Sugared Harpy

I can’t say enough good things about this past year. It’s been mighty difficult, I’ve had to do A LOT of soul searching/thinking/digging on many issues that I’ve either allowed myself to play the victim, swept under some 400 knot per inch mental rug, or didn’t really know how I stood in the first place. Handling a (super fast) growing teenager who doesn’t enjoy academics, living in a house I loved and hated, and dealing with a sensitive tween, plus learning about love in a way that was (and sometimes still is) unfamiliar to me has been hard.

But good.

Really, really good.

I’m learning how to listen better. To my kids. To my partner. Ultimately, to me. I started listening to my sister and how she handled her tween daughter and realized it applied a lot to Daniel and his issues. She said, “We’re gonna be BEST FRIENDS to her daughter. We’re gonna spend hella time together until we’re okay.” And you know what? It worked well. Instead of either flailing or getting angry or not dealing at all (dissociation, anyone?) I watched her and copied her like a bitch.

“Hello, Daniel. We’re gonna be BESTIES until we’re okay.”

We’re not okay yet, but it’s working. Every day after school, he gets to spend time with me at the kitchen table. Together, we do his homework and if he conveniently forgets his homework, OH HAI INTERNETS, we do togetherness Mama homework. He seems to feel supported, I’m less frustrated, we’re actually having a good time and his grades are creeping upward.

I also started listening to Brett more, but then realizing that I’m the Mama and need to change some things. At our house of three, it was more than easy to let Brett slip into the “baby” of the house. But I realized as we were gearing up to living in a house of five, that this is actually an issue that’s stunting him. He’s always been sensitive to change, but he was actually starting to just break down instead of handling it. He needs to learn how to find ways to soothe himself, find ways to garner some comfort in a new situation. He also needed to learn how to ASK for help, instead of breaking down and requiring it. Asking for help is hard to learn how to do. I’m not quite there myself. But we’re talking about it, and it seems to be making him more confident. It’s hard for me not to baby him, but to have him learn to tell me what he needs in a calm way. It’s better for all of us, though.

I’m learning how to be good to my partner. I’m trying to listen to him as much as I am trying to get my point across. I think for a long time it was me grasping to get across what I wanted or needed, and not really getting that I can’t change someone else. I can change me only. But I can learn to better pinpoint, then say directly, what parts I need help with from him. I’m learning how to be normal…as I can be anyway. And I’ve realized that I don’t want to change him. I love him as he is; he seems to feel the same and happily takes me in as I am.

Don’t let this sound like I have things figured out, though. I don’t. But I’m trying, failing, trying again. I’m happy. I’ve got a lot of happy here.

This past year, some (a lot of) stuff has happened around here. Here’s 2008 in posts:

January: A book I contributed to was published.

February: I fell in love and it made me go nutty

March: I reminded you about Michelangelo’s tits. Because I can’t let that go.

April: I clearly noted that Brett was getting a tad clingy and encouraged it. Well, sometimes they just need that and sometimes it just makes them under confident. Who knows.

May: I let Daniel fly a plane. I cried, but didn’t pass out. He smiled for weeks.

June: My laptop died, I bought a new one. And gifted you with some Badu, you know we all needed it.

July: I dyed my hair purple (instead of the pink I sported all the rest of the year) and then showed you my underwear. I blogged that purple hair day by day. I’m sorry.

August: I joined a local food sharing group and loved it. I definitely think harder now about where food is coming from and how much better it tastes when it hasn’t ripened in the inside of a smelly truck.

September: My cousin passed away.

October: My boyfriend and I decided to buy a house together! So much talking ensued.

November: And then we did. Living together has been the easiest thing we’ve done.

December: Love is good.

Happy, happy, happy new year!

I was walking to my car after class when this suicidal grasshopper jumped onto my shoulder. Rather than be swatted to death, clearly his plan, he merely became my living brooch. Stunned a bit, I just let him ride his way to my car where I put him back in the grass. Probably, I disappointed him but too bad, buddy. Today isn’t your day.

***

Apparently, this week is Ache to Punch Your Landlord in the Face Week for those named Melissa. Sunday afternoon I found a note attached to my door (why yes, this is his exact punctuation).

Dear Tenant

We are needing to get inside Tomorrow 9-29-08 for inspection Please call me @ ****** Thanks, ____

LANDLORD

First of all, this is not my landlord. This is my landlord’s son. Second of all, fool ass…inspection? Didn’t y’all just have an appraiser through here in the winter because you just refinanced?

So I call, leave a message, get a ring back. “Uh, did someone call from this phone?”

“YES (Fool). Because you told me to.”

In this phone call, I learn that he wants to meet me at my door as soon as I pull in from work and through setting that up I hear this, “…because when you sell a house you need an inspection.”

‘SCUSEME? Sell the house?”

“Oh, yeah, I had to leave school and I need a place to like, party in and stuff so my mom is giving me that house.”

INTERESTING.

The next day when he arrives, I learn more. He’s brought his girlfriend. This is no inspection, this is playing happy families. They are picking out paint colors and choosing which sofa should go on what wall. Naturally, I am livid.

