hey, i’m a crazy bitch

((Buck Cherry, in case you’re wondering))

So I was finally able to go back to therapy; big mixup with insurance forced me to stop going for 6 months (boo). I’ve been twice so far, and I feel SO much better already.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble dealing with (what I perceived as) bil turning on me, partly because I’d always looked at him as my surrogate brother. My (biological) brother is 7 years younger than me, so while we can go have a few drinks or hang around laughing at Family Guy, he’s still a young pup, as my mom might say.

I used to have a brother who was a couple of years older than me but he died (lonnnnnng and very personal story) when he was 5. When bil and I started getting along well I thought maybe this would be my chance to be able to relate to a sibling close in age to me.

Anyway, so the blowup bil and I had really shook me up. So I talked to my therapist about it. She said it sounds like one of two things happened:

• He started having thoughts about me that were not sibling-like
• He actually developed un-sibling-like feelings for me

Either way, it freaked him out and he didn’t know how to deal with it, so he simply withdrew and finally blew up.

When she first brought up this possibility I was like no f***ing way - we’re friends, and he’s my brother-in-law. The more we talked, though, the more things started occurring to me, like:

• Him telling me he wasn’t used to people understanding him
• Him acting differently around me when mil and dh weren’t around - like, being more open and friendly and relaxed
• Him almost always coming up and talking to me when he was working (at the gym)
• Pulling me into an empty room at work, talking a mile a minute and acting somewhat nervous
• Him calling up or stopping by randomly (prior to last year) and talking with (just) me for an hour or three

Then I was like Oh Shit. Is it EVER possible for 2 people to just be friends? Why do emotions and “feelings” have to enter into it so often? I had sort of the same thing happen with my dh’s cousin a few years ago, and haven’t really talked to him much since.

The hysterical thing is, it’s not like I flirt - in fact, I’m the farthest thing from a flirt you could ever find. Try “wallflower” and you’d be more in the ballpark.

So now I have to figure out how to talk to him without directly saying “Look I know you’re hot for me and it caused you to lash out at me at Christmas, but…” (lol) I mean, it’s not like I can expect him to blend into the family tapestry; he is my dh’s brother.

Fuck it all….

Time to get down to business

For the first time since I became old enough to vote I am excited about a presidential candidate. Despite his personal flaws, I really like Bill Clinton, and think for the most part he did a hell of a lot of good while he was in office (and still does; the stuff the Clinton Foundation does is pretty impressive).

I pretty much vote Democrat; I haven’t really seen any Republicans running for office (locally or nationally) that I ever really agreed with. There’s been a couple of (local) exceptions, but I’ve always voted Democrat in major elections.

Anyhoo, I’ve been following the media circus between Obama/Clinton the past 6 months or so. While I liked Bill, I never really connected with Hillary - in fact, I just don’t really like her all that much. Can’t really say what it is, exactly. She’s done a lot of good work in a lot of areas, but there’s some small, nagging thing that I don’t like about her. [[shrug]]

So it’s no surprise that I’m really excited that Obama is the Democratic candidate. I haven’t watched and been as excited about a candidate since (Bill) Clinton ran for re-election in 1996. There’s something (IMO) so promising about him, and I really really feel, for the firs time in a long time, that him getting elected will change the U.S. for the better.

here’s a story

The other day I brought up the “what if” person in my life. So here’s my story of my what if guy…

From ages 16-18 I worked at the local hospital in the housekeeping department. It was actually an excellent job to have while in school; I mostly worked weekends + 4 hours during the week. About 8 months after I started working there my (favorite) supervisor got her stepson hired doing the “trash run” (basically he would go around the hospital collecting the trash and also getting rid of the biohazard trash as well). Randy was his name.

