The 13th Apostol

The Five Uncivilized Tribes

For about three weeks now the renters from Hell have been living caddy corner to us.
The reason I've avoided writing about them is, I'm moving, and fear Karma...from both perspectives.

Before they moved in, the place sat vacant for a good six weeks. I called and went to see it at one point, and can confirm the reason the leasing company had such a difficult time renting it, was because it was vile inside...and they didn't seem all to concerned about cleaning it up.

This is an enchanted street, there's not a home on the street worth under $100,000, and by this time next year you'll easily be able to add another $50,000 to that figure.
I'd sell what's left of my soul to be able to stay here, but we've had quite enough of that melodrama for a while.

As I was saying, the house was left by the previous tenants, in a vile state of disarray. Apparently SOMEBODY had failed to keep his winkie wankie tucked securely in his trousers, and it went a wandering.

The Missuz, as is her right, packed up all her and the child's belongings, and with the help of every Lesbian Registered Nurse in the Metro (Missuz is a Nursing Instructor, Mr. Winkie Wankie MAY have studied anatomy with one of her students) moved in one day, and who is better at moving than Lesbians?

She even took the medicine cabinets.
I know THAT wasn't her idea.

So I, and I alone know the condition the house was in when our latest "neighbors" took occupancy. None of the neighbors saw/smelled the place.

One day not long after my viewing, I hear a load car pull up and into the driveway at the rent house. My first response? "Oh dear Christ no, not a loud car, please don't let people with a loud car lease that poor, vile, little house"..
The best was yet to come.

One Pill Makes You Happy?

Up from 25mg. to 50mg.
Can Zoloft make the unacceptable acceptable?
Can Zoloft make me OK with having to move away from the safest neighborhood in the city? Back to poverty.
Can Zoloft do this?

In memoriam.

Of Avocado Seeds, and My Reason For Living

But not too ashamed to post this:

This is a gorgeous house (click for additional images), they want $69,900 for.
Why so little? Well let's put it this way, my ex-boyfriend was murdered five houses down...in 1987.
One can only imagine what the last twenty years have done to this fine area of Britton Oklahoma. (At one time an actual town, now annexed)

I drove by the property just to see. What the photograph doesn't show is what's going on AROUND the house.  I don't care how much money one dumps into a remod, you can't change the fact the next door neighbors still have their Christmas decorations up.

I didn't say LIGHTS, I said DECORATIONS, as in a reindeer and a big red bow on the top of the garage. Crap, just tons of crap all over the street, at every house but a few. Cars fill the driveways, and line the street in the middle of the day.

Which means one of two things: Either everyone on the street is financially secure and need not work. Or everyone is living off public assistance, smokin' up those cash benefits.

My self esteems in the crapper, but mainly because I let myself get hustled again by a landlord...AGAIN. Twice in the same year.
Where I thought she was being kind and generous helping me take occupancy last August, I find out she was just avoiding having to pay an additional $1,000 a month on her homeowners insurance due to vacancy.

No one does anything out of the kindness of their heart, there's always a pay off, especially if one's an Attorney. Yes, I'm really this gullible.

Yesterday, I found what may turn out to be "The One".
Except I think I've put my Realtor in a padded room somewhere, as I've yet to hear back from him going on two days now.
I have a tentative appt to see the property at 6 p.m., but what's the point if I don't have the 1% down, necessary?

I can't afford to fix my main seal, and I'm gonna buy a house? OK.

So I pick up my reason for living from school yesterday, like always Al bolts out the door and into my arms, this day saying:

"I have a special surprise for you, but it's way down in my backpack so you have to wait until we get home!"

Thinking about the last surprise, looking at it right now as I type. A dehydrated Avocado seed, neither one of us knew what to do with, but it made a great little sound when shook.

Once home, or "The Over Priced Marketed Property Previously Known as Home", Al dumped the back pack, running to the kitchen with his hands behind his back.

"Close your eyes" he demanded.

"OK now!"...

Emotional Price Tag...Priceless

I am ashamed I wrote the last post.
Ashamed I have become so ungrateful in my fear and pain.

The truth is:
I can't afford this house, couldn't afford the bills from the first month, but kept dipping into savings.
Which ran out after Christmas.
Truth is:
I wanted so badly to succeed, I failed.
I want so badly to win, I'm losing.
Believing if we were here, in this house, in this neighborhood...
the past might not hurt so badly.
I might be able to forget the five years spent fighting for my children...
Here, no one would ever guess one was missing.

Truth is:

We were normal here, except for being broke all the time trying to afford normal. Normalcy, at least in my limited experience, comes with a very high emotional price tag.   

A Woman of Substance Lives HERE?

        MLS No: 288057

Here's one for you.

Click on the picture to show additional images of the property.
I think they tried to get creative with the texturing, er...paint, whatever it is.
It's their choice of color that stuns and amazes me mostly.
In searching out the perfect domicile for the boy and myself, one thing I've noticed is people don't have a clue how to dress up a piece of property to make it's finer points stand out. If it were me, I'd have passed on uploading a front image of this one.
Not to mention the ghastly photo's most Realtors take...just check out Realtor.com for yourself. I could take better pictures with my phone and a flashlight.

