Tag!

I think I've played this meme game before, but these things tend to go around and around the blogosphere. I got tagged this time by Recovery Reconnaissance, and it's the list five things about you game. I suppose folks want to know more than that I am married to a junky, so here are five random facts about me:

1. For lunch, I just ate a box of Pocky, given to me by my BFF. They were the chocolatey almondy kind. I enjoy Pocky.

2. I am reading American Psycho presently. It wasn't the best book for the Christmas spirit, but I like it so far. I just learned the word, "gorno," which I think describes it aptly.

3. I am trying to drink more water. It's kind of a New Year's goal. I have decided that more water will cure about 65% of my problems.

4. My other New Year's resolution is to do more yoga. Lots and lots of yoga. Yoga is going to cure the problems that water can't reach.

5. I don't want my house to be so dirty anymore. There's animal mess and people mess always everywhere, and I want it to be better. I think I wouldn't always feel so overwhelmed if the house weren't always so gross. I'm going to try really, really hard to keep it a little cleaner.

Now I'm supposed to tag folks, but the last time I tagged folks, they yelled at me. So I'm not tagging anyone..I'm tagging everyone. If you are reading this and feel inclined, then post your own 5 random facts.

Crying Like Thunder.

I couldn't find my glasses this morning, which resulted in me sitting on the floor, sobbing from the deepest place inside my guts...big, deep, desperate crying from way down underneath my heart, from way down below my stomach, from asshole and toenails and fingers and arms and all my veins and capillaries and my hair and my heels, just crying and crying.

Mostly, I wanted to be able to leave home. The longer I couldn't find my glasses, the longer I had to stay there with him. I don't like it at home, and I don't like him. And I'd think, "I don't like it at home, and I don't like him," and then I'd double over, crying, more.

Fuck.

I'm wondering what's next for me? I'm wondering when I'm going to let my guard down again, and when it's going to feel safe again. I'm wondering if I'm done with this yet.

Know what I hate?

I hate when my husband falls asleep. It takes me to a bad place. When he was using and I thought he was depressed and overworked (Vowels and I were just talking about the good old days when I never saw him because he wouldn't stop working all the time) and everything else, he'd sleep and sleep and sleep and never wake up. He'd nod off on the couch while we were talking or watching a movie. He'd nod off standing up or in the car or sitting with friends. He had this incredibly long, incredibly obnoxious blink that he did, all the time. I hated it, but I didn't know how much I hated it until now. He'd just close his eyes, as if he were very, very disappointed in you. As if the world were just too much. I fucking hated it. It's like a 50 year old lady gesture. A mom gesture, when she just doesn't want to see your lip piercing. He'd blink, forever, and I'd say, "Stop that. It's dumb."

I didn't know he was off floating in opiate euphoria, the son of a bitch.

So now, when he falls asleep, no matter if he has only had 3 hours sleep in 3 days...no matter if he got fired today in a way that was crazy and upsetting and disappointing...no matter what, my first thought is, "Oh My God. He's Using." Same thing if we don't have sex. I don't think, "He lost his job today and probably doesn't feel very good about himself." I think, "He's shooting heroin into his eyeballs in the bathroom and lying to me and now I'm going to kill him before he kills himself waaaahhhhh!"

I have all these tools now...I detach. I read things. I call people. I write. And, I know that he's not using...at least not today. I get back from the bad place more gracefully. But I still go there, and I want the space in my mind back.

NOW.

I also am finding that when I'm not good, for all the reasons that I'm not good today, I go there more quickly and with a more fevered pitch.

I was lying in the bathtub tonight, thinking about this. All these things are so based in love and fear...I'm so afraid of losing him, of losing this thing that has grown between us. I don't want him to shoot heroin in his eyeballs and die. I don't want him to be such a fatal fuck up that I can't be with him. I want all the beauty that I know is inside him to come out. I want us to have a family and for him to be proud of himself. I know he can, but I don't know if he will. I want him to be ok, or better than ok. I want him to be wonderful and sure of himself and his place in the world.