There were 4 of us who did regular cleaning schedules - 1st, 2nd, 3rd floors and the OB and ICU departments. 2 of the girls i worked with (Angie and Jane) were pretty nice; they were (usually) friendly and good workers. The other - her name was Andrea - was a regular bitch on wheels. She’d been there for a year or so before I started and thought her shit didn’t stink. The head supervisor made Andrea assistant supervisor, meaning she could walk through our floors/schedules to make sure we were cleaning properly. Andrea loved this :rolleyes:

Maybe I’m a little biased because she tried riding my ass for a couple of weekends for no apparant reason. [shrug]

Anyway, Randy had trouble from the time he started. At lunch on his first day he tried talking to Angie. She thought he was hitting on her and told Andrea (whom I guess she was fairly good friends with). Andrea immediately started making fun of Randy - his height (he’s not a very tall guy), his hair, you name it. Angie and Jane thought this was hysterical, and for the rest of that weekend they made fun of him behind his back and make snide remarks as he’d walk away. I never joined in; I only wanted to rip them all a new one for being such bitches. I remember walking out after work his first Sunday and seeing him sitting in his truck with his head in his hands

I’ll be honest here and say that at the very beginning I wasn’t sure if I should talk to him because I didn’t want to be ostracized by the others, too. When you’re 16 sometimes the obvious right choice isn’t so clear right away.

Anyway, it didn’t take long before I (mentally) told the girls to shove it and started talking to him; at first because I wanted to show the other girls that I wasn’t Andrea’s sheep; later, because he was a genuinely nice guy and we seemed to have a lot in common - we were both shorter, were really nearsighted, kind of off-beat, etc. Plus we made each other laugh by making fun of our (not so favorite) supervisor, whom we nicknamed “Drill Sargent”.

I had never really talked to guys before I met Randy; they always seemed like huge question marks to me, some mystifying creatures. I was so shy that it made it all but impossible to even be friends with a guy. But Randy was so easy to talk to, and he seemed so different from the guys at school who all seemed to be either totally immature or completely stupid.

Can you guess what came next? Yeah, within a few weeks I realized I was developing feelings for him. The “revelation” moment came one morning before our shift started. We were sitting in the storeroom listening to someone tell a funny story. We laughed at the punchline and our eyes met briefly, and it was. . . .totally cliche lol My heart beat faster, I felt hot all over. It was wonderful.

Even more cliche was the fact that he was dating someone at the time. We talked about his girlfriend occasionally; he told me once about a nice razor she gave him. I hated the fact that she got to be with him and I didn’t but I was glad that she seemed to make him happy.

Our conversations never got very deep but he seemed to enjoy talking to me. Sometimes he would tease me, and a few times our eyes would meet and “we['d] laugh just a little too loud…we['d] stand just a little to close…we['d] stare just a little too loonnnngggg..”

*ahem*

Anyway, one of my bff’s in high school kept trying to get me to ask him to hang out, and later that spring, to ask him to go to Prom with me. And this is why Randy is my “what if?” guy. If I hadn’t been too afraid to ask him to go to Prom, I might’ve gone with him and had a much better time than I did with the guy I did end up going with. We might’ve - if nothing else - become real friends.

sigh.

One night a few weeks ago I did a search on MySpace for him, and lo and behold he actually has a page! I tried adding him as a friend, which he granted for about 18 hours, then removed me from his friend list. At first I was really hurt, but I realized that there could’ve been a lot of reasons why. I did try one more time to request him to add me, but this time the request was denied without any adding at all.

I’m kicking myself for not messaging him when I had the chance. I’ve been wanting to tell him for years how much his friendship meant to me, and how he really made a positive difference in my life. I’d like to tell him too how I’d really enjoy being friends with him again, but I’m not completely sure that would be wholly appropriate and/or freak him out.

I suppose time will tell in the end…

Fiddle de dum

I went to the doctor yesterday and he basically reiterated to me what I already know about losing weight - you get better results with a group-oriented type of program (like Jenny Craig, WW, yada yada). He did agree to prescribe Meridia to me for 1 month. However, when I called around to the pharmacies, the cheapest I would be able to get it (because our fucking insurance is stupid) is $109.00. Yowza!!

