I'm Sorry. And Trolls, Beware.

The friend that I'm fighting with emailed me this morning to let me know that it wasn't *she* who left the malicious, nasty comments on my blog the other day. I completely believe her, and in hindsight, one of them seemed what would've been totally random coming from her and unrelated to anything we were fighting about. That leaves me with one other sort of obvious culprit, who I sensed has been trolling my blog anyway.

She and I have major issues we need to resolve right now, and I think we'll be able to accomplish that in due time. Feelings are raw, tempers are flared, but I do love this person, even though she doesn't think I do, and am very sorry that I wrongfully accused her in public of something she did not do. I appreciate her email, and will think carefully on how to respond to her when I'm ready.

Our friendship has never been easy and it's not going to get any easier any time soon.

(But to that individual who is trolling my blog and left the comment, something to the effect of me only being utterly dishonest, totally self-absorbed and only happy when someone is buying me things? Fuck you and your "anonymous" comment. As one of my dear friends said to me recently, there's a place in Dante's Inferno for people like you...)

Frankly, With All That's Going On, I Have No Time for Petty Bullshit.

The church prayer chain was uncharacteristically vague. It simply said that a female was brought to God's eternal rest on Tuesday, and gave the name of the individual. The name didn't strike a chord with me, so I said my obligatory prayer for that soul and went on with my morning.

An update soon followed. The soul in question was a 3-month old baby, the granddaughter of a couple who are relatively new members of our church, the grandfather happening to be the new bassist in my band. With no further detail on which to go, we all assumed the baby died of natural causes, SIDS, or something like that. She *seemed* perfectly healthy in church last Saturday. She was always in church with her grandparents, along with the 6-year old granddaughter who I assumed was her elder sibling, but now in hindsight, I'm not sure where her lineage fits in. The bassist and his wife are warm, friendly, hyper-faithful people who praised along with us with exuberance and enthusiasm. The church and the band, specifically, welcomed them with open arms.

I worked all afternoon, with limited internet time and access, only to come home to find two very disturbing things on my computer.

One was a character assassination on my blog (in comment form) from the friend I pissed off by virtue of my last blog, that I had to sit and figure out how to delete from the post. She's blocked me from her Facebook, blocked me from Twitter and no doubt has blocked me from her cell phone, not that I have remote interest in contacting her at the present moment in the first place. Did I praise myself for being honest and revel in being praised for my honesty in my last blog? Yes, because it's true. I also, if memory serves, noted that my honesty leaves me vulnerable to a shitstorm of attack and indignation, but that I felt strong enough to weather the ramifications. She accused me of being manic and self-absorbed.

Who's personal blog isn't self-absorbed? If a blog is about you and your life, suffice it to say it's going to come across as self-absorbed. This individual can't seem to fathom why or how she alienates friends and lovers, given her knee-jerk immature behavior of eradicating people from her life at the slightest stench of conflict. She can't understand why I chose the medium of my blog to claim that she loves me with condition instead of speaking to her personally about how I felt. She claims that I view those who love me unconditionally as those folks who only tell me what I want to hear, when nothing could be further from the truth. I appreciate the friends who call me out on my bullshit but don't immediately decide not to be my friend anymore with no just cause. The friends who love me unconditionally are those who point out my flaws but, as I said, LOVE ME ANYWAY, not eject me from their lives in what is honestly, a manic manner. Those who love me unconditionally work WITH me to help me improve myself and my behavior, not chastise me relentlessly and lay claim to a shit load of assumptions. Armed with the truth, though sometimes painful, is indeed how I choose to approach my life.

But right now, I just need a break from her bullshit.

In my Gmail last night, there was an urgent update from the prayer chain at church. When I walked in the door, my mom whispered to me that the baby who died had been abused to death.

The prayer chain said the following:

"Most of you have no doubt heard that police and DCFS are investigating the death of *** as a homicide. Keep in mind that the *** family is going through a terrible tragedy and, more than ever, they need our prayerful and loving support. Instead of discussing it with one another--which can only spread rumor, gossip, or speculation about this matter--please pray together for God's comfort and strength for the *** family and for wisdom and compassion for the investigating officers.

Please continue to respect the *** family's privacy during this difficult time."

