One down, one to go...

Well, I did it, I survived the Chief's visit. She left an hour ago. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. I just spent most of the time watching Intrepid being bounced around like a rag doll in her lap (she doesn't just hold him, she likes to keep him on the move). Comic was sarcastic as always, so that was good for a few laughs. And whenever Chiefy started on one of her 'Well why would you do that?' rants, I tried this nifty little jedi mind trick where I stepped briefly out of the room, waved my hand in front of my face and said in as convincing a voice as I could muster 'It doesn't matter what she thinks'. Yeah. I learned that one from Obi Wan Kenobi (Not the old one. The young, hot, Ewan McGregor one).

After Intrepid ate so much that he practically fell asleep in his high chair, and I laid him down in his room for a nap, I was set the task of fixing an ancient excersaucer that Chiefy brought for him. I suppose I shouldn't put it down. I mean, we don't have one for him yet, so it's not like we can be too picky, but this is my blog, and my rules, so I'm going to whine. The seat was totally screwed up (last time we tried to put him in it at her house, his crotch was about 2 inches off the bottom), so I tried my darndest to fix it. About 8 hours and two broken thumbs later, I succeeded. When Intrepid woke up, I promptly stuck him in it (I wasn't going to do all that hard work for nothing) and he played with the few toys that remain working on it, and some crusty old dirt that I suppose will never come off because Chiefy said she washed it twice. I have to do something about that rusty screw though. I'm not a snob. Really, I'm not. I like second hand things, I shop at Value Village. But there's a difference between used, and broken dirty piece of crap. Whatever, he liked it, so at least now I know he'll really like the one I've been eyeing for months at Toys R Us.

We also need to get Intrepid a new car seat. Like, didn't we just get one right before he was born? Who knew these kids were so expensive? The one I have picked out proclaims itself to be 'the only car seat you'll ever need' (where was this one when I was getting the first one?). Anyway, this one should do him until he legally doesn't need a car seat anymore, which should be around the age of 16.

Back to the visit. We all ate lunch, and then sat around watching Intrepid play on the floor. I wasn't sure how long she was planning on staying, and I was running out of patience and things to say, so I figured it was time to pull out the big guns. We went for a walk. Not just any walk. I packed us all in the car, drove to a park near the water, bundled up Intrepid in a hoody, and dragged them all along for a good long walk (with lots of hills) against the wind. I kept up the pace too. I have to give her props though, she did keep up. By the time we got back to our place, everyone was slightly out of breath (we still hadn't caught it, even after driving home) and red in the face, and The Chief promptly announced her departure. It must have done the trick!

So all in all, a good visit. Everyone played nice this time. I didn't even want to smack Chiefy when she started telling Intrepid how he should come and see her more often, really loudly so that we would know she was really telling us. Comic saved the day by pointing out that Intrepid couldn't talk or drive for that matter, so why didn't she just tell this to us? She never will though.

So, one down and one more to go. I seem to be filling up my calendar for our upcoming visit. I've been spending quite a lot of time on Facebook recently, and of course, everyone wants to see us when we visit my hometown next (which happens to be this weekend). I feel quite popular (even though I know they only want to play with my cute baby and don't really care about seeing me). It will be good to catch up with a couple of old friends while showing off Intrepid's cuteness. Hopefully, this will come in handy when Stepthingy gets a little too unbearable, and I can just take off, tires screeching, to meet a friend, which is much different than when I lived there (since I was never allowed to use the car, and therefore couldn't go anywhere since we lived on a farm way outside town). I suppose there was always my bike, but you just don't get that same satisfaction: She slammed the door in Stepthingy's face, hopped on her bicycle and peddled off up the driveway, vanishing slowly from sight. No, it just doesn't work.

I also have an ace up my sleeve. Comic will be there. My husband has an annoying habit of speaking his mind, to hell with everyone else, but this can come in very handy at times such as these. If Stepthingy pipes up and says anything even remotely demeaning to me, Comic will step right in and tell her where to go. And who said chivalry is dead?

Family Fantasy Fighting: The Chief vs. Stepthingy

Wow. What a day. I painstakingly moved my entire blog over from wordpress.com and got it tweaked just the way I want it. For now. I must have changed my blog a dozen times since I started it in May, but this is the first time I feel as though I've finally reached a happy-blogging-zone. At last, I can rest. Well, almost.

Ya see, I have this tiny, little, infinitesimal stressor. My Mother in Law (AKA The Chief Out-Law) is coming for a visit tomorrow. Normally this would be cause for panic for me, but not this time. No, no. I finally seem to have been able to adopt an attitude of nonchalance toward Comic's family. Yes, even Snarflap. That, and a large quantity of weed should get me to a good place in my head before the Chief's arrival tomorrow. Joking.

