Sometimes there aren't enough sick days...

I haven't worked the past two days. Had trouble getting out of bed. It wasn't any help that I have had a headache for three days straight. The more my anxiety goes up, the more medicine I take, the more tired and unmotivated I become.

It's like being in a coma.

Another interesting side effect of my medicine is that it is making me beat up my husband in my sleep.

(I found this slightly amusing too.)

Turns out that Zoloft can make you act out your dreams. Obviously, him staying in bed with me comes at great risk to his personal safety...and I respect that he is willing to take that chance in order to spoon. Hopefully for him, I don't do this very often...but it's nice to know I have the ability to scare him just a tad. Further encouragement to "walk the straight and narrow" or continue to sleep with one eye open.

I head to sunny California tomorrow, to attend one of my BF's bachelorette party. As much as I look forward to this weekend, it brings a lot of mixed feelings. How hard is it going to be to go to CA and know I should be living there right now? It's another reminder of the life I left behind when everything crashed down.

What I have to remember, is that I still have a life in front of me. It's just a different one. Different doesn't equal worse, it's simply "different." And they say that change isn't easy. So I just have to stay focused on the fact that even though I was dealt a crappy hand, it wasn't my last poker game. I will go on to win more and lose more.

It's so easy for my head to process this motivational speaker stuff...it's getting my heart to believe it that is tough.

Anyway...I fully intend to eat and drink heartily this weekend, and laugh until my face hurts. I really need it.

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

I spend most of my life being bored.

I live for the moments in which I am actually enjoying living, rather than tolerating my own existence. I never go and do anything on weeknights when I have to work the next day. I stick to a pretty normal schedule, and if people want me to do something ON a worknight, I decline almost immediately, because it's just a bad idea.

Last night, I threw caution to the wind.

I didn't mean to...it just kind of happened.

I got a pretty healthy buzz/minorly drunk at my house. It was't some "exciting event". There were no other "people" or anyone else to "drink with" (as I put these quotation marks in, I am completely imagining Chris Farley delivering this post in a monologue.) It wasn't the "responsible thing" and it could've ended in me becoming an "emotional mess".

But it didn't. I laughed with my friends on the phone all evening, and then Andy woke up and came to locate me since I didn't come to bed and found me drunk in the garage, smoking a cigarette. And then we went up to bed, and I talked him in to coming back down for "just one more." I am pretty sure I walked in to the door jam a few times, because I remember laughing about that, and then there was a conversation about doing kareoke when I am in California next week and "seizing the moment."

HAHAHA.

The point is...I had fun. I needed that.

Every day, I feel a little better and a little more secure in my own skin again. Anyone who has been through a rough patch knows that the first couple of times they feel GREAT, it is such a huge step in moving on. It's so normal to just feel uneasy and anxious or just surviving, that to have a really good night makes a big difference.

Andy said it made him feel better to see me be so silly and happy, because he hasn't seen that in so long. And I want that person to come out more often, because that is who I used to be and want to be again.

The good news is....she's still here.

And I wonder why I have bad karma?

DISCLAIMER: I am going to start this post about one topic, and then, in true female fashion, randomly switch to a completely separate issue. Just warning you, if you have a need for rational and well-organized thought.

I think deep down, I am a mean-spirited person. I have good intentions, and I do like to root for the underdog, but it doesn't prevent me from laughing at other people's expense.

I figure I am owed that much, since my life provides an endless source of entertainment for others.

I love watching people trip and fall. Of course, you always have to follow this kind of statement with "as long as they are not seriously injured" to be considered politically correct. But the worse the fall, the harder you laugh. It's just considerate to stop and ask, "Are you okay" BEFORE you laugh.

I love watching TOSH.0 on Comedy Central. I have no idea whether Daniel Tosh is gay or straight, but he is sexy as hell either way, because he is politically uncorrect and hilarious. If you can't laugh at this show, then something is seriously wrong with you.

This week, he featured a kid who farted on the bus, and it was a major news story in his local area, because the bus driver told the kid if he farted again, he would be banned from the bus.

Really?