Worse yet, it was all over the local news. I texted my guitarist who'd just read the email himself, and who is a Chicago Police officer, hoping he had an inside view of what the situation really was. The police are holding the parents of the baby in custody, questioning the 23-year old father and 19-year old mother, though no formal charges have been filed to date. The autopsy on the baby revealed multiple acute rib fractures, 2 older rib fractures that were healing, blunt head trauma and brain bleeding, retinal bleeding, just to name some of the shocking findings. The parents took the baby to the hospital on Tuesday after finding her in distress, where she passed away the next day.

Here's what I don't get--the grandparents, my bassist included, LIVED with the parents of this baby. How could all of this trauma and abuse go undetected during the course of her short life? Surely the child was in distress more often than just the day she was finally taken to the hospital. What sickens me even more is the notion, though far-fetched as it probably is, that somehow my bassist or his wife were involved. I don't know the guy terribly well, only having played with him for a couple of months, but his family seemed, on the surface, to be the bastions of the faithful, the kind, the gracious. I highly doubt he was involved, and pray the abuse went undetected because the accused were really good at covering it up, or the baby was strong enough to withstand it for a while at least...I just don't know. (UPDATE: 7:55 PM THURSDAY NIGHT: THE FATHER OF THE BABY WAS CHARGED w/1ST DEGREE MURDER. My bassist's son.)

I can only pray that justice is served, that whomever is responsible for this tragedy gets his/her due, and that the Lord watches and protects the innocent. What makes people think that parenting gives them license to beat the crap out of their offspring is unthinkable to me. The evil that would compel someone to hurt a little baby rocks my very faith in God.

The whole church watched, just 3 weeks ago, this baby being baptized into God's family, the whole family, parents included, in the sanctuary. We welcomed her into God's kingdom and into our church family. Now she's in God's kingdom for eternity, which didn't have to happen, but I have to believe there's a greater purpose to God's plan than is obvious to us at the present moment.

It didn't help that I'd had a particularly difficult night with my own son, who's having relatively typical pre-teen issues and insecurities that cause him a stream of conflicting emotions and behaviors. But all I wanted to do last night was take him in my arms, hold him tightly, and appreciate how much I adore him. My child. My flesh and blood. Nevermind that last night he was acting like a poopyhead; he was alive and well and thriving and I wanted him to know that he is safe and going to be okay.

This weekend, there's no band and no Luke to be found. I have made no plans with friends, other than to talk extensively with Kate in New York and to keep Steven posted on what's happening with the abuse case. TOC's headed to Boston to see his youngest, who just went off to college, and encouraged me to fill my time wisely, without getting into my mom's hair for the next 3 days. I have therapy, a meeting with my Stephen minister and a new project from Luke to occupy my time.

Luke's composed a whole new alphabet--"walrus vocabulary," he calls it. Symbols that represent English letters, all that he made up in code. He wrote a paragraph in this code that he wants me to translate on a separate sheet of paper, using the code sheet he provided for me. He then wrote a paragraph in English that I have to translate into walrus vocabulary. I have the weekend to complete the project or else, I don't know, I'll suffer the wrath of my 11-year old. All in retaliation over an English-Writing project I bestowed upon him a couple of weeks ago that he has yet on which to embark. The code is pure genius and he spent an inordinate amount of time creating it, just like he does with every other project he undertakes. It'll be a challenge for me, as that's not how my brain works (it's tantamount to writing paragraphs in Chinese characters), but I'm happy to give it a shot.

Church is definitely in order this weekend. I need to be with my church family to help me make sense of the tragedy that unfolded this week, and to find some peace. I also have to read next week's Bible readings and pick out the songs the band will do next weekend. I've already decided on two but have three more to pick out. Wish me luck.

All in the meantime, I'll be on shit watch with regard to my nastygramming friend and discussing love, passion, destiny and Dostoyevsky!!! with Kate, while we chastise those who are jealous and sanctimonious.

How Do You Sleep?

