Background
Now Playing: Local H, Bound for the Floor
Topic: History
I was born on November 26 1968, I'm a sagitarius but my rising sign is libra & I'm a lot more like a libra than a sag. I am however fairly easygoing, laid back & cheerful so I am a little bit of a sag. My earliest memories are of the crib I had in Melrose, It was in an alcove with either a dresser or a wall at the head & a window at the foot, Melrose is a city mostly absorbed into Boston now. I remember seeing lightning streak across the sky & seeing the buildings in contrast to the sky. I remember watching neighbor kids help thier father pick up glass & trash when I was supposed to be napping (or maybe it was early in the morning)they had filled a whole wheelbarrow full & there was a LOT of glass, I remember the sun glinting on the glass. I know the landlord lived below us & mrs landlord baby sat me & my mother wore a wig to work sometimes becuase I remember it upset me to see her wearing the wig. I'd already be down at the landlords when she was going out the door to work & I'd go to give her a hug but then I didn't like the wig. I know I was an insecure, whiny child, we have audio tapes. I remeber the pantry had a diamond shaped window & there were more rooms than we used in the apartment, my mother had a sewing room & my father had a den plus my bedroom their bedroom & the living room, kitchen etc. the building had the landlords place & annother apartment either above us or beside us, I'm not really sure which. the stairs were very dark wood & the place was unusual in that it had an upstairs & a downstairs. when I was 2 going on 3 we moved from Melrose to Rockland, to live in my mother's fathers ancestral home, the house was built in the 1830s by his grandfather & had been in the family ever since. my grandparents had taken a mortgage on the house (which was owned outright at the time) to renovate it & make it up to date & habitable, before they did the work they did there was a lightbulb in the center of every room & if you wanted to plug anything in you ran a cord from the plug which was in the lightbulbs screw in base. the room we had for a dining room was the original kitchen & the kitchen was a summer kitchen, they added on with a fireplace, a brick area beside it for the stove etc. the dining room had a big picture window & corner cupboards. we had double living rooms, my grandparents living room had built in book shelves lining one wall & my mother's living room had free standing bookshelves across one whole wall too.. one thing everyone in my family had in common was a deep love of books, my father's den in this new house had 2 walls of bookshelves. Of course the legend goes that my uncle built the bookshelves in that room for himself & then my father took it over, I'm not sure exactly what the true story there is, from what I saw my father & uncle (mothers brother) always got along, but I've heard from a couple sources that they did not & could not, in fact, stand each other. But of course though the person who told me this considered himself a friend of my fathers I know my father did not consider this guy a friend so who knows what the truth of the matter is. I know all my uncles thought my father was odd because he was anti credit cards & would buy a car & use it until it died & then buy annother one, never had car payments until the last few years of his life, my father. Growing up in the house in Rockland was great in some ways, terrible in others, I was quickly alienated from the neighborhood kids, my mother didn't like them, I belive she found them coarse & I know she especially did not like how the mothers yelled for the children at dinner time. I'm more like those mothers than I am like my own mother now. But then I spent so many years living my life in direct opposition to her life that it could hardly be any other way! we had a yard which was aproximately an acre of open space & annother 9 acres of woods, one of my earliest memories there was when lightning hit a tree in the woods about 10 feet into the woods behind the house, I don't remember the noise, though my mother says it shook the house, I just remember she put on her boots & jacket & went out to look & left me in the kitchen by myself during a thunder storm (thunder storms were not something I liked untill I was older- now I love to watch them & I discovered when my youngest was born that my mother Hates them) as I said we had a fireplace & my father cut the lightning struck wood up & we burned it in the fireplace, I remember them remarking on how well it burned. The yard had a little rock wall by the barn & below it were raspberry bushes, hyacinths, daffodils & crocuses it was a big deal in mid march to late march (this was massachusetts after all) to go out there & look for the flowers coming up. It was about the only time my mother went outside & by the time I was 11 or so she didn't do that either. just got out a vase when I brought her the flowers that I picked out there. Not much of an outdoors person my mother. Even when she goes to the beach to watch the waves she does it from the seat of her car not the wall or the sand.