So, I will look around. I’m still not sure I want to take a pill to help me lose weight, even if the idea is only to help me get over the initial “i’m starving” hump.

Did you ever have someone whom you’ll always wonder “what if?” about? And did you ever feel pretty certain, even if current indications could be construed otherwise, that they still held a spot in their heart for you?
I know I’m being deliberately vague; I’ll probably write more about it later, after I’ve had time to ponder a bit.

i REALLY need to lose weight

I am a typical overweight person - I’ve struggled with my weight most of my life. I’m 5′2″, so weight doesn’t distribute very well on me.

In high school I was about 150-165 lbs. When I got pregnant at 23 my weight went to its highest at 230 lbs (shudder). At that time I joined Weight Watchers Online and lost 38 lbs before getting pregnant with YD.  Since giving birth to YD in 2004, my weight has fluctuated between 203-218. I did get down to 198 before Christmas, however, that flew out the window with the other stress I’ve been under. Currently my weight is holding somewhat steady around 214. I’m a classic emotional eater. I eat when I’m happy, sad, bored, upset, angry.

I’ve joined WWO 2-3 times in the past 4 years. Usually I will start out well, eating healthy. This lasts for 1-4 months until something happens (I get sick, holidays, some major stress comes up) and I completely fall off the bandwagon.

Right now my BMI is 39. Needless to say that’s almost twice what is considered healthy. And you know what? I’m scared. I’m scared I will never lose the weight I need and want to lose. I’m scared I’m going to get back on WW and will follow the same paths as last time. I’m scared I’m going to have a heart attack before I’m 35. I’m scared my children will hate me when they get older because I’m fat.

I’ve been doing a ton of research on different things that could possibly help me in my quest to lose weight and be healthier. One thing I found that seems promising is that weight loss drug that probably sounds familiar from your spam folder - Phentermine.  From the research I’ve done it seems like it could really help me get going with my weight loss and give me enough motivation to continue once I stop taking it.

You might be thinking that I’m looking for a quick fix, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is, I’ve tried everything I feel comfortable trying. I’ve been on weight watchers, medifast, the 6 week body makeover, atkins, the cereal diet, plain old eating healthier. Nothing, by itself, has been enough to help me lose a significant amount of the weight I want to lose.

My thoughts behind trying Phentermine (or something similar) is using it to supplement eating healthier (which I’ve been working on for the past few months anyway) and getting more exercise (again, something I’ve been working on with little luck). If my doctor agrees to let me try it out for 3 months, I really feel that that will be enough time to take off some weight and get into the habit of really eating healthier and getting more exercise. Even if it only helps me lose 25 pounds, I will be at  my lowest weight in over 10 years. If that’s not motivation to keep going, I don’t know what is.

I will probably call the doctor in the morning to set up an appointment to talk to him about my options. He’s been after me for a while to lose weight - I’ve gone in with knee problems, back pain, and my blood pressure is starting to creep up as well. I’m hoping we’re able to work out something that will get me on my way to being healthier and feeling better about myself.

Stress. Hate It. Part II

In this post, I mentioned my BIL being a selfish douchebag. There are several things that happened while he was living with us last year that brought me to this final conclusion.

Background
BIL & DH have always been at each other’s throats; DH is only 13 months older than BIL, so they’ve always had a competition going. BIL is a major momma’s boy, but not in the traditional sense that he drops everything to cater to MIL. Quite the opposite, actually. She drops everything to help him and he expects her to provide everything for him — shelter, food, car. But when she needs something he can’t be bothered.

I actually knew BIL first; he was in my art classes in high school. Quiet, skinny, kinda weird guy. Never talked to him much. Even when DH and I started dating our senior year I didn’t talk to BIL much; he and DH were not really speaking and he was also having issues with their ‘rents. After BIL graduated (a semester late; he was too busy playing Playstation his senior year to bother doing his homework), he joined the army and left, returning 5 years later in 2003.

Between then and last year he got a job at the local gym (he became interested in bodybuilding in the army and spent a lot of time at the local gym anyway)….and that’s pretty much it.

