It happens sometimes.

I attempted to communicate with my ex.  Again, everything was my fault.  He will never ever share the blame.  I’m just a terrible person and he is all that is wonderful and good.

He can go fuck himself.

Today was not one of my good days.   It’s harder to battle my inner demons in the winter.  The shorter days and cold weather (I hate the cold and snow) just make me want to curl up in my bed and never leave it.

I miss the sun.

Of course my job isn’t helping either.   I was informed just this week that I was number one in my department.  Then I was told how I needed to do more.  I needed to work harder.  Always need to work harder.

I will never be good enough.

Mom is very hyped up on her political activism right now.  I’m proud she has the strength to stand up for what she believes in.  I know she gets annoyed with me for not joining in.  I’m not part of the solution, so I must be part of the problem.   I just want to focus on keeping myself from falling apart right now.

Maybe I am the problem.

Some people take to this interaction like a duck to water.   With others it’s more of a learning process.  But overall the goal is to have fun.  If we become better writers, or help another become better at the same time?  Well then yay!

I have seen through the years a number of people turning up their noses at others who don’t do things as well as they do.  They sneer at the less eloquent players.  Insist that they’re doing things wrong.  That their lack of witty prose and such is somehow ruining their story.

To them I say…   Kiss my ass.

I’ve been doing this for over sixteen years.  Not as long as some of them, perhaps.  But it’s long enough for me to know that not everyone does things the same way.  Different people have different styles.  If you want to write a fifteen paragraph diatribe just to describe your shoes?  Well that’s fine.  If you prefer things that are short and to the point?  Well that’s fine too.  Spellcheck is nice, but I’m fluent in typoese.  At least you’re trying.

Of course there are some basic rules of the road that are just a matter of respect and courtesy for your fellow players.  Things like… don’t dictate what’s going to happen to my character.  It’s mine, not yours, so you don’t get to make decisions on it.   Also it’s generally polite to ask others involved in a storyline before you jump in and join the chaos.  Not rocket science.

Some lay down personal rules.  ”In order to play with me and my characters, you must follow these rules.”   To which I say okay.   If that’s your preference, then I simply won’t play with you.   I like to write in a way that is inclusive to nearly anyone.

I abhor snobbery and elitism in any form and in any setting.

And for those who are new and stumbling?  All of us had to start somewhere.  Nobody just dropped into the game and immediately knew what to do.  There was a learning time.  For some the curve is broader than others.   They deserve to be treated the same way we wanted to be treated when we first arrived.

So, my point is, when playing a game where the rules are few and the styles are many and broad…   Don’t be a snob.

“Last night, I shopped at the Ann Arbor, MI Toys “R” Us filled with rage. My 2-year-old son has been asking for a pony for Christmas every day for weeks now, so I went to find him a My Little Pony or equivalent. When I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I asked a clerk if she could show me where the ponies are and mentioned that my son really wants one. She immediately got in my face about how he doesn’t want a pony because they’re a girl toy and that I should buy him a teddy bear instead. I repeated that he’s been asking for Santa to bring him a pony every day, I was not interested in a teddy bear, and to please direct me to the ponies. She went on to argue and insist that I was wrong for about 5 minutes, and REFUSED to show me where the ponies were. I told her that children’s toys are not operated by their genitals and therefore EVERY toy is gender neutral. I then angrily ranted at her manager and another employee was kind enough to show me where the ponies were. Finally I was able to select 2 ponies for my son, who I can assure you will be thrilled to play with them. I should never have had to go through this much trouble to purchase a toy that my son wanted. Please help provide better training to staff, even those that may be seasonal, that not all children fit society’s gender expectations, especially at an age where they have no concept of gender.”

And here is the response she got from said store.

“Hi Moonbeam. We certainly do apologize for your recent experience. Your comments are valued and will be passed along to the appropriate teams for review. In the meantime, if you are in need of further assistance or would like to provide us with more feedback, please send us a private message. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback and we hope your son loves his ponies!”

