Why this is not a parenting blog

As I drove down my street this afternoon, a woman recklessly pulled out of a gas station right in front of me. I almost drove into her. I leaned on the horn; both our windows were open because it was a warm day. I could see the woman; she was older and she had the hard, lined face of an alcoholic or someone who had not been kind to themselves. Even though she was completely in the wrong, she began shouting at me (I actually think she was drunk) and swearing at me. I leaned out my window and yelled "Go*curse* yourself, you *cursing*sex worker*", and waited, looking in my rear view mirror for a sign that we were gonna take it to the streets..
She drove off, so I continued down my street. Then I remembered that my 14 year-old daughter was sitting next to me in the car. She was looking at me and she said "Wow, really mom? What happened to being the better person?"
"*Curse* being the better person" I answered, "I was ready to GO!!"

***words surrounded by asterisks may or may not have been the actual words spoken.

An educational tale

This is a painting I did in 2007 when I was at UC Berkeley. It's mixed media on a plank of wood. The title is The Tail of an Education, because this painting includes $3,000 worth of parking tickets that I received whilst I was at Berkeley, and I felt that in some ways this summed up the struggle of going to school as a single parent with many other obligations in addition to school. And, of course, it is a mermaid's tail....

 I posted this now because it's ironic how little has changed since 2007, when I was struggling financially but still looking for ways to find humor in my situation. I loved being at school and painting every day.

I will be adding more of my paintings to my blog in the near future.....

Private High School

Totally legit ways to make extra money:
1.Learn to card count.
2.Drug mule
3.Trophy wife
4.Sell your organs/eyeballs/body parts on the black market
5.Pie eating contests
6.Take your shit to Antiques Roadshow
7.Kill your spouse for insurance money (see #3)
8.Invent something really successful and lifechanging (e,g; the Emerycat)
9.Write a bestselling series about young British wizards and witches
10.Write a bestselling series about vampires and werewolves
11.Get your own reality show ('Keeping Up With The Housewives of Contra Costa County')
12.Win the MegaMillions
13.Sue Wholefoods for making you afraid to eat non-organic food for fear of being made an outcast in society and being driven from your village and forced to wear a red P for pesticide on your clothing...
14.Pyramid scheme
15.Ponzi scheme

There's a small possibility that a couple of these are not totally legit. Or they might have been done already.Allegedly.

How to get your son out of the house

"I'm hosting a Red Tent menarche ritual for ____'s daughter later today, to celebrate her getting her period. You need to wear red and participate in the Celebration Circle, and give her advice for this important moment in her life. I hope you can be there."

This I know for sure...

1.If you are feeling sorry for your broke-ass self, watching a 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' marathon will not help you.

2.If I have to read one more fucking inspirational facebook status update, I will kill myself.

Weird science

Who doesn't love to malign a conspiracy theorist? One of my husbands once told me that "everyone who gets a flu shot gets a chip embedded into them that makes them conform to the government". I asked him if he had gotten a flu shot and he told me that he had. I pointed out the obvious; that as a drug-using alcoholic who had never held a full-time job in his life he was not a poster child for 'government conformity'. (Sadly I still feel that story says more about me and my terrible taste in men than outrageous conspiracy theories).

I know a conspiracy story when I hear one. However... with each new development in my life, as things get worse and worse instead of better and better, I have become convinced that my life is not, in fact, my own. I believe I am living in some kind of giant laboratory and that I am the subject of a lifelong experiment-a stress test-the goal of which is to see how much one person can tolerate before running through the streets naked and screaming. I am not the only test subject. When you eventually and inevitably see me running naked and screaming down the street, don't feel sorry for me, because I stuck it out longer than the guy that made the Kony 2012 video, and Charlie Sheen (although that's debatable as he has already made a fantastic comeback), so I'm a WINNER.

Let's get a bite to eat..

• • Cheerleader:
    OI
    
    If you haven't made plans already for tomorrow night, I would like to go out with you for a Ruby Murray. Let me know...I could use a break!
• 10 April

  Friend who must not be named:

  • Oh bollox.... i can't tomorrow.... not allowed to eat for a cupla days! Saturday afternoon/eve or sunday early eve or Monday breakfast (which is to die for) Will call you tomorrow, unless you want to call me now  (i don't want to wake anyone up by calling you now as i know it is too late to call you)
• 10 April

  Cheerleader:

  • Um WHY can't you eat ??
• 10 April

  Friend who must not be named

  • Don't  laugh you slag, but i had a hypnotic gastric band fitted today and i can only have liquids for the next 2 days
• 10 April

  Cheerleader:

  • HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
  • you are mental
• 10 April

  Friend who must not be named:

  • thank you!  i can't fit into any of my clothes and we can't all be 7 stone and be perfect like you
• 10 April

  Cheerleader:

  • Sorry I'm not laughing; that sounds totally legit.
• 10 April

  Friend who must not be named:

  • if it works, maybe you should try... i can do it for you. i will let you know if it does work, so far so good though... it's easy for me to do it to you now that i know how
• 10 April

  Cheerleader:

  • you are a hideously obese abomination and I'm glad you are doing something realistic and practical to take care of it.
• 10 April

  friend who must not be named:

  • are you taking the piss you tart
• 10 April

  Cheerleader:

  • um YES
• 10 April

  Friend who must not be named:

  • have you ever been hypnotized
  • its all relative innit
• 10 April

  Cheerleader:

  • no but I've been criticized...
  • rhymes with hypnotized
• 10 April

  Friend who must not be named:

  • have you been circumcised?
• 10 April

  Cheerleader:

  • I've been lobotomized
• 10 April

  Friend who must not be named:

  • that i definitely know is true 
    Cheerleader:
    

    • Thank you mam
      

       

      
      
      
      April 18th, Friend who must not be named:
      

      • I feel totally uncle dick, i am never going to eat again, i hate your guts (isn't this the usual and normal dialogue we have with each other? Anyway, as always, faberoonie to see you and share our unique talent of over eating, and our amazing gift of eating chocolate to the point of no return... i couldn't do it with out you, yes ma'am...
        
        Loadsa luvin to ya, and i just lurve that woolen coffin! Who would have thunk???!!! XXXXXXX