On Thanksgiving, out of nowhere, I got a text that said happy t-day and my name, spelled correctly, probably for the first time in thirty years. I replied, wishing him the same.

I don’t get it.

Kinda screws with my fleece idea, though I really ought to have put a time limit on it. I just truly didn’t expect to hear from him for about two or three years. That’s been the pattern: he needs his “hit”, he gets it, and it lasts for quite a while. Recently, the contacts have been from every three weeks to three months. I thought if I didn’t hear from him in January, I probably wouldn’t hear from him for years.

My reaction is just enjoyment. So much different from the episode with C. I look back at that now, at all my confusion and obsession and realize clearly, that was love addiction. Thank God He grabbed me by the neck before I ruined my life. And with that knowledge, I look at this situation and know it is the same. That’s why there is no agony, no questioning, *little* obsessing. I don’t think M&M’s is my soulmate, I don’t think I made a mistake in marrying my husband, I don’t think things would even be particularly good if M&M’s and I were together.

But after 30 years of obsessing about a guy, to have him calling me? I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that there’s a damn good deal of satisfaction in this situation.

I don’t know what will happen. I am still committed to my promise to God not to contact him.

I will say I was right about this decade. Best. Decade. Ever.

A few weeks ago, I went out with M&M’s, a (boy?guy?man?) I’ve been obsessed with since third grade. One of these days, I’ll journal the exact progression of the night. Suffice it to say the night ended with the most tender, mind-blowing kiss I’ve ever experienced. The challenge with this being, of course, that I’m married. To someone else.

My husband has the (unusual? though less-so that I had previously thought) perspective that me being with other guys is hot. Ironically, I’ve not had sex with another man since meeting him almost twenty years ago. Most men would find this a virtue. My husband is dismissive and bored by this fact.

All this sets the scene for what has happened after that mind-blowing kiss.

At first, I was desperate to see him again: with my husband’s permission. I spent the next day plotting on how to arrange a meeting. I had promised to send him information about a reunion and some book titles, so that seemed a good place to start. I had a pretty good plan going.

And then I had my daily reading in the Bible. @#%&!!!!!!

Ezekiel 16
Jerusalem as an Adulterous Wife
1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices 3 and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 4 On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. 5 No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

6 “‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!”[b] 7 I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.

8 “‘Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.

9 “‘I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. 10 I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. 11 I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, 12 and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. 14 And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.

15 “‘But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. 16 You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. You went to him, and he possessed your beauty.[c] 17 You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. 18 And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. 19 Also the food I provided for you—the flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD.

20 “‘And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? 21 You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols. 22 In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood.

23 “‘Woe! Woe to you, declares the Sovereign LORD. In addition to all your other wickedness, 24 you built a mound for yourself and made a lofty shrine in every public square. 25 At every street corner you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty, spreading your legs with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by. 26 You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your neighbors with large genitals, and aroused my anger with your increasing promiscuity. 27 So I stretched out my hand against you and reduced your territory; I gave you over to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were shocked by your lewd conduct. 28 You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied. 29 Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia,[d] a land of merchants, but even with this you were not satisfied.

30 “‘I am filled with fury against you,[e] declares the Sovereign LORD, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute! 31 When you built your mounds at every street corner and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were unlike a prostitute, because you scorned payment.

32 “‘You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! 33 All prostitutes receive gifts, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. 34 So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.

35 “‘Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the LORD! 36 This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, 37 therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. 38 I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. 39 Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. 40 They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. 41 They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers.

WTF? Not fair! I wasn’t doing anything behind my husband’s back! And what about Solomon and his 700 wives and 300 concubines? I was asking for one night!

I wrestled with God for a while on this one. First I was going to disregard Him. Then I told him I just wasn’t strong enough to resist this temptation, so it was going to happen. Then I bargained with him: I told him I knew it was a long shot, but that he did allow many of the patriarch to have multiple wives – Abraham had a child through Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant – so I promised that I would not contact M&M’s. I would put out my fleece as Gideon did: I said that if he contacted me, I would take that as the sign that He was going to give me grace on this one. If he did not, I would know that God had said no.

I have kept to my word: I have made no attempt to contact M&M’s. But he hasn’t contacted me either. It also dawned on me that in the Bible, when a man had sex with a woman, it was assumed that he was responsible for her and any children she would have for the rest of their lives.

