I had a good day... and drunk blogging

I've had a spate of bad days over the past couple of weeks, but have felt pretty good most of this week. I had 2.5 glasses of wine and some spiked coffee this evening, and my head is floating about half a head above my head now. Feelin' groovy.

Superman left here Sunday to visit his parents. I may have mentioned before that his father is in poor health. Today (24 Nov) is his 79th birthday, and Superman wanted to visit and be there on his dad's birthday. He had a good visit with the folks. He left their place around noon and drove to the city where Twitch attends school to retrieve the boy. They got here at 9:17 this evening (he notices stuff like that). Superman is compressed, and has been attempting to decompress since he got home, having spotty success. I'm glad he's back home. Things went pretty well while he was gone, but it is very good to have him back where he belongs.

So Twitch is home now, and Light got home yesterday (Tues.). Tomorrow morning I will drive to Columbia to retrieve the Diva. She'll come home for Thanksgiving dinner, then go right back to the loony bin. I'm a bit uncomfortable about her being here, but I feel obligated to include her in the holiday observance. I think I'd feel more uncomfortable (read: guilty) if we excluded her. The plan is to keep a wary eye on her at all times, and no one will be alone with her. It's a tricky thing. Yes, there's some resentment being served with our holiday meal.

Speaking of the meal, Superman and Light will be doing the majority of the cooking. I'll go get Diva, and hopefully he will drive her back in the afternoon. After being on the road for 9 hours today he might not be thrilled about another 3 or so. Eh. It's what we do.

Twitch is home. He can be an annoying pain in the arse. Sproing is having some trouble settling down tonight, and Light is in the room that Twitch and Sproing share, singing to her little brother. Sproing loves that. They developed that habit last summer and it was a good way for them to build on their relationship. Twitch was at school through the summer and missed that fun. Well, he's trying to go to sleep now and is entirely put out about all this melodic sweetness. Oh, get over yourself, young'un!

I mixed up a batch of ginger snap cookies this evening, and the batter is currently in the refrigerator acquiring the necessary firmness for shaping and baking. Shape and Bake, not the same as Shake and Bake. I also baked two pumpkin and one pecan pie. That's about the extent of my contribution to dinner. When I get back with Diva tomorrow (probably close to noon) I'll do some further consultation and perhaps pitch in with some real work. We'll see what needs to be done.

This post is boring me. There is some other stuff I want to talk about but tonight is not the time to do so. I need to discuss art and psychology and uncertainty and internal conflict and that sort of thing. Hopefully I'll get back here to do that before next week. I have a bunch of homework to do this weekend, too. Right now, though, it's time to go to bed.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend, a happy Thanksgiving if you live in a place where that applies, and peace and security within your life.

(From my perspective this post seems fairly coherent, as if I weren't under the alcofluence of incohol at all. I'll have to check back tomorrow for a different perspective.)

The story of my transformation from homophobe to homophile

I had this assignment for my ceramic sculpture class:

Students will write a 2-4 page (typed, double spaced) true narrative and then design a ceramic environment to illustrate the narrative. The narrative should be about an event or experience you witnessed.

So yeah, I have to depict the story in clay. Artistically. The most significant experience I've had in recent years is learning to embrace The Gay. Here is the story I submitted to my art professor this morning.

Until about five years ago I had my life mostly figured out. I was in my early 40s with four children, the youngest having recently started elementary school. After being a stay-at-home mom most of my adult life, I decided to pursue my dream of driving a truck and became a school bus driver. I finally had a job, was making a little bit of money, and my work schedule coincided with the children’s days off from school.

The other important element of my life aside from my family was the church. We were members of a conservative protestant denomination, and my husband and I were actively involved in various ministries within the church. Our church taught a strong Bible based theology, and there were very few points with which I disagreed. Being curious and intelligent, I had given a lot of thought to many social issues from the perspective of what I learned in church.

In the winter of 2006 I met a young man whose existence challenged my beliefs. C was a 17 year old high school senior who had lived with an inner conflict since early adolescence. He also was a faithful Christian but he was romantically attracted to guys, which the church says is wrong. He kept his same sex attraction a secret until age 17 when he realized that the conflict was not going to solve itself. As he began to accept his homosexuality he slowly shared his secret with close friends. My daughter Light was one of those friends.

