Another Top 5 Shuffle...Without links because I'm too drunk for that shit.

5. Right Through You- Alanis
4. Sexxy Back- J.T.
3. Future DaysFutureDays- Pealr Jam
2. Cheatin- Gin Blossoms
1. She Loves You- Gaslight Anthem

sooooooo....mommas...feeling...

So....I had a...odd weekend. And I won't chronicle it here, because...trust me, you'd want to laugh, cry, cheer loudly and then shoot yourself in the face with lots of tequila. But what it's come down to tonight, is me sinking very quickly into that wonderfully black place I tend to get stuck in on occasion. So, in light of recognizing that and trying to avoid it, I decided to make a list of things I love about me. Things I actually, really LOVE about me. Little, sad, dark, sometimes pathetically both of those things...me. SOOOOO, hold on to your butts. Here I go...and in no order, other than things that are occurring to me as I type...

1-I love Mario. And I love it for A LOT of reasons. It gives me something to do when no one else is around. My kids LOVE watching me play which is fun because we actually bond over it. It brings back memories, that give me joy, of my childhood with my dad and siblings. OH! TSMA's dad also LOVES Mario. And while TSMA, his kids and his father may not enjoy my passionately based vocabulary over the game, I love that I can bond with someone who is so important in the life of a person that is...infinitely important in mine.

2-I know that an ellipsis's is THREE...dots...

3-I have an AWESOME ability to appreciate the interests and loves of people. Honestly, it is quite selfish because, I pray that I take something worth while or meaningful or I'll gain knowledge from doing so. EXAMPLE: Anyone I have EVER wanted to delete from social media accounts and HAVEN'T BECAUSE I feel their retardedness (yep, I'm coining that one. Pay up, bitches) is making me SMARTER. Or, the fact that...oh nevermind...where I was going is another thing I love about me. So, keep reading. I'm worth it.

4-Let's talk music. I listen to EVERYTHING. Well, that's a lie, because for the most part, I CANNOT stand country. But, occasionally, what all of you call "country" I will enjoy, on a purely lyrical basis. for instance, there is a song by someone or some band called Lady Antebellum that my kids love. Also, Hootie turned country. While his music annoys me, I still love the lyrics. AND, I mean honestly...I am me and choose what I like, but I have been influenced by every man I've dated. I love Zepplin because of my ex-husband. I love Chris Cornell because of the first man I dated after  him. I liked Pearl Jam before, because of my dad, but I LOVE Eddie because of TSMA and I can honestly say, I love them more than someone who has only been exposed on a...proxy-like...???...basis, BECAUSE, my GUY, also plays them on his guitar for me, and for himself, really, but I DO get to hear it and I fucking love it. SO...By the by, I am grinding, alone, in my kitchen to Hurt Like Mine...Black Keys

5-I can mother fucking cook. I can.

6-I understand apartment living and I know this because I have not lynched anyone that may be deserving. Done.

7-I am horribly, wonderfully, incriminatingly, beautifully, forgivingly and forever thoughtful. I am thoughtful. It's an awful fault but wonderful beauty of who I am. I really don't have much to say about it...or maybe I do, but only because I feel my being that way has set an expectation for anyone I know.

 I enjoy doing little things for people. People I love, people I don't know...for instance, I love buying coffee for the person behind me in line at Starbucks. I do it every other time I'm there. I LOVE when I go for a pedicure and take my daughter with me as a surprise. I love When my ex shows up to get the kids and I have a Monster waiting for him, and I CANNOT FUCKING STAND that man, anymore. I have, in the last week, set the coffee pot for The Sexiest Man Alive and set out a mug, with sugar and a spoon, waiting for him. I really get off on doing thoughtful things for others. It may be my supreme weakness because I think I have set an expectation for what I want from others. Those consistent little things. I haven't met anyone that does that. I could go on that subject...probably forever. People annoy me in that way. I really don't see it as anything other than being decent. And, you know, doing things that matter for the people you love. I just....it really bothers me when people miss THAT.

8-I love caffeine. And bacon. And if you bring me both without my asking, you win. You win more if you're the man I love and do that, duplicitly, and also give me sex. I'm easy to please.

9-I am loyal.

10-I'm...me. I'm real. I accept my flaws, mourn them and embrace them on a regular fucking, sad basis.

