come up with the money to move in. My husband's parents have told my husband that they will help in any way they can, even though they don't have much money, they will find a way to loan us money if we need to. But they can't co-sign because I'm pretty sure they are starting the process to file for bankruptcy. Their situation being what it is, I know they would co-sign if they could, but they just can't. The situation with my family is different because they don't want to help out because they don't really agree with or appreciate or like the fact that I married who I married. Ya know, because I had such a great track-record with guys. It just so happens that my husband has turned out to be better to me than any other man (and I include my dad in that equation). I try to remind my family of this whenever I can, but I also have no one else to go to when I need to talk about my husband pissing me off. As far as I'm concerned, my husband is a better man to me than my dad has been to my mom. My mom supports the whole house now and gets nothing but shit for it. She's basically in an abusive marriage and it's not really appropriate for me to say so even though I can see it more now than I ever could. From experience of being there with my husband. Difference is, I challenge my husband pretty much daily. It takes a lot of courage to do so, but I look back to my parents as my motivation to create better communication in my marriage. I absolutely would NOT put up with the way my dad treats my mom, if I were in her shoes I'd tell him to go live in his shop until he has thought long and hard about his role and how his role has changed and how he is NOT ALLOWED to make his life partner feel inferior due to his insecurities...!! She's making it on her own, she doesn't need his utter bullshit. But, I'M the one who's married to someone who can't be trusted, somehow. It's really disappointing for me to look at my family (I say "family" because my brother is not innocent in all of this), to know how they perceive me as being a "smart fuck-up" (one who is smart but who will make bad decisions anyway), even though I've more than proved that I've got my priorities straightened out, for the past 7 fucking years, (I was "fucking up" for 2-3 years AT THE MOST)...but all of my family's problems get projected onto my family. I help out all the time with the conservatorship (and would be willing to do more, if I could get reimbursed for gas) and I often just clean up their house because I know that everyone living there will point the finger at someone else and refuse to budge....so I just go and help out because I know my mom needs it. I try and do what I can to help my mom and to support my mom, as draining as it can be at times. Believe me, it's been more draining the more abusive my dad has gotten. For years now, I've walked this tight-rope between being supportive and not pissing anyone off in my family, and it's this big game that expected of me if I want to continue having a decent relationship with my parents. As I think about all of this right now, though, I get angry. My mom doesn't want to help us out with