Light introduced me to C in December. Although I had strong suspicions, I did not know for sure that he was gay until later in January. By then most everybody at school knew of his homosexuality, and many of those classmates also attended the church where he and his mother worshiped. He had not come out to his mother and was afraid she would find out through the grapevine. The child was full of angst typical of a high-strung teenager under stress. He needed to talk and I was willing to listen. I found him to be a charming, intelligent, sensitive young man who in no way fit the image of a homosexual that I’d learned from the church. I had a conundrum.

Not long after I started talking to C he found an opportunity to tell his mother that he is gay. She did not take it well. She and C’s step-father gave him 30 days to move out of their house. I was livid! I understand her attitude about homosexuality since I held a similar view, but I do not understand how she could banish her son from her home. Because it is in my nature and typical of what I do, I invited him to move in with us. I had grown to love C.

As I got to know and love him, I began to seriously question the church’s teaching about homosexuality. The church taught me that gays were cursed and homosexuality was a lifestyle choice. C’s story didn’t reflect that, and I did not believe that God could curse someone as wonderful as C. I had a lot of questions. It was time to research the issues.

I visited a lot of websites and read some dense books. Initially my curiosity focused on the cause of homosexuality and how and why the church condemned it. What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Who interpreted it into what my church taught? How has the church’s position changed through history? My attitudes and beliefs changed fast. Within two weeks of beginning my research I realized that homosexuality is a normal, natural variation of sexual orientation, not a choice and not inherently wrong.

My research led to more questions about the nature of gay people. The only gay people I knew were C and his boyfriend, and I was well aware that these two crazy gay boys from Greenwood, South Carolina were not typical of gays everywhere. I went online to meet other gay men who were older and more mature than these two kids. There are a lot of gay men who have their own blogs and that’s where I met some wonderful, interesting people. Many of them have since become my good friends.

This is a good place to end this narrative, but there is more of the story that I want to tell, at least in this essay if not with a clay sculpture.

I questioned the teaching of my church. After careful consideration I determined that the church was wrong. If the church was wrong about that, what else is it wrong about? It’s a domino effect. One of the pillars on the foundation of my belief crumbled, causing the walls to crack. Other clichés happened, which are easy to sculpt but not particularly creative. I radically changed my beliefs over a period of approximately six months. Not only did the walls of my faith crack, but my nerves cracked. I ended up having a nervous breakdown in late April or early May, about two and a half months after Cory moved in with us. The search for meaningful expression of my spirituality continues to this day. I know a lot more than I did five years ago, but I am less sure of where I’m going or what I should do with my life.

So there you have it. And I have no idea how to put any of that into a sculpture.

I would post a new entry but there's a cat on my arms

It's been a while, and I've missed you. I say that often, and I mean it every time.

I'm getting tired of school. It's tedious. Perhaps I'm bored with it. This is probably normal. I'm not going to fret about it just now.

The leaves are finally turning. It's the middle of November, for cryin' out loud! Don't we usually see fall colors earlier than this around here? I don't remember. Sad, I've lived at this latitude for close to two decades and I can't remember what fall looks like. We've had some cool days and a couple of light frosts. Today and yesterday were overcast with some rain, which I enjoy in moderation. Sometimes the clear bright days of fall are too bright for my tired old eyes. The rain is restful.

I'm currently procrastinating. I've got two important assignments that need attention, one that's due tomorrow morning. That's what I've come to tell you about. I'm having a hard time putting this mess into words, much less figuring out what to do with it once it's written. Let me explain.

Art. The assignment is to sculpt a narrative, to tell a story of something from my life. First of all I need to write the story. That's the part that's due tomorrow. I've decided (and the professor strongly encouraged me) to tell the story of my transformation from homophobic right wing religious goody-two-shoes to the more open, affirming GLBT advocate I am today. Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know the story. It's a story of abstract concepts without many concrete nouns that are easy to depict with clay. I've been struggling since last Friday to figure out what parts of the story to tell and how to tell it. Right now I'm rambling here on the blog, tossing around ideas in hopes that things will coalesce.

the church - religion - belief and conviction - cognitive dissonance - evidence to the contrary - change, radical change - reexamination - love - acceptance - curiosity - emotional upheaval - nervous breakdown - [have you identified any concrete nouns yet?] - rejection/acceptance - questioning fundamental assumptions - personal growth -

That's about it, as far as I can think now. I'm now going to take my ramblings to the document and make the mess there, then hopefully sort it into a coherent narrative. If it works I'll post it here later.