Not to get all paranoid and make people think I am about to grow out my armpit hair and start a militia in Montana, but I am starting to have some serious concerns about the brain-washing of America. We are completely indoctrinated from childhood, that we are free in the US.

I call bullshit.

In America, you can get arrested for things you say, even if there is no action or intent to commit an act. You can't say the word "bomb" on an airplane, or 15 plastic spork-wielding passengers will jump you as an air marshal kicks your face in.

You can not be discriminated against legally for ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, but you can be discriminated against for being stupid or fat. Where is the fine line?

You can't put money in a foreign bank account without it being reported to the IRS. Even if you are a dual citizen. Both countries of citizenship have the right to tax you, even if you don't set foot in the US for 30 years.

The US can watch you where ever you go. They can track every movement you make digitally. I find this incredibly terrifying. I don't want the US government, or ANY government knowing everything I do. If I want to get on the phone and bitch to my friends about rampant diahrhea, I want to do it and know there is no one randomly tapping my phone.

People are convicted for crimes in this country that they didn't really commit, or even intend to commit. There are so many loopholes in the justice system that we think are good laws to protect us, until you get caught in one and it ruins your life.

When I was fifteen, my boyfriend was 18. We were both in high school. We had sex consentually. Now, that is a crime that could cause someone's life to be ruined, and labeled for the rest of their lives for something most of us have been a party to.

It's shocking. We think that if we are good, law-abiding citizens that nothing bad will really happen to us. But it's not the case.

I feel like I've been unplugged from the Matrix.

Back to my originally story...

How the hell do you ban a kid from a bus for farting? WHAT??? He didn't fart in someones face, or even try to fart the alphabet. HE JUST FARTED.

If I were on that bus, I would encourage a "Fart Coup" as retaliation. Organize every kid on that bus to eat a bean burrito and stink that bitch out.

And this goes back to my original statement, that because I am mean-spirited, I have bad karma as my reward.

Perfect bliss. In my head, of course.

I've put a lot of thought in to the possibilities of my life lately.

There are things I know will never happen, and things that very well could. In either case, it's good to have ideas and options. Right now, I am working with somewhat of a blank canvas, so nothing is really out of the question.

It gives for some imaginative scenarios.

For one, I've gone native. No, that doesn't mean foregoing the bikini area maintenance. It means that suddenly everything in my house is worthless crap. I don't want any of it.

I want to be a goat farmer and live in Bali. Not "farmer" as in actually feeding them and shoveling shit. More for name's sake. I would go out and pet them though. But just the little goats that look like babies for their whole lives. Pygmies, I think. I would be fine living in an open air hut on the beach. Until it gets really hot, and I need air-conditioning. And mosquito nets, for sure.

It's these little things that make you comfortable that would be hard to sacrifice. I won't eat local meats. I would become vegetarian for sure. I am not very adventurous when it comes to food. I won't even drink milk 4 days after I buy it, and it has to be two weeks before it's expiration date. I have a hard enough time thinking about those kind of life changes, and then I wonder how my kids would be able to handle it after living the first decade of their lives with Disney World, cell phones and Playstation.

God forbid I made them play with a ball or frisbee.

Caught red-handed...

I stopped at home during lunch today to drop off a gallon of milk and six-pack of Smirnoff Mango (Don't judge me) and whilst coming down the street, who do I see but my 11-year old, happily riding his skateboard.

His friend tipped him off that my vehicle was coming...The old "Hey man...here comes your mom!!!"

Fortunately, Gavin had the common sense to know he had already lost the battle and just stopped and waited for me to pull up to him. Had he made me pursue him, there would've been far more severe consequences than what he is already in for. (I always think while watching "Cops" when they have to pursue a suspect on foot because he runs, that it is automatic grounds to taze the shit out of the them when caught, just for making the cop run.)

I pulled up next to him, opened my window and mustered up my best "pissed off mom" look, and told him to get in the damn car.

The child was already to be grounded today, since he kept me up half the night turning on his tv after he was told to go to bed. But they are most definitely NOT allowed outside if I am not home.

