no words

So a lot has happened since my last post.

For one, BB's bun is no longer in the oven. She's also not at home, or even technically in the custody of my Bipolar Brother. She's in rehab, going through withdrawal, thanks to her mom's addiction to prescription drugs. Because she's got scrips and bottles and a cover story (thanks to a timely request for vicodin for braxton hicks contractions), they will probly get baby b back, but not until Christmas at the earliest. Baby rehab is pretty time intensive, apparently.

The more I read about it the worse I feel for baby b. I told my brother that everything's fine, she won't remember a thing, and she's not in danger of dying - but I don't believe a word of it. I can't imagine how spending the first month or two of your life on morphine - screaming, sweating, twitching, and not sleeping or feeding well - could not shape your world view. And there is an increased risk of SIDS from respiratory suppression. And since b's mommy (we'll call her BM) is avoiding rehab (thanks in no small part to the perpetual denial of a family who has seen signs of her addiction for 5 years now), I can't imagine b is going to end up in a home that will meet her needs for quiet and consistency. Seriously, this is a house without doors (cuz BB rips them down in fits of rage) and where an air horn is considered an appropriate way to get the attention of the other girls.

I just hope the social worker interviews my sister. My parents will deny everything, especially cuz my dad has given BM prescriptions in the past - usually for toothaches that always seemed to happen on Friday nights or holidays... But my sister, she's done. She can testify that mommy has stolen drugs from her medicine cabinet (and mine, for that matter), has offered to buy narcotics from a friend who wasn't using them, has been nuts for years...

I just don't get why BM is resisting rehab. She just poisoned her baby. If that wasn't motivation enough, what will keep her clean now? She is at least detoxing, acting less nuts, looking like crap, but how long will that last? She needs help and I don't understand why everyone is so willing to say she'll be fine.

My family is so not normal.

Anyway, that isn't even the biggest news in my life. It's just the most recent.

Six weeks ago my 69 year old mother in law was beaten and raped in her home. I don't even have words. Really. My husband was able to be there for her right afterwards. He was halfway across country driving to move in with me. He turned around, drove 20 some hours straight, and spent a few weeks just being with her. She's a strong woman, glad to be alive. He convinced her to talk to a therapist. She decided to go back to her home. She really didn't have any other option. They haven't caught the guy. They probly won't. She has the best cop on her case (he even put up 5 grand of his own cash for a reward), but his force has an abysmal history of not catching rapists.

But no one is so much worried about catching him. It's all about her healing.

I'd write more, but it's tough to even articulate how it changes your world to have something like this happen. I am humbled, realizing how petty I've been towards her at times. I am frightened, as this reminds me that rape can happen to any of us at any time. I am sad, for my husband who feels so powerless, for a family that was already so broken. I am sickened. I'm sure this guy has had some awful things happen to him to feel the need to do something like this, but it's hard to feel any pity for him. Increasingly I embrace my inner retributivist.

Oh, yeah, and I am in law school. Thus the use of the word "retributivist." Sorry. Next month I get to study the legal ins and outs of rape. Joy. Anyway, I am realizing, as I prepare for exams which are 2 weeks away, that I failed to retain major chunks of information which I studied in the weeks immediately following the rape. That's fine, I can relearn them, but apparently I cannot relearn them without drudging back up all those feelings of helplessness and despair.

So I am here. Darkening your door with my tales of woe.

And that's not even all that has happened since school started 10 weeks ago. My favorite cousin had a stroke, fell off a roof and landed on his head. We're grateful that he is not dead (it wasn't a sure thing), but he is definitely impaired, and, I presume, bankrupt. There's frontal lobe damage, which means a loss of impulse control, and he's living in a bit of his own reality. But he remembers his family and his girlfriend and he's already out of the hospital. So I'm stoked. My favorite part of his story? He insists that I had baby b and that my other brother and I are keeping it on the down low. Some of you may not find being accused of having an incest baby very amusing but, really, it's nice to be on his radar.

Anyway, sorry to dump and run, but I just had to release some of this to the interwebs so I can get back to studying the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

about a boy

So I know I had a 50/50 chance of being right, and being right (in this case) has nothing at all to do with my intelligence or psychic abilities, but still I was delighted to get the news. I found out (via Facebook and later text message) that I was right about BB's (bipolar brother's) bun in the oven - it IS a girl. I'm actually a little sad for him, as I know he was looking forward to having a son and a namesake. (Did I mention he is BB the 3rd? Yeah, so bun was set to be the 4th... gag.) I am relieved for his girls, however, as relieved as I can be for future strippers, that they won't be subjected to the whole first born penis thing that colored my childhood. Though my husband thinks that by naming it I am perpetuating it, this gender inferiority complex, I am ignoring him because he is on his manstrual cycle.