Many of my earliest memories are of the yard, there was a 15 by 15 square of lilac trees (taller than the house) behind the kitchen & between the brick wall that was the end of the kitchen & the lilacs there was a path, the side by the lilacs had a row of large rocks lined up on it, I played that this was my kitchen a lot, then in the lilacs, between them & the barn there was annother path that led down to the woods & the cart path thru them. in the lilacs off this path was a large (2x3 foot) flat stone, I would set acorn caps etc on it & pretend it was my store & the stone was the counter I have since found out that the stone was the step to the outhouse & where I sat to run my store was the filled in hole where the outhouse emptied into. no wonder those lilacs thrived so in that spot! I had a swing set but the tree behind it was well liked by the gypsy moths so I wouldn't swing on the swings much in summer, I was allways afraid my hair would get stuck in their nests.
My brother Ben was born in 1973 when I was 4 & 1/2. we got along pretty well & were really close especially as we got older because of course, we were homeschooled & for 6 hours a day had no one else to talk to but each other & my mother. (sometimes my father too. he was unemployed a lot of the time we were homeschooled) My Father was a pretty quiet guy, he was into fly fishing, jazz, reading & photography. he liked to get stoned but didn't drink to excess.
He was supposed to be a salesman but he was not too good at it, he was too nice & never seemed to pressure anyone, if you wanted to buy he'd be happy to sell it to you but he would not twist your arm, as he called it. He got most of his sales by asking & the person was interested (I guess) He definitley seemed to like being home more than working, but doesn't everyone? My mother did a few part time jobs when I was in school then when my brother was old enough for something more than preschool is when she started teaching us at home. She took a job at night so she could work & be home during the day for us, she was a night housemother for mentally retarded kids at a local boarding school & so she could sleep there too once the kids were asleep. Which worked out well for her & really well for me once I was a teenager! Chrissy always wanted to come to my house when we were teens because we barely had any supervision, my father was there but he was upstairs in his den & when I came home from being out I'd often have to wake him up to let him know I was home. My grandmother (widowed by then) was there 3 or 4 nights a week some of that time but was often asleep by the time I (or we) came home too. I never really abused their trust, though it was expected that thru hanging around with Chrissy I would, (at least by my mother) It was Kim she should have been worried about but that's annother story for annother day.

16 is a rough age for the mother too
Now Playing: Wish you were here by Incubus
Topic: Family Business

I try, I really do try to remember what it's like to be 16, I can look back, read my diaries, talk to people who knew me then etc. but still. My hopes & wants for my daughter still get in the way. Last night she was moping, shes 'dating' a guy from Kentucky (online dating is beyond me in a lot of ways, how can you date someone thru a computer & a phone? I thought dating was doing things together- well anyway) & first she tells me he's a burn out. NOT what a mother wants to hear - The next thing out of her mouth is that she's worried he'll break up with her & as her loving mother I opened my mouth & said- well if he's a burn out you're better off with out him. This earned me tears & a statement that she's never going to bother talking to me again.
I felt terrible, I don't want to cut her off but this is the girl who watched me go from being a stay at home mom to a nursing home housekeeper for $5.40 an hour to what I do now. (for which I get paid better than many people doing other jobs in this area but still a tiny amount in terms of what others make around the country) & she saw me struggle, & scrimp & save & worry over every bit of food & clothes I had to provide. (all of which I still do) And what she said for all those years is 'I'm not going there, I don't want kids, I want a carreer, I want my life all set before I settle down' & now that she's 16 & everyone around her is beginning to pair off & because she's not the standard size & the standard look she's not getting much attention she's changing her goals & focusing on guys & if they like her & what does she need to do to get them to like her & I see her falling into the pit that I fell into on my own in the 80's.
