A Nothing Post

I was sitting here trying to figure out what to talk about today, since my last entry was such a downer. I absolutely pink puffy heart love the keyboard on my new laptop, so I really want to break this thing in with a nice, long blog entry.

But what about?

I got nothin'. Well, actually, I have a lot of little things, but nothing big, so I figure, hey, I'll just talk about whatever. I am feeling better since last week. I still can't really talk about it without busting out into tears, but that's ok - I don't need to talk about it right now. When I do, I will. I can say that my husband is one of the most caring, understanding people I've ever known and I'm really thankful to have him.

Cassie was home for a visit this weekend. It was great to have her here, even though I didn't get to see much of her, with my work schedule. She looks great - she hasn't found a job yet and is frustrated that one didn't just fall into her lap like her little 18-year-old mind thought it would. I've refrained from "I told you so." What was even nicer about her visit was that it was JUST HER. I love her boyfriend, I really do - I think he's a good kid and he treats her very well. That being said, we've had over a year of barely having her here without him. That gets old pretty fast. It was wonderful to just hang out in the living room with her and most of her undivided attention. Let's not fool ourselves - she texts him constantly when they aren't together, but that's ok, we deal with that. She left this afternoon. They said they may be back some time in October. Good - I miss her when she's not here.

The boys are doing well with swimming lessons. Zack's a fish - he's really taken to it. Alex is struggling a bit, but he's trying really hard. Plus, he enjoys it, so that's really important.

Work is both wonderful and beyond frustrating right now. Business is very slow during the week and the servers are getting really angry and mouthy because they aren't making the money they are used to. I can't help that - I can't do a thing about it, but I get the brunt of the attitude because I write the schedules and give out the shifts. I now have several people mad at me because I had to cut some people's days - I just don't have the shifts anymore. So, I get a lot of backtalk and it's wearing on me. My boss gave a fantastic speech at pre-shift on Friday night about how the managers are the bosses, not the servers. We KNOW what we're doing, we're GOOD at our job, and we deserve more respect than what we're being given. Attitudes this weekeend were much better ;)

I got a great compliment from my boss yesterday. We had a fantastic night - nice and busy, great sales, happy guests. It was practically a perfect night. I love those nights.

My couch potato self is so happy with all the new shows this week. As I'm typing this, I'm watching Desperate Housewives and waiting for Dave to get back from his walk so we can get down to the REAL nitty gritty - Dexter. Oh, I can't wait!!!!

I have a little over a month until the Coldplay concert. I'm not sure if I mentioned before or not, but what is making my 4th Coldplay concert the best one of them all? My good friend, Nadine, is flying in from Idaho to go with me. Our sons were born a week apart and we 'met' online as a part of a birth board where moms of kids born in December of 2001 chatted. Nadine and I have a long history and we've never met face-to-face. The time has come. I can't wait. We are going to have so much fun!! My only stress involved in this is that I'm worried about getting down to DC before Coldplay takes the stage - I have to work. It's Halloween and there is no way that my boss is going to cover the evening part of my shift because he'll be taking his kids out. Halloween is ALWAYS completely dead at the restaurant, but this year it's a Friday and anything can happen. For me, it's not such a huge deal if I get down there and miss the opening song or two, but Nadine's never seen them live. They are, as we know, amazing. I don't want her to miss a minute. Ah well, we will figure something out.

The most important thing is that she will be here for 3 days and it's going to be awesome!!!!

Apparently, my brother moved to Texas. Why is my family so weird? We never keep each other informed of what's going on, really. My parents live two doors down from me and I never see them. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great that they don't bug the crap out of us or anything, but it's just weird how little contact we all have on a daily basis. It's ok, I love my family, I really do - they are just so different from everyone else's. Bryan got stationed in Texas for 18 months, I think. His wife is staying in Maryland, poor thing. I hope he can get back to Maryland for Xmas. We shall see.

Enough rambling - this keyboard rocks. I probably typed this in 10 minutes :) Here's to a great week, one could hope. Gotta keep a positive outlook, right?

Life is Unfair

18 months ago, I wasn't blogging so I didn't mention anything about this. I did on a journal on that site I don't go to anywhere. It's possible that it's still public - perhaps I will find it later and make a copy.

Probably won't though. What's the point? It's all over anyways.

18 months ago, I made a huge decision. To try to find my birth mother. I paid an agency with an excellent track record a large sum of money to do the searching for me. I got useless updates every 3 months or so that basically said the same thing - they had no information yet but be patient, it sometimes takes upwards of a year.

Today, I got the official "we are closing your file because we can't find anything for you" letter. I burst into tears and went running into the bathroom. I think Dave thought someone died.