NOW.

In The Car With Paris Hilton.

Look at her there, all alone. She's calling me on the phone, and leaving the following message:

"Hey JW. I saw you made the site private. I was, like, so upset. I was thinking that we could go to the club this weekend without panties on. I've got this really hot pair of big glasses you could wear."

So I forgot something important. This month is when my column will be coming out in the San Diego Reader. They emailed me this morning to let me know that I'd need to go public before the release date of the paper with my first column, so I'll be back live next Wednesday, if not sooner.

The Petulant Junky.

The Scene: The Junky's Wife is in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. Petulant junky is lying on the bed in his underwear.

"Come get back in bed with me. Let's sleep for 20 minutes."

"I can't. I've got to go to work. The boss is in town, and I'm behind."

"I don't understand why it's ok for me to be late for work, but you can't be late."

"But I'm already late, and it's not ok for you to be late. That's why we need to go."

"We never get to spend time in bed together. I don't understand why you can't just sleep some more with me."

"I need to go to work."

"I just think we need to spend some more time together."

"I really need to go to work. I'm kind of behind because I missed a day last week and the week before, so I need to go."

"You don't. You just want me to think about how you work and I didn't have a job for a long time. You just love to make me feel like shit..."

"No, that's not it. I need to go. I have work I've got to do."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I need to go to work. I'm leaving in 10 minutes. Let's get ready. I'll pack a lunch for you."

"I just don't understand why you..."

I Dream Of Hardwood.

Oh, how I want hardwoods. The puppy has peed the carpet beyond repair, and even if I steam clean twice a week, which is excessive, there are still big pee stains. I want the feel of hardwood under my feet. I want it bad. I take my shoes off at work, where there are hardwoods, just to be able to enjoy the texture under my feet.

I like being able to mop the whole house and make it smell like oranges or pine trees or whatever. I like to put oil down and make it shiny and wonderful. I like the clean look of it all, even when it's dirty.

We were going to get hardwoods before Heroin Crisis 2007 lead to this stint of unemployment. Maybe I should use my credit and get hardwoods. It would please me so...and maybe I'd feel like we'd moved past something, moved into a new era of hardwood magic.

I love the way that simple changes to our home can make things so much better, like when I bought curtains and rods for the back door after we had the peeping tom or when I fixed up the art room upstairs. I know that a big change like hardwood floors could change the entire head space. Maybe I should put an ad on Craigslist...I need someone who can install hardwoods and repair idiot hole-punches in the wall. Maybe just maybe.

I've learned from the wisdom of a woman who attends our meetings. She talks about the wonderful screened-in porch she's built for herself and her fabulous red leather couch. I don't have to let myself be held hostage by my husband's addiction. I can have hardwood floors because I have good credit and I want them. I don't have to save my money to spend on his shit, as his shit is his shit.

Sweet freedom.

Self Serving.

Last night, I nearly exploded with a topic at the meeting. While it's good to get feedback on my stuff, sometimes I feel like I'm a meeting pig. I write here about my crap all day, get feedback, and then go to the meeting and want more. MORE!

I know that it always helps when other people present their topics to discuss at meetings, and offering my experience or suggestions always helps me figure out my stuff.

I think I'm also feeling a little guilty because I'm going to this funeral tonight, and I want my husband to come with me. He's in such a slump that I know it would do him good to get out of his own head and think about how much he has to be grateful for, like that neither of us has flown off a mountainside...that he's alive, loved, strong and healthy (healthier, in fact, than he's been for years).

But it's a funeral. I'm going to support my friend. I wish that my mind didn't automatically go to this self-serving place, or this husband-serving place.

I'm so glad that neither of us has flown off the side of a mountain. I wish so much I could do something for my friend besides give him things to eat and show up at the memorial. I wish I could give him a puppy or a baby or some other warm, loving, beautiful thing...it's gut-wrenching to think of how he must be suffering, and he's such a sweet man.

