Oh No You DIDN'T!!

This is my first post from my phone.
I gave up trying to post on my phone. Fucking pain in the ass. Beware, there is angry venting to follow:

I am having some serious issues, yo. My stepBIL got out of jail for the fucking hundredth time just before Christmas, because there is nothing like having the potential of a unconscious, naked, drug addict to make your Christmas merry. This is not an exaggeration by the way. It is what he does. Shoots up, gets butt-assed naked, and then passes out somewhere. Sometimes in his parked car, sometimes in the doorway of his trailer (when he lived in a trailer park and all sorts of people can see him), sometimes on a front lawn or maybe on my FIL's living room floor. After breaking into the house, stealing things, loading up his car and then POOF! Nakid and passed the fuck out. He was recently convicted of indecent exposure due to this habit. I don't know why he does this and I really don't care. He's an addict. He's never been a normal, responsible human being even before the drugs. But the problem isn't him. It is merely a piece of the fucked up puzzle I call the relationship I have with my FIL and stepMIL.

Before TB and I were together, he avoided his stepBro whenever he could and just lived his life. Now that I am in the picture, things are a bit different for all of us. There are children involved. The first time that my stepBIL appeared on the scene for me was summer of 2007. He got out of jail, I tried to be open-minded, he ended up back in jail. Rinse, repeat. TB and I decided that as long as stepBIL was an active addict with all the surrounding behaviors, we did not want to be around him. We did not want him in our house (or to even know where we live, etc.) We would not spend holidays with him when he was not spending them in the pokey. If he is ever able to be clean and sober for six months we have stated that we will revisit the situation. Until then, no way.

The last year has been supremely fucked up. StepBIL has been in and out of jail several times, and each time he gets out the issue is pressed by my FIL and stepMIL. We hold our ground, they say that he is CHANGED and DIFFERENT and this time it will be ALL BETTER. He's going to go back to school and get his high school diploma! He's going to BLAH BLAH BLAH. He relapses and goes back to jail within a couple of months. He has gotten thrown into jail for possession and violation of parole so many times I can't keep track without looking up his rap sheet. I'd like to add that many, many functional human beings do many, many drugs and go their whole lives without ending up in jail. He's obviously doing it wrong.

When he is out of jail, he gets a car, a place to live, money for food, clothes, etc. Even if the last car was towed and left in impound. He gets anything he needs. And right now they are buying him some land with a trailer on it so he always has some place to live when he gets out of jail. He gets kicked out of every place they put him, even though everything is paid for by his mom and stepdad. He doesn't have to work, go to school, stay sober, be a functional member of society. They give him everything and wonder why he doesn't stay clean.

All of which wouldn't matter to me, if it wasn't for the fact that I get blamed every time shit blows up. It's MY fault that we won't allow the children to be around my stepBIL. My FIL doesn't like ME. I'm not a good wife because I don't have his midwestern values. I don't cook dinner every night with makeup on and my hair done. I'm disrespectful of my marriage, looking all shitty like I do most days. I have endured years of snarky, passive-aggressive comments from my FIL. TB tells him not to say XYZ and his dad apologizes. Then does it again. I suck because I breastfeed with my dirty, nasty titties. I am a crappy mother because I put a hat on Egg when it is cold outside even though he doesn't LIKE hats. Everything is my fault. I am dividing the family by keeping away from my stepBIL. I don't make my FIL feel comfortable in my home. The list goes on and on and on....it always comes back to me. I did something wrong. (These are examples of the things that my FIL tells TB that I do wrong by the way, except for the breastfeeding which is only snarked at and not directly mentioned.)

A few days before Christmas we made dinner plans with my FIL to go to a restaurant and exchange gifts. We couldn't go to my FIL's house because my stepBIL was there, and a nice dinner out seemed like a good idea. My FIL was deciding on whether he should invite his wife, because she gets upset when he invites her to do things with us. (According to him.) Two hours before the dinner reservations my FIL calls my SIL (she is visiting us from Texas) decides that stepBIL and my stepMIL need to be at the restaurant. He states that it is a public place and we cannot stop them from showing up and sitting at the table next to us

TB calls his dad on the phone and tells him that we will not be meeting them at the restaurant. It gets ugly and TB raises his voice at his dad, something I have never heard. His dad threatens "Grandparents' rights" during the conversation if we try to keep Egg away from him. I quickly asked Google about it, and in the state of California where the biological parents are married, there are NO grandparents' rights through the court system. However, the fact that he mentioned this makes me very unhappy, to put it mildly. To have someone with fairly vast resources threaten to get visitation of your child BY LEGAL FORCE when that person lives with a volatile drug addict is terrible. To have it happen three days before Christmas really sucks balls. Merry Fucking Christmas everybody!

