Mission Impossible

Well, I finally did it.

Today, I tried to fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans.

I was hopeful at first. Everyone I see comments on how I lost my pregnancy weight so fast. So I figured hey, it's been two months. Time to break out the old wardrobe. I can do this. Piece of cake.

So I lay them out on the bed and eyeball them. Never before had they looked so tiny.

Alright, I say to myself. Let's do this.

Feet go in. Pause. I grab the waist of those sons of bitchs and begin the shimmy dance.

You all know the shimmy dance, don't you? The side to side wiggle as you inch those bastards up your legs? You know.

I hit the thighs. Pause. Deep breath.

Shimmy, shimmy.

Pause.

What the hell?

SHIMMY SHIMMY SHIMMY.

I-shimmy-can-shimmy-do-shimmyshimmy-THIS!

Pant, pant.

Yank-shimmy-pull-yank-shimmyshimmyshimmy.

And they're up.

Ha! Victory is mine! screams the voice of Stewie Griffin in my brain.

Uh oh. I have to button these bastards, don't I?

Pause. Stare. Firmly grasp both sides and pull. Pull.

Pull, woman, pull! Suck it in! SUCK IT IN!

Pant, pant.

Faintly realize that your hips are just not the same size as they were and probably never will be again. One last futile tug.

Sigh. Admit defeat.

Shimmy dance in reverse.

Grumble to self as you put your Fatty McFatass sweatpants back on.

Plan depressing shopping trip tomorrow as you ponder the trauma of trying to figure out what the hell jeans size you wear now.

File this away in the "No one told me this part" portion of your brain.

Sigh.

I'd Like To Thank The Academy....

Woot! I got my first blog award! Bestowed upon me by the wonderful and gracious Cyndi.

Thank you, awesome lady! I'll try to control my giddiness so I can post the rules:


The directions I was given are these: 1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think, 2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme, 3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.


My nominees are all wonderful women. They will make you think, make you ponder your own life, leave you nodding your head in agreement on a daily basis, and are just all around awesome chics. All are a daily read of mine (when I can get to the net) and all are well worth the time. Go! Read them!

1. Memoirs Of A Dysfunctional Housewife


2. Dancing Through


3. Motherhood Uncensored


4. A Girl And A Boy


5. Mommies Are People, Too

Rant-O-Rama

Nothing like browsing through Craig's List for about an hour to make you want to BITCH your head off. Some days, I don't feel like making the effort to be nice. I get sick and tired of telling everyone that I'm doing ok. Today was one of those days where I woke up with my bitch switch (ha ha ha, I rhyme) flipped on high.

To the lady who SPEARED MY CHILD:

Yes, I know she had to have her shots. But this ain't the fuckin' Olympics and it is not the javelin throw. All that was missing was a running start. Soup up your technique a bit, yea? Because if you give her a shot that way again, I'll give into my mommy urge and punch you in your over sized nose.

To Ex's Whore:

What on God's green earth makes you think I want to be friends with you?! Hello, we tried that, and you FUCKED AROUND WITH MY HUSBAND. I do believe that takes you out of the potential friend runnings. No, I do not want to be civil, either. I do not want to lay eyes on your stupid slut face ever again, because I may well remove it. No, my child cannot come visit you. In your sad, strange, pathetic little world, this may fulfill your fantasies of you and Ex being a family, but I do not want my daughter in your presence. Grow up. I hate you. I am not a Buddhist and I lack Zen, but I do hold grudges. For-ev-er. That's the way it will be, and if you really are dumb enough to come to my house in an effort to "work things out", I will give you precisely five seconds to vacate the area, and then I will proceed to take you apart. I wouldn't risk it if I were you. And by the way, he doesn't give a shit about you. Sorry about that. Wait, no I'm not. It's called karma, bitch.

