• Random and Odd

    I was wrong. I’m sorry.

    This has been a long time coming.
    I tried to write this awhile ago, but it kept coming out wrong and will probably come out wrong again.
    There really is no way to write what I am going to write and come out looking good.

    About 5 years ago I hurt every single person I knew. It’s hard to type that and not tear up.

    I wasn’t happy in my marriage. I had not been happy for a few years. I stayed because the thought of my daughters saying that their parents were ‘divorced’ scared the shit out of me. I came from a two parent household. I had mom and dad and my brothers and sisters. There was some other guy my mom was married to when she was really young and there was a story attached to it, but in my eyes…growing up…I had a real family. I was going to give my daughters exactly that.
    That’s not really the whole story. The whole story was I was scared to death. I was relatively young, had no education and no hopes of really being anyone that would be able to take care of all these babies.I could go on about the fear and anxiety of even THINKING about leaving caused me, but I won’t. We all know how it feels to be trapped.

    I loved my ex-husband. I probably always will. He gave me three reasons for getting up every morning. He made me someone. I hated my ex-husband too. He lied to me over and over again about everything. He was a professional liar. I believed the lies for a very long time. Then one day, I realized just because I don’t have a high school diploma doesn’t mean I don’t have ‘gut feelings’. I started listening to those gut feelings and I following up on them. I became a professional spy.

    I really got into it too. They started out as little things I could figure out. Time management wasn’t one of his better qualities.
    Calculating in my head how long it would take to get from where he said he was to home became my mission in life.
    I have it down to an art form now. If he says he will be here in 15 minutes, I ask where he is and with that information I can calculate how long it will really take him. Being horrible with time doesn’t make someone a liar. Lying about where you are to start with is what makes you a liar. Lying about ever other detail from financial to personal in your life is what makes you a liar. I found out everything.

    This isn’t about him, it’s about what I became. My ‘gut feelings’ began to rule my life. I kept it all a secret though because no one that knew him would believe me. There is NO POSSIBLE way that man could be doing the things my gut was telling me.
    If you were a part of my life you saw the little things. You knew what I was talking about. For those of you that saw this couple from the outside, you had NO clue what was going on inside.

    I had Alyx and Shea back to back. I don’t regret it, but my body just wasn’t ready to be pregnant so soon. After Shea was born I had a serious case of postpartum depression. In ‘serious’ I mean I should have been hospitalized. I was a happy mom. I did all the happy mom things. Inside I was freaking out. Along with being a mom to two little babies and Kara, I was dealing with bills, lies, school, car seats….I finally snapped. It was my neighbor who actually looked me in the eye and said, “You need help, you need to get on something. You have postpartum depression.” I had not even calculated that in my head until he said it. It made sense and I went to the doctor to get pills. The pills didn’t work, they made it worse. I went on some sort of patch thing and that made things normal again. I could sit on the couch and be a normal person…until the power got shut off.

    During my pregnancy and the horrible months after I couldn’t deal with money. I use to be a freak about money. I would put every single cent in the bank, calculate my checkbook to the last penny. Check my account about 4 times a day. I knew exactly how much I had to ‘play’ with and how much I needed to make my payments with. Then something snapped inside of me during those freak out moments and I just stopped. I couldn’t even think about writing a check. I had my ex take over the bills until I got better.

    I was sitting on the couch and the power got shut off. I called PG&E to get the power restored because clearly it was a mistake on their part. I was wrong.
    The PG&E bill had not been paid in 6 months. How it stayed on this long was a miracle. I found a box…a large box of bills that had not even been opened. I had some help getting all the bills in order and figuring out how much we owed. It wasn’t good. He had not paid anything. My depression, anger and frustration reared it’s ugly head and I think it was somewhere around this time I lost my mind.

    Most people would have gone to the doctor. I went to Las Vegas.

    Before we left (‘we’ being mom, kathy and i) I went up to have Kathy do my hair. In the process of being up there I heard an old co-worker on the radio. I called him up and we ‘chatted’. It was nice to catch up with an old friend and we exchanged email addresses and said our goodbyes.