You say you haven't noticed that men have a cycle too? Think about it. Your husband gets moody, right? Maybe even a little sullen. Certainly irritable. Sometimes downright irrational. He needs to be catered to, fed the right foods. He's tense. He doesn't want to talk about it. And then one day the fog lifts. He's had a night out, a great hike, or maybe just a nice blow job - and suddenly he's himself again. Until next time... The man cycle is not as regular as its female counterpart, but it is no less real.

My hubby's been PMSing big time since closing on his house and it is driving me crazy. Today we had the most annoying breakfast date where I stared across at a stoned faced version of my loving husband, knowing he wasn't (necessarily) seething at me, but he was seething all the same. I was hungover so I didn't try very hard to make conversation. Mostly I concentrated on coating my stomach with calories. Besides, I knew my hubby's mood was a lost cause since he'd just gotten laid the night before. If he could be simultaneously post coital and that grumpy, he was beyond repair.

Funny enough, he came home from his day (spent at the new house, of course) in a cheerful mood. He was battered and bruised and scraped and sore from trimming his overgrown tree. I pointed out that getting scraped up doesn't usually improve my mood, but he smiled and insisted that he felt much better for bleeding. (Ahem - bleeding brings an end to PMS - where have I heard that before?) Apparently his blood loss interrupted his thought pattern. (Exactly how I use alcohol...) So, yeah. My hubby is back. For now. But at this rate he could be PMSing again when he comes home from work. I'm not holding my breath.

I'm trying to avoid being an emotional sponge, but it's rough. I do have the cats around to make me bleed and redirect my thoughts. That's nice enough. But it's not enough, especially as the cats just remind me how stressful this move is going to be on all of us. So instead I spent the day trying not to notice how much stuff I still had to pack. It was irritating. I would've drank (again), but hair of the dog has never been my thing. Anyway, it didn't help that I discovered some packing casualties (already). My hubby, brain all addled by hormones, had stacked a giant heavy box on top of a stack of tiny delicate boxes, crushing the contents of the top box (my dried roses). I guess, whatever, he gave me the roses so he can crush them if he wants, but still, this stack job was completely uncalled for and illogical.

I did just finally make a bit of progress with the packing. I just wish I were less scattered. I have emptied most of my closet, most of my armoire, most of my breakables, some of my desk. I have emptied all of nothing. Oh, but I have totally filled the staging area with boxes and crates. In fact, I'm starting to worry that the 22 foot truck and its 1200 cubic feet of space will not be enough. I just wonder where all this crap came from. We lived in a studio before moving in. Somehow, nine years later, I am surrounded by stuff. I guess this explains my equally suffocating credit card debt.

Ugh. I can't even think about my debt. That almost makes me want to get back to packing. Or bed.

doing the math

One of my favorite things about this pink apartment building we have here (besides the privacy, of course) is that we don't have to post all the time. This is my vacation home, my play house, my getaway, and so I don't have to apologize for not posting. Though I do wish I had been posting, since I intended to keep you informed about my weight loss and debt management and my sobriety. Have you done the math yet? No posting = no progress. In fact, no posting = more weight, more debt, and a few very notable hangovers. So, you're thinking, at least no posting = no more fighting with hubby? Wish that was true, but the year continued to be rocky. Now that it is more than half way over, I think our fighting is mostly over, too. He went ahead and bought the house but he kept his mitts off "my" money and I kept my name of his property. I know I won't have distance if it really blows up financially, but I feel distant, and that is all I could do. Trouble is, I really am distant now, as he's had the keys four whole days and has spent every single one of them over at his new house.

