Self Control Countdown

Every morning I wake up before my alarm. I count. I count how many minutes till The Yeah Yeah Yeahs will tell me its time to get out of bed, how many minutes it takes to get ready for work, to wake Todd up, to make the coffee. It takes 15 minutes to get to work, five to get there, ten to catch the elevator and clock in five minutes early. I watch the clock all day waiting for breaks, watching the hour run down for lunch, watching how much time I'm on the phone, keeping track of stats, and finally waiting for 7:30 so I can take 2 minutes to walk down the hall, clock out, and go home. I count down my paychecks before I even get them. Averaging my total hours, subtracting taxes, budgeting bills I haven't seen. When I'm at people's houses I am averaging how much time I will spend there depending on the situation. How many hours of sleep I can get away with, how much more I need to put into savings to make the next purchase. Walking through the grocery store I count up everything I put in the cart to make sure I have enough when I get to the register. I am constantly trying to prepare for every second of every day. I think it is my only way of keeping control. Seeing as I have no control over anything else. Oddly I think I did this to myself on purpose. I like Todd because he is predictably unpredictable. He never looks at you the same twice. Sometimes I catch myself realizing he's the same person I met two years ago and I can't make myself believe it. He is ever-changing which is maddening, but if he weren't we would never have been together this long. I think I like that he makes me crazy, that I have no idea how to communicate with his planet sometimes. I think he likes it too. If he didn't I cannot understand why he would continue to be with me. I think people like problems because it is something to solve. It is something to work out, and you can see the product of your efforts, good or bad. I like working things out and molding it into something better, more efficient. Not that it always happens that way, but I think it is a good thing to experience with another person. Maybe I just like being difficult. That is equally as possible. In fact it is probably the truth.

You People are Fucking Weird...

And the winner is

........ I want to know what goes on in these peoples heads. Like, why would you ever go to a professional photographer, and say hey.. I'm massively pregnant. My bleach blonde boyfriend and I would like to take our shirts off and get tacky ass, faux romantic, over the shoulder pictures taken, so our children can forever regret the day they were born. I feel like they put these up in the house.. or gave them to people. Truly believing that this is a completely sane thing to do. And the hands.... I feel like you are getting ready to loose the rest of your clothes and show everyone how you got to this point in the first place. It creeps me out in so many ways. Or the woman above who thought she would combine her talents of child bearing and ballet for this photo opportunity. Why are you wearing a sports bra...... do you know? Why do you think that people can't grasp that you are pregnant unless you are nude? And if that's not enough you thought you'd throw a chefaun piece of material over your undies and toss a leg up. What are you doing..
Finally this crazy bitch at the top. Why are you in a tree? Why are you naked as well? Why do you have this blissful drunken expression on your face? I know you aren't comfortable. You are about to pop bracing yourself in a fucking palm tree. People are not fond of you. Stop putting awkward pregnancy photos of yourself on the internet... bad.. bad. There is something very wrong with each and everyone of you specifically.

Big Girls Don't Cry..... But Not For Lack of Trying

Reality is becoming something I just want to sleep off. When I start thinking about my life, the future, I become so utterly overwhelmed that I feel like I can't breath. I want out, but "out" doesn't exist anymore.

I'm nearing the 7th month of my pregnancy. The bigger I get the more I realize that this is only the beginning. It is setting in that I am not prepared, that I am a seasonal employee living in a one bedroom with my boyfriend and his two leaching brothers. That I have nothing. I went into a panic yesterday thinking about it. I just don't know how I am going to get through it. The first year especially.


The plan.


Before I got pregnant Todd and I were not exactly maturing into successful adults. We barely scraped by really and we were loving it. Just living and being young together, we were entirely free. We made enough money to pay our half of the rent, but besides that we weren't striving to climb the ladder or anything. We just wanted to exist, with a little bit of smoke and maybe a beer. Well, along the road to freedom we ran into a brick wall. I found out I was pregnant in May. I took four pregnancy tests and cried more than I think I ever have in my life. I didn't know how I was going to tell Todd, or my family for that matter. I sat there thinking about how it had all fallen apart. How this little life that I had was smashed to tiny little bits and there was nothing I could do about it. I told Todd that day along with every member of my family... why wait right. I felt like the rush of disappointment would be best as a tidal wave instead of a long steady current. Todd was surprisingly great about it. He held it together and said the right things, and made me M&M blizzards, and tried desperately to get me to stop freaking out four days out of the week. Actually he still does that....