I’ve accepted this. And I’ve realized a number of things. For one, I actually don’t want to have sex with M&M’s – I’ve said this before, but it’s really true. I do want to sleep with him, as in, in his arms; and sex would be a price I would be willing to pay for that. (Not a healthy perspective on sexuality, I know. But that’s pretty much been true my entire life.) Two, I have never been so in love with my husband as I was the days following that kiss. I loved that my husband found me that sexy; I realized the honor it is that he has chosen me as the one he wants to spend his life with, the one he is willing to work for and take care of. Comparing that to a relationship lacking commitment showed my husband in an incredible light: honorable and responsible, the essence of what I think masculinity is supposed to be. Three, it’s confirmed my suspicions about my relationship with M&M’s having been love addiction on both sides for all these years. He is a love addict, too. I have been one of the “hits” he needs over the years, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get my adulation. It used to be that all it would take was a phone call or an email for me to gush over him, and knowing that I was out there, still obsessing, was what he needed to fill him up. But since we saw each other at the grammar school reunion, I’ve been dismissive of him. I wish I could say that was because I was so fulfilled in my marriage, but I have to confess that I was testing out this love addict theory: my hypothesis was that if I were dismissive of him, he would chase me. And he did. It took over a year, but he pushed it further than he ever has with the kiss.

It seems like the understanding that it is love addiction and not a soul mate connection would be disappointing, but it’s actually been the opposite of that. I’m glad that I’m not crazy: there is a reason I obsessed about him for 30 years. Any time I let the fire go out, he poured gasoline on it. It’s very comforting to know that it was not one-sided. And honestly, I do love him. I still am not thinking of him in a sexual way, oddly enough. I don’t fantasize about him like that. I mean, I do fantasize about him, but the thoughts are still G-rated. Maybe PG, with a kiss here and there. But “hot” would not be the feeling I would use to describe those thoughts. More like “warm and fuzzy”.

Frankly, It’s turned out that he made my decade. The memory just makes me happy. The knowledge that it wasn’t one-sided for 30 years helps lessen my concerns about my own sanity. The knowledge that it’s love addiction, not True Love, gives me security in my position in life.

All in all, it’s been one of the best things to ever happen to me. And I’m thanking God for His guidance to keep it from going further.

That said, I am praying daily that God not allow him to contact me, because I do actually fear what I would do – as in, not just saying that, I FEAR. I fear God. I fear disobeying Him.

I’ll end with an interesting note. I’ve written before that I never had an R-rated dream about M&M’s. A couple of weeks before he and I went out, I did. R, not X. But it was enough to startle me. The the night before we went out together, I had another dream about him: he and I were finally together, making out passionately. I paused and I said to him, “You know this is only happening because I’m married and that makes me safe now.” He said he knew, and began kissing me again.

Pretty good summary right there.

God’s acceptance
A sense of contribution to this world
A sense of belonging

I thought about it for a while, to make sure it really reflected my beliefs. And I think that about captures it.

At the end of the sermon, the pastor told everyone to trash their lists because what they had written was crap.

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

I took a step in what I hope is the right direction by doing a Bible study with the kids this morning.  We read a Veggietales version of the Bible, which will hopefully make it interesting for them.  Right now we are all sitting at the kitchen table, doing our art for 15 minutes.  Supposedly.  Unfortunately, this means I am fighting to get the internet to work, my daughter is complaining that she is down with painting and wants to glue stuff together, and my son is eating the watercolors. It’s funny… from a distance.  But seriously, Clark Griswold captured the essence of family life.  

I am going to try to have the kids help me put the house back together today instead of trying to scramble to get it done myself while they are distracted. I am going to try to disciple them the way I am supposed to, but I can already feel myself starting to have a heart attack.  I hate managing.

K. is supposed to stop by today.  At first, her moving to the city seemed like a life-saver; I was going out of my mind trying to get through the days.  But now, I am worried.  It’s like I posted on FB:  I don’t want to spend time, I want to invest it.  I want to make conscious decisions about our time, and ensure that time is working towards learning about God and how to serve mankind.  My husband and K. have a focus of getting to the party:  that is the goal.  I do not share that goal.  This world is in desperate trouble, and God created us to work together to help others.  I am so frustrated because I should be an expert swimmer, out there rescuing people… but instead, I feel like I’m tied down with bricks, barely able to keep my head above water.  

My husband says that things will change when he gets his new job and he is no longer traveling.  He believes the travel has put way more stress on the family than I realize because we’ve just always done it that way.  I hope he’s right.  