If you've been reading my Tweets today, you are likely impatiently tapping your toes. You want to know what I make TB do that is SO TERRIBLE AND AWFUL. You see, TB had breakfast with his father yesterday to attempt to hash out some of the crap that we have been dealing with for the last few years. During this meal my FIL told TB that he is unhappy with the things that I make my husband do, things that are My Agenda. This meal that is supposed to be about Respecting Our Decision Not To Be Around Drug Addicts and No More Badmouthing The Wife (me) is now about the things that I do that are NO GOOD. Of course!!

So? You ready for it? I made my husband go to the dentist and get much-needed dental work done. Approximately 10k of dental work because he finally had a job with dental insurance. I held him in the dentist's chair and forced root canals on him. If you are wondering, this wasn't cosmetic work. It was, "Your mouth is falling the fuck apart and you need to fix it before you are wearing dentures at age thirty." I feel terrible that he can eat and drink comfortably and is not in pain anymore, especially since I could have used that money for hookers and blow.

The other thing that I Am Guilty Of is pushing my husband to go back to school. I recently ordered his college transcript to see where he was and what is needed to earn his Bachelor's Degree. I went back to school when I was 25 and it was one of the best things I have done for myself. I'm proud that I have a college education and I want him to feel that, too. I am trying to convince him that he can start soon, taking one class per semester and I will pick up the slack around the house. It will be hard with a baby to care for, but he can do it and I can support him in achieving this goal. That's what spouses do, right?

The end result is that I am sadder than I have been in a long time. It really hurts to be disliked so much by TB's dad and stepmom. It hurts that every time TB talks to his dad he is hopeful that things will change, and then is hurt by the reality of the situation. But this time is different, because I am FUCKING OVER THIS SHIT. They are not welcome in my home, for any reason. They shall not see Egg. They shall not interfere with my marriage. They are going to have to do some serious fucking work before I will consider letting them into my life again. Fuck That Shit. I have had enough.

What The FUCK?

This picture from Ugliest Tattoos is my way of showing you what the past few days have been like for me. You know when shit just get so fucked up and crazy that a picture of a tramp stamp that says, "Cum Slutt" just fits? Yeah, that's my life right now. You see, once upon a time, long, long ago I was BFF with someone that I met on the innernets. Our friendship ended badly. Terribly. Horribly. Eventually I found out that there were other people that had experienced something very similar to what had happened to me. One of us started a private blog, and we used it like a forum but with only one topic: the BFF. No one from the outside was invited to see this blog except for our little group. I didn't talk about it on the innernets because it was private.

It was a support group. We supported each other and as time went by others joined the group as they were burned by the BFF. And then one day the BFF googled herself and found a reference to the support group. She couldn't read it because it is private. All she could do is see some of the people involved. Under the pretense of worrying about her career and upcoming custody case, she went on the offense and started up some shit. Threatening, blackmailing, etc. etc. Now, here is what she found:

Sorry for the horrible paint work. The things I blacked out were the BFF's real name and the users that were in the group. Any person coming across this would not know what they were looking at in the least. The blog is private, so no one could get in and read. BFF had no idea what is inside, and neither would any employer, judge, ex-husband, etc. This blurb on google could in no way hurt the BFF (except for her feelings).

Have I mentioned fourteen times that the blog was private? None of my readers were invited to read. The only person in my life that knew about it was my husband. That's it. But BFF lost her shit and started threatening law suits, emailing employers, boyfriends, etc. I got this little gem: "oh I KNOW I'll make sure all three of YOUR sons' fathers get some education" as a comment on my blog. (I deleted it.) Which uh?! really?! I haven't seen my first son's father since 1994. I have no idea where he is at this time. And what would that accomplish? You can't lose custody of a child that you gave up for adoption 15 years prior. Any way, I didn't DO anything and yet I'm getting threatened. She wanted me to take down the blog, which I am not the owner of and cannot take down.

Eventually, the owner took the blog down. However! Someone that is NOT me decided to lay The Smack Down on BFF, and emailed her with strict instructions: leave everyone and their families alone. At first someone else was blamed, but then I got accused of The Smack Down. Seriously? I don't have the time or energy for a smacking. One thing that makes me sad about all of this is that I approach friendships, online and offline, differently now. Not simply because of this weekend's drama, but all of the badness that happened.