Well anyways, when I found out I was pregnant we figured we had better get some kind of a life together. I got a job here, and Todd said that once it was permanent he would go back to school. He got in touch with some schools and found a 15 month program in Virginia studying auto mechanics. At the time it was perfect. I would work while he was at school and then when he came back they would set him up with an internship and I could go back to school. Then about a month ago I realized how long 15 months really was. That is the the first year of our son's life, and Todd just won't be there. He won't see him walk for the first time, or hear him speak for the first time. He won't know when he gets his first tooth or when he first smiles. Thousands of firsts will happen without him there. He will come up to West Virginia periodically and we will see each other but every time he comes up our son will be a different person. Not to mention that I will be experiencing all of those firsts by myself. I will be working full time and being a mom full time for the first time without any real reliable assistance.


Fuck.


There is no way of really escaping this situation. I have to get it in my head that I am going to have to do this myself. Even if Todd doesn't go to this school, if we find something similar that's closer, I am still going to have to be on my own a lot of the time. The worst part is that I can't be upset. I can't have a break down. I have to figure out what to eat for dinner and get to bed before eleven so I can wake up and get to work on time no matter what. I can't miss work, I can't break down here. I have to do the best that I can, if not more, so I can keep this job. I have to get enough sleep. I have to keep myself at a low stress level so my kid doesn't come out chain smoking. I have to take the dogs out, and feed them. I have to save money. I have to I have to I have to. There is no one to take this from me. There is no way to go back. I just have to make it work.

Currently Todd's two brothers are staying with us. I have a one bedroom apartment with no door to my room, and three dogs. The ratio of space to living beings is highly off kilt. I need to move. Another thing I have to do. These boys are not functioning. They are those people you meet that you know have to have many deep embedded long-lasting emotional problems caused by years of neglect and self medicating. Their parents don't exist, but their addictions do. I come home to David ( a 23 year old schmoozer with a penchant for xanex and an odd obsession with his fantasized "Native American" culture.) sleeping on my couch surrounded by cigarette butts, his beloved cell phone in hand. Seth (a 19 year old, highly immature, introverted computer hack) staring into some intranet fantasy clinging to his prepubescent attitude. Three dogs come bounding in from there designated lounging areas all barking... its intense. The whole situation is intense. No one has done anything or picked up their mounds of soda containers or dirty socks. There is no plan for dinner, and no one.. including myself wants to make any kind of a decision. So my days off consist of nagging duties and trying to get my laundry done so Im not completely overwhelmed by the time I have to go back to work.



Seriously..


Gratitude is something you have to have. If not you just get lost in all of this. I like writing about it. I like getting it out there no matter how pathetic it sounds or how rediculous I am being. But honestly, all and all I like my life. It is hard, but I have been in a lot of worse places with worse people and no hope. At least now I know it isn't the end of the world. I'm not so self consumed that I can't even be thankful for the fact that I'm able to have this child, or this boy that I so randomly met. I'm grateful that I'm not anyone else in the world. Even when I feel like a failure and an already insufficient parent.. I just gotta keep smiling, keep it together, and bitch about it all to you.

Ranting and Raving.. and then Comfortably Ignoring

So I do a lot of my blogging at work.

My job consists of talking to people with just a bit too much money and a bit too much time. Two things I never seem to have enough of. It is always odd when you work for a company that you could never afford to actually use. I do customer service for the Kindle, which if you haven't heard is this super nifty device that holds thousands of books and can connect to the internet from over 100 countries.

I really think people just like to have things. I think people just want something to watch, something to unwrap and figure out, and show to people. I don't think they care if they actually need it or really even pay attention to what its for a lot of the time. I have people call me all day long that have found the time to have an emotion about this simple electronic device. I actually had a woman crying at work because she couldn't download a book properly. I was hoping that her sniveling was the cause of a long day, or maybe several long days and this was just the breaking point. I fear though that she simply had nothing else to feel bad about at the moment. I wanted to tell her to hang up the phone and call a therapist. If this is causing you to break down on the phone with a stranger then you need a break. Go get a cappuccino and a cookie or something. 

I don't mean to sound insensitive or anything, but I just have a thousand other things to be upset about. Life itself is something to be upset about. I feel like people don't feel life anymore. They feel through the things they have.