    I was gone for almost a week. Something really shitty happened in Vegas concerning some money issues that pushed me over the edge. I came back refreshed and set to make some changes.
    I checked my email and there was an email from my old co-worker. That was the door.
    I emailed him back. That was the walking through the door.
    I started to finally feel alive.
    That is when I think I lost my mind completely.
    Oh the joy of feeling alive again. I can still feel that tingle. I was high on life. I couldn’t eat or sleep. All over a few emails and some secret online chatting.
    I didn’t think it would go anywhere. I just enjoyed someone talking to me, someone listening to me, someone telling me they thought I was smart and beautiful. Someone to justify my anger and frustration.
    Besides, it’s not like I was really doing anything…I was just chatting with him.

    That was about 5 years ago that I hurt every single person I knew. I left my husband.

    He trusted me. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t trust him anymore. I didn’t believe anything he said to me because 90% of the time it was a lie I would catch him anyway. It didn’t matter that he never cheated on me while we were married (even though he did before we were…and of course lied for ten years about it) He trusted me, because I never gave him a reason not to. I hurt him. I didn’t care either. It was actually gratifying to see him in as much pain as I was in for all those years of lies. I was finally released from having to lie for him to cover up a lie he said to someone else. It was nice not to feel embarrassed when he was caught by someone other than me. I didn’t need to ever have to be a super sleuth again. I was done.

    The ‘not feeling guilty’ thing caught up with me though. It always does. I had a freak out attack about a month later.

    I didn’t think that all the things I had dealt with during my marriage would effect my relationships in the future. I was wrong.I was pretty sure that every single person I knew was lying to me about something.

    I remember one night about a year after I left my ex, I got mad at the old co-worker that I was involved with because I was sure he was lying to me about something. He looked me in the eye and asked me why I was mad at him. I said, “Because if you loved me you would lie to me!”
    It was like hitting a wall at a hundred miles an hour.
    I marched that comment right into my therapist and said, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME!?”
    I was nicely asked about what was said when I confronted my ex about the lies.

    “I love you honey. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I just didn’t tell you because I love you.”
    That’s what he said first.
    “I didn’t want you to get mad at me.”
    That was the second.
    “I didn’t want to hear you bitching about it.”
    That was the third.
    “Honey, I love you. I will always love you. I didn’t want to hurt you, I didn’t want you to get mad. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

    I was told over and over for years and years that he lied to me because he loves me. I was going to have to learn a healthy relationship. My attempt at a ‘healthy’ relationship was to say, “Fuck it. If you don’t like what you see or I don’t like you…keep on steppin'”

    I drove the old co-worker I was with away for many reasons. The main one was that I was done having kids and I knew he wanted some of his own. He would have stayed with me. I couldn’t live with killing off his family name because I wouldn’t have any more children. Oh, and he was also paranoid and anxiety ridden and drove me to drinking and smoking 2 packs a day. That’s really all beside the point though.

    The next ‘real’ relationship I was in was good. I say ‘real’ because I respected him. He lasted for more than a couple weeks and when I gave him that, “Don’t like it…keep steppin” thing I had gotten so good at, he just looked at me and laughed. He laughed at me. HE LAUGHED. He also sat my ass down and told me to grow up. He also showed me what it was like to trust again. He showed me what ‘healthy’ felt like. It was the first mature relationship I ever had. It wasn’t the ‘dreamy’ kind of love, but damn it I totally respected that. I knew why we were together. We were together to heal each other. It wasn’t going to be a life long relationship and we both knew it. Honest, real and nothing hidden. I loved that. I needed that. When our relationship ended I was balanced. I knew I was going to be okay. I had left all that shit behind me and I was ready to start fresh.

    For those of you that know me, you’re laughing your asses off right now because you know the next two or three people that came into my life. This point in my life was like getting out of rehab, being clean and ready to settle down and something happens and you become a drug dealer. You didn’t expect it to happen, but you find yourself WORSE than when you got help.

    I took all the skills I learned in my marriage, all the dreamy things I learned from co-worker, all the mature behavior I learned and I became…a ‘player’. I was good too. I was REALLY good, because you didn’t expect it from me. I think the best part about it was that I finally got to ‘not give a shit’ what the other person thought. I didn’t care if it would last or end.

    Then I met Shaun.

    I had perfected not giving a shit, not caring what other people did when I wasn’t looking or what someone had said about me. I think at that point I had experienced the worse, heard the worse and managed to live through it. There really isn’t anything more you can do to me to throw me through a loop.

    Except me falling in love with that person.