I take things slower and I'm not so inclined to go "OMGURMYBFF4EVAR" anymore. If you want to be my friend, don't take it personally if I don't put out on the first date. I hate drama. I prefer raunchy jokes and saying "fuck" too many times. I'll be glad when all of this blows over and I can get back to my miserable teething baby. Which is totally preferable to a flipped-out former BFF.

Epic Parenting Fail

Last week I got a few puzzling texts from Chicken. He wanted to know what kind of guns we had, which guns he had shot, what caliber of rifle he got for getting straight A's all year, etc. I asked him what was going on, and he replied via text that he was going shooting with his father. He texted me a list of the guns they were taking and I was very worried.

You see, we have found out through careful trial and error that Chicken enjoys shooting a .22 rifle and that is about it. He doesn't like indoor ranges at all because of the noise, and anything louder or more powerful than the .22 is upsetting to him. Even my .22 handgun he didn't like one bit. This isn't a problem at all. We can take him to an outdoor range and let him shoot targets with his rifle all day and he is a happy camper.

He communicated this to his father, who assured him that he would have fun and they would not be going to an indoor range. Until they pulled into the parking lot of the indoor range. H1 convinced Chicken to give it a try and they went into the range. The combination of the type of handguns (think .38, .44, .45 caliber) and the nearby firing of a shotgun flipped Chicken out and he ended up crying in the middle of the range. They had to leave, and Chicken felt badly because his father spent $70 which they could ill afford to waste.

His father didn't listen to him, lied to him, and Chicken ended up feeling guilty about crying and ruining the day. I was really angry, but now I'm just sad. Sad that Chicken has an asshole for a biological father. Sad that I let him down by picking a loser. Sad that he can't trust his father to keep him safe physically and mentally. But slightly happy that later Chicken stepped all over his father's dick.

Chicken's dad and step-mother smoke in the house. Every time Chicken comes home, all his clothes are freshly washed and still reek of smoke. I told Chicken that if he can think of a way to tell his step-mom or dad nicely not to bother washing his clothes to do so. I figured it would save them the trouble and the clothes extra wear and tear. Well, Chicken told his dad. *giggles* I guess twelve year-olds are lacking in tact maybe? Chicken said that his dad looked like someone had kicked him in the balls. "Hey H1, that was me. Kicking ya in the sack. That's for making my kid cry. KTHXBAI!!"

The Truth About Gay Marriage

Wait...I thought...oh. Really? Hmmmm. What about? So that's it? Gay people get to marry? Equal rights, tax benefits, health care, etc. for gay couples. That's what we're talking about? That's cool. Why is that illegal again?

From ace.

Procrastination

Procrastination is the beginning of many posts for bloggers I am willing to bet. I am currently procrastinating dealing with PAPERWORK. Oh how I fucking hate dealing with the mound of papers, most of which will end up in recycling anyway. Why they can't get their on their own I have no clue. Papers be gone!

Since we are here enjoying a stolen moment, I'd like to talk about May. Specifically why I only posted one single fucking time in May. Yes, it was partially Egg and taking care of the house, but mostly it was because I had something so big in my head that I couldn't think of anything else. And yet I wasn't sure if I could write about this thing. You know how Dooce once said that eventually the one person that you don't want to read your blog will read it? I was worried about my step-mother-in-law, (we'll call her Smile because I am awesomely creative) reading my blog if I talked about what was happening. And then I finally came to terms with the fact that I needed to talk about it. I need advice and support and whatever you dear readers can provide. Because this shit is driving me nuts.

Teddy Bear has a step-brother that is twenty-five years old and he has a drug problem. The kind of drug problem that lands him in jail more than he is out of jail. He overdoses, drives under the influence, steals, lies, passes out naked in various inappropriate places (seriously, this guy LOVES to get high and nude). His mother (Smile) and step-father (TB's bio dad) support him. He gets money for food, a place to live, a used car every 6 months or so (they get impounded eventually), and had not yet been forced to get a full-time job and clean up his act. He has had issues his whole life. And he has relied on his mother taking care of him his whole life. I don't think he is a bad person, I just think he is missing something that drives people to grow up and be sober.