I think the powers that be have gotten smarter. Before it was obvious that the poor were being muted. There are liqour stores on every corner in the ghetto.. we'll keep you drunk and dumb and you'll never matter because you'll never care to matter. But now they have X-boxes and the IPhone and 114.00 jeans that for some reason are better than 20.00 jeans. They've muted us. They've made us believe that these are the things that matter. These are the things that we should crave and need and set goals for. I can't even escape it myself. Obsessing over the color of a stroller or the fact that I need my kitchen accessories to match. It is insane. The fact that there are more people online shopping than voting is something to definitely be worrying about. There is a war going on. An actual war people. It's been going on for oh... ten years. Ten. Do you understand how insane that it is that our country has been at war with several other countries for a decade and our lives have not changed. We are still sitting around apathetic, and sick with American consumer mentality. I don't mean to go all activist on you but seriously.. where are the activists? In France they are setting cars on fire because of Pension Reform. Do you even know what pension reform is? We don't even teach Civics in school anymore. Do you understand that our government doesn't think its important to teach its people about their.. government. Is that not odd?

The government should fear its people. they don't even know we exist. We sit and eat and watch youtube. What is there to worry about? We are all ignorant. We don't understand our government and we don't care to because ultimately they are not bothering us enough to do anything about it. Especially being a poor person, it isn't like they can take anything from me.. I don't have anything to take. So I feel for the apathetic youths of the world. Why fight when you can just live under the radar?


If you have an answer let me know.

"Well Who Ever Told You That Life Was Fair"

I know thousands upon thousands of women are pregnant everyday, but I want you to know if you have never experienced it, that it sucks. You have no control over your body or your mind. You have to understand that this little baby.. that doesn't even know it exists is now in control of the rest of your life. I work full time, and I want to say it is a crime. All pregnant women should have to do is sit on a couch and eat ice cream until the day they have to go through the painful and indescribable process of labor. It isn't fair.And fuck whoever says "Well who said life is fair". Fuck you and your inability to let me be a bitter, whining, American. How about I beat you mercilessly and pour salt in your wounds while dancing around you saying "well who ever told you that life was fair"

You want to know what else isn't fair? That I have nothing to talk about anymore besides being pregnant. It has taken over my life, because well.. it is my life now. I don't go out, I don't read interesting books, or talk about interesting things.. I go to work, come home, and sit until I pass out because I literally don't have the energy (mentally or physically) to do anything else. I cooked dinner the other day and it was comparable to fighting a minotaur after completing the labyrinth. I am a complete drag to be around. ha. Most people probably just wish I would have the damn thing already, but you know what it won't be any better then. After I do finally have this child all I will talk about it him. When I have a screaming newborn.. I really really won't have a life anymore.ha. Not to mention the fact that I am the soul provider for my family so I have to be responsible not only for myself but for the sniveling children I already have... the boys.

Now I am not a man hating angry should be lesbian... okay maybe I am.

Actually I have no idea how I ended up with the boy I am with. He is nothing I thought I wanted, but I had to have him for some reason. We met in a DMV.. yeah what a love story. It was the first and only time that I have ever just walked up to someone and gave them my number. Well I gave his dad my number, because by the time I actually grew the balls and starting walking across the floor he wasn't there anymore and I couldn't turn around. So I gave my number to his father making up some super lame and probably really obvious lie about how I was a photography student and I wanted to talk his picture for an opening I was having. So I guess we really met on Halloween where I took this unknowing, ford driving , Goodwill Hunting potential having, trailer park white boy to a live show of the Rocky Horror Picture show. I was dressed as a dominatrix in fishnets and a corset and he was dressed as himself.. a dirty white boy from Newport News Virgina. Beautiful right? I introduced him to all the faggots ( if you are offended, shut up.. you are what you are) and weirdies who were all similarly dressed as slaves and masters, and suprisingly he got along quite well. Well here we are almost two years later having a baby. What the fuck is that?

This is Todd who is completely incapable of keeping his eyes open when you take his picture.  He always looks awful in photographs. I honestly have maybe 6 photos of him and all of them are awful. This is about as good as it gets.


So I don't know where I am going with this. Maybe this is just some insight into who I am. This is my life. Todd, baby, work. It isn't fun or exciting, but it is my little piece of existence.