After he got back, BIL and I got along pretty well. Occasionally we’d go for coffee or he’d come over to talk, but most of the time he was busy doing his own thing.

Incident #1 - The Job / Graduation Party
I got a job last year. I’d been off work (and passively looking) for over 4 years by then, so this was big news for me. Since we’d hung out a few times since he’d moved in, I asked BIL if he wanted to join DH and I for drinks at the local bar after my baby sister’s h.s. graduation party (to which he’d been invited to by my family). He said sure. This was a week or so before the party.

So the day of the party arrives. Since BIL didn’t have a car, we arranged so that I’d pick him up from work and bring him to the party, and then he, DH, and I would go out afterwards. About halfway through the party, I left to pick up BIL. When he got in the car he says “Dave asked if I wanted to go to [a bar 30+ miles away], so I guess I’m going there.” Apparently his friend had come in to his work that afternoon and invited BIL out, and BIL accepted.

Needless to say, I was pissed. I mean, A - he’d already made plans to go out with DH and I prior to his friend asking him. B - he didn’t even have the courtesy to call up and be like “Hey, Dave wants me to go hang out with him and the gang from karate; all right if I take a raincheck tonight?”. One of my biggest peeves is people who act rudely and without consideration for others. I don’t care if you’re single or married to 7 people — etiquette is etiquette.

Slightly OT: Ironically enough I probably wouldn’t have gone out anyway as I’d come down with a pretty nasty case of the stomach flu the day before. I was feeling better the day we were supposed to go out, but I still had a fever. I know that BIL did not know this, though. And again, etiquette is etiquette.

Anyway, he apologized for blowing off DH and I and we ended up going out to celebrate a few days later.

Incident #2 - Shopping
Fast forward to the beginning of December last year. My mom, knowing that we were struggling financially at the time, offered to take me shopping for the kids so they’d have a few presents. BIL was going to be the only other adult at home, so I asked him if he’d keep an eye on the house for me — not even really babysit, since the kids would be in bed by then. He said he would. A few hours before I was supposed to meet Mom he mentioned he was going out. I reminded him that I had to leave by 7 that night, and he assured me he’d back by then.

So, at 7, the kids were in bed and I waited. At 7:20 I called Mom and told her I’d be late because BIL was late. At 8 I called Mom again and she said we’d have to reschedule because she needed to get home. I said okay, and started putting up the Christmas tree.

At 8:45, BIL comes in, acting all out of breath. No explanation, just “Sorry.” By then I’d had time to stew, and I. Was. Pissed. I asked him if he’d told me he’d be back by 7. He said yes. I informed him that I’d had to cancel my plans because he couldn’t be bothered to show up on time or even call to give me a heads up that he was running late. I further informed him why I was meeting my mom. He just looked at me, then went and sat in his room (his was the only one on the first floor of our house), staring at the floor. Never apologized or said anything about it afterwards.

Incident #3 - Christmas Shopping, Part II
I am going to preface this by saying that I did bear some blame in this; however, I refuse to accept all the blame.

About a week or so after CS, Part 1, BIL asked me (sort of joking, but mostly seriously) if he gave me money if I would buy Christmas presents for my daughters. I said “HELLLLL no; I am not doing your shopping for you. I will [however], go with you to help pick out the presents, if you want.” I can be an effing bitch on wheels, but when it comes to my kids I will bend more. BIL said okay; he’d have to wait until he got paid the following Friday.

A couple of weeks go by and BIL says nothing to me about shopping again. I asked him if he still wanted my help; the stores we’d planned on going to were 25 miles away and I’d been putting off my own shopping for the kids so I could do it while shopping with him so I could save myself the gas + wear & tear on my car. BIL said he did still want my help; now we’d have to wait until the following Friday when he got paid again. I (reluctantly) said okay.