Understanding Annie: A Graduate Course in a Clusterfuck Iconoclast

My insightful and dear Knoxite friend posted the following original quote to her Facebook this morning:

"Of all the things, in the whole wide world I wanna be when I grow up, 'Understood' is at the very top of the list." --Jillian Marie Szilagyi Kelly

I'm not sure if I 100% agree or disagree with this quote, though it struck me enough to repost it on my profile. In a lot of ways, I beg to be understood. It's half the reason I throw myself out into the websphere and blurt out all of the seemingly nonsensical thoughts that race through my head. (Hell, it all makes perfect sense to me!) I write this blog to understand myself better and to have others understand me more richly. Conversely, I fully admit I get an egotistical kick out of confounding the masses, confusing the establishment and upsetting the apple cart.*

(*See me with my supervisor at work.)

I can count on one hand (ok, maybe a hand and a half) the people in this world who truly understand me. I mean, truly. And by understanding me, that definition expands into truly accepting me for who I am, flaws and all, and loving me without pretense. (God and Luke are at the top of that list.) Loving and understanding me on that level takes effort and emotional energy that not everyone is inclined to expel. It takes work. That particular rogues' gallery of individuals all claim that I'm easy to love, too easy to fall in love with, and that the qualities in myself I view as disabilities are really strengths. All true, I suppose.

In an attempt to rebuild my self-esteem after it was literally stripped by my former partner, I asked one of those unconditional love-individuals recently what he loves the most about me, after having a similar discussion with another one of my best friends. His answer was delightful. Kind of surprising. He prefaced the singular trait by saying, "I don't know, there are so many things to choose from..." That warmed my heart. "Seriously?" I thought. (Now my curiosity is majorly piqued, I later told him. I want to know what "all those things"are. It'd be good for me to hear. Healthy. He has yet to cough up more elaborate detail. But he's a guy.Worse yet, I asked him to put it in writing, and he's a scientist. Oh, my giddy aunt!)

He touched on my intellect and intelligence, but ultimately decided on my honesty. The general gist was that he appreciated my openness and ability to express myself without worrying about what other people thought of me or my often radical opinions. My impression of his answer was that he valued the fact that my honesty leaves me vulnerable, yet I don't detach and cower. I told him I was "no bullshit," to which he agreed. That all leaves my psyche and heart in a precarious place sometimes, but I've weathered enough heat to deal with those ramifications.

(On a happy but totally unrelated note, he finally referred to me as "Annie" instead of "Andrea" in an email recently. For me, that's kind of a big deal. I use Andrea professionally, and it is my given name, but those who are close to me typically only call me Andrea when I'm in trouble, or being scolded, or chastised for something. I much prefer to be called Annie, for that is what those who are close to me refer to me in general. I think Kate is the only BFF that still calls me Andrea, just by virtue of the fact that's what she's always called me, and I don't mind that. My own husband refused to call me Annie until after we were divorced, which always struck me as strange. Then again, he refers to doctors as "licensed medical practitioners," so his formality and politeness are not unusual for him.)

My therapist was highly impressed that I'd extensively planned my free time while my family was away, surrounding myself with individuals who cared enough to help me through what they knew was going to be a challenging time for me. I count those folks who all saw to it that I stayed sober, sane and well-fed as those who unconditionally love me.

Then there is a separate, lengthy list of people who love me with a litany of conditions attached to the sentiment. "I love you except when you're...." or "I love you, but when you're....you're ...." or at the worst end of the spectrum, my former partner, whose vibe was "I love you, but you're lucky I do, because who else would love you given everything that's wrong with you...?"

Sometimes, it's hard for me to discern who's loving me out of "tough love," brutal honesty, or who's "looking out for my best interests," or who's just bitching at me to bitch. Recently, on my Facebook, I reposted an article from The Onion that I found hilarious: "Manic-Depressive Friend a Blast While Manic." It was about a guy whose friends thought he was the life of the party, generous, hysterical and a hoot to be around when he was manic, but was life's biggest buzzkill when he was depressive. I posted the article with my own commentary: "Is this what I'm like when I'm manic? Do tell!"

One of my good friends, who can be harshly critical of me at times, frankly commented, "Truthfully? Manic Annie is a little frustrating, typically disjointed and totally exhausting. Mood-stabilized Annie, with the intact insight and judgment and wisdom a mile deep is pretty fucking awesome." I took that statement to be sort of an insult veiled with a compliment. It's not that I didn't agree with her, for Manic Annie is no picnic. But my interpretation of that, for which I found myself apologizing, was that it was love with condition. I thanked her for the "fucking awesome" part but apologized for my mania, which I really shouldn't have to do, given it's, as we've covered ad nauseum, a temporary brain chemical imbalance over which I have zero control. (In her defense, she did say that I have about as much control over my manic episodes as she does over her allergies.)