To Ex:

What is the matter with your brain? You do NOT love me. That was made abundantly clear. Getting cold feet now that you have ruined any chance we had of making it, are you? Well, too damn bad. I was the best thing that ever happened to you, and you fucked me over. I will never trust you again. I do not want to be with you. Thinking of you and what you did makes me ill. I am sorry that you didn't realize how much I meant to you when we were still together, when there was time to fix what was wrong, but that is not my fault. I spent three years giving you second chances. That time is over. Stop doing this so I can move on with my life.

To Ex's Male Friends:

Jesus, why am I suddenly such a prime piece of ass?! What makes you think I want to date/sleep with you now that I'm single? Leave me alone! You are not suddenly irresistible to me now that he is out of the picture! Argh! No I will not do you to get revenge on him! What kind of friends are you anyway?



Wow, I feel better. Cleansed, really. Some days, you just have to be a bitch. The only good part of today was when I watched Anchorman and laughed like a loon whenever Will Ferrel goes, "Why don't you go back to your home on Whore Island!" That man is a laugh riot.

Well, I thought it was funny.

This Is Why I Hate Cats.

Today was just great. What with my house nearly burning down and all.

I went out to go grocery shopping earlier, taking Little One with me. My grandmother was still here at the house. So I go, get the shopping done, swing by and check the mail, and then head home. On the way up the stairs I thought to myself, "Something smells like burning."

Sure enough I open the front door and smoke billows out at me. My grandmother is sitting on the couch, oblivious.

"What the hell is burning?!" I shriek.
"Burning? Nothing's burning." says Grandma.

So I bundle Little One out onto the patio and go rampaging around the house. Stove? No. Toaster? No. Microwave? Nope. Cigarette burning on the floor? Don't see one.

Finally I get to my room and spot the source of the problem. Turns out while I was gone that damn idiot of a cat had decided it would be fun to play with the heat light on top of my snake's cage. He had knocked it off onto the floor. Now these lights aren't like regular light bulbs. They get HOT. You know how hot those halogen lights they use in shops or for fishing get? Comparable to that. And the motherfucker's sitting right on the floor.

So, I kick it away, run into the kitchen and fill up a pitcher with water, run back down the hall, douse the smoldering ruin of carpet, and survey the damage. It had burned a hole six inches across through the carpet, the padding, and was charring the wood underneath. How on God's green earth the floor didn't burst into flames I'll never know. I suspect it would have if I'd been gone any longer.

And grandma didn't realize anything was wrong.

This is why she lives with me know. This isn't the first fire incident she's had. She's been known to leave pots of food burning to death on the stove and light ashtrays on fire when putting out a cigarette on the paper towel she inexplicably had in it.

So, I've spent the last three hours sitting outside with the kiddo while the house airs out. And it smells like motherfucking burned carpet in my room now. And I have a huge, charred hole in the floor that I do not know how to explain to the apartment manager. And the cat wisely refuses to emerge from beneath the bed because he knows I have it in for him.

What a life.

I Was A Teenage Idiot

Oh, my. The memories this post brings back.

I think I might have mentioned somewhere before that I went through a phase for about a year when I was teenager where I was drunk or stoned pretty much any time I wasn't in school. I had a group of friends that I had started hanging out with that, while good friends, weren't exactly the best influence. Now I was never really one to cave into peer pressure, it's just that being around it all the time made me curious. So I fell into the same habits they did.

Getting stoned? Sure. BAD experiences. First time I did it, I stumbled around feeling nauseous and as though I was going to die for 2 hours before eating three toast sandwiches (just toast...nothing else. No butter, no nothing.) and a bowl of potato salad and falling asleep after shrieking at my then-boyfriend NOT TO TOUCH ME EVER AGAIN OR I'D DIE. Another time (having not learned from my first experience, evidently) my friend and I managed, WITHOUT EITHER OF US KNOWING, to get hold of weed that had been laced with CRYSTAL METH. I shit you not. I was totally out of it for 12 fuckin' hours, during which I nearly put my eye out when I broke a string on my guitar after trying to play Stairway To Heaven (because , you know, I was a guitar MASTER suddenly) squinted at the radio for half an hour trying to figure out why all the music was playing too fast, and annoyed the large group of friends who were babysitting us both by repeatedly asking when this shit would wear off. About nine million times a minute.