Most of the time StepBro isn't an issue-he is in jail. But when he is out of jail TB and I avoid going to Smile's house because we don't want to be around him. We managed to do this without pissing Smile off due to creative stories and a bit of old-fashioned lying. We did not want to come out and say, "Sorry! We don't want to be around your son" for fear of royally pissing her off. Well, then Egg was born. And TB's sister came into town to visit Egg. And everyone was invited to have dinner at Smile's house. We said we would certainly be there, until we found out that StepBro was fresh out of jail and at Smile's house. Fuck. We declined. The shit hit the motherfucking fan, and eventually we received a nasty letter from Smile.

We haven't gone to Smile's house since. We have said (through TB's dad) that we won't bring our children there if StepBro is there, and the response is that StepBro is always welcome at Smile's house. TB's dad is currently limited to breakfast on Saturday mornings with us, away from his home with Smile. He has said that Smile will not even look at pictures of Egg, the first grandchild and one that she loved dearly.

So! I need your comments, please n thank you. What do you think about this? TB and I want StepBro to have some number of months of sobriety behind him before we even consider bringing Egg and Chicken around him. In addition, there is a restraining order that states StepBro is not to be with his mother, step-father, or at their house. So the cops could potentially show up and arrest him for violating his probation, a situation that I do not think is one that any child should have to witness. This seriously sucks, people. It makes my head and my heart hurt.

New Post

Up at the private blog.

Don't have an invite? Ask!

I Did Not Know

Throughout this post I am going to skip many parts. I have a method to my madness and eventually all of it will be told.

I was reading an infertility blog the other day and the author was talking about adoption. In her opinion she didn't see what the fuss was about with first mothers. These girls chose to give up their children so there was no pain involved, right? Then the author saw an interaction between a first mother, an adoptive mother and a new baby. The first mother was visibly upset. The author realized that with the choice to give up a child there can be pain. (At this point in time I prefer the term first mother to birth mother. We do much more than simply give birth.)

Growing up I did not especially like children or babies. My friends babysat as much as possible, talked about babies and children and generally acted like girls, I suppose. I didn't have a great mother-daughter bond with my mom, and I didn't feel especially liked as a child. I don't have any siblings, either. When I reached my teen years I thought I would go to college, eventually marry, and at some point have children because that is what a person did with her life. I wasn't looking forward to much beyond college and a career at that point.

When I found myself pregnant suddenly the option to have an abortion disappeared in my mind. I had friends that had abortions, I had taken a friend to get an abortion, and I believed (and still do) in choice. But my brain screamed, "This is a BABY" and so the option was never on the table. My on/off boyfriend and I were currently in the "off" mode (yeah, except for the occasional sex) and he was not interested in being a daddy. I was 19, living on my own and trying to figure out how to get back into school while working full-time. I was worried.

Worried about raising a baby in an environment where I resented him-because that was how I felt. Worried about shuttling him from daycare to babysitter-because that was how I lived. Besides, adoption is a win-win situation, right? Society tells us that babies get a loving home, the first mother goes back to her life, and everyone is happy. I went to a few different places to find answers, one place showed me videos of a fetus and cautioned against abortion. Killing babies is BAD. I didn't find them especially useful, and their scare tactics meant nothing to me. I didn't want an abortion. I wanted answers. I needed help.

I went to Planned Parenthood and a counselor talked with me. I told her what I wanted to do, and she told me that giving my baby up for adoption was a very difficult path. BAH! My life was a difficult path. I had an idea that being pregnant and giving birth was difficult, but giving up a baby that I didn't want or need? Not a big deal at all. I was doing GOOD! for other people! and it would all be roses and sunshine at the end.

I saw a counselor through this whole process. I knew her from previous fucked up shit in my life and trusted her completely. After it was all over she told me that her children were adopted, but she didn't want to sway my decision by telling me in the beginning. She didn't want me to make my choice to please her. I want to believe that as an adoptive mother she didn't know the other side of adoption. She did quote me statistics about first mothers getting pregnant again after the first year or two to replace the baby that they lost. I didn't understand it at the time. My logical brain thought that you gave your baby up and walked away. End of story, right?

I picked adoptive parents early and bonded with them right away. I began to think of my son as theirs, a package that I was simply holding onto until it was time for them to take it. It wasn't my baby, it was theirs. The pregnancy was easy, I was twenty years old and everything was going to be fine. I was doing the right thing for everyone.

Toward the end of my pregnancy things got a little weird in my head. I bonded with my son, something that I did not expect to do at all. I struggled through more than 24 hours of labor and his adoptive mother was right there at my side when he was born. I spent the day with him in the hospital, holding him and sharing him with friends that visited. My counselor came to check on me, to see how I was doing and to see my son. Finally, I gave him to his new parents and left the hospital.

