AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I've reached the breaking point.

I find that the more I try to work though this situation I have gotten myself into, the more impossible it becomes to work. Lets start with about 4 months ago (or so)

I was consoling Karen about a movie we had just seen. She was crying inconsolably about the movie Juno, a comedy, of all things. It was about a girl who had a baby at a young age and the sight of a baby welled tears in her eyes. Well, the reason, she said later, was that she wanted another baby and she knew she couldn't have one. I was not ready for one, to be honest the reasons were beyond anything like finances. My first child's birth took a lot away from me that I guess even now, staring my future down again, I am still bitter about what was stolen, not only by having a kid, but by others who associated with my first child.

My mother in law is a big source of the bitterness. She came into my house in Missoula a day before my wife and future daughter was to be induced, rearranged my furniture, threw away my things, worked herself to death in my home, and expected me to thank her for the invasion of privacy and insulation to my character. I recall resting in the back room of our small trailer that we were renting from my father in law, (who I have nothing but respect for) and having her come to me and literally call my faith and salvation into account. "Ya'kno, if I were you I would go take a walk and pray. Ya'kno, get right with God right now. This would be a good time." I was reading Snow Crash instead, and didn't move an inch. Really, she was using an assumption that I was a dirty rotten sinner and therefore needed to pray for repentance because of the infidelity that was going to be born in 15 hours. I had long made peace with that to my creator long ago, and now all I had to to was deal with the consequences. All she really wanted to do was get me out of the house so she could have Karen all to herself. Even earlier she had asked what role she was going to have with the birth of Lilas, and we told her that she could be there for moral support then a partner for the birth. That was MY job. anyway, comes time to have Lilas, and she tells me that I am tired and should go get a sandwich from the vending machine. Once again she told me what to feel and tried to get Karen by herself. This time I was mad, and had to leave to not stress out my half conscious wife who was giving birth. I left to save peace and as much as I hate to admit it, I was hungry. However, when I left, Karen's mom was such a stress that we almost had a C-section. When I came back we resumed giving birth, but Karen had contracted down to 4cm from almost 9. I always phrase it nicer when i talk to Karen about it, but the Human Body tries to abort children under stress. Stress stops labor, stress causes miscarriages, stress Kills babies that the body deems too stressful to live. When we called Karen's mother during different false labors, It put so much strain on her that she would stop contractions. Anyway, as we resumed, I had Karen's hand and her leg with my arm. she pushed and bled and I held her leg back to help get my daughter to the world. She was born with a lump on the side of her head from the 9 to four contraction but she was a pretty baby when she was born despite it. Upon going to but supplies for the hospital stay, Karen's Mom received a phone call from her sister and re accounted the events. "Yea... Karen was having a hard time... Yea it was just like when I had Jeremy... Yea, she had it rough but me and her mother in law pulled together our motherliness, and she has a beautiful baby girl." Let's be clear Leslie: Karen was having a hard time because of YOU, your story about your first child changed at least six times until it was exactly like YOURS, and you were no where near the blood and the piss and the placenta and the shit, YOU were being corrected by health officials when you were giving bad advice. She eventually did get her wish of getting rid of me, you see. She doesn't tell the story with me in it and writes me out of history. So you can imagine my bitterness to this day. She did get her wish of getting rid of me and having Karen all to herself.

So I was not ready to have another kid. She cried every night after that. I gave in our anniversary under a few conditions.

1. She said that she would push though being sick.

2. She would avoid her previous pregnancy diet of Dr. Pepper and Fudge Shoppe sticks.

3. She would be better with the money.

After all of this and the fact that it would be a good time for Lilas to have a little sibling, I gave in and for our anniversary, we removed her IUD. We Immediately got pregnant. We also immediately went broke during the final days of the semester. What I figured happened was Karen panicked when we had under 1000 dollars in our checking account and counter intuitively began to "sand bag" for the coming depression, spending the last we had on things we apparently "Needed" and for the life of me I don't know where it went. Good bye 3! She eats relatively better than she did when she was pregnant the first time, so she keeps number two. Number one is the one that Is the most destructive. She is too sick to work. Even to clean the house. I have had to be the housewife and the working man while Karen acts as the couch. Yea, she's sick. I wouldn't make her clean a toilet in her condition,but she promised she would work through being sick. She has even moved her computer to the couch for ease of access and camps out on the same stretch of furniture complaining about Lilas jumping on her. I'm starting my old job at Outback again because they would give me more hours and they give me free food as well as tips every week. It's not a bad gig, but it is fast and hard and I ache like a bastard. In the end she has defaulted on 3 and that keeps her in check for 2 on the basis that we have no money, and last but not least, she lied to my face about 1.