After that, I quit smoking. I was a bit reckless but not a complete idiot.

But drinking? Yea. Drinking was still fair game. I'm sure I don't remember most of the very dumbest things I did while drunk, as I got the black out experience more than once. There is nothing quite so embarrassing as waking up in your bed and hearing stories about how your friends had to carry you home and clean up vomit from various places. The first time I kissed Ex? Yea, I was blacked out. Can't remember it to save my life. As a matter of fact I woke up the next day wondering why I suddenly had a crush on him. I suppose I should have realized this boded ill for the rest of the relationship, but alas, I did not. Another time I decided I just HAD to walk home and sleep in my own bed (at 3 AM, when everyone else was asleep) so I set off. I do not remember anything about walking home, but when I woke up the next day I was in my bed, covered in mud and with a hole in my shirt. Turns out I somehow managed to cross a six lane highway, scale a six foot board fence, fall into a ditch and most amazingly of all, get home without being arrested.

Luckily for me I was always around a group of friends who took care of me if they had to and watched out for me. They interfered more than once on my behalf with scuzzy boyfriends trying to take advantage of my inebriated state. For that I am very thankful.

Whenever I look back at all this I cringe. Oh, how I cringe. The times I should have gotten arrested or hospitalized defy the imagination. I cannot believe how dumb I was. And considering my parents were dead and I lived with my grandmother, who was blissfully clueless to all this and let me come and go as I pleased...I'm honestly amazed I didn't come to more harm.

Thankfully I had a streak of common sense just big enough to prevent myself from going totally over the edge. And eventually I realized I was wasting my time and acting like an idiot, and I got a job and quit doing quite as many stupid things.

And now I have a daughter. And while her teenage days are still a comfortable distance away, I still get nervous. Because when it comes down to it, it is the kid that has to make their own decisions. Unless I keep her locked away in a closet, odds are she will run into some of the same situations I did. And while I can impart to her my suggestions and thoughts and advice and rules, in the end it's up to her. If she wants to do something, she'll find a way to do it. I'm not naive enough to think she won't. Teenagers are devious that way. I just hope she inherits less of my teen recklessness and a bit more of my common sense and self preservation.

And my luck, because lord knows I must have had quite a bit of it.

A Bit Of All Right

So, anyway, I'm doing better. SOMEDAY I will quit boring you all with my endless mopings about being dumped. I am still a little stressed, of course. But it's getting better.

In other news I had SO MUCH FUN on my weekend off, I spent it with my two best friends and we got drunk and talked. And talked. And talked. We analyzed music, discussed why James Hetfield from Metallica should never have gone sober, why guys like lesbians, psychoanalyzed the weirdness that is my friend's brain, discussed why I am so much better off without Ex and what a whore his new chic is, swapped very strange sex facts ( a guy will ejaculate roughly three gallons of sperm in a lifetime...blech ) and reminisced about our wild, carefree teenage days and how we've all grown up(Sort of). All in all it was exactly what the doctor ordered, and despite my mental breakdown in the last post it really helped lift my spirits.

The only bad moment was when I puked (blame it on malt liquor, I should stick to the hard stuff) and it was RED, and OMG, I thought I was HEMORRHAGING, but then realized that the Captain Morgans I'd been drinking all night was red. Ahem.

Also had a rather disturbing moment earlier this week when I opened the refrigerator to find a dirty diaper next to the milk. WHAT? The only thing I can imagine is that my 86 year old grandmother (who is blind as a bat) thought it was some sort of food thing and put it in there. I didn't ask. I can safely say that it was the first time I've ever had to relocate a refrigerated diaper.

Is it NORMAL for a almost two month old to have perfected her glare already? Because some of the looks she gives me when she's crying are positively bone-chilling. I fear she has inherited her father's temper. God help us all.

