my daughter makes me smile

Not all the time. If you are a parent, you know this. They can be evil, rotten, devil spawn. But they can also be funny as hell, and sometimes even thoughtful.

Last week was horrid, as horrid as weeks can get. Sydnerella knew this. I hid nothing. And she cares. She has a pretty good heart for an evil, rotten, devil spawn of a 13 year old hormonal mean-ager. She hugged me when she saw me crying over T-Bone, brought me some peanut butter crackers when she knew I couldn't get off the couch a few days later, and she let me grab onto her arm when I almost lost my shit at Jackie's funeral.

What makes me smile sometimes is that she is sneaky. Or more like, thinks she is sneaky. She is oblivious to the fact that just 18 years ago, I was her age. I know whats going through her mind, for the most part. And I know what kind of games she's playing. Like the day we went school shopping. Her phone was on the fritz and her blaming attitude and snotty tone had me dropping the F-bomb in Wal-Mart. I used to care what people may think if I was all potty-mouth around my kid, or yelling at her in Wal-Mart ... but key word there ... my "kid". It's not like I was beating and berating my toddler in the toy isle. She isn't really a kid anymore, she is an evil rotten devil spawn and now, I just get looks of sympathy from other shoppers. People who have been here, done this. People that have their devil spawns at home because they can no longer bring them in public. Some of them are even in awe that I don't start swinging. People know. The Wal-Mart fight was my offer to buy the kid a netbook. Yeah, one of those tiny fucking laptops. I figured we could both get one for the same price as a laptop, and then I'd never have to leave my couch. The netbook was too small, she didn't need it, blah fucking blah, and all she needed was a new phone. Yes, hers was a piece of shit. Yes, her 11,000 text messages per month made it that way. Yes, I knew she needed a new phone. I was on it though, damn. And she knew it. Just needed something to bitch about, and probably just wanted to see what kind of scene I'd cause in Wal-Mart. Well, she saw it first - A fucking big one! We went about the rest of her back to school shopping, and I managed to get her new phone ordered up. Yes, I am fully expecting to be judged for allowing her to have the new phone after the shit-storm that day back to school shopping while I was sick as shit. I'd say within a 48 hour period of her phone being delivered (where I was held fully responsible for UPS taking two days longer than the phone company said) ... she comes to me, ever so sweetly .. "Um, mom, I'd actually really like it if I could get that netbook we saw at Wal-Mart"! The nerve. The fucking nerve. I haven't caved yet, and you can judge me when I do, but my feet are firmly planted on this one right now. I have no desire this time to run out and get the damn laptop, netbook, whatever, even though our home pc no longer turns on. I have my blackberry, I am comfy on my couch with my blackberry. It's all good. Yeah, I can't help but smile at my sneaky and manipulative 13 year old daughter sometimes. The day Jackie passed away, I was in and out of the house throughout the day. She knew it was bad. She knew I was sad. I got a text from her later that evening (word for word) "I know your not feeling good, but today or tomorrow, do you think you can take me to chapters?" Sometimes I smile because I don't know what else to do. I can give her away, but I don't really want to. I can turn into raging drunken mom, which I know with the alcholism in my family, wouldn't be hard. But I really don't like hangovers anymore. I can ground the shit out of her all the time. Take stuff away from her. Backhand her in public. But, the thing is, I like my kid. She may think she usually has the upper-hand, sometimes I even let her think she does. I'll even admit, that sometimes, she simply does. But she's a good kid. I love her. And I can't imagine my life without her.

my aching heart thanks you all

I am overwhelmed with emotion this week. I need sleep and I need more answers than I will ever get. Christy, I love you dearly. You are one of my best friends and I hold you tight in my heart. I can’t even begin to thank you enough for reaching out to everyone for me. And thank you all who don't even know me for your kind words. I was sitting at my friends kitchen table as we started to make funeral arrangements for her daughter as the messages came in and they hugged my heart. And anyone else who may be reading this that has been there for me all week, thank you. I feel very loved and very blessed and very very lucky.

The first friend I ever had didn’t wake up Monday morning. She will rest peacefully forever, out of our lives but not our hearts. She has left behind one of my best friends (her mom) and her 9 year old son. I am blessed to have been one of the first people to see him arrive in the world. And am touched that I was thought of first to write and read Jackie’s eulogy in the days to come. As I hadn’t been part of her life the last few years, there is someone better suited for that honor though, and I will blog about that guilt soon enough. In the meantime, please read these two stories from my childhood, two hysterical stories about me and my friend Jackie:

The K-Mart Story

How to make a Million dollars when you're 6

And now, the balance of my turmoil that I have faced this past week …. I wrote this blog Monday morning, was just finishing it up when I got that still unreal call from Jackie’s mom that dropped me to my knees in my office…..