DUDEWHATHEFUCKAREYOUDOINGHERE? WHENAREYOUPLANNINGTOMOVEIN?

“Maybe November to the end of the year. Dunno.”

NO, NEED DATE. MUST PLAN. HAVE KIDS.

“Well, my mom said December 1st. We’d love to have our first Christmas here.”

(I have two kids here, asshole. They like Christmas, too.)

I have to be out by December 1st. I am not pleased. If his mother, my actual landlord, had just sent a letter saying: We are sorry, but we’re selling the house and this is the date in which we’d like to take over possession, I honestly would have been fine. This bullshit prancing around my house expecting me to be happy for them pisses me off.

NB and I had been making some interesting housing plans for January, a happy plan already set in motion a few weeks ago. December is not January, but it is not too far earlier either. But no one wanted a rush, or to have a non-flexible situation, or to have anyone move more than once or have a stupid drive to add on. Our plan, well, it is changing.

Here is the last of what the purple looked like. I had to pull up the tiniest top layer of my hair so you could see this:

Here I am with the pink again! This is Hot Hot Pink from Manic Panic, layered on the upper portion of my hair on top of that leftover purple.

My mirror is full of toothpaste spots.

Since I was about to hop in the shower, I am also nude :)

We went to Kansas City again this weekend. We love small trips. Very helpful for stress and super fun!

It’s also fun to watch your boyfriend wash your car.

If you go to Kansas City, Gates Barbecue is fine and all but for the first-timer a bit confusing. CANIHELPYOU!!! is screamed constantly at no one in particular. You only give bits of your order at a time and it takes about ten minutes of CANIHELPYOU!!! to a crowd, versus a line, to get all the bits of your order to the nice CANIHELPYOU!!! lady and then maybe you can figure out where to pay. I tasted all right. It’s no Arthur Bryants.

Sir liked Jack Stack.

Still no Arthur Bryants. You can’t beat the atmosphere in that place.

Also, if you head to Kansas City you will want to see the World War I Museum. It’s beautiful and very well done.

You can go to the top of that lovely art deco tower. We did.

You can maybe skip the Jazz Museum. We didn’t know what to look at or where to go. No order to be found. I wanted to like it, but it was difficult. We walked around in a state of befuddlement.

In the middle is the Negro Baseball League Museum. Go see it. But it’s got a lot of randomata going on. Text, text, interesting text, PICTURE OF SOME DUDE, text, random text. See it because it tells a story you don’t really hear, but expect some curveballs (heehee!).

I took this in the hotel (HOTWIRE!) bathroom for you. Warm lighting does not show you that the entire bottom half of my hair is virtually white.

Why yes, I AM wearing a purple shirt with purple hair.

Day 8:

Day 9 with still damp hair:

So, the purple is now a lovely still-purple at the top of my head and a blue-gray at the bottom.

Not that my lying bathroom pictures would tell you that.

Day 5:

Day 6:

I’m soooo cool in pictures, bleh.

In that bathroom, in THOSE shots, my hair is all, “Look at my lavender loveliness. Oh my gosh, so pretty!”

Here’s this blue/gray I’ve been talking about. My lying bathroom won’t give this up, but natural light will.

Day 5:

Day 6:

(I know that’s a weird shot, am genius at the fotoz.)

I still like the color, though, but the ends are going to be skanky hell soon when the blonde starts to show turning it blue/yellow/gray. Mmmmmm.

Seriously, hair blogging, are you at the edge of your seat or what?

By my roots, still pretty. The ends are starting to get ashy gray/purple.

I need a category for stupid hair blogging.

Huh, it looks more blue today in person. Not so much in the picture. Maybe this time it’s going to stay purple longer!

When I asked Brett to pick out my next fun hair color, I expected him to choose a color I really LIKED.

No, kid went for that stupid Ultra Violet rolling around in my bathroom cabinet. (See #81 of my 100 Things: 81. I tried purple. It turned to gray pretty quickly. Do not want.) Do not want!

But you know you can’t ask your son to choose your hair color and then tell him, “No, not that one. Pick my choice.” So you dye your hair stupid Ultra Violet anyway, because you love the boy.

And it’s pretty on day one or two, but it will quickly – AND I MEAN EVERY TIME YOU WASH YOUR FOOL HAIR – fade from a deep lovely shiny dark violet on day one to an ashy ass gray by day seven. Thankfully, I think my Hot Hot Pink covers anything. It’s freaking burgundy in the jar.

Here’s what it looks like today, on day three before it starts sucking, when it’s still a decent lavendar color:

The hell? What am I being all wistful about? Somedayyyyyy my prince will come!

(Hopefully, not on my person.)

(Ahem.)

Here is another shot. A blurry one.

I’m tryin’ hard to think
And I think that I want you on the floor
Uh huh, yeah on the floor!

Well, maybe on my person…depends.

Uh, sorry.

Oh hey! I was trying to see if I could get the purple hair from the back view. And I got a back view, indeed. This one is just so you know how I’m dressed when I work and blog and read.

I’m not lying when I say I’m in my underwear all day.