Pinback - "Fortress"

Tom Waits is a god Among men

Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me 
Lay down in the green grass
Remember when you loved me 
Come closer don't be shy
Stand beneath a rainy sky 
The moon is over the rise 
Think of me as a train goes by
Clear the thistles and brambles
Whistle 'Didn't He Ramble' 
Now there's a bubble of me 
and it's floating in thee 
Stand in the shade of me 
Things are now made of me 
The weather vane will say:
It smells like rain today 
God took the stars and he tossed 'em
Can't tell the birds from the blossoms
You'll never be free of me
He'll make a tree from me
Don't say good bye to me 
Describe the sky to me 
And if the sky falls,
mark my words we'll catch mocking birds
Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me 
Lay down in the green grass 
Remember when you loved me

Well here we are again text box.

So I haven't written anything in a while. I used to write constantly always marking down any thought or situation.. then I started realizing that each new thing I wrote was a slightly varied version of the last. I needed to work, and not on my writing but on myself. I did what we all do when we reach our 20's and start figuring out that not only is there no parade for your achievements, but in the grand scheme you haven't achieved anything at all. I had to break it all down. I had to find out what I really thought, who I even really was. When you are ever-changing it is hard to stamp anything as fact. When you are ever-changing and dysfunctional then you really have a hard time separating reality from all the crap you've told yourself is real. I feel like I am always contradicting myself, saying.. "I'm this way" and then quickly saying, "Well I guess sometimes I'm that." So I don't think I have necessarily figured it all out by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm on a track... maybe not the right one.. but on one none the less.


So, I'm pregnant.


For some reason it still feels like I'm saying.."So, I'm a failure". It isn't like I'm 16, or homeless, or I'm on Maury having my 15th paternity test (really.. that dude hasn't had a show with a panel of anyone besides broke busted crying women in like 6 years.. you can only get pregnant a week out of the month.....really only 3 days. And if I thought any of those men could possibly be the father of my child. I would want to hide that from myself much less the rest of the world. just sayin, we all fuck up, but we all don't need to know about it), but I still can't help feeling like I have lost everything. Don't get me wrong, I love children, I want children, but no matter how liberal I think I am, I feel like things were supposed to happen in this cookie cutter way. I was supposed to finish college, I was suppose to get married, I was supposed to have a home, and then I was supposed to have children. Instead of it being something people are happy about it something people are worried about. When people can ask you things like "Do you know who the father is?" or " Should I say congratulations or I'm sorry?" it makes you realize that no matter who you are there is one accepted way to walk through life. Not that these questions offend me or upset me in any way.. I understand where they come from. I know who I was not all that long ago and I would be skeptical too. It just feels like this isn't the way it was supposed to be. This isn't my life. It's like I am waiting for the film to stop and pull away and show me sitting on a couch at 35 smiling and talking about how fun it was to play the role. Maybe being pregnant, or more so the idea of being a mother is just so utterly surreal. Maybe it wouldn't matter where I was in life. The idea of this being coming from my body with half of me in it and it will think, and walk around my house, and ask me things, and need me... it is just so fucking odd. For being the most natural normal thing in the world it has a way of taking all the rational logic you have and blowing it to tiny bits.


The question I hate the most?

"Are you excited?". First of all people excitement is not an everlasting emotion. Nausea is a constant, exhaustion is a constant, excitement.... uh not so much. If you say that you are now the woman who hates her baby. I feel like again people have this idea of life that is just simply fictional. No I do not wake up every morning jumping for joy that I am pregnant. I am too much of a realist to not be scared out of my mind, and if you aren't you should be. To those who aren't.. I am not as happy for you as you are. Strangers do not want you to pull out your ultrasounds, we do not want an update. At least I don't. And if you run into those ladies who actually care what is going on with you just as much as you do ... run.. they want your first born.  Just because I am not running around with "I'm expecting" printed in large letters on my maternity tee doesn't mean I don't love my son, it means I'm not insane.