My friends took turns staying the with me night and day. As long as there was someone there I mostly kept it together. I'm not good at falling apart in front of people. Growing up I learned that it was more painful to cry in front of someone that didn't give a shit than to cry alone. Eventually I was left alone to feel what I had bottled up inside, and the pain was beyond belief.

Recently a friend that is going through a divorce remarked that she did not know how I had gone through two divorces. I told her that divorce was not even close to the worst pain I had gone through in my life. My life has not been easy and I have been through a fuckton of trauma, but nothing has even come close to the horror of losing my son.

One might say, "But Sam, why didn't you just ask for him back. The adoption wasn't final." This is where my bond with the adoptive parents fucked me in the ass. I could not hurt them by taking away my son. I just couldn't. How could I put them through the same pain that was killing me? I had heard horror stories of selfish first mothers that backed out of adoptions. I didn't want to be that person.

I wish I could describe the pain in a way that anyone could understand. The only thing that kept me from directly killing myself was my previous experience with suicide. (You can find it here: part 1 part 2) For those of you that don't want to visit/revisit those posts, I have a Reader's Digest version: I was 15 and my boyfriend killed himself in my house while I was home. It was horrible and I vowed to never inflict that kind of pain on anyone. So I didn't. I was stuck, alive, and wishing I was dead.

Do you know what I wish now? I wish that someone would have told me that I could parent. That I would not be my mother. That I would love my child and I would make it work. I wish I knew about the bond between a mother and her child. I wish that someone would have told me that the pain of adoption would last my lifetime and that it would become the only thing in my life that I regret.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Continued from previous post...

Or, the part in the story where I lose my fucking shit and act like an asshole. I am not sure how this story fit into three days, but my Swiss cheese brain insists that H1 was only out to sea for that long. After I had confirmation from the hospital that my baby was dead my 21-year old brain decided that the best way to deal with everything was to head to the bar. There have been times in my life where I have drank way too much (hello to my 15-year old self!) but this was not one of them. Since moving to Virginia in April, I had found a job and started working full-time. That was about the extent of my exciting life. My job? Oh thanks for asking, I would have forgot/blocked it out. I was a manager of a portrait photography studio. Where I took pictures of babies all fucking day. Less than a year after giving up my first-born son. Dumb ass!

Hmm...okay I was at the bar, drunk and being ridiculous when I found a nice young man that took me home with him. Except we were both wasted and for the first and last time in my life I drove drunk. He left his car at the bar. Obviously we weren't screwing like weasels because uh? miscarriage? but I remember being a drunken fool, sleeping in his bed, and crying my fucking eyes out. The next day I drove home and found a freaked out husband.

He came home in the morning, and I expected him in the afternoon. When he couldn't find me he talked to the neighbor who informed him that I had lost the baby. He thought I had flipped out and left town so he called EVERYONE we knew to try and find me. Those conversations went something like this: "Hi this is H1. Do you know where Sam is? She miscarried while I was out to sea and now I can't find her." ... "Oh, yes, she was pregnant. We hadn't told anyone yet." My uncle in New York? Called him. My mother in California? Called her. Everyone in between? Yep! Thanks H1! You're the best!!!

There was one final outside insult to be borne through all of this misery: my mother-in-law. You see, she is a fucking lunatic. Back in the day, she used to call H1 and myself at midnight, one or two in the morning to chat. We didn't answer the phone because we had these tricky little things called jobs and we slept during the night. In my MIL's mind, we didn't pick up the phone because we were out partying all night. THEREFORE I didn't have a miscarriage in her fucked up waste of a mind. I waited until H1 went out to sea and had an abortion because being pregnant was detrimental to my kickass social life.

The cunt instructed H1 to check out my discharge papers that stated I had a "spontaneous abortion" and there you fucking have it. It said abortion, right? FUCK. I think I convinced H1 that a spontaneous abortion is big people talk for a miscarriage but that fucking bitch never believed it. If someone came up to me and said, "I am going to kill these innocent people unless you pick one person for me to kill instead," I would pick that woman in a heartbeat. And at this point I bet her two sons would applaud the decision.

That was the last of people being fucked up about my miscarriage, but my super cool psyche decided that the ride wasn't over. I was convinced that my baby had died because I gave my son up for adoption, that I didn't deserve a child, that I was being punished, and I would never carry a child to term. This is why I have the label, "some fucked up shit."