More art

"Think for a minute about what makes you fabulous and how you can celebrate it."-- Laura Mercier

This is the other fertility figure I made for ceramics class. It's a complicated piece, not easy to see in photographs. And for some reason I missed taking a shot from one other important perspective. This side, for instance,
only shows the hollow side of the female part. If the camera were behind it looking toward where the camera is now, you'd see better the mound of the pregnant belly. So, the pregnant belly of course represents life.

But lower the view slightly and you see under the belly (you can't see it well in this shot) at the ribs in the hollow, at a representation of death. That's the idea, anyway. And those things to the right of the belly are supposed to be a woman's breasts, though some have said they look like something else.
Flip the whole thing over, and here we see the male side of the figure. I had lots of fun doing this side.
If I were to do it again I would change a few things, but this is what we got. And I like it.

The fertility figures were our first assignment. I just finished the third assignment. I have pictures of 66% of the second assignment. We made 3 vessels, and two of them are finished. This evening the class will fire the third pot using the raku technique. If I have the gumption I will take some photos of the process and my finished third pot.

I have a hard time posting pictures on here. The damn things don't format the way I want them to. I want to show you my vessels, particularly the ginkgo pot. I'll do that in another post, though, hopefully soon.

So, about the quote leading this post:
"Think for a minute about what makes you fabulous and how you can celebrate it."
-- Laura Mercier
It was in my daily email quote. I suppose my art could be said to be part of what makes me fabulous. Celebration, though, is tricky. I don't like to do it. Perhaps showing you this piece of art is a way to celebrate.

So there you have it.

Yeah, whatever

Saw my therapist today. She says this is probably as much about hormones as anything else. We had a good talk. She said I don't necessarily need to go into the crazy. On some level, the past is the past, and as Pumba says, "put your behind in the past."

I am sad. There are tears. But it wants to be anger. Anger isn't safe for me. I'm not allowed to get angry. I don't know why, but it would be bad for me to be angry. Maybe I'll figure it out, maybe I'll let it slide for a while longer. My therapist says if I go ahead and do the angry thing most of this will clear up. Right now I just can't do angry. Maybe later. I'll pencil it in for the 35th of Juvember.

I have developed a pocket of infection just inside my right ear. This happened a couple of months ago, too. Hurts like the dickens. Tried to get in to see my doctor today, but the only available appointments conflicted with my therapy appointment, and today therapy was more important than a sore ear. I can go to the urgent care doc-in-a-box this evening or tomorrow morning.

That's all I've got for now.

so, you see, it's complicated

Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world. -RD Laing, psychiatrist and author (1927-1989)

Been feeling a bit crazy this week. I have been getting so much better over the past 6 to 9 months. There for a while I was functioning on a relatively high level of sanity.

Something slipped.

I'm not sure what happened exactly. I know when. I described/explained it here. But there's more than that. It's opened up the dark places. In some of my classes I'm being exposed to concepts and information that are bringing up some unresolved issues, or some such psychobabble.

And I wonder, do I need to go into the crazy to fix this? Is it even fixable, first of all? Can I act like a reasonably intelligent adult as I explore these uncomfortable events from my past? Or must I dredge through the mucky emotions, too?

Here's a possible connection. I recently bought some CDs of music that was significant in my life during one particular phase of adolescence. There was some shit happening with me then. It's possible that the tunes have reached something subliminal.

I'm rambling. I'm lost. Don't know how to proceed. I see my therapist tomorrow afternoon, and that is a very good thing. Maybe she can suggest some guidelines for this crock of shit.

Tired. Have no idea whether this mess makes any sense at all. Don't have enough gumption to care right now. I'll apologize later. In the meantime carry on with your lives, citizens.

Request for book recommendation and a sexy baseball player

No, I'm not requesting this sexy baseball player. I'm sharing my appreciation of his gorgeousness. May I present Tim Lincecum, pitcher on the World* Champion San Francisco Giants team. Tim Lince-yum!