Certainly I am more than welcome to hang out at his new house but I am busy packing for my own move which takes place in 3 short weeks. 3 weeks. So clearly this is why I am inspired to update my blogs. Procrastination is so my style. Anyway, hubby swears he'll be joining me at my new place soon enough, but we'll see. In the meanwhile, he's sharing his house with his brother / tenant, his brother's girlfriend, their two dogs, their one cat, and their assorted reptilian / amphibian pets. Already he is perturbed - by their early move in (he thought they'd wait until the painting was done), by their hamburger eating dog (self explanatory?), by the girlfriend's crazy ideas about renovations (with the brother encouraging him to play along for the sake of peace, assuring him he will rein in the ideas before they happen), and even by their desire to have a gas stove (electric sucks, I know, but beggars can't be choosers and they were begging to live in his house...). And me, I say bring it on, boyfriend. (I do actually call my husband "boyfriend" cuz he was my boyfriend for like 12 years before he became my husband. It confuses people, though, who know I am married when I talk about my boyfriend cuz they think I am having an affair...) Anyway, I am not wishing for this house situation to blow up on him completely (as in financially), but I am loving that the roommate thing is already strained. Cuz the less he wants to live here the more he will do to earn the money he should have before he got a mortgage and the sooner he will want to live with me in the snow.

So, yeah, I was finally rejected from my "reach" school - the same day we got the house keys, come to think of it. I saw it coming, of course, (delusion and reassurance can only take a girl so far), and, actually, I am totally fine cuz I personally think the situation I ended up with is even better (I swear, no sour grapes involved). I am at a slightly lesser (still fabulous) school with a super gigantic (as in full) scholarship. This news, the scholarship, helped me cope with the impending mortgage, in fact, cuz one of my fears was that both my husband and I were about to take on six figure debt at the same time. (And six figures + six figures = twelve figures, obviously...) I'm still taking out loans, but just for living expenses. I'm also getting help from the parents, which kills me cuz I wouldn't need it as much (if at all) if not for this house thing, but whatever. In my family money = love and it's my turn for some love.

Which brings me to the other thing I'll probly post alot about here - my bipolar brother who sponges off the parents on the regular. This alone does not disturb me much, but his at-least-as-crazy-but-half-as-diagnosed wife is a piece of work and you just know they've done some breeding. Their girls are actually turning out pretty cute, despite their best efforts to turn them into drug addicts and strippers. But now there is another bipolar bun in the oven and rumor has it is a boy. I'm not playing along until I see the penis on the ultrasound but they are so EXCITED cuz it's a BOY and the pee test they got from Walgreen's says so. Anyway, I know I am just bothered by all this boy business because:

• a) they have no business having another kid when they can't afford the ones they have.
• b) they have no business having another kid when they should be getting a divorce instead to end their domestic violence cycle before my brother ends up in jail for good (or before he kills himself or his wife or his wife and himself...).
• c) they are just over stimulating and annoying in general.
• d) I have a lot of residual gender issues due to my dad's obvious favoritism towards our family's first born penis (the bipolar brother).

But that's enough about the brother for now. Thinking about him makes me sad - for him, for me, for his kids, for his wife, for my parents, for my siblings... Bipolar is bad enough but BB (bipolar brother) also suffered some bad parenting (sorry Mom and Dad). I often wonder who he might've been if my parents weren't total codependent enablers. How different we all might be if my dad had addressed his violence, had gotten him treatment, had ever said even once that it is not okay to hit girls and it is not okay to talk to your mother that way. But now is not the time to get into all of that...

What I will not be blogging about here is cats and cat pee, cuz that seems to be the theme of my regular blog. Riveting, I know. So now you have another clue about the real me. I am a crazy cat lady, apparently. Not really sure how that happened. It kind of sneaks up on you, I guess.

Oh, but since I brought it up last time (in my only other post), I will say this about cat pee. Thanks to my newest cat's peeing preferences, our bedside rug has been banished to the landfill, never to return again. As a result, my husband has finally been forced to find a disposable method to dispose of the product of his self loving. I think, actually, that he would prefer to keep using the floor as a target but he has reconsidered ever since I pointed out that this practice was ruining the wood floors that we as tenants do not own. (Of course he vehemently denied he was the source of the "water damage" but I watch enough CSI to know the splatter pattern isn't consistent with rain coming in off the door...) Gross, I know, and TMI, but that's what being a Constance is all about. And it's not like I told you how I discovered his man juice disposal system when we kept the bed in the other (carpeted) room. Um, yeah, that was when I followed a trail of ants to find them feasting off of it.

I guess somebody's got to swallow, right?

Or have I said too much?

free at last

Ah, how many of us make that novice mistake of sharing our shiny new blogs with our friends and family? How brilliant of Constance the First to create a safe place to start again. Thank you, thank you, thank you, oh mighty Constance the First, for giving us this chance to start over.