I’ve been desperate to blog since my husband bought me the Apple keyboard that works with the iPhone’s new operating system. I hate keying in any other manner: I hated using the numeric pad for texting, I hate the iPhone’s tiny touchscreen keyboard. I guess this is what happens when people get old. I type at 70+ WPM on a keyboard and have no intention of learning how to type that fast on a touchscreen. It’s like, fuck you; I already know how to do it one way – why do I have to adapt? Christ, bring on the fiber and Murder She Wrote.

I am very bad at adapting. I guess that’s the essence of this post. If it were survival of the fittest, I would be dead in a week. My husband loves new technology. I hate it. I hate learning something only to have to learn something else. Not information-wise; I love information. But when processes change, I find it very upsetting. I keep trying to force new technology to adapt to the way I’m used to doing something, which is very inefficient. And I hate ineffieciency, so I’m just really screwed all around.

I think this is why I hate parenthood. Again, I love love love my kids. It’s an amazing love. If one of them needed a lung, I wouldn’t hesitate. Fuck it, they could have both. I would do anything for them.

Except constantly adapt in the ways that they need me to.

It’s so fucking frustrating. I have no idea what the fuck I am doing in terms of raising kids, and the second I think I’ve gotten a handle on how to address a season, it’s gone. And there are new challenges, so it’s just this constant cycle of failure where the stakes couldn’t be higher.

As a righty, parenthood is like writing with my left hand all the time. It takes me a tremendous amount of effort and an inordinate amount of time to do a really shitty job. I confess, I throw in the towel way more than I should. Fuck it, watch TV. I can’t. I just can’t do any more. The times I have energy, I find myself doing the things that come naturally and easily and that demonstrate accomplishment: cleaning the kitchen, organizing a closet. I can “get away” with that kind of bullshit because anyone looking in from the outside would say “Well, it needs to be done.” But I know I’m full of shit. I should be teaching them. I should have them helping me do those kinds of things so they can learn. But I find myself screaming, “Just leave me alone for a few minutes!” How fucking horrible is that?

I have completely bought into Satan’s lie that my children are keeping me from doing something. Yes, I do believe in Lucifer. I became convinced he was real before I turned away from atheism. I mean, just look at this fucking world.

He’s a liar and the father of lies, and I keep believing him. I am trying to program myself with God’s truth by listening to Nancy Leigh DeMoss’ “Revive Our Hearts” as much as I can. It’s a really impressive program, and she’s a really impressive woman. She was at one of our retreats for the radio network I used to work for. (It’s insane: I’ve met so many of the “stars” of evangelical Christianity: Joe Stowell, Alistair Begg, Crawford Lorritts, Elizabeth Elliott… I could go on. I have no idea why or what God’s plan is in that.) Her (DeMoss’) program is for Christians who have lost their fire. When I first heard of it, I was completely on fire and thought it was ridiculous to waste any resources on people who were already saved. I believed there was a world of people out there in danger of eternal hellfire and fuck assholes that were saved and not doing every fucking thing they could to rescue unbelievers.

Now, over a decade later, having completely given up on any evangelizing, I am one of those assholes. I still believe most people are in danger of spending eternity in Hell. But no matter how close I get to introducing someone to the real Jesus, some Christian asshole always steps in the way and fucks everything up. So I feel utterly helpless, and it is that helplessness that fuels my depression.

DeMoss saw that in me. We’re in the retreat, there are over 30 station managers she ought to be spending time with, hyping her program to, and she cornered me. She knew. I got away as fast as I could, but she knew. She knew that Christians had broken my heart and that I had come to hate them. Not two sentences into the conversation, she was asking me why I was angry. Not defensively – her heart was breaking for me and that was killing me. Someone came up to kiss her ass and I got away as fast as I could.

Now I listen to her program, and try to soften how hard my heart has gotten and let God mold me into who He created me to be. I prize getting stuff done and done perfectly. He prizes relationships. My focus is on trying to keep the house organized, the kids fed and clean. His focus is on me loving the kids and teaching them. I look at others and think I could do so much more if I just wasn’t tied down by the kids. He looks and says there is nothing more important than the job He has given me right now.

My focus is completely wrong. But the demons keep whispering, and I keep listening because my nature is closer to theirs. I believe that Jesus has begun a work in me that He will continue and bring to completion. But I desperately worry that will be too late for my babies.

***

That’s it, I surrender, I give up:  I want a fucking car.  I’ve tried to put the best face on it that I can, but the truth is that not having a car turns everything into a huge fucking ordeal.  Even a doctor’s appointment becomes “what-we-are-doing-today”, in terms of coordinating with the bus or running late and trying to get a cab.  It’s gotten easier to deal with two kids and public transportation now that my son is two and can walk on his own.  Dealing with a stroller on the bus is a fucking nightmare.  But still, not having a car makes everything a pain in the ass.

