(Not a) Very Brief Update

Firefly, on the phone the other night, said I sounded much better than that last post would indicate, and I'm going to have to agree: that was a REAL ugly day, or couple of days, and most of the interceding ones have been better.

Well, better for ME, anyway:

--Tim got locked up; as this is his fourth or fifth DUI, and at least the third accident he's caused while drinking and driving, and he was driving on a suspended license as well, we're pretty sure that he'll get out of jail around the time LittleMan goes to preschool.
--Squeaky can't pay the rent because her cash benefits got cut off--our AFDC/Link system is notoriously random like that. Plus, she lost her best friend; Mariana, who had got caught cheating by HER baby-daddy, called Tim (a few days before he got locked up) and left a voice-mail saying that Squeaky was cheating with a friend of hers (which she wasn't--they'd only met once). Tim didn't believe it, but Squeaky told Mariana to piss off; but she'd been spending so much time with Mariana that she needed somebody else to hang with (the one thing Squeaky cannot STAND is to be alone.)
--Well, Squeaky found her "friend"--Kino, the guy she was allegedly cheating with. Apparently, Mariana called HIS baby-mama and told her that he was cheating with Squeaky, and in retaliation, she put him out of their place. That was a day or two after Tim got locked up; Squeaky was alone, Kino was homeless--so guess where Kino's been staying? Squeaky told me last night that it was no longer platonic.
--And the hell of it is, all the changes she'd made while she was with Tim have disappeared. Kino and his cousin Eddie were with Squeaky when she came over the other night; they're cute enough, sure, but basically, they're garden-variety thug boys from Humboldt Park. She's dressing different, talking different, and in all other ways is more like the Squeaky I first met--the one I didn't like.
--The real victim? LittleMan. She brought him over the night she was here with the guys; no matter who was holding him, whether it was me or Kino or Eddie, he would NOT take his eyes off Squeaky. Apparently her dad had been watching him for a couple of days, and she'd just gotten him back, but he was not gonna let his momma out of his sight. He's a sweet little guy, too; Squeaky says he looks just like Tim. I can never see those kind of similarities, but he is awfully cute. I feel so bad for him--and for Tim, as well.

As for me, the real news is: CR is coming to stay here for two weeks. I really, really wish I could put into words the amount of change he's gone through; it wouldn't make any sense, though, to anyone but me. The people who care about me are all suspicious of him, and I can't blame them; how many dozen times did I swear to them he'd changed, and how many times did they then watch while things happened exactly the same way, over and over again? And what would make this time any different? If it was Deb, or Firefly, or Tim, or anyone else (what "anyone else"? lol) and I saw them going back to the same person over and over again, to be treated in the same bad way over and over again, and finally saw them being dumped in the most painful way possible, I know I'd be skeptical too, no matter how long the separation had lasted. But here's the thing: people grow up. People--well, some people, anyway--go through things in life that make them stop to look at themselves and decide: I don't like this person that I see. I don't like the things that person does. CR went through that for a long, long time. He thought about what he wanted out of life, and from what he says, one of those things was to be with me. And I'm in a better place too. No longer am I dependent on anyone's approval or good opinion of me. I can stand it if he leaves me; I can enjoy him if he stays, without losing my self again. And everything he's said to me indicates that he's glad to let me be myself, to encourage me in the things I love, instead of how it used to be. I wish I could explain it; and maybe one of the reasons I find it hard is that in many ways, it makes me think of the best days with JP. I still do miss him, more than I can even bear sometimes; it's hard to press that grief to the side long enough to enjoy being treated well again. In a way it makes me a little impatient with myself: for fifteen years you've waited for someone to love you this way again--as you are, knowing all your quirks and darknesses, but still willing to plan some magnificent visionary future--and now that you've been blessed enough or lucky enough or whatever--now that you've been fortunate enough to have that handed to you unasked, you're still moping over the little ways in which they're different? It makes me think that maybe all these years I haven't been as good at "accepting" as I thought; was there somewhere, unacknowledged, some part of me that didn't want "something like" what I had with JP--that would only accept JP himself? Was all that "understanding" that my life had changed that late-October night, just another example of being able to parrot back the right answer, rather than an answer I believed in?

When I think about CR, though--the things that attracted me to him in the first place, the things I liked about being with him--and liked enough to stay with him even despite the bad times--and the things I missed when he left, even despite myself--when I think about those things, and when I talk to him (we talk on IM every day, pretty much)...then, I can be happy just with what he and I have, without putting all sorts of psychology on it, all sorts of interpretations.

