Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof

I am not even sure where to start. I guess Friday would work. That is indeed the day I got my NEW CAR! Yay me. It is a Dodge Stratus and Mommy bought it for me. I feel like a complete and total spoiled brat, but a very grateful and happy one. My car was all but useless and now I have a four-door and can finally split my insurance from Jesse. However, since I had planned on my car being in the shop I asked my folks to keep Em for the night and they did. I tidies and did some schoolwork and then explored exactly how weak my resolve is. It's weak. Way weak. I had an oldish friend give me a ring on Thursday so I invited him to watch a flick Friday. We spent time catching up and by time I mean all night and we caught up so well that I'm right back where I was with him in April. Great. I don't know how he does this to me. Additionally I am no longer sure if I do this because I have low self esteem and think I need it or if I just use low self-esteem as an excuse to do this. It's awful and there is always this kind of aftermath. It's like, he doesn't make me a priority so when he chooses to bestow time on me I always feel so much more important and I am willing to drop everything. Really, this is a head in my hands moment, but it is a mistake I enjoy making again and again because the during is so damn fun.And then Saturday came. Saturday came along with the paperwork for my new car *squeeeeal* And then I took my car for a little jaunt to Texas City to see HAVA AND RYAN! EMily and I had such a good time seeing H and R and then Tracy and Zane came and Kathy was there. Emily went to bed and slept way better than last time. I got to indulge in a little girl talk and a little bitching and being catty and just being a girl! Kathy brought great wine. (Oh that reminds me, Hava, can she reccommend some good reds? Ben is coming in December and I want to start stocking up now.) It was great. It was also great that Ban called while I was there. Apparently I make a "talking to Ben" face. Oops. Tracy totally let me Mary Kay her on Sunday. And Julie came over with her new sparkly (yay Julie and Blake!). Then it was the zoo, which was sooo crowded. But the drive there with Julie and Hava and a sleeping Emily was so nice. The weather was beautiful, the company was good...I hated to leave.But leave I did. I got back home and picked up some dinner for me and the kiddo. We ate, got Emily bathed and fell asleep watching Lady and the Tramp. Monday got here entirely too soon. *sigh* So now the week is here and I am exhausted, but such is life. At least I've been in a good mood. I was giggling yesterday because there were about 1000 elementary school kids on campus. They were so cute in their little lines holding hands ans they wandered around all timid or boisterous. And I don't want to hear comments from anyone on just being excited that there were folk on campus my height because almost all of them were shorter than me, especially the first graders. If I can finagle things with Jesse, I can do Thanksgiving with Hava and Ryan, which would be soooo nice. Yay holiday season!On a side note: I do NOT strut!

Emily!

Proud laughter is brought on by conversations like the following:
H: Look Emily, that's an iguana. It's a type of lizard.
E: No! It is not a lizard.
H: Yeah, it's a lizard.
E: No Aunt Hafa, it is NOT a lizard. It is a agililata.

and later...

R:Emily! What sound does a leopard make?
Emily, just looks at Ryan with a puzzled and slightly disdainful face.
J: Emi, a leopard makes a sound like a Lion: Rrrrar!
E: No! It is not a lion! (said rather shrilly and with a slap to the fence)
J: That's right baby, it is a leopard
E: No! It is NOT a leopard! (more angrily still and with another punctuating slap to the fence)
J: Okay sweetie, then what is it?
E: It is a key cat and it says meow meow. (quite calmly)

On the other hand, sad sighs of happiness occur when one checks on her toddler and realizes she has covered herself with her comforter sometime in the middle of the night. My baby is becoming self-sufficient!