The problem is that I have NO IDEA how much money we have.  None.  I’ve been trying to develop a budget, but that is a hard task to try to do in five-minute snippets.  That’s not how I’m put together, for a task like that, I need blocks of uninterrupted time.  Ha. Ha.

***

Yesterday I just focused on getting the house put back together.  It cost me a roll of tape.  No, I didn’t duct tape the kids to the floor.  A simple $1 roll of scotch tape and they kept busy taping paper to every surface of the house.  Whatever.  I got all the laundry done, the house put back together, and even scrubbed the bathtub.  I didn’t interact with the kids except to yell at them for fighting.  Not good.  But I had to get this house put back together.

Didn’t stop moving from the time I woke up.  Literally:  did not stop moving.  It was 9:30 at night when I sat in the recliner, and then it was to grab my computer and work until 2 AM.

This is part of my crabbiness today.

***

So yeah, I give up – I am tired of not having a car.  I need to develop a budget to see how much money we have, and set up the savings funds we need… even if it’s just a fucking dollar a month, to know that we are making SOME progress.  (Fund examples:  CAR [buying one CASH],vacation, Christmas, college, capital expenditures [e.g., building a new porch], etc.).  My husband makes great money and somehow, I’m still schlepping off-name shit from Family Dollar in a stroller that’s piled over with crap because we don’t have a car.

Fuck.

***

I also checked on C. again.  I don’t know why.  It’s like a scab, I swear to God.  He’s friended with his ex-gf again.  This apparently happened shortly after I deactivated my mother-in-law’s account.  He was having trouble finding a job in CA, but apparently that changed because she posted “Things are looking up, big guy!” and he replied that he would soon be able to pay for half of her plane fare to visit… to which she replied, “Half?!?!”

LOL, he is a loser.  Jesus.  I really did pick the right one.

But I was also interested by how he is completely unable to leave that relationship alone.  He doesn’t want to be in it.  He traveled half way across the country to try to get away.  But he can’t stop.  I completely get that, obviously.  I guess that’s part of why I can’t stop peeking in:  it’s my struggle from a different angle.

***

Finally, this Chicago climate is killing me.  My best friend and my husband are what’s keeping me here in Chicago.  I swear to God, I would be headed straight to the desert if not for them.  Chicago is gray.  Seriously, southwestern colors are beautiful turquoise and orange and pink and purple.  A color scheme for Chicago would be a palette all in grayscale.  I need to live in Phoenix with a summer home in Chicago.

I guess first I’ll have to save up for the fucking Ford Pinto.

Not constantly, but now that I’ve learned the difference between being high and being stoned off one’s ass, being high is my preferred way to be when I’m in the house.  Not a fan when I leave, so I can definitely see a downside – e.g., getting to the point I never want to leave the house.  I’ll keep an eye on that.  But it’s raining today. Yey!

A big reason I’m feeling like less of a failure is a conversation thread on a parent message board.  A woman asked how other wives of investment bankers handle their husbands hours.  Apparently, they work 80+ hours a week, and this wife didn’t know how she was going to deal with it.  The other wives chimed in to hire a nanny, a housekeeper, and a baby-sitter to take some time for yourself and enjoy what his career affords you.  One husband even said to hire a cook once in a while as  a way of dealing with being a work-widow.

WTF?

My husband is typically gone Sunday afternoon, and the kids don’t see him again until Saturday morning. It’s been like this the majority of my daughter’s four years of life.  I have been doing this on my own.  We had someone come in to clean once every two weeks until my son was born two years ago, but since then, not at all.  I’ve talked to other parents, and their parents help them:  even take the kids overnight once in a while.

NO FUCKING WONDER I’ve been losing my mind!  I have no one.  For some fucking reason, we can’t afford to hire help (we’re loaded down with debt, and all our cash goes to that).  We live too far from the only people I would trust with my kids (their godmothers) – I have no family (parents dead, older sister gone [no idea where she is living], other sister mentally ill, brother going through marital separation) available to help, nor does my husband.  The other Moms mostly work – there is no one to hang out with during the day.  It is just me, and the unrelenting pressure of kids’ safety to be concerned about,  the meals (and preparation and cleanup that entails), all tasks related to the household (from laundry and grocery shopping to yardwork and maintenance)… and on top of that, the constant pressure of not doing enough for my babies in terms of training them, disciple-ing them, loving them.