And you guys! Still reading even though my lack of posts has been horrid. Lacking the internet it's not feasible for me to be able to post everyday, but I'll try to get one or two a week up, if possible. And when I get everything caught up bill wise I'll be back to normal. So thanks for hanging in there! And I saw I was tagged for a couple of memes but alas I don't have the time to get to them just now. I promise I will do them eventually.

A Bit Overwhelmed

Sometimes, it's all a bit much to handle.

I'm reaching the point where I've recovered enough to start thinking about finding a job, and how I'm going to have to find a day care for little one. How I'm going to have to find a smaller apartment because I can't afford this one alone. How I'm going to have to face this all on my own.
It scares me.

Everyone seems to think I am such a strong person and that I can do this but I don't FEEL strong. I feel helpless and panicked. I feel like everything is weighing me down and slowly smothering me. When I look ahead at the rest of my life, the only bright spot in it is my daughter. The rest of it seems like an endless line of bill paying, working a job I hate, and struggling.

I just don't know how to deal with it all.

Some days I just want to curl up in a ball and cover my head with a blanket and cry.

They May Take Our Lives, But They'll Never Take Our Freedom!!

Sorry. I've been watching Braveheart. God, I love a Scottish accent. Yum.

Anyway, mommy's going out this weekend! Ex's parents are watching little one for the weekend so that I can go out and de-stress. And it just so happens to be St. Paddy's day Saturday too.

Fake Irish accents anyone?

Anyway, I plan to get sloshed and not think about a damn thing but having fun.

FYI, like I said before, this may be my last posting for a while, since the Internet's gone any day now. Don't lose faith, loyal readers, I shall return. In the meantime I'll try to get to the library once or twice.

Digging Up The Past

Most people that I know do not know how my mother died.

A lot of people that I know do not even know that my parents are dead.

Whenever anyone asks, I usually just kind of skirt the question, or say something about how we don't get along.

I don't really know why this is. I guess it is because I don't want their pity, or to hear the ever present "I'm so sorry." I don't want to see the look they would give me if I told them that my father died of a heart attack when I was seven, and that my mother killed herself when I was sixteen.

She had left me and my little sister at home one day to go to work, and never came home that night. Or the next. Or the next. Apparently, she was done with us, and decided to stay at a boyfriend's house in the town that she worked at, rather than come home to her kids. Two months went by. I heard from her once, when she called to say she was coming by to pick something up. (I was living with my grandmother by now, and my little sister was living with my aunt in the same town where my mom was working) On the day she was supposed to come by, I made sure I was gone. I was angry with her for not coming home, for not calling, even on my birthday. So I left.

I never saw her again.

About two weeks after that, right before Christmas, my aunt called to tell me my mother had died. She wouldn't tell me how on the phone. She said she needed to tell me face to face.

The night before, my mom had called my aunt around 1 in the morning, telling her she needed to come get my sister (who was staying with her for the night). She wouldn't say why. When my aunt went over to the house, there was no answer. The door was unlocked, so my aunt walked in. She found my mom. My mother had put a shotgun in her mouth.

My little sister (3 at the time) was asleep in another room, thankfully. She hadn't woken up. I am very grateful for that.

To this day, we're not sure why she did it. there was no note, no warning. She had seemed fine earlier that day. She'd always had a drinking problem, so we suspect she was drunk, upset about something, and decided to take her life rather than try to get help.

My mom had tried to kill herself once before that, when I was 13. She downed a bottle of sleeping pills and half a bottle of wine and went to bed. Somehow, she woke up, and I realized something was wrong when she came stumbling into the living room, incoherent, and tried to make a phone call with my sister's sippy cup. I called 911, she went to the hospital and had her stomach pumped, all was well. She seemed to be fine afterwards. Everything went back to normal.

Looking back, I realize someone should have made her get help. But no one did.