Someone might as well have. I will never, ever know now. Never. All my life, there has always been at least the fleeting thought that maybe one day I would know. Now, I'll never know.

This is a pain and sadness unlike any that I have ever known in my entire life. And I've been through some pretty painful shit. I think I'd rather go through all of that again.

David said we could keep trying - do something else - keep looking for her.

No, I can't keep trying. I can't go through this pain again, I don't think I'm strong enough. If I had gotten one, little, tiny piece of information from them, I might feel differently. But I got jack shit. What else could I have spent that money on, I wonder? Something that wouldn't have torn my heart out and stomped on it, I'm pretty sure.

I can't imagine that the pain I would feel a second time would be any nicer than what I'm feeling right now and, most probably, it would be worse. Why on earth should I subject myself to that? No thanks.

I'm avoiding going to bed because I really don't want to wake up tomorrow and feel this anymore. Fuck. I hate this.

Guilt

Guilt is an amazing thing. It can make people doubt themselves in an instant.

I've been lucky. I wasn't raised with a lot of guilt about things. There wasn't the guilt that comes with a lot of religions. There wasn't parental-induced guilt. Again, I'm really lucky.

Then why, as an adult, do I harbor so much of it?? I've had what I call emotional guilt quite a bit - but that's not what I'm dealing with right now.

I'm dealing with a strange phenomenon, to me at least. I'm feeling guilty for the life that I have. Why is that? Do I not deserve to be happy and have things that I want? Of course I do. Yet, the guilt is there.

Why today? Because my lovely laptop died, yet again. Hard drive = kaplooey. Dust. It is now David's new Frankenstein project. Who knows what he can do with it - it won't even boot up to an operating system.

So this morning, we went to Best Buy. I am now the proud owner of this little baby:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665406955

This thing is absolutely amazing. It's way more computer than I need, but David suggested it and I can only do what he says haha.

But, I feel guilty.

I don't NEED this. It's a huge chunk of money for something that I can play with. That's where the guilt comes in. I have so many friends who can't afford to get something like this and if they can, they can't just walk into a store and pay cash for it. I'm very lucky - I know this.

I shouldn't feel guilty. We have worked very hard for everything we have. Sure, some of it is just good luck that David's profession pays so well, but still, it's not like we just sit on our asses and don't do anything.

Kinda like I'm doing right now while the cleaning woman I just hired cleans my nasty house. Sigh. Let the 2nd level of guilt begin!

Patriot Day

Are you fucking kidding me? I'm going to try not to swear as much as I'd like to right now.

FYI, my internet was out, so that's why I'm just getting to this. Stupid Comcast.

Zack came home from school last Thursday (Sept. 11) and wished me a "Happy Patriot Day." Huh? Patriot Day? We are seriously turning 9/11 into a HOLIDAY?!?!?!

I let it go until today when Alex said "did you know that Sept 11 is now Patriot Day?" Ugh.

September 11 was a horrible nightmare. Yes, every firefighter and police officer who died that day was a hero and a patriot, but by making this day about anything other than the massive loss of life and tragedy that it was, we are trivializing what happened.

Sit back for a moment and think about what Memorial Day really means to you. Nothing. Perhaps you MIGHT stop for a minute and think about our military families, but most like not - you're just pretty happy to have a day off from work. It's SUPPOSED to be a day to honor fallen military men and women. There's usually a nice ceremony in DC, but not much else is usually done.

Do we seriously want Sept 11th to turn into that? I'm disgusted and appalled. I'm also reminded of a great story I heard last week. There's this stupid woman who posts on the site that I don't go to anymore, who was all excited about their 9/11 memorial at her church because she got to do the stage design. Really? Wow, this day is not about YOU, you stupid, self-centered loser. 9/11 is not a day for set dressing and presentations. It's about loss. It's about horror. Most of all, it's about respect. I shouldn't be surprised that this person lives in California - as far removed from that day's events as you can possibly get. Living so close to the Pentagon, the fear here was palpable. I think that nothing can be done more to honor the dead that day than the ceremonies that occur at Ground Zero and the Pentagon. Those are respectful. Those don't involve set dressings and self centered people who think only of themselves.

Back to my original thoughts...should we have a Patriot Day? Sure, why not - but NOT on September 11th. Please, not on September 11th.

With the passage of time...

people forget and I think it sucks.

I haven't heard anything mentioned yet about today. It's been 7 years. In a way, it's hard to believe it's been that long and in another way, it seems like we've always lived in a "Post-9/11" world. I feel like people are forgetting. Yes, it's mentioned, but usually in the course of terrorist or political discussions. For some people, it's used for political gain (Yes, Guiliani, I'm talking to you).