Now, on to business. The third big assignment in my sexual deviance class involves reading a book in which some kind of sexually deviant behavior figures prominently. I have chosen "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov. The professor suggested "The Story of O" by Anne Desclos. We're trying to think of other novels that deal with some kind of paraphilia or sexual deviance, novels that are a bit more academic than the steamy romance novels a la Harlequin. Any suggestions?

*By "world" I mean the United States of America plus Toronto, Canada. It's an egocentric thing on the part of my fellow countrymen. On behalf of them, I apologize to the rest of the baseball-playing world. While I'm at it, I apologize for American Football usurping the name "football" for something that is clearly not so much about feet and the ball.

But I digress.

I haven't forgotten you

And here we have some of my art. This is a piece from out first assignment, which was to make fertility figures or something suggestive of fertility. This here is supposed to be a pregnant pig with really big teats. The swirls give her visual interest and maybe suggest the curly tail, except that this curly tail has gone wild all over her body. I don't know, people. Sometimes these things come to me like that.

Madame Pig from the other side. She's about the size of a small fist. Oh, and pay no attention to the time stamp on the photo. I accidently changed it and haven't fixed it yet.
This fertility figure is more a maternity figure, I suppose. The form is supposed to suggest a mama bear, and there are her two little cubs. The one lying down looks like a baby gerbil to me, but I meant for it to be a small bear cub.
Mama bear's back is all dressed up with a symbol signifying what she eats (salmon) and where she lives (Pacific Northwest)
Here they are snuggled all together in the protection of Mama's embrace.
There are more figures from this assignment, one pretty boring and the other amazing. I'm too tired to load them now. Remind me if I forget later. Tomorrow in class I will take more pictures of the latest completed assignment. I may also photograph my current work in progress. I'll try to get some pics posted here.

I'm quite busy this semester, as I've mentioned. And that's all I have to say about that. Today I am amazingly sleepy. Almost time for my next nap.

We had a lovely Samhain (Halloween) celebration over here last night. A core group of young people, C and N's closest friends, came over and we had a feast and celebration. I cooked a lot of food! I didn't realize that I was doing most of the cooking, but when the table was set, there was all this food that I made. Superman fixed some of those really skinny steaks, I can't remember what they're called. That was our emergency back-up meat. The guys bought a very nice pork loin, but for complicated reasons it did not start cooking as early as it should have. It was finally finished when everything was over around 1:00 this morning. I just had a piece of the pork loin for lunch. It's amazingly good! We may have to do that again, only plan it better next time.

Late last night I had an attack of the blues. That so doesn't describe it, though. An attack of the black? I was overcome by a painful sadness, a mourning of what I don't know. I felt closer to crazy than I have in a while. It was a familiar feeling. Maybe that's what I was sad about, that it was so familiar. I don't know.

One of the elements of our celebration was masks. We had been instructed to bring a mask to wear. Last weekend I drew out some sketches for a mask I had in mind, and yesterday afternoon I made it. Thing about my mask, though, in concept it was less of a mask and more of an unmask. C is the only one who understood the significance of it, simply because he knows me so well. I used a piece of black craft foam, the thin lightweight stuff that is easy to cut into shapes, but stays stiff enough to not fold up under its own weight, mostly. I dunno. Look it up. Anyway, I used this piece of black craft foam, cut into a shape similar to that of Robin's mask. Instead of being smooth across the bottom, I cut it so that there were extensions from the outside of the eye area that ran down the outsides of my cheeks, sort of. One on each side, sort of curling out around my cheeks. The top of the mask above the eyes went up, forming the apex of a semicircle that surrounded my forehead, from the temples, up over the forehead, then back to the other temple. Don't know if I've described it well.

But on to the concept of the mask. The two pieces that ran down around my cheeks I covered with a line of clear rhinestones, diamond-like in appearance. Those were my tears, tracking down my face to my chin. This was a sorrowful mask. Recently, I'd say over the last few months I've been pretty happy. There haven't been many of those sorrowful days. However, the sorrow and pain are always with me, usually not far from the surface. Deep enough these days that it isn't too obvious to most people. My mask unmasked those feelings, and though the celebration was going along very well and I was tired but happy, suddenly the sorrow rammed into me. I sat on the ground for a while, then moved to the lawn chair and sat for a long time after everyone else went inside. C and N came out to sit with me. C held my hand and asked me those questions that must be asked. Do you intend to hurt yourself? Are you planning to kill yourself? He's a good friend and I love him very deeply. And no, I had no intentions of doing myself in. We discussed taking a very small number of pills to calm my raging emotions/nerves, and that is what I decided to do.

