Stuff, some of it disturbing

I am with Light now in Pennsylvania. It's good to be here, good to see her. We'll go see her art exhibit tomorrow evening... in the snow, evidently. Right now it's sunny and pretty here, but it's supposed to get very cold and wet, beginning with rain in the early hours tomorrow, but staying above freezing  most of the day. By night, though, it's supposed to change to snow. Then I leave the day after, in ice and snow it looks like. I'll be driving to the Bloggerpalooza in Lewes, DE on Thursday. Looks like I'll need to add a couple of hours to my drive time for this weather. I think this is the system the Weather Channel is calling Vulcan. OK, just looked at the report and this part of PA will only get light snow. But what about the water that falls before the freeze? East of here, and into DE won't be affected, snow-wise, so maybe it'll be OK.

And I'm super-duper looking forward to the Bloggerpalooza, even though the man who SHOULD be with me is back at home dealing with shit. I'll get to that in a minute. He and I are both really pissed that he could not come this time.

So, the shit at home concerns Sproing this time. He had his follow-up court appearance today, his chance before the judge after spending a few weeks (5, I think it was) in the evaluation center, what I like to call "jail lite." The DJJ office and the attorney recommended that he be put on probation, with the understanding that if he violated probation at all he'd be put back into DJJ custody for the remainder of his term. But no, not this judge. As Superman said, he got the hangin' judge today. She sent his ass to jail for 9 months. I am upset. Superman is upset. Sproing is beside himself. Superman said he was crying when they took him away. He'll be back at the eval center for a few weeks (60 days, but probably less) then be put into "placement." Don't know what placement means. The nice lady from DJJ said that could mean anything from foster care to group home to "I'd like to vacation here." So we'll see. He'll be subject to random drug tests, be enrolled in whatever school is available where he's placed, and maybe some other stuff but I can't remember what else Superman read to me.

Sproing has been doing so much better recently. He definitely learned that he doesn't want to go back to jail after his first stint in the jail lite. I really hope he doesn't become bitter and harder from this. It might work to his advantage, you know. He might learn a very valuable lesson and become a better person, etc. I can hope.

Why don't they do this with Diva?? She's the one who really needs to get the hell out of the home. She has some charges pending, but no news yet on when she'll go to court. I hope she gets this same judge, though. I'd love for her to be sent away. Maybe something like this would improve her attitude, too.

Anyway, I'm pretty upset about Sproing being sent away. And I'm upset about Diva still being at home. Actually, right  now I'm just kinda upset. Think I'll go sew for a while, listen to some happy music, and try to chill.

P.S. I had a fantastic road trip yesterday. Left home at 4 a.m. and drove for about 13 hours to get to Light's place. Had a really good trip, listened to some awesome music, didn't use a map or directions or anything and got here MAKING NO WRONG TURNS AT ALL!!!! I'm particularly proud of that. I will need directions to Lewes, though, because I don't know how to get there from here. The directions are printed out and attached to an official looking clipboard in my truck. I'll let you know how it goes.

Not a good Sunday

Real quick now, because it is very late. I've been asleep, but indigestion woke me up and I need to sit up straight for a bit before I lie back down to sleep.

I had a bad day today. I was feeling kind of stressed in the morning, a bit unsteady but not too bad. I've been taking a look around me at all the crap that I need to do, the cleaning, organizing, sorting. The house is a horrid mess. We have too much stuff and too little space. It's a 1600 square foot house with 8 people living here. And I'm a pack rat and a mess. When I see such a big mess I get overwhelmed and do other stuff to avoid it, which of course makes it all worse.

Neither Superman nor I are good at delegating the work. We have 5 kids in the house now who are able to wash dishes, fold clothes, sweep floors, etc. But we have no kind of system in place to assign those responsibilities and of course none of them volunteer to do any of this work. The dishes pile up until no one can work in the kitchen, the kids can't find clean clothes, and chaos reigns. I blame myself. Of course I should make charts, assign chores, do more to increase the general organization in the household and make it easier for everyone to contribute to the good of the cause. But I don't. I haven't. I'm not sure how to, but I haven't really tried. When I do make attempts in that direction I never follow through, so we might have a plan in place for a week or so, then it goes pfift because I don't keep up with it.

So about 3:00 this afternoon Sproing asked me to make popcorn for him. He had a friend spend the night last night, while Diva spent the night with this boy's sister at their house. The boys played well today and had a pretty good time. They went out to play after lunch and picked up a couple of other boys from the neighborhood. There were 4 or 5 boys in the living room watching a movie, and Sproing asked me to make them some popcorn. Fine. I went into the kitchen, which was a mess. I had to clean off the stove, find the pot I use to make popcorn, excavate it from the bottom of the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, wash it, dry it, yada yada yada. It took me almost half an hour just to start cooking. I couldn't find the lid to the pot, so I used a larger lid. I made more of a mess with what was already on the stovetop because I'm clumsy. Anyway, by the time the popcorn was popping I had just about lost all semblance of cool I had. I was burning my hands trying to hold this lid on the pot, and I could smell the popcorn beginning to burn. I knocked some other stuff over on the stove, onto the hot eye, ... shit, it was a mess. Probably would have been funny to watch it on a sit-com. I was far far far away from amused.

I blew my stack. Screamed, yelled, cried. Superman had gone to take Light back to school and had been gone for about 3 hours. He walked in the kitchen door, right behind where I was having a melt-down at and on the stove, right into my screaming tirade. At some point, as usual when I lose it, I lost my ability to form words. I was standing there in the kitchen making screaming and moaning noises, (not in a good way, believe me!) pointing at the mess, tears streaming down my face. It wasn’t pretty. Superman took the pot out of my hands and sent me to the bedroom. All I could do was mumble at a screaming volume. I got on the bed and just cried for a long time. It was a hard cry, but not even a good cry.

I finally got the tears and screams under control enough, then I started cleaning. It’s what I have needed to do, what I’ve been avoiding for days (longer, really, if I’m honest about it. I don’t want to be honest about it right now, thankyouverymuch). I worked on the pile of junk beside my bed and made fair progress. I feel like it isn’t enough.

I feel like a failure. Again. My head is telling me bad things about myself. I’m not supposed to listen, or believe it, but it’s the truth. Yes, I have many fine qualities. There are many things I like about myself. But I also have a lot of bad qualities. Some days they don’t balance out. In the larger view, the big picture, I’m OK. In the small details of life, the foundations of things, where the rubber meets the road, I’m just a mess. How the hell can I accomplish the big things if I can’t even keep my room clean? Why do I feel it so demeaning to do general cleaning? I feel horrible about myself when I push a vacuum or wield a mop, but I feel even worse when I don’t and it looks like a pig sty in here. There is something seriously wrong with me. I need a keeper. But I don’t deserve a keeper because that indicates I’m a failure at the things I’m supposed to be able to do.

We are getting nowhere.

Maybe it is all hormones, and I’ll be functional in a few days. Maybe I’ll be functional, but my house will still be a pig sty. Maybe “functional” means I semi-successfully ignore the chaos, but what kind of functionality is that?

I’m not sure I want to post this. But in the interest of honesty, in the interest of informing you just how fucked up I really am under all the good intentions, I think I will. I’m mad enough at myself to spread my shit on the internet.

Gawd, I need to shut up and go to sleep. I’m supposed to be functional by 5:50. That’s like four hours from now. Shit. And this tirade is giving me a headache.

Shit