Vomit From The Past

*warning: this post talks about a miscarriage that happened in 1995*

I married Chicken's father on March 15, 1995 after a whirlwind courtship. Beware the Ides of March, indeed. We started trying to get pregnant that summer, exactly when I am not sure because the dates are hazy at this point. I do remember that in August of 1995 I was suffering from severe lower back pain and I went to the doctor. Before the doctor would give me any medication he made me take a pregnancy test, even though I protested that I had been off of depo provera for only a month. Guess what? I was pregnant.

I was fucking overjoyed. Giving my son up for adoption had left a jagged hole inside me. I wanted a baby so badly, I wanted to quiet the screaming in my head. Not the best reason to get pregnant, but there was no logic to be found at the time. A few weeks later, a hurricane threatened the coast of Virginia, and my husband had to leave on along with his ship. He was, and still is, active duty Navy. Whenever a large storm approaches all the ships in port head for the ocean to avoid being smashed against the piers. He was gone for three days.

Shortly after he left I started bleeding, bright red blood. I drove straight to the nearest Naval emergency room. I had only lived in Virginia for a few months, and we had no family or friends at the time beside one neighbor. When I arrived at the hospital the first thing I remember seeing was a HUGE sign indicating that if you were pregnant, less than 20 weeks along, you were screwed. It was not an emergency and oh, by the way, fuck you. I estimate that I was between six and eight weeks along then, although I suppose I could root through my medical file and figure it out for sure.

I waited, and waited, and waited in the emergency room waiting area. Finally they called me back, put me in a room and asked me questions for what seemed like an eternity. They examined me. They asked me if I was sure that I was pregnant about 100 times. I told them that I had a confirming blood test at XYZ clinic and to call them. It didn't seem to do any good. I was scared, alone, stressed and freaked the fuck out. Eventually they said that the only thing they could do was a blood test and I could come back and get the results the next day. They drew blood and sent me home to bleed. I drove myself home.

I went home, alone, and got into bed. I have not ever, aside from giving birth to a full-term baby had cramps like I had that day, into the next and the next. The pain was horrific, but at least it temporarily blotted out the emotional pain. I went back waited for the results. And waited, and waited, and fucking waited some more. In the end, someone noticed me standing and patiently waiting and asked what I needed. I told them what happened, the person looked up the number and said, "Oh, it was probably already dead when you came in, the number was really low" and walked away as I stood there with my mouth open. I went home.

To Be Continued...

Break

Dear Friends (Bloggy and Otherwise),

I am taking a short break from people. Don't take it personally if you don't hear from me. I'll be back (in real life and in blogland) when I am feeling better.

Sam

Andre Part II

I'm very tired, so this post may need some revision in the morning.

---

The paramedics worked on Andre and took him away. He was life-flighted to the nearest hospital and was pronounced during the flight. I knew that he was dead, I had no hopes of visiting him in the hospital. He was gone.

The cops arrived at some point and took over the scene. This included questioning of the witnesses. Still drunk, I was sat in the back of the police car for an endless barrage of questioning. At one point, sick with grief and horror I lost my collective shit. I yelled "Okay fine! You want to hear what happened? I did it. I fired the gun from the couch, it bounced off the sliding glass window, bounced off the file cabinet, bounced off the refrigerator and then went into Andre's head. That's how it happened. Are you happy now? You know, I never understood why people hated cops. And now I know." The interview was over.

I went to a friend's house and stayed for a few days, unable to come home to the scene of the crime, so to speak. When my father finally told me that I had to come home, I dreaded being in that house, in that kitchen. Here is where I have to add a little "Sam's Backstory" for you...

My beloved father was an alcoholic for most of his life. He was the type that drank a pot of coffee in the morning, and when it was done he opened his first beer of the day. He continued to drink until he went to bed. I saw him drunk once during the time I lived with him. He was the most mellow man I have ever known, and probably drank due to undiagnosed anxiety. (Which was later diagnosed and treated.) This does not excuse his behavior, but does explain it. My father was fairly dead, emotionally while he was drinking. When he later stopped drinking, he started to show "appropriate" emotional responses for most things. In the death of Andre, his attitude and responses were crap. /backstory

I came back home to another horror, only this time I was sober. The kitchen had be mostly cleaned while I was gone, but there was considerable work still to be done. The notes left by the police officers were still on the file cabinet and I will never forget the one that was noted "brain matter" with a number. The others were mostly "blood splatter" and the like. There were small spots of blood on the cabinets, along the baseboards, in the cracks of the floor... it looked fine from a distance, but it needed a good scrubbing. And because my dad viewed me as the cause of the mess because I brought Andre in our home, it was my job to clean up the kitchen.