My youngest son knows nothing of life before 9/11/01. He wasn't born until Dec that year. My older son doesn't remember anything prior to 9/11 or about that day and Cassie doesn't really care that much about it because she was too young to be seriously affected by it when it happened.

7 years.

There's not much to say, just profound sadness. Seeing Ground Zero last December was so moving. Made it all the more real to me.

We all remember where we were. I wrote about it in this blog in Sept 2004. Amazing how the details fade with time. I'd forgotten some of the specifics of what I'd done that morning.

7 years.

I'm sure the pain is still as fresh as it was then to the families of the victims. I can't wrap my head around that kind of pain. I wish them all the best. I hope they have found some happiness in their lives.

My heart hurts right now and my thoughts are a jumbled mess. Maybe I'll write more after I've gotten some sleep (it's 12:53am, so yes, it's technically the 11th).

Who knew

A french press could explode?

Hm, that's interesting.

My kitchen smells AMAZING right now. Poor Dave really would have liked some coffee though, poor guy.

I am old.

Today, I experienced my first hangover. No, I'm not lying.

In the past, no matter how drunk I got, I always felt pretty much fine the next day. Maybe a little tired, but mostly just fine. I'm a rockstar.

Today, not so much.

I have vague recollection of last night. Shift ended, a few servers asked if they could have a drink. I was doing my paperwork in the office. My boss was still there, hanging out with everyone at the bar.

I finished my paperwork and decided to have a drink while I waited for dish pit to finish up. One drink turned into, I want to say 4 or 5. These are not little drinks we're talking about either. So, yeah, I was wasted pretty quickly. I can tell you who was there, but I can't tell you what we talked about.

I can tell you that one of my servers drove me home, and then had to come back to get her keys, but by that point, I was barfing my brains out in my bathroom and I'm assuming that Dave got her the keys. Yay for drunk barfing.

What's not so great? Waking up and barfing some more. I made the grand mistake of taking some Tylenol around 6am for the pounding headache I had.

Yeah, I threw that shit up at about 8am. And there is nothing better than waking your kid up by barfing. "mommy, are you ok?" "yeah, dude, I just don't feel well". Understatement of the year, that one.

I managed to climb out of bed around 10:30 maybe? I watched the season finale of Dexter with Dave, ate about a quarter of a piece of toast over that hour, and went back to bed.

Woke up around 2:30 at least feeling like I don't want to hurl anymore. Finally able to take some more pain medication and I seem to be keeping it down, but holy hell, I still feel like shit.

At least I'm off work today - small favors, small favors.

So I'm thinking this getting wasted thing is not for me anymore. Oy!

The Palin Fiasco

I love politics. I hate politics. I don't blog a lot about them - I prefer back and forth conversation when discussing that topic.

But, I seriously want to talk about The Robot. The Robot = Sarah Palin. Tell me she doesn't look like one..she totally does.

I have many, MANY issues with this woman and McCain picking her. Not like I'd vote for him anyway, but I feel like being a bitch and nothing's ever stopped me before.

1) She has no experience. How can McCain bitch and moan about Obama's lack of experience and then put someone with even less a heartbeat away from the presidency? Dude, you are NOT young. You are NOT that healthy. You need to SERIOUSLY CONSIDER the fact that you could die while in office. Such an irresponsible choice.

2) She knew her daughter was pregnant when she accepted the nomination. What the fuck were you thinking, lady?!?!? Your daughter needs you now more than EVER in her entire life and you're gonna go campaign to be VP? Let's say you get elected - your daughter will give birth a month before you're sworn in. How much time do you think you will have to be supportive while you're helping to run the country. On that note...

3) You have an infant with Downs Syndrome. Dude, that kid needs a LOT of attention and help. Yet, there you are, Ms. Thing, running around campaigning. I've seen pictures of you holding your son. You look like you're holding a sack of potatoes. A sack that you don't really care if you drop or not because he's in your way while you're trying to do your important work stuff.

4) Let's go back to your daughter. You knew she was pregnant before you accepted the nomination and by accepting said nomination, you VOLUNTARILY EXPOSED YOUR CHILD TO NATIONWIDE SCRUTINY. Who does that?!?!!? Who throws their child to the lions like that? You should have respectfully DECLINED the nomination - but I guess self-serving, 'ambitious' people don't do that. I guess you think it's ok because you're going to force her to marry the father. I'm sure a divorce won't be eminent - for at least a year. Idiot.

Lady, you need to think about someone other than yourself. Of course, now I'm going to thank you cuz I'm pretty sure you just clinched that my guy is going to win this.

Enjoy the fall out from your ethics investigation, by the way. That should be fun.