Before they came out to sit with me I had figured out what I needed to do. I had to burn the mask. I removed it, held it in my hands for a while watching as the light from our campfire illuminated the rhinestones. C followed me as I walked over to the fire to drop the damned mask in. Funny how different things burn. That mask curled up on itself, burst into flames, and quickly melted to nothing. I think I felt better. So I came inside, took some aleve for my headache and 1 mg of benzodiazapine. Then I washed my face and went to bed. I felt better immediately. I assume I did, having no recollection of what transpired from then until I woke up at 9 or so this morning.

Today is obviously a sleep day. I've had one nap already, and keep nodding off while typing this. I'm going to take another nap now.

Happy Halloween, Happy Samhain, and Happy New Year to all.

The further adventures of gays in my life

It's been pretty quiet, actually. We managed to get N enrolled in school, and that was more difficult than it needed to be. Things went swimmingly on this end, but people at the school he left were being a$$h0les. He had to officially withdraw from the old school before he could officially enroll here. The bitches at the old school said he had to come in person, fill out the withdrawal form and sign it, and either turn in his books or pay $150. N turned in his books the day before he left. He gave them to the classroom teachers, so the office didn't know about it. Did they investigate? Not until I mentioned the possibility that the teachers might know something. It was the secretary in the guidance office who was being the biggest roadblock, and she was downright ugly to me. I smiled and turned on the sticky-sweet. That works for me. It's heavy with sarcasm, but on the surface it looks so nice. It's a southern thing, like when we say "bless your heart" it really means "fuck you." Depends on the situation, of course. Sometimes I say "bless your heart" and genuinely mean it. I meant "fuck you" when talking to Ms. Secretary.

I happened to be driving in the general direction of that small NC town when I spoke with the secretary. I was taking Light back to school Monday afternoon, and her college town is between here and there. There was some urgency that he be enrolled here by Tuesday because this school was administering the test that all students must pass in order to graduate high school, beginning Tuesday and going through Thursday. Ms. Secretary was stalling for no good reason. I suggested they fax the paperwork here so N could do his magic to it in our guidance office and fax it back. But he still owes $150 for the books. If I take care of the obligation for the books, could you fax the paperwork? No. But why not? (Maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'obligation.' That big word might have confused her.) Well, we just don't do it that way. OMFingG! No, I didn't say that out loud. At that point I told her I was on my way to the school and would pay what he owed for the books, suggesting also that she check with the teachers as to what books he might still be missing. Ms. Secretary realized that I was going to show up in the flesh and beat her bitchy ass, so she let me talk to the lead guidance counselor after putting me on hold for half a fucking hour! On my cell phone, outside my local area. I dunno, do they still charge roaming fees? Superman pays the bills, I don't keep track of shit like that.

So I finally talked to the guidance counselor. She was pretty nice, actually. I told her I was coming in to pay for his books, and asked about the fax option. Well, if his guidance counselor calls me, I can fax the papers, then stay on the phone with him while he witnesses N signing the forms, and he can fax it back. That will work. What the fuck ever. Thankfully our guidance counselor here was super nice and willing to work with the bitches there. And I did all the leg work, so it worked out fine.

Once the bitch (Ms. Secretary) realized I was on my way for real, she backtracked a bit on the book fees. She agreed to talk to the teachers about his books, too. N assures me that he turned in all the books he had, and some of the classes only had a classroom set of textbooks so he wasn't issued a book in the first place. Yeah. Exactly. I had the foresight to ask if these people would take a check. They would take a local in-state check, but... obviously I'm from South Carolina. Can they make it more difficult for me? S-u-u-u-re. Once I got into NC I stopped at an ATM and withdrew $200, just to make sure I had enough to cover whatever bribe they asked for.

