OK I'm back again PART DEAUX

 Ok that's enough, that's not why I'm here.

I'm here to

   HANG OUT WITH SWEATY PEOPLE IN THEIR UNDERWEAR and take photographs of them apparently    

  i know what you're thinking. you're thinking "wow i bet this would make a lot of Soylent Green." i know it because that's what i'm thinking too. 

Soylent Green is made of people, you know.   

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I am going to tell you a story about a spider. This spiders name was Irving, don't ask me why, I know most spiders you see hanging around are female, this one was, but it's name is Irving so I'll just go on.

This is a picture I took of Irving:

wrong picture.  

right picture.  

this is a Phiddipus johnsonii, also called the Bold Jumping Spider.  

  here is Irving on my front window, grooving on the twinkle lights.   

  

That single little spider absolutely took care of the problem my plants were having with fungus gnats. I mean that spider wiped them out.

I found Irving in the back entryway and brought her inside, and dumped her into the middle of my houseplants.  A few days later I found a spider midden loaded with little gnatty carcasses. I even mentioned it here at Steve.  I thought 'Well done, Irving. Go on with your bad fuzzy self" and Irving did.

I would find her marching all over the front room and kitchen, walls and ceiling. When she caught sight of me, she'd stand there for a few moments in astonishment, and then start shaking her spider fists at me. 'You want to go? You want some? Yeah you don't. I'll beat your ass.'  

Other times I'd find her while I was dusting, chilling in the front window, sucking the life forces out of a fly, and she'd brandish that fly at me. 'See this? This could be you. Yeah it could.'  

Mostly she hangs out just around the corner of picture frames, drapes and heat register covers. She builds little filmy webs anywhere there is a slight draft and catches flies and gnats by the hundreds, and just does her rounds of each trap. 

Irving got really fat. Far from body shaming her choices, I wishher all the best. My plants are happy, I am happy, and the flies are nervous.

BEHOLD: PLANT PICTURES THAT SHOW SUPER HAPPY PLANTS THAT ARE GNAT FREE

This spider really does jump, too. It's an ambush predator, and a really efficient one. She'd leap for a fly from straight off the window and catch it mid-flight, and just fall with it and lay there on the windowsill, little spider fangs sunk into its neck. The most fascinating thing to watch.  I mean, I have a life, but I'm also sitting right here in the front window where the spider likes to hang out, right next to my plant tower, and things happen, like spider murder. And I see it.

Anyway that is the story of Irving: Bringer of Death, Terror of Idaho.  Long may she sail.

Hello, I'm Back. Again.

 It isn't always the parent's fault. Sometimes people change. Sometimes their genetics play dirty tricks. It's horrible because you love your kid. You want their problems to be your fault. If it was your fault, you could do something about it. You could fix it.

In the beginning, my daughter knew there was a problem. There would be a very definite shift. Sometimes, even in mid - sentence, she'd go from being her typical self, just chatting, to a completely different person - one who was all snarling hate. It was scary to see. She eventually shrugged it off though. 'I just get how I get!' she said, as though it were a charming foible.   

Now, I am not the only person she's tried to curb stomp, not by a long shot. She became the kind of person that cannot help but attack the wounded.   That means anyone in her life.  Me, she perceived as wounded. After all, I've got clinical depression. But I kept on being not wounded, and I kept on refusing to tolerate her bullshit. I mean Jesus Christ I'm her mother, and it's not as though I walk around dressed in black being all suicidal and useless; what the fuck? But something would trip her switch and suddenly she'd be spoiling for a fight! Using any ammunition she thought she had! Trying her best to provoke me into a rage! And I kept not being provoked into a rage, and being confused, and telling her to grow up. Of course, ignoring a bully only pisses them off and makes them try harder. She did a few things, finally, that were way over the top, too alarming to ignore. I had to admit that she was different, had changed, and it was real, and I didn't know her anymore, and meanwhile she got meaner, and more destructive, and I kept on not tolerating it; and this shit went.  On.  For.  Years.  

I was not believed. 

One reason was that she was always certain that the two of us were alone when she decided to fuck with me.  It was calculated. She was purposefully sneaky, she was purposefully hurtful, and she did it for fun. 

Now for the second reason. And here I will pause to tell you a useful bit of advice.

 Never, EVER tell anyone that you have a mental illness. Not strangers, not the ones you love. Nobody. You will never be taken seriously again. 

  My husband, like most men, took the 'Ah, it's just women's stuff' track and removed himself entirely from the situation. Didn't want to see it, didn't want to hear about it, didn't want to know about it. And of course, I'm crazy, right? so there's that. Of course I was overreacting. Of course I was just taking things the wrong way. "Have you taken your meds?" he'd ask in a humorous tone. And there I was stranded. I had to deal with her alone, which I did really, really badly. And all the time, she's getting worse.  

 It caused all kinds of disruption in our marriage. And still, he did not want to hear about it, he would not listen - right up until she started treating him the same way, for the same reason. He got older, he developed some health problems, and she started up with the petty meanness. 

Then he had a heart attack.  

First she threw a tantrum. An epic tantrum.
Then she cut him off. 

The day after he came home from the hospital.

So this is the ugly, icky, tawdry bullshit that I've had to navigate since last we were together, kids. I'm still recovering from neck surgery. The Biker is still recovering from his heart attack. We're both still trying to get used to living in a different climate, in a different culture, far away from what we're used to, and now we're both dealing with issues that should have been put to bed years ago, and mourning the loss of a child. 

 Yes, I'm in therapy fuckin' again, and getting my medications adjusted again, and fucking with what our insurance will cover and what it won't.  It sucks.

I am disgusted, I am hurt, I want to scream and punch things.