You Should Pay Rent In My Mind.

I think I need some time in my hammock. We got massages, and I feel like all the relaxing I got from the massage is gone, already. I'm one big knot of anxiety.

We were talking about death and all its strangeness at work. Another coworker's father died a few months ago, and we were talking about all the ways it affects you. I never met my coworker's father, and I only met my other coworker's wife once. Yet all this death has made me so anxious. I was saying I feel almost guilty that my feelings are wrong...instead of feeling sad or worried for Mike, I am anxious, as if my emotions have decided to make this situation my problem, somehow. My boss pointed out, though, that it's a reminder of how fleeting life is, and while part of that makes us recognize that we should really embrace the ones we love, it also makes us feel scared, anxious, nervous.

I wish there could be a meeting tonight. I could use some serenity. There's one in another town, but it's kind of far. I don't think I can make it, and I think I'll probably get lost if I try to make it. I need to go tomorrow night. Something doesn't feel right.

Pawns In Fate's Game.

Question was recently telling me some more of her legendary hippy stuff about Buddha and how no matter where you are in your life, you've always been on your way to that place, which should make you feel good, or home, or like you belong. I've been thinking about it some lately, and at first it was really comforting. Lately, though, it's turned into this strange way of feeling like I'm living at the center of the universe.

If every moment in my life was leading me to this moment, then all the people I've known, loved, and lost were just pawns in some kind of game of fate...steps I had to surmount. Possums I had to squish on my fate road. While there certainly are some folks who I'd like to squish like possums, I don't really like the way that makes me feel.

But then I realized that those people and places are on their own journeys, too, and I'm a pawn in their fate games just as they're pawns in mine. It doesn't have to mean that I'm a horrible selfish bitch! I was a step along the way for them, and hopefully, they learned from the pain I caused them just as I've learned from the pain that they caused me.

Mainly, this vague "they" I'm referencing is the Ex, or the various Exes my husband and I have had to surpass to get to our present life together. Perhaps I'm dealing with a little guilt about hurting the Ex, or perhaps I'm trying to understand the point he was making on our anniversary when he kept insisting that he didn't understand why his Ex was so angry he'd slept with EVERYONE SHE KNEW and made her look like a fool. I told him, "Well, it's because you broke her heart. That's not nice, and I'd be mad at you, too. I'm kind of mad at you for her, and I don't even like her." And he said, "But if that's I had to do at that time in my life, and it's gotten us both out of an unhealthy relationship and into better ones, then wasn't it the right thing at the time?"

At first, I thought he was deflecting guilt in that special addicty way. Our anniversary made him think about how we got here, and the steps he had to take to get to me and our life together, even the steps that were hard and scary and that sometimes make him feel guilty. It pissed me off at the time, but I think I get it, now. He was talking about the pawn-thing...

It's always interesting to me how everyone seems to be on the same page at the same time, even when we don't know we're reading the same book.

His Best.

We laughed until we cried today, singing "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" and fighting with toll booth hos. We embarassingly didn't have enough money for our tolls...as if I haven't made this trip up and down the East Coast a thousand times. We had to dig around under the seats and crap, and the toll lady yelled at us, which made us giggle and be giddy.

Giddy girl time is the best. I needed this. Even though I was disappointed, I think it's good that he wasn't able to come with me. She needed this, and I needed this. I think she might become a Roller Derby girl with me. Yay!

We were stuck in traffic in D.C. for a while, which made us both a little grumpy, but otherwise, it was a glorious road trip. We made it to the rehearsal hours and hours late, but we got to eat this macaroni and cheese that was spectacularly delicious, and I hugged the bride and felt already like I might cry because she's so beautiful and I'm happy she's going to have a big wedding and marry a man who seems to be good, upon first inspection.