In other news:
I finally got to meet TinyGirl, Deb's daughter, whose blogname is hereby CutiePie. If I was in ANY way inclined toward motherhood, this kid would have tipped me over the edge....unquestionably the cutest baby I have ever encountered in the history of the world, ever. She's calm and laid-back; she'll occasionally let out a little fuss, then she'll calm herself down with no outside intervention. She fell asleep on me--an actual human baby actually fell asleep on me! This is unheard of. Babies do not like me. Babies scream when I hold them, steadily shrieking til I hand them back to their actual parents; not CutiePie. She let me hold her for a while, kind of blase about the whole thing, and then she started getting that groggy-face, the one where the eyelids go to half-mast, and then pop back up.....and dowwwwwn......and up....Finally she just sacked out completely, and I held her for a few more minutes and then put her in her bassinet, where Deb made her into a baby-rrito and after a moment of fussing, she was out like a light. Did I mention that she's also completely freakin' BEAUTIFUL??? One of my things with babies is, when they're born and for the first maybe 8 weeks of their lives, they generally look....well, not to put too fine a point on things, but they look like they've been extruded from somebody's cooter. Squishy and wrinkly and kinda like a little old man, except in miniature. Well, not CutiePie. Deb said that when she was born, the nurses were coming from other floors to see her little blue-eyed redhead. She's got the prettiest face and the cutest little features, and everything on her is just unusually adorable for a month-old baby. And I'm not saying this because she's Deb's kid, either; she's just an unusually pretty baby, is all.

So after CutiePie sacked out and Deb and I visited for a little bit, I left. I'd gotten an iGo car, and had to get it back, so I left around 8:40. As I walked to the car I said, "Nice fog!" thinking that it was just Deb's low-lying neighborhood that had a thick overhay of mist. Well, it wasn't. The main street I drove down to get to I-57 was foggy; the ramp was foggy; I-57 was foggy; the Dan Ryan was foggy; the offramp was foggy, the main street was REALLY foggy and so was the road through the park, the shortcut I normally take to avoid a series of unnecessary stop signs and stop lights. And the walk home--the four-plus blocks which make me nervous to walk at night on a GOOD night, was foggy to a terrifying degree. I was finally able to calm myself with the self-assurance that even the serial killers would have the good sense to stay home on a night like that, and eventually I made it home.

I'm a lot happier than I've been, honestly. I can't say my motivation is back--although I think what I'm going through now is largely just my normal procrastinating over unpleasant tasks (the laundry mountain, moving everything that will need to be moved so I can run the vacuum, etc.) I am still struggling with my creativity, still trying to overcome inertia and get back to writing and drawing and painting, but CR has promised to make it his goal to nudge me back into the things I enjoy, as part of his apology for not supporting me as I pursued those things in the past. It's another one of the things I can't explain; he says he's angry at himself for not admiring my talents enough when we were together before, and this is his way of making it better.

There's been a lot of stuff going on, really; I've got about four beginnings-of-posts that I started, but just never had the time to finish. It's not that I'm losing interest in blogging, as I've been accused of; like every other thing I like to do, I think, I've stopped doing it because there are so many things I -should- be doing that I'm not--and as you know, it's not allowed to have fun when there's undone work. But because I don't want to do the work EITHER, I do nothing--watch TV, play solitaire, fart around on Facebook--and so nothing of consequence, either fun or important, gets done.

I think, though, that I'll have much much more to write about over the next few days. (Although....as Firefly will attest, I'm generally pretty close-mouthed about the Gory Details; somehow, though, I'm pretty sure I'll have writing material even without salacious talk.)

Yeah, Well, This One Ain't Much Better.

I would like to sell my brain.

Actually I'd be willing to barter; my screwed-up brain for a more reliable, less fucked-up model. Preferably something without total recall; or at least, with controllable total recall. I would like to be able to cut it off when it starts heading in certain unprofitable directions.


I wonder sometimes if I'm going to spend the rest of my life wishing for a few months in my mid-20's. The longer it goes, the more I'm pretty sure that's how it's gonna be. Even when everything seeems to be going right, I never feel happy like I used to. And I really, really hope this isn't what the next 20 or 30 or 50 years is going to be--although maybe it's a good thing I DON'T know, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like the answer.

Then I think, well, it could be worse--I could be Tim, who got locked up again for his ...fourth? fifth? DUI...and wrecked his friend's car (god, I am SO glad I don't have a car)...

I don't know which is worse. Being totally irresponsible with no regard for other people's property or your own well-being; or living a life that feels like it's already over, with just the work left to do. I don't know, but I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

A Very Very Big Sad

I just got a call from Tim's number; Squeaky, though, was the one who made the call. "Gladys?" she said, her voice shaking a little. "Cassidy just died, just now. And Tim's freaking out. Do you wanna talk to him?" she asked.

"If he wants to talk," I said, and she handed him the phone.

I don't know what he said, actually; he was crying so hard I couldn't make out a word. I did manage to hear him say "I gotta go now", and then he hung up.

And so I cried for a while too, and hugged all my cats, and cried some more, and fed them, and cried some more. And then just as I was getting calmed down Squeaky called to ask me if I could go with Tim tomorrow to have the cat cremated, and she told me some details I really, REALLY REALLY could have lived without, and now I'm crying again.

You know, how sometimes, when an animal lives to an old age, you can always comfort yourself by saying "Well, he had a good long life..." Cassidy, though--Cassidy didn't have a good long life. He had a crappy long life, moved around and uncertain and sometimes just terrible, and from what Squeaky said he had a crappy, painful death as well, and I want to say it's not Tim's fault but it sorta is, and it makes me angry, but mostly it just makes me incredibly sad.