I got there just before 4:00. Oh, I forgot to mention that we were in a race with time, because the school offices close at 4:00. I made it with 10 minutes to spare. Arrrgh! I don't like rushing like that. Face to face, Ms. Secretary said that she found two of the teachers who said N had turned in his books. The other teachers had left for the day by the time she looked for them. Um-hm. She said the book fees were "about $40." About? Do we have any kind of invoice? I didn't ask, because I knew what was really going on. I did, however, try to pin her down on a specific price for "the books" because "about $40" means diddly squat. All I got was "$40 will cover it." So I peeled off two twenties and asked for a receipt. Ya know what I got for a receipt? A note on a pink post-it. Come on! I know they have a receipt book. We mustn't leave a paper trail, though, right?

We got it done. It cost $40 (plus gas) and took me 100 miles and three hours out of my way, but I accomplished the mission. The guidance counselor here took care of the rest of the details with N on Tuesday, and he is now enrolled in school again. If he passed the tests he took last week, and passes all his courses this semester, he will graduate in December.

N has received a couple of letters from the mother. She whines and cajoles in print now, but doesn't call and hasn't shown up. No, neither has his sister. I doubt she'd come here, anyway, if she did run away from home. Mother is using the cat as a tool to guilt him into returning. The cat meows at his bedroom door, misses him so much. What I know is the cat is well cared for, and N isn't worried about him.

The household has settled into the new normal. N is very easy-going, easy to get along with. He's not the drama queen S was, and has a much more cheerful attitude about helping around the house. I like that part particularly. All my flatware is still present and accounted for!

And that's pretty much the way things are. Less than a week of drama, and smooth sailing ever since. It's good, very good.

The saga continues: Part the second

I'm hoping part two is the end of everything, after what all happened yesterday.

We left of yesterday with the door bell ringing at 9:00 in the morning. I was expecting another visit from the police, since N hadn't called to tell anyone that he was OK. I would have preferred the police. It was Mother.

How in the hell did she find our address? I didn't ask her. It didn't seem like a good idea to ask, seeing as how I wanted to project an image of Power. She asked if her son was here, and I said yes, he is. Can I see him? No. He is my baby, and I just want to see my baby to make sure he is OK. He isn't ready to see you now. He will write a letter to you and send it to your home. I need for you to get off of my property now.

I only said that once. She continued to beg to see her baby. It was pretty pathetic. I told her to wait in the car, and came back inside to talk to C and N. The doorbell had awakened N from a dream about his mother coming to the house. Prophetic? Probably. I let the poor woman stew in the driveway for a few minutes, then wandered out to talk to her. She'd brought N's 15 year old sister with her, too. I told them again that N wasn't ready to see them yet. I sympathized with her position, and I honestly do. I'm a mother, too. In all honesty I told her this situation is not the best way for a child to leave home, but that N feels that it is necessary. It is his decision. We did not force him in any way to walk out on her like that. I didn't say that last sentence, but I probably should have. I just thought of it as I write. Of course C strongly encouraged the move, but no one forced him. I talked to him 2.5 weeks before Rescue Day, and again the day before Rescue Day, giving him an opportunity to back out. He admitted being scared, but really wanted to go through with it.

N's sister started crying when I said he wouldn't talk to them. I feel sorry for her, but I know that she's been influenced by this mother, too. She herself has run away a few times (I think I wrote about that a couple of months ago) and smokes pot and drinks as a way to cope with her mother's bullshit, according to N.

Mother said "How would you feel if I came and took your child away on his 18th birthday?" I told her that when my children were 18 I had helped them develop their own sense of independence, and if on their 18th birthday they wanted to leave, they would have talked to me about it, and I would have allowed them to do so. I kinda don't think that's the answer she was looking for, as if I care. I told her that my children and I communicate with each other, and genuinely listen to what each other says. I pointed out that N had talked to her about wanting to move out when he turned 18, and she countered "He talked about it, but I said I wanted him to stay with me, and he said 'OK'." Yeah, I did NOT say to her, he said it like "OK, sure, whatever" just to get you off his back because he knows you weren't listening to him and didn't want to argue about it anymore. N concurs. He tells me he brought up the subject a few times and she didn't take him seriously. Looks where he is now, honey!