Now I have to figure out how the hell I am going to punish him. It's times like this that the good old days of corporal punishment are missed. When I was a kid, I feared my dad. He wasn't a bad dad, nor did he "beat" me. But when my mom said that HE was going to handle my punishment, I spent the next several hours contemplating my own death.

Now you can't touch your kids, because they are so programed to dial "911" if you even pick up a wooden spoon. They know they have your balls in a vice, and you can't spank them.

Other than grounding him from everything he owns, doing chores and not allowing him to go outside (otherwise known as punishing myself), there really aren't many checks and balances to parenting. This has allowed the last generation to lack the proper motivation to do what is right, because there are no real consequences.

I wish I had the money to take him to a third-world country, so he can see how children spend their day, toiling away to stitch together his DC hat and Old Navy T-shirts. No school, no fun, no tv, no video games.

We spend so much of our time taking the fear out of our children. Comforting them that, no matter what happens, they will be provided for in a safe, comfortable environment.

I think it's kind of bullshit.

All we are doing is shielding them from how horrible life really can be, and might very well be. We teach them how to use computers in school, but not survival techniques, such as how to build a fire or how to fish.

I want to raise men, not a bunch of pansy-ass, Abercrombie-wearing posers.

I think some alternative parenting is going to have to come out of the woodwork on this one.

Any thoughts?

And in my spare time, I moonlight as a law-enforcement ninja.

So, we got broken in to this past weekend.

I noticed the stuff in my cars' center console moved around the first day. The punks had the indecency to crumple a brand new book of stamps I had in there for any postal emergencies that may arise. It pissed me off, but I figured it was my own children, on the hunt for hidden gems such as bubble gum and pocket change for the ice cream man.

I lacked the motivation to even yell at them, as this is a common occurrence and I choose my battles wisely.

And I was feeling lazy and tired.

Before we went to bed that night, Andy and I were having a discussion about psychic visions and how I have them. Of course, these visions are never helpful in PREVENTING something bad from happening, rather they just prolong my agony because then I KNOW something bad is going to happen, but I have no idea what it is. I need to go to Psychic School so I can learn how to do something useful with it, because it's just starting to really irritate me.

Anyhow...

I woke up out of a dead sleep at 4:30am, to find Andy thrashing about...clearly in a bad dream. When you are married to a soldier who has deployed, this is sometimes common. The problem is, when he dreams, he doesn't remember it by morning. So, our new thing is for me to wake him up while he is dreaming (risking getting punched in the face) so that I can ask him what the dream is about.

So that's what I did. He was pretty upset, as the dream was that we were getting robbed, and he had cornered the offender in the garage. Keep in mind, I didn't mention to him about the stuff in my car being messed with.

We went back to sleep a little while later, and in the morning, he went out in the garage to have a smoke and found that we HAD been burglarized. Not only had they messed with both our cars and stolen stuff, but also broke in my garage. Because of the nature of one of the items they stole, we called the MPs to file a police report. They told us that this had been happening with alarming frequency lately, so lock everything up, but there is nothing they can do.

All the meanwhile, the MP kept his hands on his Tazer. (I capitalized Tazer, because it is a weapon that I am actually afraid of and I feel it is deserving of noting its importance.) He kept eyeing us nervously, (IN OUR OWN GARAGE) and I made a mental note to keep my hands where he could clearly see them, and made no sudden movements or walked towards him.

"Please don't taze me...Please don't taze me" I kept thinking. I thought about warning Andy, but then I figured if this dude was intent on taking one of us down for the sport of it, let it be him not me.

I have strong survivalist instincts at the expense of my friends and family members.

I am the kind of gal who likes to take matters in their own hands. Frustrated by the lack of investigative nature in these cops/soldiers, I presented my plan of action to Andy.

We were going to do a stake out and catch the little fuckers.

We rigged a silent alarm on the side of the house, only heard inside, as not to tip off the burglars. Why do we have such a device? Because we used to put it on the refrigerator to prevent the kids from pilfering food at night when we slept.

When we heard the alarm go off, Andy was to immediately speed dial the MPs, and I was going to take off and, in my ninja-like all black spandex (which I own for situations like this) I was going to track them, while texting back to Andy so he could tell the MPs where they were going. I was greatly upset we didn't have a more appropriate method of communication, as headsets would've been optimal.