I'm spilling all this I guess because today I realized that it's about time to let God back into my life, and I wanted to give a little background on why He hasn't been in it for a long time. I lost what little faith I had when my mom died. But this morning, when I went to check the mail, I had one of those hokey church letters. You know the kind, where they ask you to return a card or something similar so that the church can pray for you and help Jesus into your life. For some reason, instead of throwing it out, I did it. Some small voice inside me just told me it was something I should do. So I wrote down what I needed prayers for, which right now is money, and sent it off. I am barely scraping by this month, so close that I probably won't be blogging for a couple of weeks, as we need lights and a car more than the Internet. My cell phone got turned off yesterday, leaving me no way to call anyone for anything since we don't have a house phone.

Except earlier today my cell phone came back on.

I did not pay the bill. Ex did not pay the bill. No one paid it. But it is on and paid for nonetheless.

I know some would say big deal, so your cell phone is on. But how often do you hear about bills paying themselves? Maybe I am reading too much into this, but that coupled with the fact that I just sent off a letter to a church this morning after years of being ambivalent at best about God, maybe it is something.

Maybe Someone is trying to tell me He's there to help me. That I'm not as alone as I've been feeling.

I'd like to think so.

No Need For Violence

So I was thinking about it today, and I realized something.

For the past week I have thought a lot about hunting his little bitch down and beating the crap out of her for the crap she pulled. But then I figured something out.

She's a fucking kid.

I told you she was 18, right? Well, there are 18 year olds that are adults and there are 18 year olds that, well, aren't. She is the latter of the two. I see how she talks to him in her messages ("Baby you're so hott. I love you!" ) She is still very much in a high school relationship frame of mind. She doesn't know what it is to have a grown up relationship with grown up problems. She still lives with mommy and daddy and has all her stuff paid for. She doesn't even have a job.

And I figure one day, down the road, she will get married, settle down, and have a family, and then she will look back on this and wonder what the hell she thought she was doing. She will think about how she would feel if some little tart was to come along and do the same thing to her.
Right now, she doesn't realize that. She is very much a spoiled brat, so she sees something she wants and goes for it, no thought to the consequences or how her actions affect others.

So why should I kick her ass? It might make me feel better, no doubt about that, but my point still won't be made. She is too young and immature to realize what she has done. Beating the snot out of her won't solve that, and will probably just get me thrown in jail.

So I guess I'll just let it go and let her learn her own lessons. Much as I wish I could just clock her in the face, there's just no point to it. Let her play her games and have her fun.

Unless she tries to start something with me.

In which case it's on.

I might be older and wiser, but I'm not a martyr.

And by the way; everyone calm down. I'm not gonna get back with him. I'm allowed a moment of weakness, aren't I? I'm just still adjusting to all this, that's all.

Bless Me Father, For I Have Sinned

It's time for a confession.

Oh, you guys are gonna be so mad at me.

So Ex has been coming around the last few days, to bring me groceries and run other little errands. We said when we split up that we were going to keep it civil for Little One's sake. And we've been getting along pretty well.

And he's started talking about getting back together. He is saying how he was an idiot to let me go, to pull the gone all the time shit, to leave me for HER. She, apparently, is a raving nutter. She's already telling him she loves him, that they should get a place together (she lives with her mom-did I mention she's only 18? Ex is only 21, so it's not sicko or anything, but still) that she doesn't want him to pull out.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Can you say crazy?

So now that he's seen her psychosis, I think he is really regretting what he's done.

Here's the confession part-I've actually been considering it. *ducks*

I KNOW. I know, I am being a raging idiot. Of course since she didn't turn out to be his dream girl, he's gonna come crawling back to me. What happens when the next little tart comes around? What happens when he doesn't change his ways, like he swears he will? And I hate myself for even considering it.

It's just so damn hard, this single mom bit. I miss him. A lot. Sitting here with my insomniac self, night after night, is driving me insane. It's so fucking LONELY here with just me and the wee one. No one to talk to (that possesses a vocabulary, anyway) no one to watch movies with, no one to cuddle me. The nights just DRAG by. I know I should be strong but when it's just me here, listening to the deafening silence, waiting for dawn to roll around, well...anything seems better than that.