Also in the car I took care of some phone calls I'd needed to deal with. I had been hit up by the Steve Wilkos show as a possible candidate to be on the television show to talk about addicts and their silly-ass wives, and I finally contacted the producer today. I was interested in sharing my "wisdom," which includes 1 and only 1 tip: GO TO MEETINGS. I also thought I might promote the site and get me a zillion ad clicks and make me a millionaire, and of course, I want to ride in a car with Paris Hilton and throw umbrellas at the paparazzi. I'd been concerned, though, about the ability to protect my anonymity, so I called to find out about how that could work.

Alas, however, we weren't interesting enough. The wife of a recovering heroin addict felon who is married to his ex-best-friend's ex-wife just isn't quite enough drama. I think they'd hoped he was still using so that the Steve guy could come yell at him. Steve Wilkos, for those of you not up to date on your talk shows, is the guy who used to be on the Jerry Springer show, the bald body guard who always broke up the fights. I was a bit skeptical when I got the first email, but flattered that my site had found its way into the producer's hands.

But anyway, if any of you guys have an addict in your lives who needs his or her ass beat, let me know, and I'll put you in touch with the Steve Wilkos folks. I'm saving the phone number for the next big relapse. Muahahaha! (That's my evil laugh.)

I miss my man. I'm going to sleep with my face on a stinky old shirt of his. We went last night to his parents' house to get these rocks that he wanted to use to build a patio and do some other landscaping. We were scavenging for rocks by the moonlight, and it was lovely. I fell asleep with his head on my shoulder, smelling his hair.

You know, I'm not even scared to have left him at home this time. I guess the last time I left him I wasn't afraid to leave him either, but today, I'm thinking about it. Is that something like trust? Or is it detachment? I'm trying to decide which it is...but either way, it feels good to leave, miss him, and not worry. I did joke with him that Google had invented a new tool, Google Blood, and that he should be careful because I could search the contents of his blood whenever I wanted.

Joking about these kinds of things is fun, and I think that sometimes it helps us talk about issues that can make us touchy or that are painful. However, there is always the moment when we can't joke anymore, or when one of us isn't able to accept a joke. It's a risk...but Google jokes are always good.

I kissed him a thousand times before I left, and we exchanged "I Love Yous," and I made him promise not to do anything that could make him be dead before I got back because I don't think there's enough detachment in the world to make me able to live in a world without him. He said he'd do his best.

That's all I can ask for.

Warmth.

Today, I'm deep, deep, deep in the sex haze. You know the sex haze, don't you? That thing that happens where you're partner has pleased you so entirely that he or she can do no wrong...where you could be convinced to buy him or her, say, a milkshake for dinner.

I can barely think I'm so happy with my man. I am happy with his cheek bones, particularly the way his cheek bones look from above when his head is pressed against my breast. I am also happy with the way his beard feels against the back of my neck. I am pleased with his stomach and his strong shoulders and his mouth and his hair that's curling in the back now that it's longer and with his teeth against my tongue and all the way down his throat and everything inside him, outside him, all over.

I can smell his skin on my hands still.

And the marriage that isn't.

That's the struggle, then. It has been from the beginning. We have these ideas of what marriage is, of who our partners are, of what our futures are going to look like. And then, the giant crocodiles emerge from the muddy corners of our yards, and eat us.

No matter how much I know about the disease of addiction, what my husband is going through, and what I need to do to take care of myself and accept the life that I've chosen, I still get disappointed.

And then there's that matter of choice. Today, I am choosing to be with my husband, fully accepting him in the way that he is: beautiful, broken, selfish, sick, dependent. Today, I love him, and I have hope that things will be better. What confuses me is where that idea of hope crosses over into me having expectations. If this is the best I can hope for, then it's not what I want. If this is as good as it will ever be in this relationship, it's not good enough for me.

If it's going to be better, though, I want to wait. By "better," I mean if he is going to be working and if he is going to act like a grownup one day...if he is going to be someone who I can rely on to be my partner, to offer support, to share my life.

