No Hangovers, Just Heartache (eewwwww!) Total Ranting

Can't believe I even wrote that. Ewwwwwwwwww. But anyway. After a week of tremendous angst and anguish, a lot of work, etc - my son got back into the school. This is a good thing. I think. And he's going in for a full psychiatric workup, ADD/ADHD testing, on Tuesday morning. It took me a total of 6 insane hours of telephoning, faxing, driving here & there to arrange this testing. I'm an educated, intelligent, determined woman with health insurance. The whole sorry saga nearly made me give up, which makes me so sickeningly furious and heartbroken I can hardly breathe. If this maze was this fucking hard for me to navigate than how goddamn impossible would it be for someone who doesn't have my advantages? This system is beyond screwed, it's hopeless and insane.

I heard from a friend who's SO's sister was a crackhead, desperately in need and in fact wanting help. There was none to be found - they had to get her to commit a crime to be helped. Yup, absolute fact. They took her to a department store and got her to obviously steal something in front of a security guard and then insisted that the guard call the cops. That was the only way they could get her into rehab, get her therapy, get her the help she needed. Very very very goddamn fucked up system.

At any rate my son is back at school tonight, and hopefully (oh please) everything will work out, he will get the help he needs, he will get an education, he will be okay. In the course of my telephone odyssey I spoke to a psychiatrist who told me that I was asking for too much, since I was unwilling to help. Apparently the fact that I am a single mother who works about 50 hours a week meant that I was unwilling to help my child. If I was willing to help my child, I would be home every minute that he is at home. Right. Uh huh. Has she checked into economic reality lately? I kind of think that if I quit my job than ADHD might be the least of our problems, but I guess I'm wrong. Yeah, okay, I'll quit, stay home - in a cardboard box on the side of I-40, I guess. God knows I don't quite make enough to live on as it is, but if I don't get a paycheck things will be infinitely worse. She was very helpful. Kind, too.

If you don't know, my kid's father opted out of this pain in the ass parenting thing about 11 years ago. No child support, no nothing. Sure, I could go after him with lawyers, guns and money, but since the last I heard he was homeless, drunk and crazy in West Virginia, it seems kind of pointless. Moral lesson? Don't get pregnant with sexy bluegrass guitar players. Actually, get pregnant with noone unless you get a full genetic screening. All I asked him for was an STD/HIV test. Getting married is cheap and easy. Getting divorced is expensive and hard, and the pain goes on forever.

Which brings me to the next part of this rant: my ex boyfriend, another bluegrass musician, has a new girlfriend. And my ex really important boyfriend not only has a girlfriend, but they have moved together to central America to start a new and wonderful life. And the guy I have a crush on? You got it - I hit the trifecta this weekend - he has a girlfriend now too. Nothing like hearing this from one to two to three, all in a row like the three fucking blind mice. They are my friends and I'm happy for them. Really. Any minute now this terrific happiness ought to kick in.

Meanwhile, I haven't had a date in like, 8 months. Terrific. Wonderful. To paraphrase Richard Brautigan, if I was dead I couldn't attract a male fly. I could take my final vows: I haven't been this fucking sin free since my first communion. God is happy with me now; no lust - but okay, some serious envy. Some soul consuming envy. What exactly is it with me, what horrible personality disorder do I encapsulate that makes me so totally undateable? I don't know. I brush my teeth, I shower regularly, I work like a demon, I am a great cook and a caring friend, etc. And I'm not even fat. But apparently I cannot be in a relationship. It is forbidden, I broke some kind of crazed taboo, and it's all over. Okay. I could handle the fact that this now makes FOUR of my close male friends, three of whom are exes, who are all happy and shit with other women now, if I had anyone, anyone at all, to walk around the goddamn block with. All I ask at this point is that he breathe unassisted and have a working dick. But probably I am too picky. No doubt I am too picky. Maybe there's a homeless paraplegic schizophrenic convicted murderer with an oxygen tank whose dick was shot off in Vietnam somewhere who would date me. But I doubt it.

And I even got whistled at tonight. Great, terrific. I get whistled at (and believe me, I appreciate it, when you're as old as me, you have given up that faux feminist outrage at whistles you have when you're 20 and can't walk a block without being hassled) but go out for coffee? Nope. No way. Nothing, nada, noone, and I guess it will be like this for the rest of my life.

So, it's quite possible that tomorrow I will have a hangover to bring you. I have been busy being a good parent, inasmuch as that is possible without quitting my job, and I haven't been drinking much. Dag. Sucks, this high functioning alcoholic social drinker shit. But right now I'm going to go build a fire and drink in front of it, smoking up the chimney as always.