Not much of a response is it?  Very clean, diplomatic, and… empty.

I’ve never understood the whole “Girls play with these toys and boys play with these toys” concept.   Let kids be kids and just enjoy playing.  What they play with shouldn’t matter.  So what if a girl wants to play with cars.  Maybe she’ll become an awesome mechanic.  That boy wants a babydoll?  GOOD!  Maybe he’ll grow up to be a better father than most of the assholes out there now.

And for those who think a boy asking to play with a Barbie means he’s gay and want to avoid that?

Fuck you.

It does not matter what toys your child plays with.  It doesn’t matter what movies they watch.  If a child is gay, they will be so no matter what you do.

If you’re a homophobic fucktard that wants to rant at me about how being gay is wrong and blah blah blah…  Just do us both a favor and leave this site.  Never come back.  I really don’t need your kind here.

No, what I’m talking about is other little things.  Little things you pick up as a child from any parental figure and think “Oh I’ll never do that!”   Twenty years later you realize you’ve done them. Not only have you done them, but you’ve done them more than once and you’re either mortified or horribly amused.

The number one thing I’ve caught myself doing? The Oscar nomination phone answering.

Remember when you were a kid and you were in trouble?  Your mother is screaming at you.  You’re absolutely positive that you’re going to die any minute now.  She is going to kill you and nobody will find your body.

But then the phone rings.

Oh hallelujah the phone is ringing and she’s walking away from you to answer it.  You’re saved for at least a minute.   During this single minute you’re praying it’s not just a wrong number or a telemarketer.  Meanwhile she has somehow undergone a transformation that not even Hollywood can replicate.  Within 60 seconds she has gone from shaking with rage to a completely calm individual who has not one ounce of strain in her voice.  In fact she sounds downright pleasant as she croons into the phone “Hello?”

And you become convinced your mother is not quite entirely human.

1.  Anything to do with NASCAR.  I have little interest in racing.  I have occasionally watched it with my dad, but it’s not really my thing.  Although, I must say the crashes are pretty damn cool.

2.  Anything to do with chickens.  This is technically stuff learned from a current boyfriend, but since this is the second time we’ve dated, he still qualifies.  And while I now know more about the breeding and whatnots of chickens than I ever wanted, all I ever really needed to know was how to cook them in a nice alfredo sauce.

3.  Anime with subtitles is translated more correctly than the dubbed over version.  I really don’t need to know this.  I’m not an anime fan.  Some of it is fine, and whatever.  But you’ll never see me foaming at the mouth over anything remotely related to anything animated.  They’re cartoons, for the love of pete.  And some of them take themselves entirely too seriously.

4.  The time it takes to get through a level of Alien Vs. Predator on the Atari Jaguar.  Who even owns one of those anymore?  And it’s approximately 25 minutes, if you’re wondering.

5.  Anything to do with the WWE.  I can recall names of wrestlers and their costumes.  Sometimes even their finishing moves.  Honestly?  Unless my brother is in the ring, I could give a shit less about it.

This is the price we pay when we get into a relationship with anyone.

I hate to break it to you people, but it’s always been bad.  I really don’t think there’s been a time in the existence of the human race where a gentler individual was not being shoved around either physically or mentally by someone who felt the need to establish some sort of superiority in the most brutal of ways.

I can recall being bullied quite a bit while I was in school.  I recall the relentless teasing by my peers over some of the most ridiculous things.  How my clothes were not brand name.  How I was so pale, and why didn’t I ever go get to a tanning bed?   Any time I did or wore something that was different, the opportunity would be seized by a horde of children and mocked relentlessly.

There’s discussion and speculation on how bullying changes people.  I can say it changed me.  Sure, I’m not the same person I could’ve been had it not occured.  Maybe I’d be nicer.  Maybe parts of my brain would be less broken.  Maybe maybe maybe.   Who knows?