Also.. to the 15 year old girls of today


Stop.. right now wherever you are. If you ever come up to me to talk about how great it would be to be pregnant I will not be happy for you. I will not tell you it is a good idea, or that Yeah you could totally support a family with your 7.25 an hour paycheck from McDonalds. Never gonna happen. What I will tell you is that you're stupid.. very very stupid, and young, and completely and entirely unprepared. Do you want to know why? Because it is the truth. Children are not accessories. They are not puppies, or purses, or something for people to come be proud of you for. No one is going to come oohing and awing over the fact that you have the ability to get yourself pregnant. You know who else can do that... Every Other Creature On The Planet. The real task should be graduating college.. I hear that one can be difficult or I don't know loving yourself so you will not be thinking of creating another being to get your boyfriend to stay with you. These are not good reasons to have children. Boredom also not a reason to have a child. Go dye your hair, more fun, and usually temporary. I don't understand. When I was 16 I wanted to smoke pot not have a baby. I mean yeah girls get pregnant at all ages for all different reasons, and shit happens, but to go out of your way to make it happen. I hate you in a real way. You are selfish. You are not concerned about the child that is going to be swimming in your lady parts. Babies don't stay babies. They get bigger and you have to teach them to speak and do algebra and not go impregnating someone else at 15 so you aren't a grandmother at 30. So just roll it over for a bit.. just a suggestion.

So there is my rant about that...there will be more whether you like it or not.

Something from Last Year

Joni cries to me through screen and speaker. How the world has changed. That with the push of a button I can here the bellowing voice of musicians long dead and buried. The modern world is something that I am in constant awe of. Then again I am in similar awe of the past. Its strength that seems to have slacked off as the years grew. The simplicity, the courage of it. How things were taken in stride and with absolution. Gods were feared and the earth cherished for the never-ending gifts it brought forth. As my years have grown to 21 I have seen God sell more books than Vonnegut. I have seen parents crumbled under the disrespect of children, and men and women both stamp out the moral understanding between each other. I have seen marriage become a clumsy and outdated tradition of the past. Conception being a standard ritual of age 15.
     But there has been good in all of this peril. Land has become something to enjoy instead of conquer. People live in a mesh of color, thought, standard, and wealth. We live closely and intimately with our brothers. People are heard, and praised for their opinion and new ideals. Music has burst into the heart of every youth, exploding with untold emotion and soul. We all feel now, we are one in that precious aspect. Buildings soar to the star, and bridges stretch across overbearing seas. Overall it can be a bit unsettling to be thrown out with no schedule or instruction. Yet I cannot deny the liberation it brings once baby bird begins to fly. I do believe I am quite proud of myself for that. That I have built my own tiny life. Though it is not exactly complete it is mine, and I must say I live it! I breathe it each morning and feel it graze my feet at each step I hike up mountain over field or into asphalt cages.

Little Pig

I love to hear the train thundering outside my window. Howling down tracks to places I've never been. Listening to Ray with only a Pig at my side. I've decided I need nothing more. Cheap smokes , soulful music, and a little brown dog. I am more like my mother than I ever thought I'd be.
Rain falls suddenly against the glass, it has come down this way all day. Like a child playing with the bathroom spicket. On off, on off. I do love the sound of rain, the smell of it. I used to play for hours in the puddles left over from summer storms. Thinking of a life beyond West Virginia hills. Beyond the pines and years of unsettled fear. I wish for a day that I am suddenly content with everything around me. Sometimes I get the feeling I am there. That I am complete in this world. Others, I find myself lost.I think there should always be someone who understands you, better than yourself, better than your mother, or sister. Though I think a clumsy harmonica and strumming guitar have it down. I think a sullen voice all bluesy in the dark seeks my soul like I can't explain. If only the voice had a body laying warm next to me in this too often shared bed. Just one. A body with eyes that say smile. With hands that say exhale. With arms that hold you safe from any uncertainty. I wish I had a heart to share these nights with. I think that is where my pain derives. Where my tears spring from. The thought of always sitting up on these late nights, these quiet early mornings wishing to have someone here. I crave the unconditional attention and confused love.
 Love.. what a word. A phrase that has been said with the greatest ease, and with full-hearted honesty. Has been shared between a mother and child and the most passionate youths. A simple word that turns friends into lovers, that has crushed the thrones of kings and put a burn in the chest of every man. A fire never to leave or stay as you would like. Pig persists. Placing her head on my itching hands. She hates for me to love anything but her, though I doubt she fully understands my love for her or anything else for that matter. Being a dog limits you to the knowledge of men. I am sure she is regularly set in a state of awe and bewilderment to see us strange creatures at our usual. We must seem odd to her simplistic mind. We seem odd to us too Little Pig, we seem odd to us too.

Nostalgia

its a different world, a mind crippling addiction

taped with our past and high with our memories

its easy to forget to manage while your ruthless

so why not make all the noise in the world?

when night falls, its all ours.