Sometimes I'm so good at acceptance. I am compassionate and understanding and forgiving...I am able to let go of my resentment and let go of my expectations and just live, just enjoy. I am able to do these things not just because I love my husband very much, but because I know that it's a better way to live my life...accepting each day that's good as a gift is much better than constantly striving towards some inachievable ideal.

But sometimes, after a few glasses of wine, and when it's a time that I can't retrieve, start over, or try again, I let myself expect. I let myself desire. Last night, I wanted a relatively simple few things: a clean house, a nice dinner, to make love, and to talk about our past and our future with a sense of accomplishment for both of us. Instead, he reminisced over every person he's ever fucked over and questioned why they didn't see it coming, questioned how they can be angry over their broken hearts.

So now, I'm going to try to think differently, again. I'm stuck in an expectations rut. I'm going to think about right now, about my day and the way that it's going. I'm going to indulge myself somehow, possibly with eBay shopping or possibly with something delicious to eat, and I'm going to take charge of the ways that I feel. I'm not going to hold myself hostage anymore, and I'm not going to let my husband's unhappiness with the way his life is working infect me.

I love him. He loves me. We're together, and sometimes, it's really beautiful. I have a fun job, a house, and great friends. My life is going well. Today, that's enough.

More things we said.

Sometimes it's like I just sit up and wonder how I got here, you know. Where the fuck am I?

Do you think it would be better if you were with him?

No. But it's not just a split path. I could be any number of places, and yet I'm here, with you, telling me how everyone who's ever trusted you or believed in you or had faith that things with you might be better had been a damned fool.

Don't you have hope, though? You say you have hope that things will be better, and that things are better.

But is it damned fool hope? Is that what you're telling me?

Eat some dessert.

I don't want dessert. I want you. I choose you.

(He laughs) What's that from? A tv show?

It's from my mouth. It's what I'm saying to you, tonight, on the anniversary of our marriage. I choose you. I've stayed because I've chosen to stay.

If it's so hard, then why do you stay?

Because I love you.

Why do you love me?

Because I do. All the way down in my guts.

Partly cloudy anniversary.

I'd give yesterday's anniversary a 75%. That's passing, isn't it? A strong C-. A good, solid C-. There was a screaming fit, a flinging of the "bitch" word, heaving sobs, a movie, an excellent dinner, a bottle of wine, and good sex.


It's always so stupid. He did and said things he shouldn't have done and said, and he didn't do or say things he should have. I didn't let things go that I should have let go. I was hurt because I had expectations of what a first anniversary should be like.

Blah. Blah. Fucking Blah.

Same story, different day. It's only tragic because we can't get our first wedding anniversary back, and I'd wished very hard to make it nice.

The cranberry juice helps to prevent urinary tract infections, which I'm prone to catching.

At dinner, his conversation topic of choice was how he didn't understand why my ex-husband and his ex-girlfriend can't just accept how things are and be friends with us. He says that they both knew that he fucked everyone over, constantly, and they should have been prepared to be fucked over. What makes them think they're different?

In my head, I'm thinking, "What makes me think I'm different?"

I ask him, "What makes me different?"

He says, "You just are different. This is different. I've been incredibly loyal to you, except for when I was stealing your money and fucking you over because of drugs. Except for that."

I wanted to hear that I'm beautiful and wonderful and that he's so lucky that I've loved him through the hardest time in his life. I wanted to tell him that I've chosen him, and that I'd continue to choose him every day no matter how hard it might be. I wanted to tell him that he's talented, beautiful, wonderful, and that I know that we'll be happy soon. I wanted him to tell me that he knows that we'll be happy soon.

I wanted it to be different. I want to be different. I want our love and our marriage to be as special as the place where we grew from. I want it to be worth the mess we've made to get here. It has to be worth it.

Goin' down.