And I still love him. So much. I can't help that. He is the first guy that I've had a truly serious relationship with. He made me feel beautiful, and smart, and awesome. He gave me self confidence, made me believe it was possible for someone to love me back, that I wouldn't always be the lover and not the loved. And I know that if he came along, then it's possible for someone else to come along. Right now though, I just don't WANT anyone else.

Deep down, though, I don't really believe him when he says he will change, and that things will be better, like they were when we first got together. I don't think they will. And there is a tiny little part of me that doesn't care. Very tiny, but it's there. That sad, pathetic little part of my being is willing to take whatever he dishes out just to have him back again. That is the part I am trying to squash, because it scares me.

I know I have to be strong for my daughter. She doesn't need to grow up with a father who is going to be gone all the time and hurt her mommy. Not too long from now she will be old enough to realize something is wrong with how daddy acts. And I don't want her to have to go through that. I don't want her to feel abandoned or like he doesn't love her.

I just wish I could fix him. I wish I could make him not put his own selfish needs and desires before his family. Because I know I can't take him back just because I am missing him like crazy. God, part of me wants to so badly, but there is another, larger part that wants to protect my daughter from hurt, like my mother never did. That is the part that is going to have to come out on top, for both our sakes.

I just hope it gets better soon. Right now I feel completely overwhelmed.

And yes, eventually I will shut the fuck up about this whole thing. I'm just trying to work my way through it, and this blog is helping me do that, along with all the wonderful messages and support I've been getting. Thanks again, you guys. You're awesome.

Aw, Crap

So I woke up this morning and I realized-how am I going to get laid now?

Yea, I know. It should be the last thing on my mind, but now that my downstairs no longer feels like someone set off an M80 in there, my libido has been slowly making a comeback. It's not like I woke up feelin' frisky or anything. It was just a sort of random observation.

I am used to having booty on call. Now what?

It's not like I couldn't. I know there are calls I could make to get some tail. (God, now I sound like a hooker.) Old exes, friends that would, ahem, probably oblige me, being guys and all. But I don't want to just have a one nighter. That's never really been my thing. Call me old fashioned, but I like to have a little emotional attachment with those I sleep with.

It's just one of the many things that I have to get used to after taking it for granted for so long. Along with taking the trash out myself, going to check the mail, cleaning the cat box (one perk of pregnancy that I miss, no cat poopies to scoop), washing the car.

Sigh.

Being single is a pain in the rear.

And one of my neighbors is playing Sarah McLachlan FAR too loud.

Ah well. At least they aren't playing the oboe again.

New And Improved

So, I decided the dark, dreary layout needed to go. Time for something more light and airy and cheery. Thus the butterflies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free to good home: One cat, male, intact.

Prone to bouts of sudden psychosis that may include: sudden unexplained rampages throughout house; running headfirst into sliding glass doors and/or walls; trying to fit entire body down bath tub drain; stealing baby's socks, hats, and mittens to drag under the depths of the bed, never to be seen again; refusing to let owner use restroom without an escort; refusing to let owner bathe without attempting to sit on top of her head; obsession with wires; chewing on cell phone antennas.

Is cute and fluffy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news, Little One is smiling and cooing now. Seeing her beautiful little grin and holding "conversations" with her is really helping me cope. It's so awesome that she's starting to show her personality more and not being just a little blob of poop and hunger cries. Can't wait for that first belly laugh!

Of Beatings And Bimbos

So, yea.

I've been coping. That first night was H-A-R-D. But I got through it. And the one after that. I haven't cried at all today, so that's news.

All hell broke loose earlier. A friend of mine that I haven't talked to in a while because Asshole ( aka ex husband) hates him (and forbade me to talk to him) came over with this chick I kinda know but not very well to give me some nice information about how Asshole was cheating on me before we broke up and is now shacking up with the same silly tramp. Anyway, as we were sitting on the porch smoking who should come walking up but Asshole himself.

Friend: You know, that kinda sounded like his car.

Me: Nah, it's not. He is over at...oh, shit.