What’s amusing to me is that a number of those who joined in the tormenting have now friended me on Facebook.  Not a single one has apologized to me for how they treated me then.   Some would ask why I allowed it.  The answer is simple.

I have nothing to hide, and I don’t give a flying fuck if they don’t approve of my life.

You see, what it did do to me is made me refuse to ever be a victim again.  It made me look at those who tried so hard to drag my psyche through the mud, and find amusement in their failings.  While they mocked me for being different, I laughed at how they were all the same.  While most of them are still poking around the same area of Indiana, I have lived in five states and seen at least 24.  While they are going through life at a constant hum, I am experiencing the thrills and fears of a roller coaster.   Most of them will die in their sleep.  I expect my funeral to be a party where everyone will agree on one thing.

I was completely fucking insane, but I was fun.

Firstly, while you’re cramming yourself into store after store like well oiled sardines, doing your best impression of a credit-card wielding zombie, please keep in mind the people working at those stores are human too.  In fact, most of them on Black Friday are being forced to work 12 hour shifts.

While it may seem perfectly acceptable to YOU to cut your Thanksgiving holiday short so you can be getting amazing deals on that toaster oven or a package of socks, I can guarantee the person assisting you and/or cashing you out does not feel the same way.

In order to keep our means of employment we are being forced to come into work at some obscene hour of the night/morning, work equally obscene hours, and deal with a bunch of obnoxious assholes that think just because they’re the customer, that gives them the right to treat the staff like garbage.  While jackasses are fighting, trampling, and being all around the epitome of douchebaggery, we are expected to smile  and deal with it.  We are being denied time with our families.  We are forced to give up any semblance of a life, in order to make YOUR life easier.

To those of you who think that this is perfectly acceptable?  I have two words for you.

Fuck you.

In addition, I hope everything you buy miraculously explodes and/or dies exactly one day after its warranty expires.

I can honestly say he’s the first of my exes to do this.  The others had more sense to them.  Of course, some actually dealt with her levels of crazy first hand.  Others heard the stories from my fathers and other family members and decided to err on the side of caution.  Caution being avoiding the woman at all costs.

At first I was angry.  Not because he decided to be friends with her per say.  But I was angry he was risking subjecting the kids to her.

But then…

Oh but then…

I realized something.

See, I’ve known both of them long enough to know exactly what they’re going to do before they even do it.  I can see this ballet playing out so clearly it’s almost in HD.

So Asshole and Crazy have probably been commiserating with each other about how I’m a horrible person.  How I’m a terrible mother.  Sharing the stories of how I wasn’t matching up to their idea of what I should be.  And, of course, since I’m not there to defend myself, the stories probably are getting more and more wild by the day.   Whatever.

To share a bit of crazy.  The post I commented about blocking her IP?  She had left a long ranting comment about how I shouldn’t talk about her because I’ve cut her out of my life.  In that rant she said I contacted her because I wanted the daughter I gave up to her to come help me raise Lex, and then when I found out she was sick, wanted nothing to do with her.  I’m baffled by this because I clearly remember HER contacting ME.  She called my father (who also remembers this particular incident, since it shocked the shit out of him) and asked for my phone number because her mother had died and she wanted to talk to me.  I repeatedly asked about how my daughter was doing, only to be told to “Not push her.  It’ll only upset her and make her sicker.”   And after being told that so many times, I left it alone.

Fuck me for trying to be considerate of her health.

Where was I?  Oh right.   Asshole being buddies with Crazy.  So they’ve likely been talking and comparing notes.  Right, right.  Loads of fun.  Hells, she probably even sent him money to “help with things” and seem like she’s just being kind and giving.  What HE doesn’t know is that once she feels comfortable enough, her control-freak side will ultimately kick in and she’ll start telling him how to raise Lex.  How he’s doing this wrong.  How he should do this, or do that.  Him, being the way he is, will eventually tell her to screw off and stop telling him how to raise his kids.  This I approve of.  However, she’s a spiteful woman.  Once the screw off declaration has been made, she will then seek to make his life as much of a hell as possible.  Any little thing she happened to see/hear/notice during the buddies phase that she can find a reason to dislike will suddenly be brought up as though they were sins against humanity.  She’ll threaten to call CPS.  She’ll threaten police.  She looooooooves to threaten with calling the police.  She’s threatened me with it a few times.  Even filed charges once.