And were all grown now, but we dont know how to get it back to good

Yay sleep. I think I may finally be caught up. Watch me screw that up this week. Heh. Saturday Jesse picked up Emily a little after 10:00 to start his weekend with her. She was looking a little ragamuffinish, but what's a girl to do? If the kid doesn't want to take off her footie pajamas (and who could blame her) or have her hair brushed then the kid doesn't want to take off her PJs and have her hair brushed. It's just frustrating because I discovered Jesse's MySpace page this week and in all his pictures of her she looks soooo unkempt. Plus, upon picking her up I found out that they were going to a company picnic at which the US Senate would be present. Great. Now he can tell them that I sent her to him in that condition. *sigh*I digress (surprise surprise). Jesse picked up Emily a little after 10:00 and I promptly put my ass in bed. I was really only going to sleep for a couple of hours. Ha! At about 10 to 5:00 I became coherent and rolled my butt out of bed. I was disgusting. It had seriously been Thursday since my last shower and I was all kinds of ick. *shudder* I plopped in front of the TV for a bit with some ice cream (it had also been since Friday night that I last ate - a good 20 hours) and then took a loooooong hot bath. After the bath I actually felt great! Sometimes a lot of sleep can make a girl feel sluggish, but I felt more like myself than I really have in weeks.I powered through laundry and cleaning house before my daily chat with Ben. Oh Ben. *smile, sigh, and wonder at self for ability to complicate thing* Things with Ben feel so right. We are NOT together. But we aren't not together....This is not the point of this post. I'll leave Ben for another day. A day when I feel like wallowing in smiles and a racing heart.So actually poor Ben was the recipient of a bunch of bitching from yours truly. See, on Friday he told me that Kim had told him that I have a cute kid because she'd seen pictures of Em on Jesse's MySpace page. So on Saturday I mentioned it to Jesse who said she had actually messaged him. Grrr. I hate MySpace. As if the website were to blame for my interpersonal issues. I asked if he was going to message her back. His answer? Maybe. Maybe? Maybe! Excuse me while I overcome the sudden pain in my chest. I spent years defending her to him. I wanted to have her back in my life right after Em was born and he FORBADE it. Now, here she is messaging him and he's considering taking on her friendship. What about me? How do I get my best friend back? After all his hating her how did he get so lucky? Now here I sit with a lost best friend and a lost marriage pondering the loss of another few friends over the past few months. What is wrong with me? I still can't find it. I wouldn't deny Jesse a little happiness in his new very social lifestyle, but I admit there is some jealousy and bafflement on my end. What does he have that I do not?

If poison were a girl, I think her name would be Arsenic. If I were that girl Arsenic would be misleading because Jesse could tell you that I kill slowly.

Hey Cinderella, what's this story all about

Oh my gosh! What a weekend. DC is beautiful! There are so many trees and it smells so good and the buildings are all so aesthetic. Okay, so perhaps I only saw the good parts of DC, but it was an amazing trip. The weather was good (which was excellent considering my travel attire and Texas "winter" clothes). Ben was so amazingly sweet. He even had two pairs of thigh high tube socks waiting for me upon arrival. How cute is that? Yes people, I wear thigh high tube socks. His little circle of friends are so fun I have a secret crush on both Dave and Tara now. I got to sleep almost as much as I wanted (yea down comforter for 39 degree nights)and we walked all over the mall. The monuments are soooo neat.

While some people have a very loose interpretation on what qualifies as a cocktail dress, the little group with whom we chilled all looked fantastic. I am still giggling about our dinner conversation which involved a tangent regarding hamsters and sea monkeys. *hold on, I'm really still giggling* And then the weekend was suddenly over and we had to get up before the butt crack of dawn even to get me to Baltimore. Ben asked me to stay longer. I admit, I really wanted to. Really really. We will never work. We are too much alike and too different and too far away. And absolutely at home with each other. Sigh. I'm not planning on getting my heart broken, but he's already admitted to falling and I'm not far behind. Watching him turn and walk away after I went through security definitely choked me up. So the theme for the weekend's end: epistemological dissidence is hard to say but it cannot compare to good-bye...

You drive me crazy

Sometimes I feel like life is the ugly stepsister and if I just keep taking what it throws at me I will finally get to go to the damn ball!Actually, if all goes well or even slightly okay, I will get to go to the ball on Friday. Yay DC and Ben and the Navy Ball. In the meantime, however, I have to deal with life. Life includes Jesse. The one and same who got his butt arrested on Friday and thought I wouldn't find out. His parents, of course, had Emily so at least that was a load off my mind. Still, sigh. He begs and begs to keep joint custody and I know he loves Em and I know Beth and Allen love her, but this is getting ridiculous. Not that I haven't been guilty of getting a babysitter on my weekends, but I don't get one every one of my weekends. And why is it bad that I took up smoking but not bad that he got arrested? I'm finding it really hard to be fair lately. I guess I just need someone to show up and tell me some good things about this guy.Where is the boy I fell in love with? The one with a great job and good looks and good values? Where is the man I was married to for so long who never wanted to go out and thought drinking with friends a waste of money? Where is the that guy who wanted six kids and adored having Emily clamber all over him while he prepped his biking equipment? I suppose he's asking where the girl he married is...