And then Asshole comes out, posturing and getting in his face and asking him what he was doing at his house (HIS house? Say what?! You don't live here anymore, sir) and then proceeded to beat the shit out of him.

Really. My friend is kind of a wussy and he just kinda sat there and let himself get beaten. He didn't even throw a punch back.

Bleh. But that was my damn entertainment for the evening. At least the cops weren't called.

Oh, and this is the message I sent to that silly tramp he's with:

"I just wanted you to know that you're a two faced low life bitch. And a fucking chickenshit at that, since you couldn't even tell me the truth when I asked you if anything was going on with you and Asshole. I know this shit was going on before we broke up so quit trying to deny it. What kind of pathetic excuse for a person can act like they are someone's friend, babysit their child, and then fuck around with their husband on the side? Oh wait, that'd be you. It's no wonder you don't have any fucking friends given the kind of person you are. So I hope you feel really great about yourself, you homewrecking bitch. You're fucking pathetic. Hell, if I didn't hate you so much I'd probably feel sorry for you. It must suck to be such a shitty person and friend. And by the way, stay the fuck away from me and out of my house if you know what's good for you, because if I fucking see you you're not gonna know what hit you."

Whatcha think?

Too much?

I don't really care if it WAS petty and I should've taken the high road, not stooped to her level, yadda yadda.

Sometimes petty feels damn good. And I'm kinda hoping she gets shitty with her reply cuz, OH, how I would love to knock her teeth down her throat.

Pieces

He's gone.

When he came home today, we talked. And it's over. The explanation he gives for the way he's been acting is that he wanted to leave me before I ever got pregnant. After I was pregnant he said he decided to try to stay and work it out. But that he can't. So, somehow, instead of me kicking him out, he dumps me.

I've been living a lie for damn year a near now. Or he has anyway. Funny how his desire to break up with me didn't extend far enough to stop having sex with me.

So he is gone. I can't quite believe it. I feel like someone hit me with a bat, right in the face. Like someone is tearing me apart from the inside out. I keep wandering around the house, feeling lost. I thought I would take it better than this, but as soon as I closed the door after him, and locked it, it hit me. He is gone. There is no working this out. It's over. I tell you, my king sized bed never looked so freaking huge, now that I am going to be sleeping there alone.

I have spent nearly every day of the last three years with this guy, and now he won't be there anymore. I will wake up alone, and go to sleep alone.

His dad is so angry with him for this, he told him he's not welcome in his house anymore.

I can only imagine what his sister will say. She will probably come down and beat the shit out of him herself.

I know I have other people that love me and the baby, and they are all willing to support me and help me out all they can. But right now, that doesn't make me feel better. Right now, all I can think is how much this fucking hurts.

The List O' Books, And A Question

I got this idea here.

Since I'm an avid bookworm, and desperately needed a change from the marital posting (which I don't feel up to talking about at the moment) I figured what the heck. Without further ado:

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole (I don't know how to cross out, so I'll underline the ones I won't touch -- there aren't many), put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) Maybe I’ll watch the movie first.
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) So much better than the movie.
5. +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) Read these in fifth grade.
6. +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) 8. + Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) Oh, how I love Harry Potter. Awesome books.
12. *Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. *A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) Bleh.
16. +Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18.+ The Stand (Stephen King) – Yea, it was long. But really, really good.
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. *The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26.+ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) 27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. +The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) 29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. *Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert) Not really my cup of tea.
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) I hear the movie is good.
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell) Everyone should read this book.
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) 39. *The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. *The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) 42. *The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. *Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) 49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) 54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) 58. *The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) 60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. *The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. +Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. *Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) 76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. *Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. *Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) -- One of my all time favorites.
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. +Lord of the Flies (Golding) Awesome. 93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) Ick.
100. Ulysses (James Joyce) No way. I had to do a report on this book in high school and I didn’t even read it then.

Now for the question: Does anyone know of any good sites to find free templates for this thing? I want to change mine but all the ones I find are even more boring than the one I already have. And I am far to cheap to actually, you know, PAY for one.

And thanks again for all the support about the situation I've got going. You guys rock...