    I thought all the things I had been through had taught me a lesson. I was wrong. I’m even more afraid of the things that happened in my past happening again. I hate that person I became when I was married. I hated questioning everything, but I’m glad I did because I found out what was being hidden and it made me make the choices that I made.

    These things are still effecting my relationships. I’m trying to work through them. I don’t relate lying to love anymore. I don’t think that people are always lying to me. I finally give a shit what is going to happen in the future. I hated that person I became. I don’t want to be that person, but I also hate more than anything is wondering if I am being stupid and not. If I am not seeing the big picture.

    It’s human nature. I understand that. I am using up emotional energy that doesn’t need to be used up. I know this. I’m sorry.

    I haven’t quite learned how to trust yet. I thought I had.

    I was wrong.

    My name is Kristine, I don’t know how to trust. Where do I go now?

  • Random and Odd

    You know what?…Damn it all…BOOB HAIR!

    Yes, you heard me. BOOB HAIR.
    I haven’t talked about BOOB HAIR because it’s not just something you want to talk about. I want to talk about it. This is my blog and if you don’t like BOOB HAIR then don’t read it.

    I have boob hair. It’s like 3 dark hairs that make an appearance every so often. Pluck or Shave? That is the question.

    I also have a hair that grows staight out of my forehead. My sister finds it funny to pluck it out REALLY hard like.

    She’s not allowed to go near my boobs.

  • Random and Odd

    blo-gggger

    yellow brick road-under construction

    Is Blogger actually working today?

    Well, I thought I had recovered from the trip, but I am still feeling like I could sleep for another few days.

    I haven’t caught up on all the blog reading for the last week so I think I am just going to have to say, “I’m sorry guys, I don’t think I can read everyone’s blog. Please just comment on my page and tell me what you’ve been up to.”

    My back up blog (the one I used yesterday) is going back to my ‘design’ place. I use that blog to test out any potential blog styles I like. So, unless you’re really bored and want to see what I’m working on, you don’t need to go there anymore. Hopefully. Please Blogger, just be nice to me.

    If you couldn’t tell, I have nothing to write about. I’ve been in a weird place for the past few days. I’ve been thinking about the ‘writing for me, writing for you’ subject that seems to be something going around blogosphere. People losing themselves to writing for other people and not for themselves anymore.
    It seems when I write for myself that I finally feel better about what was bothering me. When I write for others I censor what I write in fear of hurting someone’s feelings or giving people the wrong impression. God forbid you all think I am a anxiety ridden freak. Oh wait, you already knew that huh?

    I want to be able to use this space to write like I would if I were in bed with my leather bound journal and a pen I can’t seem to get to work. I want to pour it out here. I do…sometimes. I feel like a make a difference when I do. Sometimes I want to laugh, and make you guys laugh with me.

    Anyone else in this place?

  • Random and Odd

    Disneyland

    I had six hours on the car ride home and a couple of days (bad blogger! baaaad blogger!) to think about what I was going to write after my trip to Disneyland.

    When I say, “I spent three days in Disneyland with 5 kids.” I don’t think you quite understand the magnatude of that statement because I wouldn’t hear, “Oh HOW FUN. I bet you had a great time!”I think the response I want to hear is similar to if you heard I was having a brain transplant. “OH MY GOD! YOU ARE KIDDING ME RIGHT? HOLY CRAP! WHAT A BRAVE WOMAN YOU ARE!”

    Don’t get me wrong. I did have fun. I did have a great time. I also have NO hair left, a bleeding ulcer and don’t get me started on the aches and pains I am experiencing RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT.

    Mom, don’t read this next part.

    In high school I did LSD a couple of times. I was told “If you do that, years later you’ll have acid flashbacks that will scare the living hell out of you.”

    Disneyland for three days is much like that statement. I think in a few years I will be sitting in Bingo minding my own business and I am going to burst out in images of my daughter screaming “DON’T MAKE ME RIDE SPLASH MOUNTAIN. IF YOU LOVE ME YOU WON’T DO THIS TO ME!” I will see little dolls singing, “It’s a small world”, Chip and Dale chasing me around with a big camera and I will feel like I am caught in the longest line in the world with a guy that smells like ass in front of me.

    I will deserve this though. My six year old daughter’s first experience of Disneyland was The Haunted Mansion & Thunder Mountain Railroad. You would think we would have started her out on ‘It’s a Small World’, but even I wasn’t THAT brave.

