Fighting back.

When I was a kid I had some horribly abusive, sadistic, alcoholic parents.

One of their favorite past times was to order my brothers to beat me up.

We were never allowed on the furniture as kids, so inevitably we'd end up in a row in front of the tv.

If the show was particularly boring, my parental units would spice it up by telling my brothers to beat on me. They'd direct it like a movie.

"Pull her hair! Harder!" and they would. To the point that I'd have small bald spots.

"Kick her, punch her!" and they would. With their small feet and fists that always got me in the tenderest of spots.

I'd be ordered to not fight back with the threat of them joining in if I did. Sometimes, just for shits and giggles, they'd join in anyway.

There I'd be, 4 people beating my na'chul born ass.

Now, I'm wondering if that's why I am like I am. I fight pain infliction like a pissed off honey badger. I seek it out, then fight it. Same with humiliation.

Key words: fight it.

I was never allowed to fight back. I was forced to just sit there and take a beating. All while being laughed at.

It makes me think that maybe I'm working out some psychological shit and didn't even know it.

Fucking eggs.

I don't talk about my son much. He's a constant source of emotional pain and self-flagellation.

He is bat. shit. crazy. and I constantly wonder if it was my fault.

He blames everyone for his misery. He drags everyone down with his cruelty in words and actions.

His latest knife in my chest happened last December.

See, my son hates that he is half black. So much so that he had plastic surgery to be more passable. He hates that he is gay. He hates that he was born to parents with median income. He hates that his life hasn't been all silver spoons and country clubs and he screams from the rooftops how unfair life is and he blames me and hates me for the injustice of it all.

So, he decided in December to allow his gay, white, manfriend to adopt him. He had his father's name and my name taken off his birth certificate and this other d00ds name inserted. He changed his name. Michael wasn't good enough for him, I suppose.

I wasn't good enough for him, I suppose. He's ashamed that I'm his mother. He's been lying about who I was for years. Apparently, I'm just some shit he needs to scrape off the bottom of his shoe. The kicker is, I got pregnant with him when I was 19, had him when I was 20. I wasn't afraid of being a mom. I wanted him, I wanted him more than anything I'd ever wanted before. I loved him like I'd never loved another human being.

He tries to drag my daughter along on his ride of madness, but she isn't going and he abuses her emotionally for it. He tries to put her in the middle of him and I like some kind of fucked up tug-o-war rope. It isn't fair to her.

I want to knock his eyeball out the back of his skull some days and today is one of them.

I wonder where I went wrong. I didn't raise him to be so damn self-absorbed.

If all that isn't enough, he called to tell me he wants to stop and see me on his way back to college. Two days after my birthday. With his 'new dad' in tow. I don't think I can handle having that rubbed in my face.

How can I have one child who is so over-the-top fanfuckingtastic and another child that's such a little fucking turd?

Pardon me while I go cry a river.

Fucking eggs, they cut you deeper than anyone ever could.

My dirty little secret.

I've been keeping a secret.

I know I appear to be unscathed from my experience with the serial killer ex and the following 3 1/2 years in jail, but I'm not.

I am broken.

Being isolated from people you love, being warehoused with people you cannot trust, it does something to your psyche. When you can't touch another person, when you can't trust anyone but yourself, when the only person you can depend on is yourself, you begin to believe you don't need anyone else. For anything. Ever.

This is where I'm broken. I find myself struggling to make connections with people on any sort of deeper level. It used to be easy for me to love and trust and..commit, because I never had to do life and survival alone. Now that I have, there's a part of me that stays aloof and disconnected. As much as I want to feel attached to others, that part of me just doesn't work right anymore. I have to work at feeling attached. Hoping one day that, through faking it, I'll finally make it. I'm barely affected by people leaving my life. I'm barely affected by ousting people from my life. I feel cold inside.

There's a conditioning that happens in jail. A beating over the head, repetitiously, to never, ever trust anyone. You can't. Trusting people can get you hurt, used, abused and tossed to the wolves.

You learn to keep everything inside because what you tell others can become a weapon, so, you close yourself off.

It becomes the norm. The more normal it becomes, the less ability you have to make any real attachments because eventually you realize, all you really need is you.

I'm not sure there's any turning back from that.

Jail fucked me up and I don't know if I can ever be fixed. So, I walk around and pretend I'm all attached to folks, but I'm living a lie. I'm not attached. I want to be, but I'm not.

I mourn the loss of that part of me and I wish I knew how to get it back.

This is us.

He's a little weird, I'm really weird, but our weirdness is in sync. 

