Odds and (very loose) ends.

I woke up in a funk this morning and it sucks. I'm having one of those "I need order in my life and I NEED IT NOW!" days so my plan is to spend today finishing up a bunch of things. I started painting my bedroom almost 2 weeks ago, which means I've been sleeping in my recliner for almost two weeks, and I'm finally in the homestretch of finishing all the trim in there. It makes me so sad because I used to be able to whip a room painting out in one day, maybe two. Having RA stops that kind of work in its tracks and yeah, it makes me sad. I love painting but this project has really made me come to terms with my own reality. Jake offers to help constantly but I'm so picking about neatness and trimming I know I'll just get aggravated with him and that's unfair to him. So, I've muddled through and am nearly done. It's not my finest work, but it'll do. I am excited about putting it all back together with new bedding, lamps, curtains when I find some...it's going to be so pretty. But right now? It's a loose end that is stressing me out. The best part? I get to do the bathroom when I'm done in the bedroom. I don't want to think about that right now.

We're having our first "cold front" of the season come through in the next couple of days. "Cold' is a relative term, mind you. We're going to drop down into the 80's and be less humid, but hey, I'll take what I can get. It's time to do a good Fall cleaning, wash up all the fall and winter throws, quilts and pillows, buy a few little gourds to sit around and start thinking about holiday baking. While I normally love all this, today it just makes me feel overwhelmed. *sigh*

Another thing adding to my funkalicious mood is that day after tomorrow, my mom turns 81. She and I have had a...precarious is best word, I think...relationship my entire life. We love one another very much but she wanted a daughter who was just like her and she got me. I'm my dad all over again in many ways and it's caused for many times of distance and hurt. As recently as a year ago, we would go 3 months without calling or seeing one another and we live 7 houses apart. Both of us would feel slighted and hurt over something stupid and refuse to call the other...in that way, we are very much alike. But last year, she turned 80 and reality began to really sink in about how little time I have left with her. In that same time frame, a dear friend lost her mother, a mother with whom she'd had the same kind of relationship and while they definitely were close at the end, I realized I don't want to wait until the end with mine. It was a wake-up call I sorely needed and in this past year, I've made a point of never letting more than a day go without calling her. It was hard, forced at first, because my mind was still being all petty thinking about how I've called her the last 4 times and being hurt she wasn't calling me back. But I'd think of Robin and her mom, pick up the phone and dial. A funny thing happened along the way...my mom and I became friends. After all these years, we now pick up the phone or run by the others house constantly, sharing bits of news or splitting b1g1 items from the grocery store. I admit to making some sacrifices for this relationship with her and they're hard ones. For example, I used to be fairly active in the local lesbian community, attending functions and fundraisers and having many friends I did things with. It upset my mom fiercely, this is something she just cannot accept about me, but in the end I accepted I was going to have to give something up and shut down a part of my life, one way or another. And really, between the two? My mom wins, hands down. I've pretty well become my mom, in fact, this past year...I live the life of an old lady but it's okay. You know why it's okay? Because, while my mom is still spry and feisty, be-bopping through Walmart in her Chucks and Tweety bird t-shirts, when I hug her now she's tiny, so delicate and frail feeling. She's like a little bird and that? Breaks my heart. I know my time with her is limited now, probably in the single digits of years, so whatever I have to be, whatever I have to give up? Is nothing. It is inconsequential compared to what I am getting in return. Hopefully I have many years ahead of me that I can pick up my life and become "me" again but this? Is her time now. Today, though? I'm feeling a little selfish and it's feeling a little unfair. It'll pass the next time I hug her but still... *sighs some more*

Add into all this that Jake is *feeling* 18 and what little grip I had on his sense of (ir)responsibility and (lack of) common sense has now become just a fleeting memory. I'll be lucky if the boy doesn't wind up living in the back of a Ford Windstar with a primered door or two, all so that he can play in his band and do hair. Yes indeedy, I've been informed he wants to study cosmetology. Now, I have no problem at all with that, in and of itself, but I keep trying to get him to understand that unless he wants to be the guy at Fantastic Sam's who does great blue hair, he needs to also study something practical in the business field, so that his goal can be owning his own salon and being able to run it properly. But, oooooooh, noooooo, apparently he plans on living life as if it is a Beatles song. Dumbass kid. I love him to death, but he is a just a dumbass kid sometimes.

Then, just to make life more fun, my recliner broke.

Marilyn, is that you??

Oh, wait, no.
It's just Jake.

Checks and balances for a sucky day.

These bad things happened today:

1. My new clothesline failed. Or falled. Take your pick.

2. My kid got his first-ever busted lip and messed up chin by thinking he could jump off a swing while it was swinging high. It's so pathetic to see. What's more pathetic is that he'll be 18 in September. He wonders why I've never allowed him to get his driver license but this is why...he can't even drive a swing. Why would I trust him with a car?

3. I'm growing tomato plants out of the bottom of a basket as an experiment. As of yesterday, they were beautiful, strong, healthy, and vibrant. Much like I used to be. This morning, the basket fell. Yeah. They are now much more like I am...broken and slightly dehydrated.

4. Jake, aka Busted Lip Kid, asked me about child support for the first time in 5 years today. He wanted to know how far in arrears his dad is, etc. I told him nearly $12,000. I've not pushed hard for child support for many years because when he was younger, the whole drama of it all upset him since his dad felt the need to tell him everything. Today, he tells me to push hard but to please not ask for his dad to go to jail. I explain that while I won't ask, it could still happen. He said that that would be his dad's choice, then. How sad it is when a kid is so disgusted by their own father that they don't really care if he goes to jail? This just isn't how it is supposed to be.

5. I saw a roach (okay, fine, it was a palmetto bug - same thing in my mind and I think it was 19" long) in the bathroom and I couldn't catch it to kill it. I will now have nightmares about them crawling on me, since where there's 1 there will also be 5,736,923 more who have his back. I guess, really, killing that one wouldn't have mattered a lot but it might have sent a warning. I sleep with my mouth open, though. I'm dying here.

These good things happened today:

1. I did not die from heat exhaustion in my own bed or recliner.

(struggles some to come up with more)

2. I fixed the cold water faucet in my shower.

3. I got a random and unexpected kiss from the bitchiest of my cats, Beatrice.

4. Tucker, my young, feral male cat, made a huge stride in trust today by staying on my bed the entire time I made it up and killing the sheet wrinkles for me. Typically, a sheet change will send him into hiding in another room for hours. This was huge and only (lol, because what else do I have to do?) took 9 months.

5. I didn't spend any money.

There. I've balanced positives against negatives and will leave the internet with a sense of balance tonight. And a need to pee. Who am I kidding? Once I pee I'll have my second wind and be back online.