It’s all on me.

A dramatic example:  yesterday, my husband and I went with friends to a street fair with our kids.  He had left the stroller by the kids’ activities, so I told him I was going to bring it back to where he and the kids were.  I walked away, and got to talking with some other Moms.  A while later, woman came running up to us and said, “Are either of you missing a little boy?” she was frantic and explained that there was a little boy crying for him Mom and they couldn’t find her.  I was nonchalant, said I had a little boy… moved back from my friends and saw security holding my son by the arm, walking down the street calling out to other police with their radio while my son sobbed hysterically.  I ran to him, grabbed him and thanked the police officer – everyone watching me in horror.  Then I started shaking with fury and stormed back to the other side of the fair:  literally, had to walk several blocks in front of everyone who has just witnessed this toddler running down the street crying for his Mom, everyone watching.  A block from my husband I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“HEY!” I screamed to get his attention.  He looked up.  HE WAS NOT EVEN LOOKING FOR HIS SON.  He had NO IDEA he was gone.

“WHERE IS YOUR SON?!?!” I screamed in front of everyone.  He looked startled, then started looking around the ground for him, panicked, looked up and saw he was in my arms.

“I HAVE TO HAVE FUCKING SECURITY BRING HIM TO ME?!?!?”  The police officer was right behind me, probably watching to see how the hell these parents lost their kid:  were they drunk?  Were they incompetent?

My husband started stuttering, “I just turned around for a minute!”

“How long do you think it take?!?!?” I yelled in his face.  I wanted to punch him.  Everyone was watching this scene play out and by this point, I didn’t care.  He started apologizing.  “Jesus Christ, S.!  WTF?” I squeezed my son in my arms and stormed back to the stroller.

Later, I saw that police officer.  My son was in his stroller,happily drinking a lemonade.  “He’s happy now,” the officer said.

“Yeah, he is – Momma’s not so happy!” I replied.

The officer laughed, a knowing-guy-laugh, and said, “Ooooh, yeah – I saw that!”

But that’s what I mean.  I’m on my own, even when my husband is here.  The pressure of the care-taking of two lives is constantly on, 24/7.

I’m not failing.  I’m overwhelmed because I damn well OUGHT to be overwhelmed.  I’m not beating my kids. I’m not running from the situation, like my father did and my brother is in the process of doing.  Yes, I am medicating some emotional pain with marijuana – not ideal, I admit.

And the reason I think it’s not ideal is this:  the problem with Western medicine is that it treats symptoms, it doesn’t address the source of the problem.  Pain is a God-given gift to let us know something is wrong so that we can address it.  The reason lepers lose their fingers and toes is because they get hurt but can’t feel it:  so they injure themselves and can’t address the injury.  That allows infection to set in and allows the problems to multiply.  Pain is supposed to tell us, “Stop what you are doing!  Don’t do that!  Something is wrong.”  When athletes take drugs to suppress the pain of an injury so they can play on it, the injury gets worse.

I believe the same thing happens emotionally.  I’m not saying nobody should be on meds – there are a lot of people that believe there is no such thing as bi-polar disorder, chemical depression, etc.  I heartily disagree.  But I think that it’s important to recognize the pain and try to address the source, too.  In my instance, I can use the crutch of marijuana… but I can’t forget that I am in pain because there is something wrong that needs to be looked at.

This time I took two hits and stopped as an experiment.  I was certain I would get super-paranoid and freak out anyway, but instead – HEAVEN.  It was like what the show Moonlighting used to do to Cybil Sheperd’s face:  use soft-focus to blur the harsh reality.

This may have been why I was such a cool, laid back person as a twenty-something.

I still need to make pot butter.  Or get a vaporizer.  Joints suck; what a pain in the ass.  Plus, hilariously, my husband and I are hiding in our laundry room to smoke.  Total stoner move:  that’s where our furnace is.  So every time our air conditioner kicks on now, it pushes enough pot smoke through out HVAC to make someone think this is a coffeehouse in Amsterdam.

Pot butter would be nice because then I could just smear a Ritz cracker with it and have a measured, stink-free dose.  Problem is that apparently making pot butter is extremely stinky.  Sigh.  But I really want to try it. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Irony is that my husband is looking at a new job… and they drug test.  So he is not partaking anymore.  I’d laugh if I didn’t realize what a tragedy this is for him.  One of the conditions of us getting married is that there be no pot in the house.  Finally, after five years of him being an asshole, I told him I didn’t care anymore:  get some pot and shut the hell up.