Then again, she may not make it so obvious.  She may just do it quietly.  And then when he’s complaining about all the troubles he’s having, she’ll “volunteer” to “take Lex for a little while” and “help out.”

And then?  If he falls for that crap?

She will make sure neither he nor I (or anyone in either of our families) will ever see Lex again.

He opened this door.  I hope he’s prepared for the pandora’s box it truly is.

I have a hard time putting a label on what I believe.  It’s somewhere between being a pagan and being an atheist.  I don’t believe in a god.  Any god.  I cannot wrap my brain around the concept of a giant invisible entity in the sky with magic powers.

Recently someone (a very nice coworker that’s also a youth pastor and while he has expressed worry for my eternal soul, has not gotten all up in my grill about my being a godless heathen) asked me “How can you look at something like a tree lined lake or a snowflake and not believe in Creation?”

My reply?   “Easily.  I have science.”

I believe there are scientific reasons for everything.  Even the things we can’t explain.  Do I believe in ghosts?  Why yes, yes I do.  But how can I believe in ghosts if I don’t believe in a god or an afterlife?

Do you have any idea how much energy the human body pumps out on a daily basis?  All that has to go somewhere.  Sometimes it just doesn’t disperse the way it usually does.

As I have conversed with religious leaders and believers over the years, I have given them questions that they cannot answer.  For these questions, I’ve been called everything from blessed to a heretic.

The main one is when I explain things that happen to me that I don’t currently have an answer for myself.  Sometimes I will just know things that I really should have no way of knowing whatsoever.  I will pluck things out of people’s brains and blurt it out before I realize what I’m doing.  Usually the response is stare of abject terror.

“She was telling me about this icecream.  Something to do with puppies.”

“Moosetracks.”

“Yeah!  …. Wait.  How the HELL did you get Moosetracks from puppies?”

“Uhm…”

And then there was one of my favorites.

“I’ve been having him write me book reports.  I swear, if I have to make him do this again, I’m going to make him read Little House on the Prairie.”

“Oh!  You should have him read… oh it’s old school…”

“Nancy Drew.”

“How the HELL DID YOU DO THAT?”  As she’s knocking her stool over to get away from me.

I have also dreamed the memories of my significant other.  Some are more clear than others.  The most clear one involved my current boyfriend.  This occured the first time we dated about ten years ago.   I can tell you, in detail, what his bedroom looked like from a time before he ever met me.  He never described it to me.  I don’t think I was even living in the same state as him when he lived there.

Now, when I say I dreamed his memory, I do mean it.  In this interaction I have no control.  In fact, I don’t even realize that I’m not myself. Everything seems perfectly normal.  I experience their conversations, what they see, hear, and even their thoughts at the time as if they were my own.  For those few moments, I am someone else, reliving a moment of their past.

Yes, it’s very disconcerting and jarring when I wake up.  In fact, the few times it has happened, I always wake up in a daze, but with a crystal clear recollection of what I dreamed about.  It can be even more disconcerting when I’m telling the person who’s involved.   How exactly do you explain that to someone?  It’s not like it’s something you can just dump on their lap and not worry about.

“Oh, by the way, I relived one of your memories last night in my sleep.  Hope you don’t mind.”

Thankfully my boyfriend has already experienced it, came to grips with it, and doesn’t seem to be afraid of it happening again.  So all is well and good in that department.

I should note, my boyfriend is also an atheist.  No, he doesn’t have an explanation for it either, but it hasn’t given either of us an inclination to relook at that whole superior being theory.