There are those who love me fiercely, family and friends included, who will just simply never get me, no matter how hard they try. That's not a character flaw of those people; merely a fact. I'm far from the general public's cup of tea and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm really glad that mood-stabilized, med-compliant, clean and sober Annie has retained all the charm without the lack of functionality associated with my bipolar and addictive history. I revel in individuality and non-conformity and encourage that in my son as well. I'm a self-proclaimed iconoclast, but an iconoclast who still loves to be hugged and kissed on the forehead, told that she's worthy of love, who tries her damndest to fit a square peg into a round hole with both successes and failures.

Thus, I keep on truckin'. Another rhythm from the Offbeat Drummer.*

Songs in the Key of Crapola

It's not that I *can't* sing.

I sing rather well, actually. A solid alto.

It's when you ask me to sing and drum at the same time when things get messed up. Singing and playing and instrument simultaneously is something that takes admittedly a lot of practice, of which I've had literally none, unless you include my rehearsal Friday night and practice before the church service on Saturday night.

Out of sheer necessity, I had to sing. Our two sopranos bolted on us, both teenage-ish age: one to pursue teenage social shenanigans and the other to work. That left us with our two new singers, who, while both competent vocalists, just don't know how a lot of our songs go by virtue of their newness in the band. So Friday night at practice, after Bob (the guitarist) couldn't replicate the keys the girls needed to sing in, I stepped up to the microphone and sang 3 of this week's songs a capella to guide the girls. Cue instant anxiety attack, for I'm not used to singing in front of other people. It was challenging trying to sing the soprano parts out of my range, but I managed alright. The girls got the general gist of what their parts should be (one singing alto, the other soprano) and then we had the bright (??) idea of putting a mic up to me and having me sing and drum at the same time.

At practice, I was missing fills, my tempo was too fast, and I was having a hell of a time following along to both the lyrics and my music. Unbeknownst to me, my son was following along on his song sheet during the service, check marking every time I made a mistake drumming and singing, and accused me of singing like Yoko Ono, though he was only half right. On "Be Unto Your Name," I had to turn down the main volume on the electronic kit until the song builds up intensity, which took some fancy work, and I ended up changing the actual KIT, leaving me playing a house electronica kit, then a contemporary jazz kit, finally back to the "hard 70's rock kit" I was supposed to be playing. What a clusterfuck. I, at least, managed to rebound from the critical error with nobody but the band noticing my snafu.

Luke looked over at me, facepalming himself. My mom looked over at me with a reassuring, "You're doing just fine," encouraging face, and nodded in approval, which made me feel better. I was following along vocally, but not belting anything out by any means, and thankfully, the whole ordeal only lasted an hour.

Sunday, my mom turns 68. She's the ultimate survivor--lost her husband at age 39, raised 2 kids essentially alone, worked her ass off, and didn't let breast cancer take the best of her almost 5 years ago. We live together in close quarters, so we have our rows, as anyone in close proximity would , but she takes really good care of Luke and me. She's retired now, forced into so by her doctor boss moving her practice to Florida, so a lot of her time is spent being the constant in Luke's life while I work, planning and cooking healthy meals for us at home, and maintaining a warm environment in which Luke and I live and thrive. She is the chief force in helping me maintain my sobriety, though she doesn't realize it fully. She and Luke both. I am eternally grateful for everything she's done for me and helped me out with, materially and emotionally. So today I wish her a day filled with happiness, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, celebrating her special day.

Bonus! She shares a birthday with John Lennon, another one of my heroes.

So Far, So Good.

This solitude-while-Ma's-gone thing is working out well, actually. Thus far, I've filled my time with positive pursuits: going out to dinner with Anne (though I ate like a bird), going out to dinner with Julia (though I ate like a bird, again), and having Luke home with me last night (which was a delight--I got to hear all about his trip to Indianapolis, where he visited a zoo to see a real-life walrus, his favorite animal, and his visit to the Indy 500 track for a tour...building Lego people he's working on for a new animation film, just relaxing...).