Alright folks, I'm leaving work, and hopefully, going offline to celebrate my anniversary. If I'm posting tonight, it means that things did not go well. I hope things go well. I've got a bottle of champagne, a present, and I'm planning to shave my legs. I've been drinking cranberry juice all day to ready my hoohah for the hot sweaty monkey sex I'm planning for both before and after our fancy dinner!

Woohoo!

Can't We All Just Get A Bong?

I miss pot. There...I said it.

I want to be able to smoke pot without feeling like I'm doing drugs. I want to smoke week four times a year or so...I like the smell of it and the way it makes me laugh. I like the way it reminds me of being a teenager.

I spent that second decade of my life largely stoned. I was kind of a hippy. I'm still kind of a hippy, but I had outfits about it then, and long hair.

I'm finding myself a little angry lately at not feeling like I can enjoy messing around with pot because I have to be Mrs. McJunkyface, and if I dabble with fun drugs, then I'm somehow tempting fate or tempting him.

I've grown out of drugs...like the kind of drugs that will make you sell your mama's ass. I did piles of coke while I was in college, but even then, I always made it to class on time, maintained a stellar GPA, went to work and paid my bills. I always had it together, and I've learned since my husband's not having it together that my ability to push down breaks on my behavior indicates that I'm not an addict. He is.

But I want to be able to smoke some pot sometimes without feeling guilty. I'd love to be able to eat some mushrooms or take some acid and think about god and indulge my inner hippy without feeling like I'm betraying my husband, my blog, my program, and everything...I don't know why I'm suddenly all tormented about it.

Or maybe I do...maybe it's another thing I feel like I've sacrificed when he can't even take his ass to some meetings sometimes. I'm working to change my whole life, giving up things I don't need to give up, while his recovery is painfully slow and miserable.

I feel like I've got so much already figured out, and I'm standing on the other side of the mountain drinking water and relaxing, while he's still trying to find some kind of short cut so that he won't have to go the hard way.

Anniversary. Expectations.

We've been astonishingly lazy again today. I'm not sure what is going on with us. We're maybe getting lamer, or fatter, or depressed.

He found out, again, that his work won't start for two or three more days. His boss has two-or-three-more-daysed him to pieces. I don't think they'll open for another week.

I'd said, at some point when our wedding anniversary was aeons away, that I'd leave him if he wasn't working by our anniversary. It's tomorrow, and I'm not leaving.

I'm going in to work early tomorrow so that I can leave early to come home and celebrate our anniversary. We're going to eat at a fancy French restaurant followed by milkshakes from Dairy Queen (my gift to him). He's going to clean the house tomorrow so that we don't have to today (his gift to me).

I hate our dirty house. I hate that I didn't do anything I wanted to do this weekend. I'm lazy and lame. I don't want to be lazy and lame. I'm skeptical of his real ability to clean the house tomorrow, and I'm envisioning a tearful scene about our stupid anniversary when I get home tomorrow.

Maybe I should go ahead and decide that I don't care if the house isn't clean. That way, I won't be disappointed when it isn't, and if it is, it'll be great. Blah blah blah. Expectations etc.

Purgatory.

There have been many, many moments in my relationship with my husband when I've described it as a type of Purgatory. I'm not sure if it's quite a fitting description theologically as much as metaphorically...I often feel like I'm being singed by hell-fire with the promise of heaven, looming, just ahead. Loving an addict, or this addict, or this man, is like navigating Scylla and Charybdis...the rock and the hard place...the choppy waters.

His mother and I were discussing today how these problems permeate every single moment of our day. From the simplest little disagreements, everything is tinged by addiction. A few days ago, we had these coupons to go to Backyard Burger. If we bought (I bought) a combo meal, we got a free dessert. It was lovely and silly and a fun mid-week date, and I wasn't feeling resentment about paying. At the end of our meal, he says he wants another cobbler. I refuse to pay for another cobbler, and he tells me that he could pay me for it when we get home. I point out that if he has money, he should just give it to me for the dinner I'd already purchased, or for bills, or for any of the various things he should be paying me for instead of using it to buy another cobbler after he's had a perfectly reasonable meal. We proceed in this manner until we're in a full-blown fight, and I'm crying, and he's yelling, and we're both furious and frustrated because neither of us is right and neither of us is wrong and there's absolutely nothing that either of us can do about it.