11-Bottom line is, I am, without question, worth knowing. If any of you, sad, shallow, shells of humans are still following my shit...delete me. Please. You're doing yourself a favor. My awesome is too much for you to handle.


So, there is me. Tooting my own horn, slobbing my own knob and not caring if you come...me. Sadly, I've gotten back to that place. I'll crawl out of it. But in the mean time, I'm just going to feel it. because lets face it...I do that best.

Soooo...A Top 5 Shuffle...For AWESOME Times...

So...in spite of....or possibly BECAUSE of, the truly...shitastic, horrible, awesome, wonderful place things have taken a well...needed...I guess...turn to...I decided it was time for a top 5 SHUFFLE!

So here you go!

5. State of Grace-Billy Joel
4. Lightning Bolt-Pearl Jam (sadly I couldn't find a link for this video, but here's the lyrics)
3. Not the Doctor-Alanis
2. Look Away-Hootie
1. Wishlist-Pearl Jam

And I guess that's why Pandora owns me.

I have taken a place in life lately where I feel very...engaged, I guess, in certain aspects but in others I am more disengaged than I have ever been in anything that's ever been a part of me.

When it comes to my children, I am making choices and strides every day in an attempt to make them exemplary members of the human race. Everything I do really comes down to that one goal alone. Any of you single parents out there get that, I suppose. I look at that term, too, "single parent" very loosely. Their father is also a "single parent", though I believe he has never encompassed the requirements of that on himself. He found a replacement family. One that he believes replaces myself and everything he knew. He has never lived on his own. He's never provided for our children by  himself. He may make that pathetic child support payment every month, but he's never balanced a job, being a parent, being an ex-spouse, co-parent, single man...ever. He went from his parent's home where his mother did his laundry to my house where I took on that role and after me went back to his mother's home and then into that of yet another woman that takes care of him and his children when I am not available to do so because I am focused on developing a career to support them financially in the way he did when we were married.

When it comes to my personal life, I sadly don't even have the required strength any more to be a good partner to any one. I guess that's why this thing I am doing now works. He requires nothing but mutual respect from me. That I can do. While it bothered me for a long while that he was that way, I have only come to see I am the same way. It truly saddens me at times because I would love to be so much more for him. I just can't even think about doing that right now. I try and I treat him with the utmost respect and funnily enough I have fallen in love with this man that gives me exactly the same respect. I guess, really, I don't find that sad at all. I actually find that perfect. And I hate to use that word, but us having lives and personal bullshit and respect for one another has actually been the most perfect thing I could have ever found. I love that we continue to be together and figure out our own shit individually but knowing that the other is there for anything one of us may need. How is that not the most perfect situation? Someday, we may have to address those things, but that only means we're growing and continuing to be honest with one another. I count my blessings with that man every day. I got lucky when I met him. I pray we continue to grow as individuals, as friends, as a couple. People don't get that lucky every day.

I hate my job. I want better hours, less stress. I can make the same money. It kind of pays the bills. Mostly, anyway. But I never see my kids. Not the way I believe is essential to raising them. So, I am working that out. I'll do whatever it takes to be home with them more. They need me and respectively, I need them more. Those monkeys of mine make my life worth living, which I am sure is something every parent feels. I just want the opportunity to be better for them and to allow their amazing personalities to make me better. I cannot do that with this job.

So here I am. But, you know, life has a funny way of working out.

Because Sometimes, I Remind Myself Of Me...

I had an agenda for a post when I booted up my laptop tonight. Between it's reluctance to start up and everything that is annoying the ever living shit out of me tonight, I have zero desire to write about any of that. What I do know, is these are the things I am thinking right now

I can cook. Well. And without thinking about it.

I hate 50 Shades Of Grey. One of the worst examples of any writing I have had the right to read. Disgraceful. I could write a post on that alone. All I will say at this point is, if you're a fan, ponder this- how does something as CLICHE and non engaging as that crap get past a decent editor and publisher and become one of the most hyped books of the last 5 years? Talent? Non-existent there.

I have the most amazing life right now, no matter how I look at it. I am employed. I am progressing daily in my job, My superiorers recognize that. My employees recognize that. My children recognize that. The man I am with recognizes that.

I have a favorite Pearl Jam album and I don't know how TSMA would feel about it, but I love it as if it were something I wrote myself.

