I’m so happy I don’t have to be here long. I’ve been good. I’ve been very good. I can’t keep this shit up.

I have a lot of issues. This is plain to me. I hate rich people. I don’t like poor people a lot more. I hate rich people for their assumption that life will just work out and things are fine. I hate poor people for reasons that are harder to explain. I hate poor people because I hate my family. I hate the inability to see how you are creating at least some of your own issues.

It’s hard because in general I believe that most poor people are literally incapable of solving their own problems because they do not have access to the resources that would allow them to solve their problems. So I feel enormous guilt about being one more asshole being mad at poor people for not hurrying up and doing what I want.

It isn’t fair or right of me. I also like a lot of rich people and love a lot of poor people. But being in Texas changes this feel. I am an elitist bastard. I don’t like rich people. I like educated people and you can find educated people on every level of the financial spectrum. Sometimes people who are poor have unusual educations, they are eclectic and they have weird gaps in their understanding–but they know a lot of shit.I respect that.

Noah’s family has money (at least part of it–not the great grandmother). Like the kind of inherited money where none of them have ever had to hold jobs. They can be artsy fartsy about their quilting and get indignant that most quilters are silly because they don’t have a separate outbuilding workshop along with two spare bedrooms for sewing. Are we artists or what?! She expressed shock that some of the most beautiful quilts in the world are made by people who have to “pause their work then shove the quilt under the bed while they use the room for something else. How can you call yourself an artist that way?!”

I uhm, was polite. I told her that if she wants to know the difference between an artist and a craftsman the artist is probably starving and the craftsman is doing just fine. You expect artists to have craftsman space and that’s ridiculous. Artists don’t have the money for that shit. She kind of looked surprised. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

No, I don’t think that a woman who thinks of her “Junior year abroad” as being “real travel so you can really find out what people are like” understands why I want to travel. I don’t want to go on an exchange program between my chichi Ivy League School and another equally prestigious school in a 1st world nation. I want to see how people really live when they aren’t like me. I want to sit down in coffee shops and listen to whatever stories people want to tell me.

I don’t want to visit a country and stay in an expensive apartment on the nice side of town eating at all the best restaurants so I can say I have “experienced” a country. I want to walk the slums. I want to find out where more than 50% of the people live. I want to go hang out with them.

I argued with the great aunt about the “Golden Rule”. I don’t believe in it. I’m not going to treat everyone how I want to be treated. They wouldn’t react very well. Other people don’t want the kind of treatment I want. Noah used the example of trying to solve peace in the middle east. If you have an Arabic man and an Israeli man trying to have a conversation you will have problems. The Arabic culture allows people to make long personal speeches without interruption. Then someone else will get their turn. The Israeli’s will interrupt every time they have a thought or think you are wrong. Where in the fuck does the Golden Rule fit in there? Her response was that it works fine in her town because there aren’t different kinds of people. Hoo boy.

Even though I do sometimes feel annoyed by the behaviors of poor people. They have no where else to be. I will not shame them even if I don’t like what they are doing. If I don’t like what I’m seeing I have the money and privilege to walk away. What fucking right do I have to tell them to stop acting that way where I can see?

Yesterday a person I follow on Twitter remarked how “creepy” it is if you see a man pushing a baby stroller with stuff other than a baby in it. I told him that those people are probably poor and don’t need his judgment.

Seriously? How dare people exist in front of me in a way I find aesthetically displeasing. Ew. Go exist somewhere else.

Then I read about this guy. I swear to God that if I lived down the street from him I would do substantial property damage to his vehicle and home. Just because I hate him so much. Is it right? Nope. Good thing I don’t live near him.

I’ve been told I’m too ugly/dirty/disgusting to be places. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Yesterday Noah told me, “Haven’t you noticed that you have arrived and now you are high status and people won’t treat you that way anymore?”

I really don’t give a shit if it happening to me or just to someone else. I would cheerfully go firebomb the car of someone who thinks he is that much more important than his fellow human  beings. I wouldn’t touch him. That’s over my personal line. Clearly the piece of shit has enough money to buy another fucking car.