    Okay Mom, you can start reading again.

    It was a great trip. I will do the ‘nice’ Disneyland blog on the kids Blog because hopefully if I write about all the fun they had and put in pictures as proof they will forget the THIRTY miles I made them walk, the sharing of soda because it cost 5 bucks a bottle, telling Shea that Splash Mountain was just the little train that went around the park. I won’t tell them that I lied about ‘Small World’ being broke down after our first trip through it so I wouldn’t be forced to go through it again.
    I’m sure they will only remember the good stuff. If not I am going to be paying some therapist years down the road.

    Oh and Mom, you thought I was bad on that Thunder Mountain Railroad when I went! You should have seen your grand daughter trying to get off the thing after the first drop. It was classic shit and I now finally understand why you and dad thought that was the funniest thing you had ever seen when I tried to do the same thing. I finally understand your sadistic ways.

    I’m home, and here’s the pictures I promised – Disneyland Pictures

    Thank you all for the birthday wishes. It was great to come home to so many well wishes!

  • Random and Odd

    But is it fast enough so we can fly away

    I use to drive a former California Highway Patrol car. No, I wasn’t a cop and it didn’t come with the cool lights. I wish!
    I bought it after they had used it, painted it red and auctioned it off. The CHP did a lot of modifications to the car. The handling in that car was SWEET. I could go from 0 to “Oh shit, too fast!” in about 5 seconds. It took me about 3 months to finally be able to drive it without coming home with head and neck injuries. It took about a year for me to stop giggling every time I drove it.

    I let the Fonz drive my car. I don’t remember exactly WHY I let her drive my car. I guess it was because she was the one who taught me the second half of driving a stick shift (Kathy taught me how to speed shift) and I felt obligated to let her take the new car for a spin.

    This was the one of those moments where you realize that you are finally better at something than your parents. My mom couldn’t drive my car.

    “The clutch is too stiff! Why is it making that sound?” She looked at me like I gave her the keys to a school bus.

    “Mom! it’’s a sport car, that’s why the clutch is so stiff. That sound it’s making is you grinding the gears.”
    She just looked at me and rolled her eyes.
    My mother, the Fonz, GRIND GEARS? I THINK NOT.

    She drove it from my aunts house to her house. By the time she pulled in the drive way I was a wreck.. The sound of the engine shutting off was the greatest thing I had ever heard.

    “What?” She looked at me finally able to relax in my seat. “You look stressed out? What’s the matter?”
    “Nuthin.”
    I didn’t want to tell her that she shifted into fourth gear doing 30 miles an hour and after about 5 miles had FINALLY just gotten up to the speed to actually shift into fourth gear. Just leave it alone. This is the woman that gave birth to you. This is the woman who is the grandmother to your children. This is the woman that carries a .357 in her purse and has used the term, “I brought you into this world. I can take you out!”

    When I was little I use to ask my mother, “Why do we have to drive Grandma around? Doesn’t she know how to drive?”

    I think I just figured it out.

  • Random and Odd

    little me

    1972

    Hi Everyone!
    I’m at mom’s house. I’m going through all her pictures and I found this one of me when I was…MOM! how old am I in this picture? I was about 9 months old.

    Wasn’t I just a cutie?

    I’m going to flickr some pictures that I took while I am here. The girls got new haircuts (Thanks Auntie Kathy!) and some of The Fonz with her .357, Kathy in her big, green rubber jacket with the funky hat and glasses!!
    They may not be Moab cool pictures, but I know you’re all just itchin’ to see em!

  • Random and Odd

    Going to Redding….

    watching birds

    Well, it’s the first leg of the big trip. Today I leave for Redding to get drop off the Mooshu Mooshu Monkey Dog at my mom’s so she can watch her while we go to Disneyland.

    I come back on Tuesday to pick up Shaun and the kids and we leave for Disneyland Wednesday morning. (I will be missing Self Portrait Thursday which is – You in the Workplace theme….I told HDL to just imagine me in Mickey Mouse ears.)

    I won’t get back until Sunday.

    Before I go, I better lay down some rules.