I was into fun, I wanted to party & hang out & meet someone. My jobs were all a means to an end, not a vocation or a calling, nothing I loved, just what would pay the bills & give me as much free time as possible, my job now is still that. (Although at least it is challenging & keeps me learning & expanding my knowlege base etc.) The things I actually liked to do: do not pay, or do not pay enough, or require too much time to get to the point where they would pay, (like writing) now I have a family to support & that comes over & above wether I am fulfilled at my job or not. I do not want any of my kids to end up the way I have. Although really I still do not have any great calling, if I won 10 million dollars today I would travel, build a nice big house, maybe keep a few horses & read, go online & just live my life. I know people who always wanted to be a nurse, a doctor, a veteranarian, an actress etc & would pursue these if they had all the time & money needed- there's never been anything like that for me. Not now & not previously.) As a teenager there was nothing I was into that could have been worked into a career (well maybe I could have been a music critic or an r&d rep for a record company but I lacked the look & the connections & the knowledge that those careers were even available)
I have always told my kids to pick something early & stick with it. Now that it's actually crunch time. (at 16 she's only got 2 more years in highschool to make a decision & then move on to college & pursue what ever she decides upon) She thinks she wants to be a psychologist & is signing up for some classes in that direction (sociology & beginning psychology for junior year) but is still a lot more concerned with wether 'J' will find someone else in his actual state & stop talking to her. I have watched family members younger than I, both in my family & my ex's have all sorts of ideas about what they were going to do & how they were going to live their lives & most of them have ended up involved with someone & working at a bank or a factory or in a trade. At a dead end job with little room for advancement & no sign of the dreams they had when they were 15, 16 etc. (these people are only in their early to mid 20's now & it depresses me to see how their lives have turned out- they learned nothing from my ex & I -except maybe, to pick a job & stick with it- don't quit your job every 6 weeks & find annother one- That's from my ex though) I just don't want my kid to repeat my mistakes & I don't feel like I'm going to be able to stop her the lessons I needed to teach her about how to be happy with out someone else there all the time came too late, too far into her formative years to do any good, when she was 3,4 5 & supposed to be learning them she was watching me worry & obsess over wether my ex was going to leave & what I could do to try to make him happy so he wouldn't leave.& now those unhealthy images are what she's acting on no matter what I say now.

The (P)rick & my Brother, random musings
Now Playing: No More Tears By Ozzy
Topic: Family Business
I'm glad I already told (P)Rick the story about 16 & J's kid so if J does get pissed & go to his side he's not hearing it from her for the first time, he's already heard it from me- proving that I have nothing to hide on this subject. that's his biggest thing. he's always more pissed if he hears about anything from someone else. if he already knows about it from me he's a lot easier to handle. Its when he hears about something from someone else & comes at me with a 'what the fuck is this shit' attitude that I get flustered & he's always more upseet in that scenario than if I just say 'look, this happened, it's over, we dealt with it, move on' I'll be interested to see if he & S get back together, I hope not for my own selfish reasons, not that I want him back, just because i miss the friend he was before he married her & tried to walk her line, if he's not with her & he's his own man again he's a lot easier for me to deal with. but of course i'm of 2 minds (or more really) on that subject too. I hope he gets real dead over in iraq & that he comes back in a jar, not just a body bag. is that wrong? everything I know on the top of my mind says it is but deep down in my raw heart I really really hope that's exactly what happens to him. I hope he never gets this or my other blog site address I hate censorship & The feeling that I can't just say what I feel on certain subjects because I might get a nasty email from him. After all if I was going to worry about it I shouldn't have called my mother unhinged even if she is & to her credit she never even said anything about it (I hope she has enough clarity & hindsight to see she was unhinged back then, after all this is a woman who came to the dinner table one night when I was 16 & announced that she was ready to die, that she felt she'd fulfilled her karmic lessons & was ready to move on to the next life & would prefer to end this one. Now that made for some interesting dinner table conversation & interestingly enough I was the only one of the 3 of us besides her at the table with enough will power, balls or interest (not sure which I had or which the others, Ben & Daddy lacked) to actually challenge this assumption. which I then & now consider the height of arogance & also asking for a kick in the teeth as witnessed by my brothers & then fathers suicides not 5 years later) I said 'so you tell me not to commit suicide because I'll just end up in the same unpleasant situations which drove me to suicide & have to try to overcome them/live thru them again.but it's ok for you to stop living/give up'. that's when I got the line about her karmic lessons being fulfilled already... I pretty much told her this was bullshit & a cop out, which she did not like too much & then I got the look from Ben, the one which said 'shut the fuck up you're pissing her off & I don't want to deal with it.' so I did, out of kindness to him & out of kindness to her I've never even thrown that little reminder up in her face, she probably wouldn't remember it anyway, she's got a VERY convenient memory, I remember how pissed Ben was that she just conveniently forgot my suicide attempt at 13 or 14. it wasn't a very good one, it was just about 2 shots of rubbing alcohol & I was instantly sorry. I don't remember if Daddy denied this too or not, I just remmeber Ben coming to me pissed because he'd mentioned it to mummie & she denied it ever happend then we tried confronting her together & that didn't work either, just got a stone wall face & a 'you kids are crazy, nothing like that ever happened'. UGGH! oh well, I know what happened & so did ben that's all that matters,
annother memory of ben is the time he came to visit at the apartment in hull where chrissy & I lived, the cabinets in the kitchen were spring loaded & they'd fly closed at inoportune moments, he was in the living room & I was in the kitchen getting something for us to eat & one of the cabinets slammed closed & I yelled, 'sorry I didn't mean that' & he knew exactly what I meant, the sound of slamming kitchen cabinets is something we grew up hearing & the usual reaction was 'did you do something to make her mad?' 'no did you?' then we'd back track 'did the phone ring recently?' 'was there bad mail?' trying to figure out what had set her off, I can remmeber all the way back to very young child hood, maybe even pre-ben hovering in the doorway to the kitchen trying to tell by the set of her shoulders & how she was smoking etc. what her mood was, I also remember the palpable anger you'd feel if she was pissed at dinner time & we had to go sit down & eat. no wonder I'm fat!!! it was scary eating with her but at least the food didn't bite me!

