Phew. It’s 8:33 and I feel very guilty about being on the computer. I should be working. Maybe if I summarize some schtuff I’ll stop feeling paralyzed. Maybe. It does work sometimes.

I am totally going to end up upgrading to the paid version of tracking my IP. I have maxed out the free address book.

Do you know how wonderful that feels? My shrink told me she is shocked that I can get so many people to read me. She says that given that I don’t promote my stuff on facebook she is shocked anyone bothers to come to my website at all because she doesn’t go to anyone’s website. In a small voice I said, “Well… most people use an RSS feed…” She laughed and said, “Still!”

I know that I ain’t shit. I’m not trying to build a big platform or be famous. I’m not making money off of writing and I don’t try to. I document for myself and to share with my friends so that they can understand me better. I think my relationships benefit a lot from how much I overshare. People understand better what is going on with me.

Do you think you could imagine I had all this shit going on if I hadn’t told you? Probably not. Cause you can’t look at someone and tell.

Except in some ways you kinda can. Not for everyone. There is that whole black don’t crack thing that allows African Americans to endure horrifying abuse and their faces don’t look degraded. My face is already showing signs that I’ve had a hard life. My mom looked haggard and destroyed by 50. I expect to wrinkle early and hard. I already have deep lines in my face from scowling and crying.

So you can kinda tell a lot about someone by looking at them. Only you can’t. Don’t judge people by how they look you asshole.

I’m name calling all the time lately and it’s a real problem. I need to knock it the fuck off. I’m not being appropriate.

Now I have a knee jerk reaction to the word “inappropriate”. Thanks, life.

The house is coming along! I’m not done done done but I will have everything put away in its final home by Sunday. I’m totally serious. If they finish my forking bedroom today I will even have all of the painting done by Sunday. I’m that close. Ok, maybe I’ll finish painting on Monday. BUT I’M THAT CLOSE. I have two, maybe three days of painting left. That’s so exciting at this stage. I’ve done 88 hours of painting and hundreds of not-counted hours of tiling.

And my house is looking awesome. It isn’t quite done yet but I will finish in the next four days. A nice lady who is a friend of my awesome tile guy is showing up on Monday to start cleaning. We agreed that this isn’t a job she can just give me a price for. I will pay her by the hour and she will come until she’s done cleaning. Which is exactly how I paid for the tile and I feel super happy about that arrangement. I don’t feel fleeced at all. I feel like I’m getting honorable work for honorable pay. That’s a symbiotic relationship and it’s positive.

I’m struggling with the kids right now. It’s in me more than it is in them and I know it. I’m an asshole. Here I go with name calling. I’m impatient and tired and I feel sick of being taken for granted. One of the problems with me being super awesome to my kids basically all the time for their entire lives… they completely fucking take me for granted. They expect fairies to magically make their lives happen the way they want. I’m getting fucking cranky about this. As I’m facing down the prospect of another baby I am 100% out of patience with big kids who want to be babied. YOU ARE NOT A BABY ANY MORE. I DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS FOR YOU. Which is complicated. You can’t just yank the rug out from under them and have them do well. Scaffolding. Stepping up of responsibility.

But sometimes, my inner child wants to get really fucking spiteful about how no one fucking carefully showed me and I GOD DAMN FIGURED IT OUT. That doesn’t mean I need to take it out on the kids.

But I should step back from doing so much for them. If it makes me angry and makes me feel drained it isn’t healthy for me to do. I shouldn’t neglect them, that’s not what I’m saying, but I do baby my kids a lot. I don’t need to baby them so much. It would be ok if I stood there and narrated how to brush their own hair patiently until they can do it without direction. I don’t need to take it over and do it because I do it better. That’s a vanity asshole move. If the kids haven’t done their chores and I have, it’s ok for me to get a treat sometimes and not them. Not ALL THE TIME because that’s not cool, but sometimes it is. They are not owed a share of every good thing I get. It’s not like they turn around and offer me some of everything they get.

Our relationships are shifting and I need to shift and I’m not doing it gracefully. I didn’t understand when I was a kid how much of adulthood is about the same god damn phases you have as a kid. You do a thing for a while then it doesn’t work any more and you have to change. The having to change never stops.

I mean, there are old people who calcify. They tend to be miserable and rigid and they die early and unhappy.

I would really like to know what it feels like to have a 40 year old child who loves me. That’s 32 years away. That’s a lot of years during which I am going to have to change and suck it up and grow in order to deserve that relationship. That feels like a lot of pressure.

I haven’t been able to deserve having a father or mother who love me so it is hard to believe that I am capable of deserving having anyone else love me. I know Noah picks me and is here and demonstrates that he wants me. But there is something just completely different about that blood connection for me.

I feel like I do a lot of work in trade for Noah staying. I don’t feel like I should have a similar kind of trade with my kids. I buy Noah’s love. I’m blatant and forthright about that fact. Yup. I do that. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed and I’m going to keep damn doing it. I don’t think I deserve Noah. So I will do tons and tons and tons of labor so that I can sweeten the deal and maybe he will put up with my pathetic, sorry ass.

I can’t do that with my kids. That’s more complicated.

I’ve never had a relationship like this before. I keep thinking of the Rihanna lyric from Work:

All that I wanted from you was to give me
Something that I never had
Something that you’ve never seen
Something that you’ve never been!

One of my teachers, I believe Sobonfu, told me that it is impossible to imagine something if it is not true somewhere. I don’t know how to imagine the relationship I want because if it exists I haven’t seen it. I have seen shadows of it, but I haven’t seen anything in my whole life that would actually work for me.

Which makes me feel like I am just broken. But that’s not it. Those relationships are shaped the way they are because they are meeting the needs of the people in them. I have different needs.

What does that look like?

It doesn’t mean that all of those people are doing it wrong.

It just means that I need something different.