Where the fuck did I sit my beer (my first and last of the evening)???

How is it someone could be cursed with all the maladies I possess on a physical level? That isn't even a question. Huge tits, tiny waist, belly destroyed by having babies so quickly in succession. And feet like Sasquatch. Shopping is IMPOSSIBLE.

With having made previous posts like Shit That Reminds You Of Me, I have created an online following that berates me daily with ecards, pinterest finds and random other crap in an attempt to be published here on this rant of a journal someone in the technological world allows me to deem a blog. It's sad. I might be smug, sarcastic, humorous and find the glitter ridden silver lining of every cloud that passes, but I am NOT the person these people assume they know me to be. I find it discouraging and saddening.

Seriously. Where the fuck is my beer?

How did I ever think I loved the man I married? How does he love the woman he is with now? HOW does she love him? And how does really of that not matter when I look at the man I first realized what love was? And how does he get off so easily doing that to me without trying?

These are the things that keep me awake at night, people. These are the boring things my mind races with. Though, I suppose 'boring' is the most relative of terms. I try to look at them from a reader's perspective. They're boring. To me they're reminiscently thrilling. Some of them spark that woman I know I am. Some of them remind me of the past I wish I'd never lived. Some of them remind me why I have that past. More often than not, I am struck by the thought that I have a future and I have grown and it has all been by my own accord. And I can continue to do that, at my leisure. I have a choice. I have MANY choices. And with every day that ends, I've made them myself.

remembering SCEAN...

When my dad was alive I talked to him almost every day. Sometimes multiple times a day, should my friends do something ridiculously stupid, my professor say something ridiculously stupid, I do something ridiculously stupid, my kids do something ridiculously cute, or some annual bullshit occur that he and I seemed to be the only people in existence that saw some sort of stupidity in. Once he died, I called his voicemail every 23 minutes or so, just to hear his voice on the message. In the months and years following his death, I would call to hear his voice and leave a message when one of the kids did something I knew he would be elated to be a part of. I called and left messages when I knew he would be elated to hear I took a stand in my life and made choices I knew he would either be proud of or, in some occasions, saddened by. As the years passed, I would call only at the times that occurred where he and I had shared a private, personal love or hatred of something. These were annual things...conversations we had, almost scripted, every year...they went something like this...

The first snow

"Dad. It's fucking snowing."
Bags are already packed.
"Where are we going this year?"
Aruba, Jamaica, oooooh I wanna take you...
"What about Bermuda or the Bahamas?"
Wherever you want, KB.
"Dad. I HATE the fucking snow. I hate it. Can we leave today? Please?"
Yep. You and me, honey. Let's leave.
"I love you, daddy."
I know, baby.
"Just a box on a bridge, like Skink."
Box on a bridge, KB.

Or when it got really hot

"Dad. It's fucking HOT out there. Like, if I had balls, I'd have serious swamp ass kind of HOT."
You're my daughter. So. Completely. My daughter.
"I don't know what the means. I think my daughter won't survive this heat. Should I take her to the emergency room? What if her heart stops? What if she is MY daughter and she can't take this heat, passes out, and her heart quits working???"
For Cry-yi, KB, she isn't a broken baby
"Nooooo, but her heart is, Dad. She is my daughter and I am yours. We were, sad as it is, born with broken hearts."
......
.....
"Dad, do you think that is why you and me and people like us are here? To live our lives to heal our already broken hearts? If that's the case then why has He made my life so. Fucking. Heartbreaking.?"
You're more of train wreck than I am, sometimes.
"Fuck you, too!"
Honey, those questions are ones you know I can't answer. What I know is you were given to me and you were the best gift I ever received. You make my life worth living.
"I know, Daddy. I'm a parent now, too."

Or when it was New Year's Eve, every year, from the time I was old enough to NOT spend it with my parents

Happy New Year, KB! What are you doing?
>me, doing some underage or illegal activity< "Oh, not much! Just...eating some pizza! Happy New Years, Daddy!"
You know you're the first person I wish a happy new year to every year?
"I know, Dad."
You've been my first wish for a good year for >15, 16, 17, 18, 19....< years. Since the very first one we had! You're my favorite part of the year."
"Dad, it's really loud here...I love you, too! Goodnight!"

I look at those conversations now and the flaws that we had and I know he was the most influential person in my life. I love that I can remember those things. I wonder, sometimes, if my brother and sister have memories like that with him. I hope they do.