Open Letter to H
Now Playing: Just Like You By Three Days Grace
Topic: Family Business

Look you stupid motherfucker, what the fuck do you think you're doing? copping out? don't you dare even think about it. You made your choices just like I did & everyone else. first of all your kids need a father, maybe not the way they did when they were 2 or 5 or even 15 but they do need a dad, I was 23 when my father blew his brains out (you helped me clean them up in front of the barn for heavens sake) & I know this for a fact there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of something I'd like to get his opionion or advice or input on. I have had to deal with not 2 but 3 suicides if you remember my brother in law D hung himself at 14. & I think I'm pretty qualified to speak on this subject. I also have the insight of living with the family depression & dark periods that I've watched you, my mother, brother & cousins deal with too. it can be overcome (st Johns wort has done wonders for me-I'm only sorry I couldn't have taken it sooner but with childbearing, nursing & birth control to keep me from it I had no real choice) But drugs or herbs are not the only answer, you have to work at not getting taken up by it, & I don't mean throwing yourself into a work schedule that allows no time for reflection. What about Eddie, didn't he have a life in NYC that he left to go to California with you? so you'd just strand him there? Suicide is a very selfish act. think about your kids J&J at your funeral, think about E, M & all my cousins ( Not to mention myself & my kids) I understand wanting to go home. (though I admit I'm not exactly interested in doing so- too expensive, too crowded & too cold- & I don't mean the weather only) Also, do you really want L to have the last laugh? if he outlives you he would do so & you know it as well as I do. I hear there was something about a poor reference from someone you expected to give you a good reference, I don't know who that was but I have some ideas, so that cost you the job in B, well there'll be other jobs, they're not showing you the door in California are they? if it's not time for you to go home then things won't work out for it, if you're trying to force it it just won't come, I know that sounds like so much hippie mumbo jumbo to you & I'm aware you think I'm a silly bitch but believe me in a lot of ways I've been the best friend you've got, I've been in situations where if I had spilled things I knew you could have been privately & publicly embarrased, I don't mean when I was an adult either (though there were plenty of times then too) I've known since I was 14 that you're at the least bisexual & the only people who knew it then were the guys themselves & M (as far as I can tell) I have had a lot of arguments with P about homosexuality being inherited & seen red at her insistence that it was all the mother's fault, when I knew her most precious, favorite son (face it, you are) was gay. & I bit my tounge every time. I never let on at all although I admit that when she told me about your divorce & how M made you tell her about why you were divorcing I did tell her I had known about you for a LONG time. Still though, you've made it this far, you don't even have grandchildren yet for crying out loud - do you know how hard it is to explain a grandfather who's not there to little kids? I do, none of my kids remember their grandfather at all- the only grandfather they know of or remember is H B- is that a good role model?, Do you ever do anything for yourself? like garden, or read fiction, or paint or draw or go to a concert or just do something you feel like doing not what you should be doing etc. I work in a high stress environment myself & so I indulge myself on my days off, I sit around & browse on the computer, read till 2 am, paint & do other crafts have a vegetable garden & just generally do what I want while my kids are at school. (I also cook dinner, clean the house & do laundry in between but I've always been a good multi tasker) There's very little which is worth dying for & depression isn't one of the few things which are worth it. you've been to counseling & phyciatry before for heavens sake, go again, find something, come here & hike the blue ridge parkway, go to maine & do the whole appalachians instead of only some of them like you already have. hike cross country, go to the beach & learn how to surf, you're living on the right coast for it for chrissake. listen to the new music out there, linkin park, stained, godsmack (they're from methuen even) why give up? there's too much out there to do that. here's some more hippie bullshit but it's what I belive & what kept me from taking all the pills in the house during my teen years: If you kill yourself because of what you're dealing with in this life, in your next life you're going to have the same problems & have to try to live thru them & over come them all over again & you'll just keep repeating the same lessons untill you get it right wouldn't you rather suffer thru this life with the hope of the next one being better? That gave me hope back in the days I was dark.