Letter To Husband

Dear Husband,

I think I hate you.

As I've been sitting at home, alone, these past few nights, I have cried a lot. I cry because it hurts me that you seem to have stopped caring. I think back to the beginning of our relationship. Where is the guy that used to call me 10 minutes after I left the house to tell me he missed me? Where is the guy that blindfolded me after I came home from work, and led me into a room lit up with candles, a tape of our song playing, and slow danced with me for hours? Where is the guy that used to write me poems nearly every day?

I think he is long gone.

Then, I think back to a not so great period of time. You would stay out for hours, and I knew you were with her. I remember you slipping out of bed one morning, after getting a phone call. I followed you, wondering why you had been so careful not to wake me. Only to look out the window and see you kissing her in the driveway. I wanted to run outside, to tackle her to the ground and beat her until I felt better. I wanted to hit you too, so that you could experience some of my pain. But I didn't. I waited until you came back in. I told you I had seen you, I knew what was going on, and that if you so much as spoke to her again, we were through.

I realize now that's where it should have ended.

I should have realized you had issues with growing up, and being a man. I should have realized it when I worked a full time, crappy, 8 dollar an hour job for three years because you couldn't manage to hold down a job. I should have left, instead of continuing to work and support us, barely able to pay rent and keep food on the table.

Then, I got pregnant. You were overjoyed. You spouted declarations left and right. You would be such a good daddy. You would work, as much as you needed to, as many hours of you could, because now you were going to be a father. Now it was time to step up and stop being a child. I was nervous. I had my doubts. There was now a baby on the way though, so I let it go and hoped that this would be the thing that would make you be a man. There was no way you would still act that way, when you had a daughter to take care of. Not as much as you talked about how your brother is a deadbeat dad, and you would never, never be that way. It wouldn't happen. No way. I had faith in you.

Had.

Now, not only have you not stepped up to the plate, you have run in the opposite direction. You hardly come home anymore. You have been gone for the last three days. I have seen you maybe a total of 3 hours in that time. You spend the nights at our friend's house, sleeping in bed with her. Our friends say nothing has happened, but they can't watch all the time. Instead of acting ashamed, or sorry, you accuse me of being paranoid. You throw the blame for you being gone at me, saying that maybe if I cooked more, cleaned more, did what you wanted, you would stay home more. You think me asking you to watch the baby while I cook dinner is you having to bribe me to cook. You tell me that I am making a big deal out of nothing, that there is nothing wrong with how you are acting. You say you will do whatever you want to do. I ask you, if there is nothing wrong with how you are acting, then what do you think your sister and father would have to say about it?

You are silent.

You know.

Today when you came in, I thought you were going to stay. I thought I would give it one last shot, to try and save our family, to make sure our daughter had a daddy around while she is growing up. She deserves to have a father.

Instead you left again.

And as I looked at you, gathering your things to walk out the door yet again, one thought kept running through my head.

I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

There was no crying when you left this time. The hurt came from how much I loved you. That love, that I once thought was indestructible, is slowly being replaced with anger. Anger that after all I have done for you, and put up with, despite everyone asking me why I did, you can treat me this way.

What makes me angrier is the fact that my daughter has a dad who doesn't want to bother with her. She will have to grow up wondering why she doesn't get to come home after school and play with her father, or have him read bedtime stories to her. She may wonder what is wrong with her, why her daddy didn't care enough to stick around. One day I will have to answer those questions. And I think I really do hate you for that.

Tonight, if you bother to come back as you said you would, I think your clothes will be packed. I think that they will be sitting by the front door. And I think this is the best thing for our daughter, despite the fact that part of me still wants to cling to you, to beg and plead for you to come back to me. It is our daughter that is important now, though. I think it will be easier for her if you are gone before she gets old enough to be hurt by her father walking out. There is a part of me that is screaming, that feels like I am about to rip my heart out of my chest. This is not easy for me, despite how angry I am.

But I am her mother. I have to be strong in this, for her sake.

Because I am all she has.