I was mildly disappointed, as I asked the MP who came to our house if we were allowed to catch them and zip-tie them until the MPs got there, and he said laughed and said no. I wasn't kidding.

I figured I may have to do a few "tuck and rolls" along the ground as I tracked them, which brought in to my head an image of Kevin James from "King of Queens" as "Paul Blart: Mall Cop." I felt at a slight disadvantage, due to my lack of athletic prowess, at being able to get up fast enough if I got down, to which one of my best friends suggested I properly motivate myself with a hotdog tied to a stick dangling over my head. But I didn't have time to construct such an apparatus.

Andy thought my stake out was hilarious. When you are a trained Sniper, I would assume you would look down your nose at such an idea from your wife. However, I am trained in the black arts of stalking (mostly ex-boyfriends and boyfriends of friends). I told him to not underestimate the allure of a stake out, and that he should text his soldiers to ask if they could participate as backup, or contribute some night vision goggles. Unfortunately, they were all out of town, but they were also disappointed, as it was bound to be great fun.

So what was the end result of my adventure? Nothing. We forgot to turn the alarm ON, and we fell asleep, after a coma-inducing meal of homemade meatball sandwiches.

Guess we will have to wait until next time, when I bait my car and install a spy camera on the fence.

Being "the bigger person" is not emotionally fulfilling.

I had a blog post all ready for today.

I was going to let someone have it...several someone's. This class reunion stuff stirred up some old feelings toward a select few that used to make me want to die, and in the spirit of me not giving a shit, I was going to call them out for it. I know they are still assholes, and giving them the benefit of the doubt would only piss me off more when they prove I was right.

What spawned this intense irritation? Someone who I never liked, made a condescending remark on the Facebook page that was created to solicit suggestions and gauge interest in a 15 year reunion. He made a remark because he is pompous, and had to discount the ideas of other people, but covered it by feigning concern for the organizer.

And it opened the floodgates of my wrath towards all who had wronged me, because I felt like once again, this guy was trying to shut up the "little people" who weren't part of his group, because he didn't care what we had to say about our own reunion. Just like we didn't have a choice in who ran for student government, because the majority of people were too afraid to run against all the "preps". So they won.

I imagined all the people of the world who were bullied reading my post, petting their villainous lapcats and grinning with an evil glee at the vindication of it, because it spoke for them too.

I wanted a villainous lapcat.

Then I did what I rarely do...let my friends read it before I posted it.

I knew they would talk me out of it, and most of the time, I don't want them making me second-guess myself. I don't want to be censored. It defeats the point of a blog about my life. Then I am picking and choosing, rather than just putting it out there.

DAMN.

The biggest reason that I am not going to post it, is because the last thing I need right now is bad karma. I am scared enough of that to remain emotionally unfulfilled in expressing my ugly feelings.

If my blog has a point to it or theme, it would be that I am human. Yeah, I've had some insane things happen lately, but the rest of it has been comparable to most people's lives, in one way or another.

When I went to my 10 year reunion, I had my own insecurities. It's natural to want to cover up any of the misfortunate events that take place and put on a brave face and pretend it's all okay.

But sometimes you are NOT okay. I am totally NOT okay right now. But I will be.

Maybe you went through a divorce or ten, and you don't want anyone to know. Half of us are going to be divorced...so why is it so hard to admit when you tried something and it didn't work out? I would rather fail at something than not have the courage to try. God, I cringe when I think about the people I quasi-know reading my blog and judging me. For not being a perfect person, perfect mom, perfect wife. But I don't know if I really would want to be either.

Sounds kind of Stepford Wives, and boring.

I think the good in my life outweighs the bad. That's why I am able to laugh at myself. Despite the crap, I really wouldn't change MUCH. A few things here and there, sure. But I don't see this as a failure, as I have time to make it better. I see it as a challenge.

But it doesn't make me feel better that I was being a pussy today by not posting what I wanted to. I am totally pouting about it.

And now I am eating a doughnut, because it's the least I deserve for being so good.

Humpf!

Fuck the high road.