The following week. The week before Christmas. BIL makes mention of a friend of his who is going to look at apartments in a town about an hour away, and how his friend wants him to go with, and did I have any ideas for Christmas presents for the kids; he was thinking of shopping while he was out there. I initially got pissed because i thought after all this time he was telling me he was going shopping with his buddy — I mean, shit, I could’ve been done shopping by then otherwise. He said no, no, he still wanted my help; he just figured while he was out there he could pick up a couple of things.

In the interim, he registered for classes at the community college. Because he was too lazy to do any preparation work before hand (even though he’d asked me what he needed to do several weeks earlier), he had to make payments out of pocket to the college for his classes/books until his GI Bill was processed.

So “the” day finally arrives. BIL left for work and was supposed to go with his buddy afterwards, then would be home that afternoon. Indeed, he arrived back around 4:30 and went to his room where he promptly fell asleep. Nothing terribly surprising; he’d left for work around 5 that morning.

Around 7 he woke up (sort of). I took the opportunity to ask him when we were leaving. He whined - yes, whined - “Leaving? I don’t feel good…” I reminded him that we were supposed to go shopping that night. He whined “But I don’t have any monneeyyyyy…”

K, #1 - whining is akin to fingernails on a blackboard to me, and he knew this. #2 - he doesn’t feel good AND has no money, made no mention of this to me when he left for work OR got home that afternoon, and I’m supposed to be aware of it? I started to say something to that effect, plus how I’d been putting off my shopping so I could help him too and he totally blew up at me.

He started cussing at the top of his lungs (my daughters standing no more than 10 feet away) about how he was fucking tired of everyone blaming him for their fucking problems and nobody gave a fuck about how he felt; they only wanted what they fucking wanted when they fucking wanted it.

To make a long story short, we exchanged some words (me asking him if he was done [throwing a temper tantrum]), and I finally walked away, went upstairs and burst into tears. DH came up to comfort me. By the time we went back downstairs BIL was cleaning his stuff out into his car.

When I asked him what the hell he was doing he replied that he was leaving because “I cause too much trouble.” He acted like my OD when she doesn’t get her way - pouting and sullen. 8|

Now, this last incident happened about 6 months ago, and i’ve been able to gain some insight about the situation. Frankly, it shook me up quite a bit; BIL had never spoken to me nor like that before. I realize now that I shouldn’t have placed all the blame of putting off the shopping on him. That wasn’t fair. #2; I should’ve realized that he’d already established somewhat of a pattern of blowing things off.

However, he should’ve been an assload more considerate/responsible. Period. And I know his parents raised him better than to yell cusswords at someone in front of small kids.

To date he has not apologized. I don’t expect him to anymore; however, I’ve also realized that BIL’s biggest concern is BIL. It sucks for him that he will continue to burn bridges that he might’ve needed to cross again. I mean, I will still talk to him but the chances that I’d help him out again anytime in the near future are, to put it mildly, extremely low.

It does make me sad that our friendship had to end that way. BIL can be a lot of fun. I remember one night he and I watched “Man of the Year” and “Flight of the Navigator” and laughed our asses off. Another time he took me out and bought me a couple of drinks for my birthday. Since I don’t get out much, that really was a treat for me. Yet another time he, DH, and I went to a bar and the song “Ignition” by R. Kelly came on and he started lip syncing the words and doing this hilarious little dance to it (yeah, we’d all had a few drinks by then).

But what can you do? It’s not my job to change his attitude or force him to apologize to me.

Something that really got under my skin when MIL was still here was how she would constantly defend him and make excuses for him. She even insinuated that him blowing up at me was my fault. While that wasn’t part of why I wanted her to move out, I can say it didn’t help her

FTW! (For the win)

credit: xkcd.com

oh the ups and downs

Well I went to the dentist today to get that nasty cavity filled. Luckily he was able to drill it and fill it (vs having to remove it). He said it’s still sort of a crapshoot whether the tooth will survive in the long run, but so far it appears to be fixed.

I go back next month to get the other 2 or 3 (not really sure how many he filled today) done. I knew I probably wasn’t going to feel like teh hotness this afternoon but I’m a little surprised how cruddy I do feel. Oh well.