Yesterday, I broke.
Admitting to God/Goddess/Flying Spaghetti Monster, that I was spinning my wheels, running a muck, and controlling the situation into a potentially BAD situation. I'll never find a house while I'm comparing every house I see to ours. There is no comparison, not in my price range.

It's called getting into acceptance, of things being just the way they are, BECAUSE. Something I've always done with grace and dignity...eh hem.

What aches my heart, what hurts me personally, because so much of my pain is around my child's loss, but my personal hurt has to do with the self worth, self esteem and dignity that's returned from living in a nice home, in a nice neighborhood again.

Now, I know you'll say "Your self worth shouldn't be tied up in where you live, it's about your relationship with your creator" and then you'll say "Self esteem, true self esteem, doesn't come from external things."

To which I reply "Hooiey!"

Even if I'm wrong children, I have no desire to be a woman of substance, with wicked self esteem, living in THAT.

So there.

I sound like a spoiled f*ing brat.

If I had a BMW, I'd speed of down the street.

"That's Life!"

Click for additional images       

I haven't seen inside it, but it's seriously two blocks from the drug infested street
we came from three years ago. Hey, it's in my price range!

I'm afraid I wont be able to buy a house for Al, not and keep him safe.
Learning about property tax, and what that means, learning about price per square foot, learning I should have married that attorney ten years ago...

The Owners buddy, who's acting as her Realtor, placed a for sale sign in the front yard while we were at church on Sunday. Something she'd promised she wouldn't do.
All the kids in the neighborhood were out playing when it happened. Poor little guys, damnit.

The owner then leaves me a voice message about how she hadn't gotten any calls on it in two weeks, the Realtor was a pro and was going to do whatever it took to sell the property, and she ended her message with "That's life".

(Then she got in her BMW, and sped off down the street)

The urge to request her knowledge of "Life" came over me, but I called on my lamaze technique from years past, took an estrogen supplement, then went out to pull HER weeds.

The One Take Wonder

I had a job interview at Sonic yesterday.

Did I ever mention I went to Broadcasting school a few years back?
Oh yeah, 18 months worth of a 9 month program. Truck kept breaking down, Al kept breaking down.

All I wanted to do was News.

I could pull cold AP copy and dry read like Walter Freakin Cronkite. Amazing really, genetics I suspect played a part.

So while everyone else was running around wanting to be a DJ, I wanted to do News.
My classmates all hated News.
I couldn't wait for group air shows, where our Program Director would shove cold copy under the door of the studio and whoever was handling the News (gee) would have to run with it cold...
Sweet paradise! Alas, a home for one so newsworthy as I!

My classmates in the studio, each playing an assigned role in the show, would stare mouths agape, as I seamlessly edited intentionally fouled up copy as I read.

Twas my niche.

As a child my hero's were always anchors.
These powerful, intelligent men, held me rapt waiting for the latest high-drama. My narrators of another war we had no business fighting. 
From lunar landings to tracking Patty Hearst, they kept me engaged nightly.

Peter Jennings, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather...I studied, without awareness, their cadence, dialect, inflection. The lack of emotion, yet deliverable dialog chock full of emotional content.

Then came Christiane Amanpour during the Persian Gulf War, and I was blown away. Amanpour showed me a woman could be a Journalist and not be ditzy.

At the same time I was studying Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, and eventually Gilda Radner. Perhaps a subconscious attempt at linguistical balance, I'm not sure.
Anyone who knows me knows I use my voice as an instrument, ever changing, evolving from one extreme to another.

Yet place me in a studio, a piece of copy in my hands, cans on my head...it was effortless, flowing, perfect on the second take every time. After the second take they started going down hill, as I started trying to make it better. It's hard to improve when it's just really very good. (notice how the future Sonic employee didn't say "Perfect")
I had no inkling this ability lied within me.

Now I know your wondering why I had an interview at Sonic if in fact the above is true.

Uhh yeah, me too.

Short People Got No Reason To Live

My boss had the cook call and fire me this morning.

The highest form of insult, you are not worth my time.

How many jobs have I been through this year? Let's see...
There was the "Williams Sonoma" Fiasco back in October.
Didn't even make it out of training...a spectacular three days!

There was my "Happy Feet" career.
November 15th through December 22nd at 4:12 p.m.
At which point I believed myself to be Christ and quit...or was I fired?
Can you fire Jesus?

And now this one. Fired for not being one of the cool kids.
I was trying so hard not to become Jesus, that I became the dirt under Jesus' sandal.
And who wants to hang out with the dirt under Jesus' sandal?...
that's what it's about with this group, a popularity contest.

Now I need a job, one that doesn't involve over priced kitchen gadgets advertised in catalogs printed on virgin paper, fuzzy pink bunny slippers, or Kalamata Tapenade served w/herb roasted flat bread...or I won't have the down payment for the crack house when I find the needle.