Sooooooo....I'm annoyed with life. Go Figure.

When girls are young they dream about Prince Charming and romance and love and being romanced. They watch Disney movies and think about those stories being their life one day. They want those things, And then I think those people end up married to...freakishly...odd men that molest dogs for fun or they marry men under the auspice of believing they will miraculously change and become the Prince Charming they always wanted. I was NEVER that little girl. I wanted to work on cars, Then I wanted to be a neuro surgeon. Then I decided I wasn't smart enough to do that and thought cardiology would be much more suiting. Then I realized how intricate that was and knew I was never smart enough for that, but still wanted to be a doctor and thought, well, I can deliver babies. Then I realized doing that meant that sometimes babies die and there was no way my heart could ever be in it. So I gave up on college and a career and figured I would just make money out of thin air, live in a kick ass apartment downtown, date men that wined and dined me because I would be worth it and that was how I would live my life...my 20's, my 30's, my 40's...shit, I would be hot enough to make a living off that like I was Holly Golightly. And then I think I just gave up. I met a man I loved. He made me laugh, so hard, until I cried and there was no one that made me do that. He was occasionally romantic and I expected more from him than what he gave me in that aspect. It wasn't really until we were married and had 3 kids that I remembered I was going to be somebody special for someone. I was going to be the woman men fell for, not because of anything other than my brain, mind you. I was SMART. I had drive. I was something to reckon with.

I look at my life now and in my tender 29 years I see all the mistakes I made, I see them in a glaring light. There was no way I was ever going to be anything more than what I am right now. Which, is...I don't even know. Well, from an outside perspective I suppose I am a (nearly) 30 year old mother of 3 that has loved more deeply than any woman my age should, I have felt pain and suffering and loneliness just as deep and I have persevered. I guess that's what people see, only because a select few have told me as much. What I see is different. I see a girl that had dreams and goals and knew the life she would lead when she became a woman. I saw an independent-needs-no-one-because-she-is-THE-ACTUAL-SHIT kind of female. And then I sadly ended up being me. I'm ridiculously insecure. I so base my beliefs in who I am off of those that shouldn't ever have a right to judge me. I fear everything I feel. I have panic attacks when I feel anything that others might find..."too intense". I spend too much time focusing on who I can be for the people I know than I do focusing on who I actually am. I, my friends, though I hate to admit it, am a walking, talking train wreck of an individual.

I think my one and only saving grace is that I know this about myself. And I want bigger and better things. I want to believe in me the way I once did. I want to be that independent person. I spoke to my ex husband tonight and I had a plan in place for what I wanted to tell him and how I wanted to deliver the things I was saying and instead I listened to him berate me and do so with things that weren't in any way relevant and also with things that were just him rehashing a past we had that obviously didn't work for either of us. Instead of standing up to him with all the things I know I could, I let him tear me apart and tried very hard not to cry while I was on the phone with him.

I guess I really don't have a point here. If I were going to try and find one, though, I think it would be that I pray, through all of this, that I raise a daughter that is 400 times the woman I am and is exactly the woman I always wanted to be. I pray that I raise my 2 sons to be more than their father could ever imagine being for a woman. I pray that I raise my children to be all the things I ever wanted and for them to know they have a voice and they have a choice and they have opportunities. I never knew I had those things. I settled for what was because I didn't accept me as the awesome person I am.

They will be better. That is the goal, though, right? We reproduce knowing the next generation WILL be better than we were...because that IS the natural progression of things, without ANY influences, right?

In any event, someday I will find my place in this world. I will live as the person I know I am and more importantly, someone will love me for doing just that.

....and I think that's a fair assessment of what we all want at the end of the day and what most of us deserve. We all need to know we're valued in someone's life. And I'm a mom. I know what that alone gives me and gives them. What I guess I struggle with is, quite literally, EVERTHING outside being Mom. I have value beyond that. I am a person because of that, but also, without that.

Some might find that terrible. I think it's completely normal. I know it is. Because, why do so many people get married due to the fact that they had sex and are now going to be parents? Any why do so many people STAY married, due to the fact that they have kids? Kids are our reason to breathe. Parents know this. But we are people, too.

Anyway, those are my thoughts right now. As per the norm, love them or hate them. But that's how I feel right now.