Emily!

Troubles become inconsequential at exactly the point when your toddler tells you that she cannot brush her teeth because "I am bissy, Mama," and then later answers the question of going to bed with "I can't, I am too bissy right now."

twist and cry a kiss on your molten eyes

I am Janice's seething anger boiling up to choke her, bile and black. I am knots of stress spreading through her shoulders and neck. I am molten tears stinging her eyes and making them burn like charcoal briquetts. I am a heavy sense of hopelessness pressing on her lungs with such strength she thinks her sternum may crack. I am dark despair winning the battle against determination.I sited my goals. I kept my eye on them. I kept climbing towards them even when tired, out of breath, and financially strapped. Then, between the car wreck, the dismissed divorce case, the less than excellent school work and the maxed out credit I looked down to find that the staircase I had been laboriously scaling was actually the down escalator. I can see rock bottom again. It's jagged and craggy. Suddenly, I can't breath.

A dream is a wish...no, wait....

I had the oddest dream last night. Rather, I had it today since I slept until 4 this afternoon. Ugh. I wish I could remember it all but some of the elements keep sort of fading in and out of my mind.

I have a friend on Facebook named Catharine that I went to high school with. She recently got married. In my dream, though, she had to pretend to die in order to do it. I remember she got dressed up, but not in her wedding gown and someone buried her...Let's see. It was in a cave or underground, but I know someone still had to dig a grave and cover her with dirt...She took some sort of drink that would make it so she didn't suffocate but she wasn't buried in a coffin because she was afraid she wouldn't be able to break out of it. And I guess I was in on the plan because my mom told me to tell Cat to be careful about the way she e-mailed because she (my mom) had gotten a copy. There was something about a swimming pool and a Sonic. And I went to some sort of meeting in the Texas A&M Tennis Complex stands. DW sat behind me and was outrageously flirty and a little handsy as well. I got all upset because it was bringing back feelings that I'd been working to suppress. For some reason I was constantly walking out to my car for a cigarette...

Very strange.

I had the oddest dream last night. Rather, I had it today since I slept until 4 this afternoon. Ugh. I wish I could remember it all but some of the elements keep sort of fading in and out of my mind. I have a friend on Facebook named Catharine that I went to highschool with. She recently got married. In my dream though she had to pretend to die in order to do it. I remember she got dressed up, but not in her wedding gown and someone buried her...Let's see. It was in a cave or underground, but I know someone still had to dig a grave and cover her with dirt...She took some sort of drink that would make it so she didn't suffocate but she wasn't buried in a coffin because she was afraid she wouldn't be able to break out of it. And I guess I was in on the plan because my mom told me to tell Cat to be careful about the way she e-mailed because she (my mom) had gotten a copy. There was something about a swimming pool and a Sonic. And I went to some sort of meeting in the Tennis Complex stands. Drew sat behind me and was outrageously flirty and a little handsy as well. I got all upset because it was bringing back all those feelings that I've been working to supress. For some reason I was constantly walking out to my car for a cigarette...Very strange. Reading over it it seems kind of cheesy but I know it just had this really dark foreboding feeling...

Oh where to start...I've been talking to Ben daily lately. It's practically the only time I feel good these days. I'm not sure what to think of that. He and Kim have been fighting something awful. I love the way he confides in me and I wish I still had her to do the same. Funny isn't it? This kind of brings me to a point. Last night while Ben was telling me about his recent and repeated arguments with Kim he sort of struck something in me. Apparently Kim is insistent upon having the same fight over and over again and then coming to the same conclusions. Gee Janice, relate much? Ben told me that he thinks it might just be a military thing but that he has no problem letting go of things. You enjoy them while you have them and then when they change or the situation changes you move on. Maybe I should spend a little time thinking about that. How do you change that you hold onto things, I wonder. How do you stop your mind from dwelling and your heart from longing; even when you know things will never be like they were. I suppose in my case I also have to add even when things are not what you imagined. I wonder if I would be happier if I could crack that little secret...