I assured mother that N will be enrolled in the local high school and will be strongly encouraged to finish and get his diploma. She cried "I won't get to see my baby graduate!" Not necessarily, he might invite you to his graduation. My further thoughts, not voiced: it depends on you, how much you whine and bitch and make his life miserable, whether or not you accept him as the burgeoning gay man he is becoming. 'Cause, yeah, the gay thing is part of her problem.

You'd have been proud of me. I conducted myself in a calm and direct manner. I did not get emotional nor did I insult her intentionally. She may have interpreted some if it as insult, but I tried really hard not to be insulting. I was, possibly, a bit condescending, but I tried not to be. She is obviously upset, and she has every right to be. She does not, however, have a right to run her son's life anymore. She hasn't figured that part out yet.

After talking to her there in the driveway for maybe 10 minutes, she drove away. Oh, one of the things she said was that she drove this whole way, 2 hours!, to see him and I wasn't going to let her see her baby. I said "I know. I drove that yesterday to see him." That shut down that line of attack pretty quick.

So she left. I came back inside. We locked all the doors and opened the curtains so we could see if she approached again. And that's pretty much part two. But that's not all.

And because so much has happened and I'm not too good at this cliffhanger thing, I'll tell you what all else happened.

Around 11:30 yesterday morning we got another visit from the police. This time the three of us were here; me, C, and N. This nice police officer was a bit confused as to why he had been sent to see us, since the person in question was an adult. Yeah, mother had called. The officer needed to see N, and needed to ask if N was here of his own free will. Indeed, N said, he is. I was quite glad to see the police officer, actually. I'd considered calling the police just to let them in on our side of this little drama.

I invited him in. We were just about to watch a video, and C and N were snuggled up together on the sofa. We explained that N had moved here to be with his boyfriend, was 18, made the decision of his own free will, etc. N told the officer that his mother was manipulative and smothered him, and did not accept his homosexuality. The officer was quite nice. He advised N to not cut his mother off completely, saying this as a friend and a son and a father. We told the officer about N's plan to write to his mother. The officer said it would be a good idea if his mother got some counseling or something, maybe look into PFLAG, to help her come to terms with her son's homosexuality. Yeah, that would be a good idea, but I don't see mother making that step anytime soon. Perhaps we should mail her some PFLAG brochures. It's good information that she should know.

The officer said he needed to call N's mother to let her know that N was fine, and C asked him to tell mother to stop calling and texting his cell phone. So the officer asked if it was one or two calls. No, it was more like 20+ in the past 18 hours. That, he told us, is harassing, and if it continues C should file a police report, which would get mother a summons, and "they would go to court and fight it out like on Judge Judy." Oy. C didn't get any more calls or texts from mother. HOWEVER...

Part the third: Somehow mother got someone to hack into N's Facebook account. Mother, I'm told, isn't savvy enough to know how to do it herself. N's Facebook profile was changed, his relationship status changed to "single" and a message posted that said he had been kidnapped by this guy C, and gave C's phone number, asking his friends to call and demand that C allow N to return home. What kind of childish foolishness is this??? This is NOT a good way to improve the relationship with your son. This is a good way to push him even further away. Amusingly, not one of N's Facebook friends called. They know N is gay, they know he has a boyfriend and that he wanted to move in with C. They're cool.

In addition to hacking the Facebook (which has now been restored to accurately reflect the circumstances), she or one of her agents (sounds all James Bond-ish now, huh?) went through Facebook to C's page and found C's father, who lives out in Arizona. They contacted C's father and told him some cock and bull story to advance their means, the details of which I'm unaware. C called his dad last night to explain the situation, and his dad said that when he got the message it sounded pretty flaky to him. C said "I love my dad!"

I think that's about the extent of things so far. It's all I can remember, anyway. Yesterday was a busy day! I'm very glad I was home. I have a 2 day break from school, so the timing couldn't be better.

I'm going to post this now, take a shower, buy some stamps and mail N's letter to his mother, then take N to the high school to get him enrolled and stuff. Oh, I will take a printed copy of the FERPA regulations/policy/act/law thingie to remind the school officials that as a legal adult, N must receive the educational information and all mailings from the school, and that none of it should go to his parents.

It was a very wise thing that we waited until N's 18th birthday to do all this. Don't you agree? Because now we are golden, and all this shit that his mother is stirring up only reflects badly on her, and could get her into legal trouble. Oh yes, I feel good. :)