Here we can blog about the real things in life. For example, we can describe with brutal honesty the most frustrating things about our husbands' penises... I, for one, have been dying to share that I am disturbed by the way my husband fails to clean up after masturbating. Each night I literally leap over the rug we have by our bed for I know this is his receptacle of choice. I have attempted to convince him to try - well, anything, really - a sock, a towel, a tissue - but honestly, it's a victory I've gotten him to admit that he soils the rug at all.

Which leads me to the other annoying result of my hubby's self love... I actually know what he does when he does it because it often wakes me up. I guess we should've gotten the bed in the commercials where the bowling ball does not knock over the glass of wine, cuz in our bed the spanking of his monkey feels just like someone is shaking me to roust me. So I lay there, pretending to be asleep, wanting to switch positions for now that I am awake I am acutely aware of whichever body part has been losing circulation thanks to my bizarre sleeping position (has anyone else ever wished for detachable arms?) and I wait. I silently root him on, willing him to finish, though I am seldom ever able to fall right back asleep anyway. (He is, of course, basically instantly knocked out...) I know, I know, if I were a good wife I would wake up and offer to help out. Or my sex life would be so active my husband wouldn't have to take care of his own needs. But I'm not a very good wife, apparently.

Which leads me to my next big secret topic - my very large self. I am sure my size has had a deleterious effect on my sex life. Just this very Monday I weighed in at my highest ever - 212 pounds - more than Oprah, even, and she is considerably taller than me. Very depressing for someone who shed nearly 75 pounds seven years before. I didn't think I'd allow myself to even get used to weighing anywhere close to a number that started with a 2. So imagine my surprise that I have recently blown right past that marker by another dozen pounds. Obviously there is something eating at me, maybe here I can figure out exactly what it is...

At least since Monday I have been eating right and making it to the gym. And I don't do the weenie workout that my so-called gym buddy prefers. She will only brave the treadmill and she mocks me for adding incline. She doesn't even work up enough sweat to have to wipe down the machines. But then, I don't want all you Constances to think I am a petty snit of a woman (though I may in fact be). I'm just explaining why I've been ditching said buddy pretty proactively lately. She is entertaining enough, though, in that she (allegedly) has lots of casual sex with random guys she meets on the internet. I hope for everyone's sake that not everything she says is true, but her stories are pretty disturbing and they sure make the treadmill time fly by.

Anyway, today is day four and I am feeling a bit more challenged about making it to the gym. I am sore, unmotivated, and very much wanting to drink. Which brings me to the other thing this blog may be about - my not-so-secret fear that I may be an alcoholic. Funny how the alcohol and my weight gain go pretty well hand in hand, right? I'm thinking if I can conquer the one (my size) that the other (my souse) will quietly fade away. Lord knows I'm not letting my inner lush pull me down again. Not this time. Or so I hope we'll see. Today she wants a drink but that's just cuz she's feeling all whiny and impatient about the other thing that I will likely blog about here - law school.

Yep, I'm finally doing it after, oh, about fifteen years of thinking about it. I don't mind saying that I'm a fairly bright girl who tests well. As a result I am in a very good position during this, my application season. Already four very fine schools have invited me to join their ranks along with three other lesser (but still esteemed) institutions. And though I have only heard back from one of my true "safeties," I have been too lazy to withdraw from the other two. I figure I paid for the application - I might as well wait until they render a decision even though it's pretty clear I won't enroll.

Anyway, the big "problem" lies with one of my three "reaches." I fully expect rejection from two of them, but one, one has been flirting with me. I am so on the cusp of admittance. I am literally one phone call away. Only this phone call is not a sure thing. And it could come (or not) any time between now and April. So every weekday I wake up and remind myself of four things.

1. Nearly 80% of people who get the first call (as I have), get the second one.
   
2. It doesn't matter when you get in, just that you do.
   
3. Even if you don't get in, it is better to have loved and lost... and all that crap.
   
4. Every day brings me one day closer to finally knowing.

Only today I am having trouble believing (in) myself for whatever reason - mostly cuz a couple of people on-line reported having been admitted in the past two days. Each time I am passed over I am forced to wonder if I am that dreaded one in five. I knew my numbers were borderline (for this school), but my essays were good. Good enough to get the first call, right? Anyway, I am 95% certain that this whole extended wait thing is just the universe's attempt at teaching me patience. Everything in my life seems to try to teach me this virtue. I always pick the wrong line in the grocery store. My husband is slow and constantly makes us late. I would surely be stuck in traffic all the time if my town were actually big enough to have traffic.