    1. Katie Be-Bored-At-Work – No fighting with asstrolls. they will go away if you just talk about tampons.
    2. I update the kids page. FOUR PLUS THREE. It’s my letter to Kara for her birthday. It was weird writing it. I’m glad I did. If you have a kid…write em a letter.
    3. I fixed the lame flowers on The Fonz Blog and made them bullet holes. She blogged. (Okay, She commented and thought she was blogging. It was cute, but I fixed it for her.)
    4. I’m figuring out this whole CSS thing. I am LOVING redoing Blogger accounts. I fixed Tina’s AGAIN…and this time we both like it!!

    If you want to redo your blog. Let me know. I am having a blast with it.

    Now I better get going, my mom and sister are waiting. You don’t keep those two waiting.

  • Random and Odd

    Should I blog this?

    This morning I was sitting here at the computer minding my own business when I saw a little bit of paper slip between the stove and the counter.

    “how odd.” I thought.

    Then I was sitting here a little while later and I was sitting her still minding my own business when I saw a mouse come OUT.OF.MY.STOVE!

    I was on the phone with the school nurse when the sucker decided to pop it’s fuzzy little head out. I screamed. I don’t know WHY I screamed, because it’s just a mouse and I’m not afraid of a mouse. I think it was more because it was coming OUT.OF.MY.STOVE!

    What did I do? I grabbed my camera, a chair and I waited. The camera at the perfect focus of the hole the thing came out of a few minutes earlier.
    Well, I sat there for a good minute before I realized that it could come out underneath the stove so I got up and sat back down…on my feet. That little fucker isn’t going to creep out and scare me.

    I sat there a little bit longer and I realized it could be on the side of the fridge. I used the beam of blinding light that comes on when you auto-focus the Nikon to be able to see on the side of the fridge. Shit, I need to clean my stove AND my fridge. No mouse.

    I sat back down and waited. Hmmm. I bet that sucker is behind the toaster. I stood up and saw my reflection in the stove and FREAKED THE FUCK OUT. I jumped and started hitting the shutter button over and over. I got mad at myself of course for being such a wussy and sat back down. I sat and sat. Then like any crazy person would after sitting for 30 minutes waiting for a mouse to come out of the stove, I started mumbling to myself.

    And then I did it, I became paranoid. I started thinking I saw it by the coffee pot. Then on the floor. Then by the knives. Okay, I need to calm down.

    I walked away from the stove and sat down at the computer trying to decide if I should tell you this story. If I should admit that just a week before leaving for Disneyland I am plotting the death of a mouse. So as I am sitting here at the computer typing this I am doing so without looking away from the stove. The camera is on my lap in the on position.

    Wait, why do I need the camera again? Do I think if I take its picture it will throw it’s little paws up in the air and say, “Oh, you got me! I will leave peacefully and never come back.”?

    I’m pretty sure the Nikon has a button on it that will run the toaster, but I don’t think it has a “KILL THE FUCKING MOUSE” button.

    I’m going to Target to get some mouse traps!

  • Random and Odd

    I don’t want to be popular…

    I really should get off this damn computer and do something today. I can’t though. I’m caught here. It’s like my foot is caught in gum and I can’t get up until I get the whole glob of it off my shoe.

    I’m clicking again. I’m reading other people’s blogs. In “Other people’s blogs” I mean, people outside of my ring of blogs. You guys. Yes, i’m cheating on you. I had to, I had to see what else is out there. I was wrong to even dare. I didn’t find anything. I DID find out that you guys are WAY better writers than some of the people with those fancy-shmansy blogs with like 60 comments per post.

    I don’t know if I have ever told you this…I love you. I love you for your crazy lives, your adorable pictures, your dogs, your funny husbands, your way cool mom, your hockey team pictures of stunningly good looking men without shirts on, your references to your blog friends through random everyday items, your bitchness, your understanding, your comments….I love you guys. I love my blog JUST the way it is.

    I don’t want to be popular. I don’t want to have to buy bandwidth or get some fancy shmansy blog design. I don’t want a million comments. I would just feel guilty if someone came to my blog and left a comment and I didn’t at least go look at their blog. I would feel bad if someone had me listed as a blog they read, and I didn’t have them on mine. I like it just the way it is. See those links over there? See the ones I am going to add soon. I read those. I love those blogs. AND why do I love those blogs over there to the right? Because they come here and read what I write, they comment, the come back and read some more, they don’t always comment. I’m okay with that.

    Here is your Friday Question:

    How do you feel about your blog? Do you wish you had more readers? What would make your blog experience better (other than the suck-ass Blogger problems) ?