And now, just a week or so later, he is back to refraining, and I’m popping out of the basement with a shit-eating grin.

I was thinking about my husband this morning, and part of me wished that we had just met, today.  No baggage, no 17 years of bullshit.  But then I realized that if I met him today, I would hate him.  Maybe not hate, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with him.  Just like when I met him 17 years ago.

I wondered why that was.  I mean, seriously – he is great.  I’ve made this list a hundred times, but:  tall, dark and handsome, intelligent and witty, great dark sense of humor, talented musician – I could go on.  We just don’t fit together.  But it would kill me for us to break up and for him to find someone else in a relationship that actually worked.  Because I get that he is a treasure.  I get that.  I don’t know why our relationship has always been like a car on four square wheels.

He is that gorgeous dress that just doesn’t fit because my ass is just too fat.  Like, FUCK – this is PERFECT!  Why must I have the upper arms of a linebacker!?!?  But here’s how twisted I am:  I bought the fucking dress just so that whore can’t.

***

My addiction issues have been doing amazingly well.  I guess because the pressure is off.  But it is heartbreaking to me to think that my “thing” for C. is just an addiction issue.  I still think about him every day.  Hell, I still occasionally think about having a cigarette and I quit over fifteen years ago.  But there is no need behind it.  It’s just a thought.  That’s how it’s feeling with C.  Except I only think about cigarettes maybe once a year or two?  Maybe that’s how addiction goes.  That frantic-ness is gone, but the thought will linger for a long, long time.

The drinking has been really reasonable, too.  Not to say I ought to be drinking at all, frankly – with what an addictive personality I am, I know that it’s playing with fire.  But fuck, I *know* what I’m dealing with with this addiction.  I fear what would happen if I walked away from this one – what would I walk into?  I’d actually considered trying pot again, except this time, cooking with it.  Unfortunately, I’m just one of those people that gets paranoid when I smoke pot.  I did some internet research, and apparently, that’s pretty common.  Some people just can’t handle their booze, others just can’t handle their pot.  That pisses me off, because I would love to have a mild hallucinogen I could use occasionally.  That’s why I’m wondering if cooking with it might produce the effect I’m looking for.

I’m trying to self-medicate.  I need medication.  But if I could get away with having a teaspoon of pot butter on a Ritz cracker each afternoon for the mild chemical change that I need to not be such an uptight asshole, I would really prefer that to being dependent on a prescription.  Because like Patton Oswald, I’m pretty sure that within 20 years, the world will have changed into that of The Road Warrior, and anti-depressants aren’t going to be readily available.  (This is why he tried to wean himself off Prozac.  Didn’t work – he ended up living in his bathrobe within a month.  So now he’s certain he’ll be the one tied to the front of a truck, being offered up for anal sex.)

Back to the drinking:  a glass or two of white wine, and that’s all I’ve wanted.  Again, that desperation hasn’t been around.

***

I’ve wondered if that desperation just kind of disappearing has anything to do with a recent prayer.  I mean, obviously, it also has to do with pressure being off, but some pressure is always there.  But when I asked God for a Big Mission in the desert and He told me He had already given me my mission (and I was disappointed.  I wanted Him to tell me to start an orphanage in the Dominican Republic or something.  Getting my addictions under control was a) boring and b) not something I wanted to do anyway.), I had to pray.  I admitted I didn’t even want to get my addictions under control.  I didn’t want to give up the things on which I was obsessing, even as much as the obsession was painful.  Life without the addiction seemed boring.  I wanted the excitement.  So I told Him all this.  And I told Him I needed His help:  not even with stopping anything, but with wanting to stop.  I told Him I didn’t even want to do what He wanted me to do, so please help me WANT to want to do it.

And now here I am, a few weeks later, even-ing out.

Pretty fucking tolerant of Him, I gotta say.  Kinda like going to a husband and saying, “I don’t love you.  Would you help me love you?”  WTF?  But even Doubting Thomas, when he saw the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side, said, “Lord, help me with my unbelief!”  You’re standing here and I STILL don’t believe.  Please DO MORE.

That’s why when my husband talks about what a vengeful asshole God is I get furious.  If I were God, I would beat the shit out of me.  I can’t believe He doesn’t.  I am such an asshole.  I expect everything, have temper-tantrums when I don’t get what I want, and am ungrateful for all I have.  I am a petulant child that needs an ass-beating and to be sent to my room until I am prepared to play nice.

So there is my prayer for today.  God, please help me to be less of an asshole.