I like my neighborhood so much. I like that in my neighborhood no one is obviously rich. We have some families that are more obviously struggling. I’m trying to figure out how we as a community are going to solve this. I think that by the time I am old I will know everyone in every house in my neighborhood. That’s a goal. I want to help my neighbors. If I can walk to your house and you have a need that I can assist with, I want to be there.

Communities rise and fall together.

We need rich people and poor people regardless of whatever set of emotions I have towards these people. My venom will drive away potential allies with wealth. Some of my neighbors have extra money. Not tons, but extra. That’s clear by the slow gentrification some of the houses are seeing.

What would happen if I could convince my neighbors to donate their yards so we could grow more food?

I think. I plan. I’m not ready for that. So far I’m still meeting everyone and trying to learn their names. I should have a neighborhood party in 2014. I need to stop putting that off.

I have spent most of my life running from place to place trying to find people who would understand me, like me, tolerate me without yelling at me to change. Here it is weird hearing about how you have to just work with whoever lives in a two block radius.

Apparently part of that journey is just getting older. And marrying a rich guy. I don’t hate him. Ok, in some brief seconds I do. Mostly not even close. It’s not about the money. I use Noah’s money and feel guilty about it. I picked Noah because he is the only person I have ever been able to talk about myself with for hours and hours. Everyone else gets overwhelmed, wants to change the subject, or starts to avoid me if I try. I picked Noah because he makes me feel like it is ok for me to be alive.

His family is interesting. Rich people. Really Really Rich people. Ok, they live in East Texas so everything is relative. In the bay area they wouldn’t be Really Really Rich people they would just be Rather Rich people. They have a few million. Nothing to sneeze at but not much to a venture capitalist.

Sometimes I feel like I am participating in an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers exercise. Why are these people letting a white trash whore into their generations old museum fancy house?

They aren’t. They are allowing their First Son to bring his wife. Different.

I’m not invited. He is and they won’t stop him from bringing me. My children are invited–they are blood. I’m just… a few steps up from the nanny.

I have a hard time when rich old people say “Sure touch anything” when the house is full of exceptionally breakable things which are all at least a hundred years old. The great aunt is obsessed with old fashioned viewers. They are delicate little contraptions. She must have more than two dozen. I doubt we saw all she owned. The paper is old, delicate, and starting to fray. Sure why the fuck don’t you hand it to my three year old. *head desk*

I tried not to hover. The kids did great. There were no mishaps so maybe my paranoia is just out of place. I didn’t say anything. I just had a lot of stomach acid. Being sober is extremely painful. On a 1-10 scale I would say the acid feeling is at about a 7. I’m going to need to work with a doctor on this before I can really handle getting off pot. If I had this feeling every day I would spend my days on the couch crying. I wouldn’t eat because eating hurts too much. If I don’t eat enough I vomit.

The great grandmother was really delightful though. I think that she and I have some interesting things in common. She grew up poor working class. She had to support her family as a single mom because her husband died in a farm equipment accident. The belief is it was probably suicide. The nasty story in the family is that he died to get away from his mean wife.

Now she is old. Old people are trying to buy their way into heaven, right? She was very nice with us. She has a bunch of 50 year old dolls from her kids. My daughters had a lot of fun playing with her. She teaches pre-K as her “retirement” (she taught at continuation middle schools. She was a science teacher. She spent 19 years working with American Science. She also had a few years of teaching science at the college level. She’s hella smart.) and she makes beautiful instructional material for the kids. She makes these story-books about the life cycles of plants and animals. They really are lovely.

Early in our letters she was very derogatory about the idea of home schooling. Then she discovered that state law says that every pre-k teacher should have 12 students and an aide. Instead every teacher has 22 students and the aides are split between two or three classrooms. She said, “If you can give them better than that, do it.”

She tried to defer to me on whether the kids got hot chocolate and cookies. I said, “If a kid can’t get spoiled by their great grandmother then something is wrong with the world. Do whatever you want.” That seemed to make her happy.