This morning, I'm taking Luke to school, and won't see him again until Friday because of my work schedule and child-care challenges. That'll be hard. But we have the phone, Facebook, texting...I miss him something fierce when he's gone. There's this bizarre void in my psyche that's left when my son is away from me. Perhaps that's what my mom feels about being apart from me. I miss her in a weird way, though it's so refreshing to have the house free of negativity and full of calm.

I've stayed on the straight and narrow, with the temptations to misbehave few and far between, and staved off by my sheer willpower and determination to STAY on the straight and narrow. I'm eating (as much as I can tolerate), I'm not doing drugs, and I'm not drinking. My mom is hopefully having a good time and not worrying horribly about me being alone at home.

Today will be a most challenging day at work: 3 doctors on duty, short-staffed with just me and my so-called superior manning the front office, me plunked at the frantic front desk all morning (though I might ask her if we could trade morning for afternoon, just for my sanity's sake), the general craziness of a Monday at the office...Lips just back from vacation, dealing with everyone who wanted a Z-pack and Robitussin with Codeine for their rhinoviruses (which totally doesn't work, but Lips Rx's them anyway).

I'm naturally most looking forward to the sauce making tomorrow. I've put a lot of thought and planning into the evening with TOC over for dinner. I texted him on Saturday to ask him if he preferred spinach ravioli or plain pasta in interesting shapes with the sauce. Unlike his typical lack of response, he immediately texted me back, "Trying to run on the treadmill while texting. I will eat any kind of pasta! Which one is more tolerable to you? That's my choice." I chose this homemade spinach ravioli from Tony's on Northwest Highway that's fucking fantastic that we've got in the freezer. (He texted back that one can only run so fast listening to Elvis Costello and I bid him good luck on the rest of his workout.)

No, I'm not attempting to pry him with alcohol into inappropriate behavior, but I did go so far as to buy him a bottle of cabernet to have with the sauce. It'd been almost 4 years since I purchased alcohol at a store, and I felt like I was wearing a giant sign on my forehead that said, "This woman is an ALCOHOLIC! She has no business buying wine!" But that's part of an alcoholic learning to live within a society that does drink alcohol. Just because I can't have any doesn't mean others can't. People are capable of socially drinking and enjoying a glass or 2 of wine with their dinner. I'm just not one of those people.

I bought what looked like a nice, mid-priced bottle (I have never tasted it, so I couldn't tell you if it's good or not) for him and a bottle of alcohol-removed merlot for myself. I've never had alcohol-free wine before, but there was something about feeling left out of the wine-consuming that compelled me to try the alcohol-removed wine. Yes, it's safe for me to drink. No, I don't think it will incite cravings for alcohol in me. I've had alcohol-free beer before, though I don't even really like beer, and I was fine with it. Communion wine doesn't tempt me to drink, and that's real wine that I have every week.

My mom left a litany of chores I need to complete before I allow TOC into my house for dinner, including but not limited to cleaning the bathroom again (she just cleaned it Saturday), bleaching the kitchen sink (which I would anyway after getting tomato sauce all over the kitchen), feeding and cleaning the parakeet (which I also would've done sans prodding), and she parted, as I threw her suitcase into the back of my aunt's van, "Stay out of the hospital!" Now, those tasks will all wait until tomorrow while the sauce is simmering away for 4-5 hours, apart from the landing in the hospital part (it was during her last vacation when I came down with my first attack of pancreatitis and didn't tell her about it until after she got home).

She warned me not to buy him salad already chopped in a bag, because there's some breakout of ick going around with recalls and bullshit, and to get 3 heads of romaine and chop it myself (fine). I'm fairly certain, Ma, that I can produce a decent salad with little effort. And to make sure I remember a dessert. I don't normally eat dessert, but he does like his sweets, so I see nothing wrong with a nice sorbet to cleanse the palate and take some heat off the garlic and wine stench.

All things considered, I think we'll have a lovely evening that I know we're both looking forward to, naysayers be damned. What he's told his wife about his plans tomorrow night, I don't know, but he doesn't seem terribly worried about it.

So I just got Luke up for the morning and made him a nice breakfast, when it occurred to me that I don't actually HAVE to make his bed (no, he doesn't make his own bed, I know, I know) today because no one will be around to see it and complain about it. The 10-minute rearrangement of all of his stuffed animals was just shredded from my morning routine. Mazel tov!