I'm not going with Tim tomorrow. I'm turning off my phones tonight; I don't want to know, or hear, anymore than I already have. Mostly I just want to be here in my place, with my cats, who I love as best I know how. I wish I could have done more, though; I always wish I could do more.

Rest in peace, Cassidy--finally, in peace.

I'm Smarter Than I Think

So Tim and Squeaky, still broken up (I guess) are still cohabiting--if "when one walks in the other hands them the baby and walks out, often for days at a time" can be referred to as "cohabitation". Tim called me last night (at 11:30, 12:45, and 4 AM...on a work-night....before my earliest morning of the week....) and, among other things, told me that Squeaky had not been home for four days, and that a week or two ago she turned to him and told him that she was "sick of LittleMan". The kid isn't even four months old yet, and already his mother is leaving him at home with his father and staying out for days. Tim, who is not at his peak for many reasons, threatened last night to drop the baby off at DCFS and tell them the mother abandoned her child--and then walk out on both of them.

I would normally want to strangle him for at least ten reasons in just those sentences alone, but I am cutting him the most infinitesimal bit of slack for a crucial reason: Cassidy, his 15-year-old cat who has been with Tim for as long as I've known him, is dying, and Tim can't even do anything about it. When Tim told me the details, at the end of one of the phone calls--I'll spare you all from them--but when I hung up the phone, I cried for literally an hour. Poor Cassidy; he was such a good boy, and it breaks my heart that he's hurting. (I told Tim to take him to the vet not TERRIBLY far from where he lives, and I'd call in and take care of the bill for having Cass put down; but of course, Tim can't leave til Squeaky returns, and there's some drama involving Squeaky's phone, and blah blah blah--because Squeaky wants to be an immature little brat, Cassidy gets to hurt for another day, and Tim gets to hurt as he watches his beloved cat waste away. I really want to punch Squeaky right now.

And then there's Deb; the thing we were most afraid of has pretty much happened, and she's in a bad case of postpartum depression. I'm so worried for her--she sounds so sad, even though she can explain from an intellectual standpoint exactly what she's feeling and why. And her husband is NOT helping; he's choosing to stay out later than he has to; when he WAS home, he had the flu and was acting like a whiny baby the whole time. I do not understand certain men.

I understand CR a little better, though; he's been amazing, incredible, wonderful--and the only thing he HASN'T done is make it into town. If the snow would maybe manage to stop happening every three days alternating between here and there, perhaps progress would be made in this area as well. But we talk via IM every night, and we've pretty much worked out everything in the past that went wrong.

But right now, honestly, I'm just pretty glad to be me. Compared to all the things my friends and loved ones are going through at the moment, a messy house and a pile of laundry the size of Mount McKinley are practically comforting. And if I needed anything to confirm my judgement, both Tim and Squeaky with their cabin fever, and Deb with her hormones kicking her ass and her stitches in a Really Bad Place, have reminded me how much I really do NOT want to go through the whole having-a-baby thing. I guess from a philosophical/dream world standpoint, I'll always wonder what might have been; but from a practical, about-to-turn-40-and-none-too-stable-my-damn-self perspective, I've made the best decision for me.

Just A Flat-Out Happy

Deb had her baby!!! TinyGirl, who will get a proper blog-name once I meet her, was born around 3 PM this afternoon, and is, to quote Deb, "just as precious as she can be."

And of course, there's supposed to be a blizzard tonight and all day tomorrow, so I probably won't get to meet her til Thursday; but still.

I'd sent MisterDeb (who needs HIS own blog-name too, since it appears he's gonna stick around, thank heavens--it's absolutely PAST time for Deb to get some happiness in her life) all my phone numbers--both work numbers, the home number, Mom's home number, and the number for my cell phone which is now off anyhow--just so I could hear when TinyGirl arrived; Deb had told me that she was going to be induced today at 7 AM, so when I hadn't heard from her by 5:00, I was beginning to get kinda nervous. And it did not help in any way that my desk phone, which normally rings about once a week on a busy week, chose today to ring completely off the hook. But not long after I got home, I got a call from Deb herself; talking in whispers because they had just gotten TinyGirl to sleep. She sounded extremely happy, even at the lowest possible volume.

I usually hope that blizzards really hit us hard, but I'm really REALLY hoping this one misses us pretty thoroughly. I want to meet my little niece, and get started in my role as Crazy Aunt Gladys...oh, and get a picture, for my desk at work.

After all, you can only have so many pictures of your cats before your co-workers start to have uncharitable suspicions about you.

The Horror: Part Two

This one just makes me want to cry, or possibly put my head through the wall. The only--the ONLY--positive thing I can say about this is, at least it wasn't her mom's mother's female parent's idea.

The Horror: Part One

No, it's not related to Tim and/or Squeaky; in fact, it's not even related to me personally...