(& there were many many of those- right after my father died along with the teen years) there's also the stigma of suicide, do you want your kids to have to tell people: My father killed himself? it makes people look at you in a whole different way, like if someone close to you has killed themselves, you must be unhinged too... I don't tell anyone unless there's a good reason to do so. There's a terrible stigma to it still. I've had people be really rude about it too. I wouldn't wish what I've been thru on my worst enemy & certainly not on people I love as much as I love J&J. I hope you realize what an impression on your son especially you are, (I haven't seen your daughter in years & we do have some issues too) But I got to talk to your son in depth in 2002 & was very impressed at what a together, adult, responsible 18 year old he was then (it was july) & he told me he barely remembered his mother from his childhood, she was the ogre in the bedroom asleep that you had to tiptoe around. he remembered you & P & I raising him, not his mom so I would pat yourself on the back for that one & focus on your kids in spite of their adulthood. talk to my mother if you have to. she can tell you horror stories of the after math of suicide after all that's what she does is help people clean up afterwards, (emotionally at least) Look, I don't have any answers here either, I get frustrated, paranoid, worried & emotional myself but I know there's plenty to life & that seeking to end life is irresponsible & selfish. You & only you choose how you're going to meet life's challenges & if you make a consious effort to really be present in your every day life it can help you get through anything. I walked through my seperation with Rick with him moving in with a 19 year old with a bigger ass than mine, a shaved head & snaggle teeth right in the same town of 520 that I lived in & I held my head up through the gossip, laughter & embarassment of the whole thing, I took a job in the nursing home as a housekeeper & I focused on really seeing the elderly people there & talking to them, even if I got back giberish they at least knew someone responded to their giberish. & I work hard everyday to make sure that every call I take the person will remember me even if they're pissed at me for what I have to tell them about the company I work for's business policys they will remember that I was calm, courteous & as kind as possible about the whole thing & as I go from one awful call to the next pissed off customer I have learned to mentally shake the last one off before I take on the next one so my annoyance at the idiot who couldn't figure out where the select button on their remote was does not cary over to the person who's pissed because someone's ordered 120 $ worth of porn..
Find something anything at all that takes you out of yourself & makes you forget about your problems.

Scary Stuff
Now Playing: Cradle to the Grave by U2
Feeling a little shaky right now, I was in the bathroom explaining to mr 6 why we do not poop in the tub & making sure he scrubbed it really well (are all boys this clueless or is it just mine?) & 16 comes to the door & shoves her cell phone at me (she had mine glued to her ear because she'd killed her battery earlier so was depleting mine while she waited for her's to charge, it was Disney world calling, I'm not kidding, my best friend is at Disney world in florida this week & She has had a seizure, they were calling because her 12 year old daughter had told them to call me after they couldn't get ahold of her father (not too surprising) I gave them Chris' mothers # & tried to calm Sami down, that was scary, to think of the 2 of them there & no other adult they know anywhere around. Then I talked to security & they told me Chris was alert now but still it was scary. Then later 16 came & told me the person who's cell phone it had been called her back & said Chris had said they'd call us when they got back to the hotel room. it's been a few hours & no call. & I don't feel like I can just call her mother, knowing Chris, if she came to in time to stop Disney from calling her mom she won't tell her mom about it (if she can keep Sami's mouth shut that is) so now my hands are tied. because if I spill the beans to Kathy Chris will be pissed at me. Pick Your Path & I'll Pray. that's been my motto in regards to Chris for years now.