It'd be awfully polite and far more sanitary if my 11-year old son would LIFT UP THE TOILET SEAT when he urinates for the first time every morning. Without fail, I go to sit down on the toilet, and it's sopping wet on the seat, which grosses me out to no end. So I asked Luke, "Do you ever LIFT up the SEAT when you wizz in the morning?" He answered, "I'm too tired." I said, "Dude, that's gross." He blabbered something about the state of the bathroom at his father's house, and quite frankly, I don't even WANT to know what kind of germ factory THAT is. Meanwhile, my ass is slimed up with the remnants of my son's waste products. Boys!

Off to eat some semblance of breakfast myself, though as usual, I'm not remotely hungry, then onward and upward through the hectic day. Yo-dah-lay-hee.

It Ended With A Warm Jacket

Saturday night, the air was thick with chill. Night #1 with my mom out of town and Luke still in Indianapolis with his dad (he went to a zoo that had a real life walrus, his favorite animal of all time). He's coming home to me tonight overnight, but then will be at his dad's until Friday. My mom won't be home until Wednesday night. So began my quest to be around people to help keep me on the straight/narrow path of sobriety and cleanliness during my time of solitude at home.

One of the people who reached out and offered to have dinner with me this weekend was my friend, Anne, with whom I went to both high school and college. I hadn't seen her in 15+ years, but we recently reconnected on Facebook. She understood my challenge better than just about anyone, having had a father in a similar addictive predicament as I face.

Bonus? She got to have a rare night out with a girlfriend, as she's a busy mom of 2 with another one on the way. She seldom gets out just to have adult time with her friends, so she was really looking forward to meeting up with me. Bonus #2? She agreed to meet me at a restaurant within walking distance from my house.

I walked across the street (which is a bitch-it's a main thoroughfare) and waited for her at the restaurant. She looked exactly the same as she did in college, with the exception being I'd never seen her pregnant before. She said I looked like I did in college, except my hair was shorter and I was "much tinier." I was still chilled from being outside in just a sweater and leggings. Gave Anne a quick hug and we got our table.

We have a lot in common as adults, though she's a conservative Republican and I'm an anarchist. We both have Lukes at home. We talked a lot about the bullying issue at my Luke's school. We have motherhood and c-sections to talk about. High school friends we now dislike. College memories. Lots to talk about.

Her most striking story was how she was introduced to her husband. He was dating another friend of ours from high school, but she said when she met him and shook his hand, she felt an immediate electricity, went home and told her mom she'd met the man she was going to marry. Long story short, that's what happened. I didn't have the where-with-all to admit that I feel like I've also met the man I feel I'm destined to spend the rest of my life with, but I think she's sharp enough to figure that out on her own, just based on our conversation.

Dinner lingered. She ate well, given she has horrific emesis from being pregnant and all I had the appetite for was a small salad and a side of green beans. Still, I promised my mom as she left for vacation that I would eat, and I did, even though it was only a little bit. I figure tonight, when I go out with Julia, it'll be the same scenario. (Fortunately, we go to a restaurant, which is our favorite hangout, where they have regular size portions the the option of tiny portions upon request.)

Anne had mentioned to me in an email, after I was on Facebook lamenting that I was outside smoking in my winter coat and freezing in 50 degree weather, and how would I feel when it was 14 degrees out in January in the same coat, and brought along a most treasured item.

She'd had this thickly faux fur-lined leather coat with a hood that was, if you can believe it, TOO warm for her to wear. It was way to big on me, and I'll have to see if the tailor can do something about it, but she just outright GAVE it to me. I offered her money for it, for it is a real leather jacket and is really beautiful, but she refused, citing that she just wanted to give it to someone who would get use out of it. Well, I certainly will. But what an act of grace and kindness. I threw the jacket on in the restaurant parking lot, and was instantly toasty for my walk home.

She said it took courage for me to reach out and ask for friends to help me while I was alone. I sort of thought I was being, as my mom is wont to say, "pathetic," asking for people to help take care of me while I was alone. But I'm infinitely grateful that I reached out, that Anne heard the call, and came to hang out with me last night. It was a really great time.

Tonight? The lovely Julia whom I love and adore. And Luke home for the night. This time alone at home thing? Exactly what I needed to recharge.