And so I wait. And my lush suggests waiting would be more fun while drunk. But my liver protests and says we are too old for that sort of thing. The hangovers are a deterrent, for sure. In fact, that is my New Year's Resolution - no new hangovers - cuz I can't convince myself to quit drinking altogether like a real alcoholic. That'd be too weird, especially in law school, I tell myself. So now I am just trying to teach myself to drink like a normal person - in moderation. Which I'm not necessarily ready for. So no booze tonight. I think I will force myself to attend a yoga class instead.

Anyway, in addition to oversharing about my (lack of) sex life, my weight, and my drinking, I shall also share my fiscal reality. I am currently $14,000 in credit card debt, I owe another $7,500 on a car, and I am actually happy about all this for just a few years ago I owed more than $60,000 to the cards. It was mostly wedding and ring related. I have a really nice rock and we had a great party... It was just, we made all those decisions while I was making good money. And then I quit my job. So the only serious progress we've made in paying it down was made by draining our IRAs. This made me cry at the time but now I am relieved. It was a facade - the retirement savings - because ultimately we were charging our consumables (food and gas) to have the money to put towards the future. But since then we've been so close to financial freedom that each year I have allowed myself hope. And each year I have been disappointed. Because I should be working. Which is why I am going back to school.

But you know, I realized, as I found myself not wanting to type it, even here in the safety of the pink walls of my private apartment, I think I am a little mad at my husband that we haven't made it out of the hole yet. Quitting my job was a group decision and part of the conclusion that I could do it was based on numerous calculations of his capacity to work overtimes. A full $8,000 of the credit card debt we are currently in was added this year - as a result of his virtual abandonment of the "plan." Of course, I know I have no right to be mad. I have been spoiled to have these three years off. And he works in a horrible place with horrible people and he shouldn't have to spend any time there, let alone extra time there. And for all I know, his absence has saved his life because people are literally assaulted at his work fairly regularly. (Okay, not so much regularly as irregularly, but still, when is the last time you were assaulted in your work place?) But I feel let down all the same.

And so I should not be surprised to find that for the first time ever we've been fighting. About money. Like normal couples. Only we always thought we were charmed. In our sixteen years together we have seldom quarreled. And even when we did, I have always won. And thus, we suck at fighting. We don't do the really hurtful hateful things that pre-divorce couples do (or at least I don't think we do - maybe I should review that study I read years ago...), but I hate that we are fighting at all.

Worse yet, we are fighting because my dream (of law school) is in direct conflict with his dream (of real estate investing). As you may have noticed, now is kind of a good time to jump in to the real estate market. If you've got the money, that is. Since we don't, really, I am terrified by his plans. Add to the that the fact that I'm about to take on six figures in student loan debt and I am really freaking out. Factor in the fact that this debt will involve moving to a big, expensive city where our rent will easily double while my hubby's income will drop by half (if we're lucky) and then you can see where I am coming from. Do I even need to add that my hubby wants to rent this house out to his younger, somewhat flaky brother? Cuz mixing family and business is always a great idea, right? This frightens me the most, especially since this brother's business isn't always, shall we say, entirely legit. Somehow, seeing as how I want to uphold the law, this fact bothers me more than it did when I was in my twenties. Oh, and did I mention that my hubby intends to list this house as his primary residence, though we know we are moving so it is an investment. Yeah, that's only, you know, loan fraud - punishable by fines or imprisonment or both. (Okay, I know, even my landlady has fudged on this one to secure a better rate, but still...)

And so we fight. This last one, on New Year's Day, was a doozy. Divorce even came up, though he claims now that I misinterpreted his intentions when he suggested it. (Cuz, you know, divorce is a really fuzzy concept, right?) And it makes me sick. In fact, it was Constance the First's baby fight that inspired me to start this blog. Cuz that is so how our fights go.

It's nice to know I'm not alone, at least.

So hello, neighbors, nice to meet you. Hope I haven't scared you off.

Now I've got to run if I want to make that yoga class. I might just run some errands first, though, cuz yoga is an intimidating thing to do when you are a gassy fat girl on a high fiber diet.