All over $2.

We're just so stuck, and helpless in the stickiness of it. He tells me again and again that things will be better when he is working, earning good money, and able to contribute to our bills and start paying me back for what he's taken. I agree that we'd both be better and our relationship would be better if that would happen, and I understand that he can't make the health inspector come or the shop open any sooner. I'm just still so skeptical, though, because of the way he blew off his last job, which was such a wonderful opportunity. I'm scared that it's not ever going to get better. I know it's going to get better, but this fear grips me...it's not a fear of my being sucked into this pit with him, but it's a fear of losing this relationship. Of losing him and of my love for him dying.

I'm afraid that I'm going to wake up one day and not care anymore. I'm afraid that the switch will get flipped and that nothing will matter to me, that he could work and be a millionaire and never touch another drug again and it will just be too late to make a difference.

I want this relationship to work. I want to get away from this miserable middle place and starting moving forward. I want us both to be in a place where I can start learning to trust him again, to rely on him, and to be partners in each other's lives.

I also, right now, want desperately for him to act like it's our first wedding anniversary weekend and that he cares or notices. He's all self-absorbed and grumbly. Perhaps I need to express to him, firmly, that I want a fucking puppy about my anniversary. I want a loving speech and a night of sex and dinner, even if I have to pay for it. I want some recognition of the date, even if it's dumb. I don't care if it's dumb. If I don't get it, I'm going to have a deep pit of resentment for the rest of forever.

Someone should call him and tell him that he has to be nice to me for our anniversary.

Lazy Bones.

We spent a luxurious day lying around on the couch at his mother's house. There was no internet out there, or at least not the free-floating piratable wireless kind that I love so much, so I was out of touch.

I can't decide if it was good lazy or not. It wasn't the way I would have chosen to spend the day, and I'm harboring a bit of resentment about his getting to decide what we do with our day on the weekends. I understand he's bored and etc. because he sits at home all week, but I'm eager to do things at home, clean the house, stick the pictures on the wall I've been thinking about in the Art Room, and generally enjoy myself here. We did some compromising, though. He wanted to go last night and spend the night, and instead, we went out there today and spent the evening.

It was ok, and I like his mother. We griped about our men. His father's brother has come to live with the family, and his mother griped about that, too. She's feeling a little run down from trying to take care of herself, the house, the yard, and her husband. I like talking to her in general, but especially now that she's in AA and kind of steeped in recovery rhetoric. It helps me to talk to anyone who can relate to this crap, and even though she's coming from the other rooms, it's still helpful.

Once again, I'm astonished by my ability to be sympathetic towards her and all other addicts in the world that aren't my husband.

I want to feel myself making some bigger and better improvements. I'm getting fat, slowly and steadily, and I don't like this weird, sedentary life. I'm always happier when I'm doing something physical. I think I might go become a Roller Derby Girl. It seems like it could be fun and exciting and aggressive as hell, and they're just starting up a league, which means that there's no try outs...it's open to those of us who can't even skate. I bet I'll learn quick if it seems fun, like I did with martial arts...or not that I learned quick, but I threw myself into it and learned to do things I never thought I'd be able to do.

I wish I could find a good martial arts school here.

Sigh.

But I need to move my ass around. I like to move my ass around. I need something fun, a way to meet some fun women to hang out with, and something to distract me from my man. Roller Derby Girl! It'll be kickass.

Sweet Sleep.

I feel like I could sleep forever. It's 3, and I'm still lying around in my drawers. The weekends rule.