At least this time, I've been able to avoid the usual pre Chief arrival meltdown:

• I haven't chewed my nails down to the quick. Check.
• No stress 'blemishes' (normally, pizza face wouldn't be far off). Check.
• No insomnia. Check.
• No blood pouring down the walls. Check.
• No frantic house cleaning. Check.
• No hiding of all questionable items (this could include certain brands of soap) Check.
• No stockpile of anti-anxiety medications. Check.

I'd say that I'm rather a changed person! I may have known the answer for years, but I guess I just needed time to come around and finally realize that I don't need to worry about what old Chiefy comes out with in her arsenal tomorrow. I am me and there's nothing she can do about it. And the interest I have in the way she thinks I should be doing things rates somewhere below Pokemon on my list of what I care about. It's taken me a long time to say that and mean it, so I'll now give myself a well-deserved pat on the back.

Now, I figure if I can get past tomorrow with my self esteem and sanity in check, then it will bode well for the upcoming trip this weekend. We're going to spend our first overnight trip with Dad and Stepthingy. I'm very excited about seeing Dad, nothing like a good BBQ, Intrepid will make his first trip into the pool, where Comic will show him the art of cannonballing, no doubt, but I'm a little nervous about Stepthingy (basically all you need to know is that this is a super manipulative, ego maniacal, self-esteem thrashing kind of person, who is so evil that I'd rather spend a month-long cruise with The Chief than spend one hour in her company). Should be a blast!

Tomorrow will be my first test. And now to bed, for a peaceful night's rest. Bring it on Chiefy.

Weapons In The Form Of Words

This post is inspired by lyrics from ‘This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race’ by Fall Out Boy:

” I am an arms dealer
Fitting you with weapons in the form of words
And I don’t really care which side wins
As long as the room keeps singing
That’s just the business I’m in, yeah

This ain’t a scene, it’s a god damned arms race…
I’m not a shoulder to cry on
But I digress “

A couple of days ago, I listened to these words as I sped down the 401 en route to my in-laws*

(*As suggested by my father, they are more appropriately called ‘out-laws’, and shall hence forth be referred to as such.)

It occurred to me just how true those words are. When I think back to all of the terrible confrontations between Comic’s family and myself, they all came about by the utterance of some nasty words (often, though not always, behind my back) and what are nasty words, but weapons? Words can describe the joys and sorrows of our lives, limited only by the imagination of their speaker. They can evoke such feeling and passion, whether that be in the form of love or of hatred and all that exists between. I have suffered countless hours of anguish over words from my out-laws, mostly because as they are so important to Comic, I wanted more than anything to get along with them and to fit in. My fate however, was never in my hands. It had never mattered what I said or did, I wasn’t good enough before I even came into Comic’s life, because no one is good enough for him in their eyes.

Fortunately, over time, I have started to get over their words, and I’ve finally developed a thicker skin, a coat of armor, if you will, to deflect these continual utterances of malcontent. I am trying to turn over a new leaf in my life, and to no longer be drawn into their dramatics, which I know in the end will be better for Comic, Intrepid and myself. And so, in that spirit, I will not carry out a bitter diatribe about my visit as I had intended, but will take a step in the right direction and use my words for joy instead of pain.

At least I can say that Comic had a great time seeing his family, and that we are all now back at home. Intrepid sleeps peacefully in his crib. Comic plays archaic arcade games on his computer. And I am off to bed to drift into peaceful slumbers, listening to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on my iPod, and to dream of things left to my imagination.

Mid-Night Introspection

Here I am again, on yet another late night. Usually I’d be in bed by now (I’ve been sleeping better lately), but tonight, I find myself the only one awake once again. So naturally, this calls for a middle-of-the-night blog, which quite frankly, I’m glad about because I haven’t been posting as often as I’d like lately.

Things have been both better and worse lately. I know that sentence makes no sense at all, but it is what it is, just like my life. And right now, my life makes no sense at all. On one side, things have been getting better slowly but surely. The black dogs have backed off my heels for the time being, but I haven’t yet felt confident enough to celebrate. They are wily creatures and they have a nasty way of creeping up on you as soon as you turn your back to them. Even when I’ve banished them before, their spirits remained, floating on the edge of my consciousness. However, after saying all of that, things have been getting better of late. That much I will admit. And of course, as so often happens, as soon as one part of your life improves, another falls apart.

So now we come to the other part, where my best friend betrayed me. The ironic thing is that when you’re fighting off one enemy, you tend to lean heavily on those you trust, and you fall hard when they turn on you too. Not that he meant to hurt me, or that he tried to hurt me. He just did, because of something that is a part of his nature, and a side of him that I’ve snatched only glimpses of before.

This is all sounding a little cryptic about now, but at least it’s helping me to get some of this out. For days, I’ve been stuck in the middle of nowhere, with this sort of mist inside of my head. I really have no idea how to deal with this betrayal. I’m hurt, but there is so much else going on that I need to deal with right now, that things tend to get prioritized and this hurt is less important than some of my other wounds, and therefore lands further down the list. The saying ‘Time heals all wounds’ comes to mind. Or is it ‘Time wounds all heals’? I’m not sure which one is more true. For now it’s enough to know that I’ll deal with it later. I’ll try to rest. Yes, I’ll rest and catch my breath and lick my wounds before I leap back into the fray.