I do hold onto the items I had from my days as a struggling pagan.  Not because I believe they can do anything special.  I just want them.  Having them gives me solace and comfort.  Perhaps they’re reminders of the steps I took to find myself and in turn helped me find the amazing friends and loved ones I have today.

I love them all.  No matter how many gods they have.

A hug.

Brad very rarely ever hugged me.  I never took it personally.  He’s a teenage boy and hugging his stepmom was awkward for him.  So when he asked me for one, that meant the world to me.   Of course I gladly gave it to him.

Brad and I have always had unusual stepchild/stepmom relationship.  He grew to trust me more than he does his own father.  I was the one he came out to when he realized he was bisexual.  I was the one he asked advice from when it came to his clothes and how to handle issues with his significant other.  If something was really bothering him, he would just blurt it out to me.  He wouldn’t ever say anything to Scot.

It’s not that Scot didn’t try.  He would take Brad with him when he went disk golfing.  However, I’m sure the presence of a large, obnoxious, loud-mouthed asshole (Scot’s best friend) really didn’t inspire the kid to open up.   Scot just never realized he was going about it all wrong.

In order for someone to open up to you, they need to trust you.  Mainly, they need to know they won’t be judged.  When Brad told me he was bi, we agreed that I would be the one to tell Scot.  I was going to see how he took it, and try to keep it calm if he got upset.  Scot insisted that he didn’t care what Brad’s sexual orientation was.   However, every time Brad brought home a boyfriend, Scot would make fun of the kid. Every time Brad came home wearing eyeliner and/or nail polish, Scot screamed at him to “take that shit off.”   We locked horns over that a few times.  Each time I was summarily told that Brad was his child, not mine, and he didn’t want him wearing that shit and that was that.

I know he would open up to his grandmother when he lived there.  His “Ma-maw.”  But when I came into the picture that sorta drifted sideways.  He openly prefered her over me for a long time, and I thought that was probably best.  It wasn’t until we were forced to move to a different town that things really started to change in that way.  He wasn’t over at her house every day.  His options were either his father, or me.  I know he bottled everything up for a long time.  Especially when it came to his mother, her death, and how he felt about all of it.  That was what lead to him cutting on himself.  I can’t express how much seeing his scars hurt me, even now.  But they did drive me to work even harder at earning Brad’s trust enough that he would talk to me.

After I left, I asked Scot if I could contact Brad.  He told me no, because it would just hurt him more.  I know that’s just a bunch of bullshit, so I did it anyway.  Brad’s going to be legally an adult in a few months.  He’s old enough he can decide for himself who he wants in his life.

He was happy I contacted him.  He told me he wasn’t suppose to talk to me, but really didn’t care about that.  I was flooded with things about his life that he wanted to tell me.  How he broke up with his boyfriend.  How things were going with his band.  How his brother was finally starting to say a few words.  I was just so happy to hear from him, and he seemed glad to have a way to contact me too.

He had made a Facebook account, and friended me on it.  Apparently someone saw this and told Scot because Scot made him delete the account.

I guess what all this comes down to is my absolute frustration and anger at how Scot is punishing the kids because he’s angry at me.  I really don’t care if Scot is angry with me.  I don’t care if he grows to hate me.  He can hate me all he likes.  That’s probably healthier than some of the other options.  But for fucks sake, why use the kids to hurt me?   Especially when it’s just hurting them too?

I haven’t heard from Brad in several weeks.   I suspect he got his phone taken away.  I know he’s alright, but I still worry.  Is he doing well in school?  Is he eating right?  Did he find a new relationship?  Is he having fun?

Lex isn’t capable of expressing how he feels or if he wants to see me, but Brad is.   No, I’m not Brad’s real mother, but I’m the closest thing he’s had for a long time.  And I wish Scot would see he’s actually doing more harm than good by not letting us talk to each other.