He takes all my little oddities in stride, like they don't even matter. We read each other so well. Lots of times, I'll be thinking about something and he will send me an email about it or vice versa. He'll be about to ask me something and I'll send him exactly what he was going to ask for. I'll be thinking about a song and he sends me a link.

We have so much in common, even our little quirks. We watch the same stuff on TV. We read the same kinds of off the wall news. We like the same movies. Then, just when I think we couldn't have much more in common, he tells me he can't sleep without a cover. I can't, either. I totally thought I was way out there. He always makes me feel like I'm not.

I smell toast burning. Butter side up or butter side down?

Fuck you, Cricket.

Fuck you, Cricket Wireless upper echelon. You should be tarred, feathered, drawn, quartered and anally savaged with Guinness World Record-sized zucchini until you willingly and gratefully, with much weeping and begging involved, change your name to Crookit Wireless.

It definitely suits you better.

Your salesman sold me a pipe dream, and the smoke was blown straight up my hooha, and not in the hawt way.

I needed internet access and you saw my bandwidth-ignorant ass coming.

I allowed your salesman to convince me that by signing up for your largest "unlimited" access package available, I could "download 24hrs a day and never run out."

Yeah. Right. Crookit bastards.

When I called customer service to find out why it was taking 30min to load my much beloved FarmVille, I was informed that I had run out of bandwidth, by a Dunkin' Donuts-lilted, thickly accent-laden, barely understandable agent, professing to be named Brad.

By this time, I am totally sensing a theme of dishonesty.

Apparently, the largest "unlimited" package consists of 7.5meg of bandwidth, which only translates to "weyn hooondred and twwwaynty wayb-brrrrowsing hourrrrs, maay'ohm.", says the oh-so-smug Brad, as he litters the conversation, more than liberally, with the condescending "I oondooerstand yooour froostraysheun, maay'ohm.

NO.THE.FUCK.YOU.DON'T.STOP.SAYING.THAT.IT.MAKES.ME.WANT.TO.POP.YOUR.HEAD.LIKE.A.ZIT.
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me: "I purchased an unlimited package, Brad. How have I surpassed my limit on an unlimited package? Maybe we should drag out the trusty Webster's and clearly define 'unlimited'." 

Brad:  "eet ees unleemeeted, maay'ohm. you cahn still connect to deee eentorrrnet, yooour speed is just moouch slowvwer." 

me: "um, Brad, I can't load a page, I can't use MSN or Skype. what good is it to have the ability to connect to the internet if I CAN'T FRIGGIN LOAD A PAGE?" 

Brad:  "I oondooerstand yoour froostraysheun, maay'ohm." 

me: "No, Brad, you don't. If you did, you'd attempt to fix this mess or, at the very least, send me to someone who WILL."
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Brad, who may have been quite skilled at condescension, wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box and getting on my last nerve worse than the banjo kid from 'Deliverance'. I was completely uncunted, so I demanded the number for their corporate headquarters.

This exchange ended with him putting me on hold for 15min just so he could give me a corporate headquarters phone number that NO ONE EVER FUCKING ANSWERS.

As if this weren't enough, you're so testicle-less in your business practices, it seems only the Pentagon and CIA have access to your WEAL and TWUE top-secret, corporate headquarters, red, blinking, batphone number.

Oh, btw, as soon as the rebate check comes for this P.O.S. modem, I'm taking the loot and going with Comcast. They may be crooked fuckers with sketchy service, but at least they TRY to make their customers happy when they bitch loud and long enough.

Dear Hoodbooger

So, Mr.DownstairsNeighbor, you left for Atlanta for three weeks. While you were gone your hoodbooger girlfriend and your kids moved in. Them and their gawddamn cockroaches. I hate bugs, I really do and this isn't going over so well.

I've used boric acid. I've used Raid. I just mixed a tiny bit of exterminator strength roach killer I wheedled off a friend and sprayed everything down. Tomorrow I'll pull everything out of the cabinets and spray them til they're soaked.

I hate that the motherfuckers only come out at night. Baby cockroaches. EVERYWHERE.

Fuck this. They go or I do.

I don't bitch when you stink up the hallway with weed. I was only mildly irritated when your girlfriend decided to blow her car horn like a fuckwit at 2am under my window, but this?

Aw, hellnaw! I refuse to live with bugs and I don't know how the hell you can. They're just...nasty!

I guess hoodboogers don't mind laying up with motherfuckers who don't contribute to the rent.

You really need to clean your house, man. Better yet, make that hoodbooger you let move in clean that shit. Pronto.