She is working on one of the prettiest quilts I have ever seen. It is a hand made piece of art. It’s about the Cupcake Girls. It is pictures of two little girls doing things. Playing in the garden. Climbing a tree. I can’t remember what all. She has sewn all of these little pictures by hand. It is incredible. She says she has been working on it for a year. It is still a ways off from being done. She wants us to send her pictures of the girls doing stuff in Texas so she can add squares for that.

I am so glad my kids have someone in the world who thinks about them like that. I look at those kinds of efforts as magic talismans. Their great grandmother doesn’t have a lot she can do for them or give them. But she loves them. She wants them to be happy and she wants them to thrive. She wants them to feel like they are seen.

I’m glad we came to Texas. I’m really glad they got to meet her.

When they knocked a potted plant over the response was “No big deal. I’ll get a paper towel and the compost bucket.” My kids felt safe and appreciated. Not to mention that she had a cool living tree in her front room and tons of animal stuffies. My kids will be talking about the Enchanted Forest at Great E’s house for years.

I am so grateful that they get to have this experience. Whatever feelings I have or don’t have. I’m being very patient. I haven’t yelled. I’m not being demanding. They are doing really well on their own without my interference.

We went out to dinner. I had the best freakin fried pickles in the whole world. I may have to figure out how to do that now that I was gifted with a deep fryer. Holy crap that was so good. I could have eaten like five of the plates. Instead I tactfully shared with my sister in law.

At dinner we had Noah’s oldest brother (they are all younger than Noah), his wife, his son (who is exactly one year younger than Shanna so also one year older than Calli), Noah’s uncle, his wife, and their daughter, and the great grandmother. It was a really lovely meal. The food was good. The conversation was lively. The kids were rambunctious but little J had a long day of having to be good in the library and my kids sat on a plane all day yesterday. A bit of bouncing and wiggling is to be expected. They did great.

The three kids were ecstatic together. The biggest issue was when Shanna declared that J was only her cousin and not Calli’s cousin. Calli had some words (and fists) for that declaration. I curtailed the fight and talked Calli into believing that Shanna was just wrong and she (Calli) doesn’t have to listen to her.

The three kids were hugging and kissing foreheads and giggling like mad people. They were super thrilled to be together. J looked like the car Calli gave him for Christmas was the best thing ever. I’m glad. Calli put a lot of emotional energy into hoping he would like it.

Just in general it was nice seeing them. We traded stories and commentary about what different places are like. I learned how their county is getting royally screwed because property taxes are a lot of their tax base but more and more of the land is publicly owned through the national forests or the universities so they are getting into a nasty squeeze. We talked about the various methods of construction and the value or not in them.

It was an energetic flow of conversation the whole time. I don’t think I dominated and I wasn’t a wall flower. That’s perfect I think.

Today I get to pack up our shit. Then we go back to the Great Grandmother’s for cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. (I will be eating my leftover chicken fried steak for breakfast so that I don’t puke from all the sugar.) Then Noah and the girls will go out to the compound. They will pick me up later and we will head to the airport. We will sleep in our beds tonight.

This is probably the right length of time to be in Texas right now. I’m hoping that by 2015 I will have done some work on my stomach and this will go better. All of the relatives are telling me that when we come through for Trick or Treating they hope we will stay for a week or two because they all want to spend time with the kids. I hear you. I will keep that in mind. I will see if I can handle that. Clearly my children adore you all and you are being very nice to the kids. Both sides deserve to have relationships with their family members. Whether I “like” it or not. I will be supportive and loving. That is my role here.

But I will cry in the mornings. Because no one has ever loved me the way these people love my kids. I wish I wasn’t so sad about that. I have Noah. I have Shanna. I have Calli. They have to be enough. The amount they love me has to be enough.

I remember knocking a plant over on accident. I was hit in the head hard enough to make me hit the floor. Then I had to scramble up to get a broom and a towel by myself. I shook while I cleaned because the adult in the room was screaming the entire time about how stupid and pathetic I was.

My kids will have a different life.