(As in Haystack)

One thing I would like to say about this group of individuals I worked for the last week:

They are the smallest people I've ever met, while functioning as one complete organism.

Crap, I Look Like My Mother

Howdy Y'all,
Look what I got for Mudda's Day...

It's not a house, but it tells me something important might be in my future.

Something, a situation, where all my teeth are going to be necessary.

My Dentist worked like a fiend to mount a post in what was left at the base of my tooth, which, as you can see from the picture wasn't much. Just last week she had taken a full mold of my mouth, so she was able to build a canine from the bite.

There'll be no corn-on-the-cob in my future, but aesthetically speaking it's perfect.

I truly cannot believe I'm blogging about my tooth on Mother's Day. Al and I are going to our old church this morning, the Unitarian Church. I haven't been in almost a year.

The way I figure it is this: My life didn't get any better running with J.C.. It didn't get any worse either, except maybe now I carry more guilt and shame than before. Most Christians are jerks. I met a few that were OK, but most had so much baggage they couldn't carry on a conversation without slamming someone of another faith.

The Mormon's had it closer to right than anyone, but even then it was barbed with self righteous indignation. If you smoke you can't be in our club, if you aren't perfect we don't want you.

My conclusion is this - if God is an interventionist type God, He's busy with other folks. (I can't believe I just said that after posting pictures of my teeth. I am an Ass)

The thing about today, this Mother's Day thingy, it's bitter sweet, but always sweeter than anything. I ache for my daughter, but only when I think about her.

I have this amazing young man who's stronger than his father and I combined, who's faith is unshakable and unwavering...his faith in himself that is. Al has never fallen prey to fairy tales. Even as a small child he questioned the legitimacy of climbing  a Beanstalk to the clouds.

Al has always been able to ascertain the real, from the unreal in terms of adult fabrication - he's just sharp like that. He cries nightly over losing the house and having to move back to the hood.

Yesterday it turned to destructive anger. He has a girlfriend and he hates me...so soon?

I have failed him in the holiest of ways.

How disappointed I am, after looking at houses in my price range today, how depressing to think about moving backwards in a sense, yet forward in another.

I will be living in the hood again but... I will own the crack house! (minus the crack)

Enlightenment in a "To Go" Box

So I'm "Helping a friend open a new restaurant"...(see, I'm learning) and I hate all things subservient.
Never have I felt so humiliated in my life.
Don't people say thank you any more?

My tooth broke off all the way.
My tooth broke off.
I'm a waitress, without a front tooth, moving back to the hood...
Holy mother of God what's happening to my life?

This is precisely why I do not believe in God.
I guess it's easy to believe when your married to a Dr. or your under 30...but hell, I'm at the halfway mark in my life (I hope) and have crap to dream for.

Do you know what it's like raising a child who was conceived without love?
I thought he was one guys...who I loved with all my heart.
Only to find out 18 months later, oops, wrong donor.
Stuck forever loving my child because he was mine.

That's a hard trick to pull off when you hate yourself.
Yeah, I admit it, I hate myself.
Not sure why, I had parents who loved me.
They just hated themselves.
Jesus Christ I wish I were anyone but me right now.
Shits bad, really bad.
I foresee Al and I living in the truck.
The one with the rear main seal that needs replacing.
I got all Jesusy on the blog, thinking if I tried really hard, even in the most sacred place of all to me, my stupid blog...
then it would happen for real.
Ya wanna know what happened?
Not a damn thing, except maybe my last two readers left.
I'm too selfish to be a good blogger.
Never check out any other blogs. Why?
Because they aren't talking about ME, that's why.
Who cares about anything else.
So yeah, I'm waiting tables, tomorrow will be my first toothless day...
I'm going to get fired again, I know it, I can feel it in my phantom tooth.
She, my friend/boss, wants us to be an all upper classy, socialite having, snobbery kind are we, establishment.
It's a damn Pizzeria for cryin out loud.
Sigh.
Enlightenment in a "To Go" box:
Jesus don't live in the Pizzeria kitchen, Guillermo and Wilbur live in the Pizzeria kitchen.

Radiationville?

And it's covered in Aphids...ewww!
(the Dandelion-weed-thistle-thing, not Al)

Look at where it was ONE WEEK AGO />

Realityville...0 Miles East of Crapollaville

I met with my Lender yesterday for 2 hrs.
She helped me to understand just because I'm approved for 90K, doesn't mean I can AFFORD 90K. This is really hard for me you guys, having to take Al back to the hood if I want to buy a home. The hood is the only place you can find a house in the price range I'm looking at.
With mortgage insurance, homeowners insurance, taxes, etc...I'm facing around a 65K home, which if you can FIND any that cheap, means they're smack dab in the middle of Crapollaville.

On a lighter note...the Dandelion-weed-thistle-thing is taller than Al!

This alone should increase property value by a couple of grand.