My mom turns 59 today (September 1). She’s spending her birthday in the hospital. Where she’s been since Friday. Since the day she couldn’t take a breath on her own. Being a smoker of 43 years, her lungs have basically told her to Fuck Off. They are done, they have worked hard enough, and she’s actually pretty lucky they haven’t let cancer settle in. Without going into a full tutorial on emphysema, as shitty as it is to say, she caused this. We’ve been watching her deteriorate for years without knowing what the problem is. She is to blame, we are to blame, her idiot doctor is to blame …. So there it is. Spend your whole life drinking and smoking and not taking care of your body, wake up one morning and your lungs can no longer function on their own. You get to lay on a stretcher in the hallway of an over-crowded hospital for 6 hours waiting for a bed in the emergency room on a Friday night where people are screaming in the rubber rooms, trying to attack security guards, 80 year old women are stripping naked and throwing stuff because their dementia is so bad and the nurses don’t seem to know what to do. My mom’s nurses and doctors have been wonderful to her. She’ll be in the hospital for awhile to come, getting this tune up on her lungs and preparing her to most likely live the rest of her life with a tank of oxygen at her side. Which at this point, I am terribly grateful for considering what could have happened that day if her good friend and neighbor wasn’t there to call 9-1-1.

I don't know what else to do, say, or feel. I have tremendous support and as wonderful as Travis has been this past week, my heart is still breaking for him and our relationship. I would give anything to have me cuddle me to sleep. A sleep I so desparately need.

Left on the couch ... lonely and with a sore ass

Quite literally. I was left on what's normally my favorite place to be, where I do nothing but enjoy Stacy-time, Sunday night at about 6pm. A day after T-Bone emptied my house of most of his stuff. And right after telling me that our impossible relationship of two probably broken people that may or may not have had any business being together from the beginning shouldn't continue.

Because I'm not in the mood to defend him on blogger, and partly because it wouldn't be fair to air his personal issues to strangers, I will say very little about the reasons for now. But I will say that he's not a bad person and I don't regret a second of the past three years. I agreed with everything he said to me. Mostly. And I will say that over-all, it's fairly mutual. We aren't fighting, he didn't cheat, he doesn't want to be with someone else, and we do love each other ... But as most of you will agree, sometimes love isn't enough. And it's ironic now that up until a few days ago, when people asked what we were even doing together this long if not planning our wedding, or at the very least living together, we'd both confidently reply "If it's not broke, don't fix it!" And although we have no intention of leaving each others lives completely, something is broken and I don't know if there's a way to fix it.

The last 48 hours of my life has been awful to put it simply. I've shed many o tears - not gonna lie. And because I've been battling a sinus infection or some shit for almost two weeks, I've blown out and coughed up litres of snot. I'm running off very little sleep, none of which I've had in my bed ... call me sappy, crazy, whatever, but I can usually only sleep comfortably in my bed when T-Bone's in it. Everything I've eaten since Sunday has come out almost immediately, and quite abrubtly I should add. My eyes are sore, my nose is sore, my head is sore, my ass is sore. I havent been at work since Friday and I'm now on beta-fish death watch because the little fucker just jumped out of his tank.

Today was better than yesterday though and I even brushed my teeth. I finally hit up my doctor for some antibiotics, then returned $123 worth of shirts that neither my daughter or I chose to wear to the wedding we attended on Saturday. The same wedding I fear initiated the demise of this complicated relationship that Travis and I were trying so hard to prove would work.

Fawk You Friday

I feel like a bit of a traitor typing this up, I would never tell a Friday to fuck off. I love Friday more than I love sexy time .. nowadays anyway .... But I'm playing along with Boobies, Babies, and a Blog who I found through a fabulous potty mouth bitch where I basically get to tell all sorts of things to eat shit and die ...

Fuck you ....

...nasty phlegm sitting in my face that I can't hork or spit out (classy eh?)

...kitchen tongs for ripping a chunk of my finger off

...shit eating flies that hang out on my back deck all day ( .. the fuck?)

...shitty ass weather

...office idiots (you so know who you are)

...rising interest rates

...hsbc (hope you're enjoying my $9.21 random payments .. maybe you should stop calling your customers at EIGHT AM on a Saturday, then every hour after until THREE PM ... fuckers)

...BC fires for blowing stinky haze 500 kilometers directly at our city

...slow-ass drivers on the road

...parking dick for giving me a ticket

...(and die) muffin top bitch

...weddings

That feels GREAT ... enjoy the rest of your Friday boys and girls.