DH got called back to work today. Yayyy!!! He’s been laid off for almost exactly 6 months due to lack of work. He goes back on Monday the 19th. w00t w00t!!

MIL FINALLY MOVED OUT!!!! It’s been 2 weeks since she left and I have been doing the snoopy dance ever since. She claimed she was coming back to get the rest of her stuff (by stuff I mean garbage), but she never did. So guess who got stuck cleaning it? If you chose me, you’d be a winner!

To give you an idea of how horrendously messy her room was, I invite you to take a look at the pictures below:

There was literally 4-6 inches of papers, junk mail, blank checks, used kleenex, etc on the floor. It took my mom and I almost 90 minutes to clean up the 8×8′ room. Unreal.

i LOVE Sweeney Todd!

I rented Sweeney Todd last Sunday. The movie they released last year with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. And I was totally blown away. I love movies. You only need to look at my collection in our movie-case to see that. But it’s pretty rare that I see a movie that moves me as much as ST did. I went out the very next day and bought the 2-disc DVD version, which is also really unheard of for me. I usually buy my movies used, because generally I don’t mind if it is used. But I **had** to have ST now.

So yeah. If you haven’t seen it, rent it now!!

fury. furied. furious.

I am absolutely livid right now. Today started off innocently enough; MIL wanted to go over to her friend’s house to make eggrolls (MIL’s eggrolls are locally famous or something lol). She said if it was okay with us (Me and DH) that she would take our older daughter (OD) with her; she’d be home around noon/1:00.

Because she let BIL have her car all the time (because he’s too much of an idiot to figure out how to get his own and drove the last car he had into the ground and doesn’t save his money), she was all nice to DH after not talking to him for a few days (because of him pressuring her to move back home) and asked him (DH) to give her a ride to BIL’s place of work to pick her car up, and then after the eggrolls were done she’d drive herself and our oldest home.

Well BIL wasn’t at work yet so DH drove her to her friend’s house. We (DH, myself, and our younger daughter (YD)) went out for breakfast, went grocery shopping, and came home. Not more than 10 minutes after we got back, (about 2 - 2 1/2 hours after dropped them off), MIL called asking DH for a ride home. DH asked where BIL was; wasn’t he supposed to drop the car off? They went back and forth like that for a few minutes and MIL got pissed and hung up on DH. I told DH in no uncertain terms that I did not like the idea of MIL being in charge of our oldest when she was so angry at DH. He agreed and went to pick them up.

No more than 5 minutes after he left the phone rang and it was our daughter, saying she wanted to come home. I assured her that Daddy was coming to pick her up and that he’d be there pretty soon (which she responded to with a cheerful “Okay!”). I hung up and I. was. PISSED.

How fucking immature do you have to be to use a CHILD to relay your messages? How DARE she use our daughter like that, and put her in the middle? I can see it, just as clearly as if I’d been there, now - MIL telling our daughter that Daddy didn’t want to pick them up.

So DH, OD, and MIL get back and MIL goes upstairs to get some clothes together to wash, acting (towards me) like nothing was amiss. I go outside and DH says that he told MIL she has to be out by the end of the month.

Apparently she got in the car and acted like nothing was wrong, and DH told her “we have a problem” (mostly because of the way she was talking to him on the phone (demanding he pick her up) and then hanging up on him).  DH took her by BIL’s place of work, and “Oh, well why didn’t he call me back?” Uh, because he’s a selfish douchebag? She got in her car and that was that.

Anyway, I was putting the last of the groceries in the freezer and she hands me money saying that she doesn’t expect things for free. So, she’s TOTALLY MISSING THE FUCKING POINT OF WHY SHE NEEDS TO LEAVE! She thinks that DH wants her out because of $$; when in actuality it’s because she’s got her own house and we want ours back to ourselves.

What pisses me off the most is the way she used OD like that.  How we’re supposed to be the bad guys in all of this.