The Formidable Path

I have just finished fiddling around with my blog. In a way, my life has changed drastically this past week, and I felt that it was time for a change. My former theme was too dark. I found myself needing something a little on the lighter side, just not too bubbly- that might be construed as hopeful, and I am far from hopeful at this moment. The way I put it - that ‘in a way’ my life has changed drastically may sound odd.

I will attempt to explain my wording. Things have been progressing for a while, pulling me down a path that I do not want to follow again. I’ve been there twice in my life, and twice is two times too many as far as I’m concerned. I can’t say that some part of me didn’t see this coming, but for the most part, I was impervious to the suggestion of my well trodden trail. It’s hard to see the big picture when we’ve got our noses in the paint. It was as though I was stumbling around with my eyes half closed for some time and all of a sudden I opened my eyes wide and saw my life.

But where I found myself wasn’t a pleasant place. I was being dragged along that path by a pack of black dogs, their jaws tearing into me and dragging me further and further into the darkness. I could see the faint impressions of footprints from my previous visits. Finally, the path ended in a dark chasm, so deep I could not see the bottom, and I clung on to the edge of it, my hands struggling on the stones and tree roots, my legs swinging wildly, feet trying to find a purchase against the wall of the pit.

And here I am still. Clinging to the edge for all I’m worth. I’m terrified of falling; I’ve been down there before and I can’t go there again. I won’t go there again. Some days are hard, by nightfall my arms are weary, my fingers so weak, I fear that I’ll slip without warning and fall into the gaping maw. Some days are easier, I feel that I’ve pulled myself an inch or two higher, closer to my salvation. What will become of me in the end? I truly don’t know. I must find the courage in my heart that I know is there, and fight once more to beat back those black dogs.

Deep Sea Diving

Today has been one of those ‘blue’ days. You know the ones where you can’t shake that down-in-the-dumps feeling from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed? (or in my case, the time you should go to bed, but can’t because of insomnia). Today wasn’t just a normal blue day. It was an especially dark blue day. Like a bottom of the ocean kind of blue - almost black because the sun’s rays don’t penetrate this far down.

This morning, when I realized it was one of those days, I valiantly tried to cheer up. Really, I did. But everything seemed to conspire against me so that I kept sinking lower and lower toward the ocean floor. First of all, the weather. It was extremely foggy and one of those days where the dampness in the air gets so deep inside of you that you feel as though you’ll never be warm or dry again. And then there were all of those really annoying things that normally aren’t a big deal, but on days like these can send you right over the edge: dropping things, spilling things, stubbing toes, etc., so that by late evening, I was a muttering wreck, angrily mopping at the floor with paper towels. And everyone in my household seemed to be out to get me too. Everyone was really needy today, on the day that I had nothing to give.

So finally, after everyone had gone to bed, in desperate need of escape, I threw on my sweatshirt, grabbed my keys and set out for a walk. A walk, I decided, was just what I needed. It would be a good way to vent, and I would finally be alone to wallow whole-heartedly in my self pity. As soon as I walked out the front door, that horrid wall of soaking wet fog hit me. I decided I might be more in the mood for a drive. By this time, I was nearly in tears. Fortunately I met no one because I’m sure I would have been a terrifying sight. I imagined my hair a shocking mess, eyes rolling in madness and a pronounced limp due to the copious toe stubbing incidents of the day. Everything was annoying me now. The loud fan in the parking garage, that Gremlin a couple of parking spaces over, that was, for some unknown reason, painted an almost impossibly bright shade of yellow, and the fact that I had to manually unlock the door to my car since the battery in the remote had recently died. By now I was bumping around amongst those albino creatures just above the sand.

I streaked out of the garage into the night and immediately started to feel better. Gliding down the city backstreets at 2 AM has a great feeling to it. It’s as though some earthly disaster has happened and you alone are left to roam the empty city. Well, alone but for the taxis…I don’t think anything…asteroid…nuclear bomb explosion…could kill them off. I cruised around for some time, trying to mellow out. I threw in a CD to listen to and half-heartedly sang along to John Mayer songs with lyrics like: “..I know the heart of life is good..” ,thinking that tomorrow I might just find myself believing them again. I played a game with the traffic lights where I drove just a shade below the speed limit so that I could hit every single green. I headed home, not yet happy, but feeling a good deal better than I had all day. I was slowly rising back toward the surface…

Now what could I do that would take that last little edge off? To buoy myself further toward the surface? And this is the answer. I needed the closure of pouring my tortured soul into my keyboard and sending my cry of pain off into the void. And now I’ve broken the surface and I can see the stars. So, goodnight dear void.