Did you know that the littlest spots of dried blood take a very long time to clean up? I used a bucket of clean water and a sponge, and cleaned that kitchen for an eternity. Every spot on the floor turned into a pink puddle when I applied water. I hated my father that day, for making me relive the horror spot after bloody spot. I had nightmares for years after, where the original pools of blood would reappear again and again. It is difficult to convey what broke inside me that day, scrubbing up the last splatters of blood that once was a part of Andre. I see the notes that the cops left, the red water on the floor, all the horror is still there after 18 years.

To Be Continued...

Pause

Well, Teddy Bear and I are alone on a rainy Sunday afternoon and we decide to watch a movie together. TB has recently procured a few films and we started to watch Iwo Jima. I am a huge Clint Eastwood fan, TB got the movie specifically for me, and I was excited to watch the film. About an hour into the film I started to feel a little...bad. You see, normally I can deal with graphic violence on television but lately I have been processing a little bit of FUN! and GAMES! from my past. (See post below or just take my word for it.) Letters from Iwo Jima was not the best pick for me, personally. I got to the point where the Japanese soldiers begin to blow themselves to shit with hand grenades to give "glory to the Emperor" and I had to call a stop to the entertainment. TB put in the next movie, which I wisely pulled up on Imdb and looked up the parental guide information. I'm not in the mood for blood and gore today, and I'd like to give an old-fashioned "shout out" to Imdb for saving me some grief.

Teddy Bear's next four picks were on the Top 10 list of blah blah and he thought we would enjoy them. Let's see what they were, shall we? I have included part of the violence description from Imdb and links to the parental guides.

3:10 To Yuma: A wounded man is covered in blood, and a doctor inserts a pliers-like instrument into the patient's chest and brings out a bullet while the patient groans (blood spills down the patient's shirtfront and the scene ends).

Eastern Promises: Infrequent, but incredibly graphic violence. During the fight, he puts a curved dagger behind and mans head and slams his head back against it, the man screams and convolts as the dagger enters his brain. Another man is stabbed in the chest, but he is still alive and the nude man has to finish him off by stabbing him in the eye (a pool of blood quickly forms under his head.) In the film's first five minutes a mobster has his throat sawed through with a razor. Two men cut the throat of a young man while he is urinating, you cannot see what happened until the man removes his scarf, revealing a large gash and blood pours out like a fountain.

The Kingdom: The film opens with a suicide bombing of innocent civilians. There is frequent, often graphic scenes of violence throughout the film. There is brutal beatings(a man getting dragged around and punched repeatedly, marks of blood are seen on his face and neck later and a man is seen getting tortured early in the film.), plus people being shot in several different ways(head, chest, stomach, etc.).

Atonement: There are a scenes containing images of war victims and wounds, some soldiers have eyes missing, some are missing arms or legs, and there is a man with a visible hole in his head, showing the damaged flesh and matted blood.

That last sentence left me in almost tears with the WTF?! factor. TB and I were laughing our asses off because at the end of the day, what else can you do? I will finish up my Bank of America and Andre posts soon and hopefully get both of the topics out of my brain.

Andre Part I

For the past few weeks I have been seeing a shrink, the kind that you talk to about your feelings as opposed to the kind that writes in illegible print on a teeny tiny pad of paper that you clasp to your heart and then RUN LIKE FUCKING HELL to the pharmacy before it melts in your hands. Because at the end of the day, pharmaceuticals pretty much make my life almost worth living. Add in a kid and a husband and BLOODY HELL I must go on with this worthless farce of a fucking life.

Please note that I am blogging while, let's face it, heavily medicated right now, with the kinds of medication that allow me to both sleep and blog and then forget about the blogging until the morning when I read my latest entry and think to my self "Self, what the FUCK were you thinking last night? Some of those sentences end in prepositions and I believe three of those words aren't even English at all. And did you really tell the Innernets all that? Really? Wow. You must have been storing that shit up. Best make a new category for that one." Like "Your shit is irrevocably FUCKED UP" or, as the shrink said today "Your mother has: no empathy, no mothering skills, is an empty hole and THANK BABY JESUS and his father that she had her uterus removed six months after giving birth to you." Maybe I"ll just label it "My Childhood" no, that's too bland. Too vanilla. How about "Some Fucked Up Shit"? Yes, that sounds grand. I will it to be done.

Are you ready for the post? Wait-first you must know that my shrink is an older lady. One that has lived through stage five gillion lung cancer and is still listening to people complain about shitty childhoods. She takes notes while listening to me whine about stupid shit on big yellow legal pads. It's fun. You should try it! Oh, the story...FINE. I'll tell the fucking story. I've been holding out on you. I'm a bitch that way. Note: If you are not in the mood to read something that is sad/tragic/holy fuck, I would move on to Cute Overload! :). Seriously. This is some bad shit, even for Sam's Stories Standards.

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I began dating Andre on the eighth day of August in 1988. I was 14, he was 17. He was fairly messed up boy, his father enjoyed drinking and then whipping Andre with a belt and he had scars across half of his back. His mother just cowered in a corner and drank quietly. I tried to help Andre, to fix his hurts and get him on a better track in his life. I tried to take care of him, to love him and make everything okay. In return he loved me and abused me, helped me and tormented me. It was the only way he knew to love. As a child I had seen much worse in the relationships between my mother and her various men, although it was a miserable way to live I didn't know any better.

Six months into our relationship my mother shipped me off to live with my father, a man a barely knew that lived 1 1/2 hours away. My relationship with Andre stumbled and continued, he got a motorcycle and came to visit often. Our relationship was off and on, and during one of the "off" times he raped me. Afterward, in the shower I wanted to scrap out my insides. I felt so disgusting and vile. I hated my body. Andre explained to me, "But you were so beautiful I couldn't help myself." I laughed bitterly. It wasn't the first time it had happened to me, but it was the first time Andre had done it.

Another time we were staying the night at his friend's house in a sketchy park of Oceanside. I don't remember if we were on or off at the time, but I did remember not wanting to have sex with him. He bought some liquor and proceeded to push me to get really drunk. I still didn't want to have sex with him. He picked me up and put me in a corner and every time I dozed off he held my head up by grabbing me under the chin. If he couldn't get laid, then I wasn't going to get to sleep. At one point he picked me up and put me outside the house (in the middle of the night in a bad neighborhood in my nightgown) and locked the door. Eventually he let me back into the house. I laid down and tried to go to sleep, but every time I feel asleep he started touching me sexually. I ended up being awake all night. It was (at the time) the longest night of my life. He terrorized me. A lot of the summer of 1989 is a blur to me.

Andre's life began to spin out of control during that summer. He stole a truck, attempted to use the credit cards he found in it and was arrested. They released him on his own recognizance until his next court date. At that time he was likely going to jail. He decided to come visit me for a week before his court date, his last "hurrah" before serving his sentence. He stayed with a male friend of mine as my father wouldn't let him crash at my house, but the three of us partied and hung out for a week. Teri was in his mid twenties, Andre was 18 now and I was 15. We drank and drank and drank some more, cruised about town and partied with the locals. It was fun. My one year anniversary with Andre was during this time, and although we were not dating we were somewhat together, just not sexually.

On the day after our "anniversary" (8-9-89), Andre urged Teri and I to play quarters with him. I had never played, therefore I sucked ass. Therefore I got WASTED. Teri was a pro, so he was sober. I only know this because Teri stated at the beginning of the game that he would not be drinking anything due to his rock star skills with quarters. I have no idea how sober/trashed Andre was at the end of our quarters game. All I know is that I walked out of the kitchen, laid down on my dad's couch and planned to PTFO (pass the fuck out). Teri sat beside me on the couch, and the room spun a bit.

The next thing I remember was hearing Teri say something like "Oh shit he's got a gun" and then a REALLY loud noise that sounded suspiciously like a gunshot in close quarters. I had spent enough time out shooting with my father that when the acrid smell of gunpowder hit my nose I knew someone had fired one of my father's guns. He kept many in the house, and several loaded as we lived in a very rural area. I jumped up and found Andre lying on my kitchen floor. Terri scrambled to call 9-1-1. I heard this terrible screaming and then I realized it was me. Andre had shot himself in the right temple with a .357 Magnum revolver loaded with hollow points. (If you know what hollow points are designed to do, I don't need to tell you much more. If you don't know, I'll not describe it here.) The blood coming out of his head reminded me of a garden house turned on full blast, while a trickle of blood was coming out of the other side of his head. I looked into his eyes, the beautiful brown eyes that I had loved and hated and I knew he was gone. His eyes were empty, he was dead.

To Be Continued...