So, now I feel betrayed. I feel used. I feel like taking all our stuff, torching it, and living like a freaking hermit for the rest of my life. I think I need another job on top of the Outback gig, the problem is Karen can't watch Lilas in her condition so the other job would be going to daycare while Karen continues to act like a Barcalounger. It's not her fault, I know. That drive to make another baby was so strong I guess, she felt a necessity to have another child, she felt it necessary to lie to me and give me false hope that I would not have to carry the whole house. This is the punishment for being an upstanding male who accepts his responsibility with the consequences of his actions. It's not worth it. To the dead beat Dads out there, Hazaa and Kudos to you for being able to escape the responsibity of children. I envy your lack of conscience and honor and long to be one who could walk away when things get hard.

....I feel lied to....

(comments posted later)

From Jason

Well, I have to say that the way you just spilled your guts to everyone is impressive. You've never been one to hide your feelings though, so I'm not overly suprized. It really sounds as though you've gone 100 mph into a brick wall of shit for lack of a better term and have no time to turn for anything other then advise.

First of all, life is far too short for you to invest time into people that go out of their way to make you feel like a horrible person. It's also too short for you to be dwelling on the perameters of maintaining relationships with those that cannot accept you for who you are as a person. Your faith, in the 15 years that I've been a friend to you, hasn't waivered or been questioned any more then the next believer. We all make bad decisions and we all do things to a less of an extent then we would have originally prefered. Wether it be your education, career or relationships with your family and friends, they can all be improved upon just like anyone else. I only bring that up because I don't understand the reasoning for Karen's mother to be acting this way towards you. There's a very good possibility that there isn't any reason at all other then the fact that she's an overbearing, control obsessed psyco. Much of which is not seemingly in her control to remedy untill she can mentally and emotionally accept the fact that her daughter is a grown woman and her role as a mother as changed.

Without meeting Karen's mother, I can't really give you any other outlook on the situation with her. I'd venture to guess that you're better off in just understanding that she has issues. It's not you, it's not your fault and you need to just blow her off as much as you can without completely offending Karen. Talk to Karen about it though. Not everyone gets along with their in-laws and at least you can feel comfortable in knowing that you tried, but your friendship wasn't accepted.

As for working too much and doing all of the housework. Karen needs to realize that even though she's carrying your child, she still has an obligation to maintain. I supose you'll have to try and rationally talk things out without directly putting blame on her. Even if accusations are fully deserved, their never looked kindly upon when their being delivered to you by someone you care for. Many feelings arise, such as being embarassed which is soon to be masked by anger closely followed by defense mechinisms. More or less, you'll need to tell her that you've run as hard as you can with the rope in hand and you're about to hang yourself. What I mean by that is you were basicly handed the responsibility of, well, pretty much everything and you ran with it. Right now you're at a "breaking point." So tell her about it. Ask her if there's any way she can muster up the strength and determination to help pull you two through this. Start small though. If there's any way to guarantee failure in a life changing goal, it's by setting yourself up for failure with too large of a goal to achieve. See if there's a few light chores around the house she can do. Get the computer away from the couch. I've been there, and it's just plain being lazy. Talk to her about a part time job. Many women are sick through the duration of a pregnancy and she still has obligations to maintain. 20 hours a week with a creative aproach to child care during those hours could really help you out a lot.

I have to get ready for work now man, but send me a mssg or call if any of this is making sense and you'd like to talk it through a little more or just vent. We're here for ya bud, hang in there.

My reply:

In defense for Leslie, my mother in law, at that point in her life she was busy with her own issues with her Marriage and finances. The way she copes with this is to ratchet down the other things in her life that she can control. Karen acted as sole babysitter for her brother for all of high school and as a consequence, Karen missed out on a lot of things that you and I got to do, like stay up all night with friends, fight with people and not feel guilty about it the next day, and just be a normal teenage person. She was basically a co-mother with her mother and that inclined this whole controlling psycho thing. I was something that Leslie couldn't control, and barely knew in general, so as a consequence, she tried to control me and failed. Since then Karen has had conversations with her mom about her role as mom. We've worked out that although Karen is Leslie's daughter, she is not her child anymore. Things are better. It's the day that my kid was born that I want to get back, or at least feel better about. We patched up the relationship with Leslie, but the scar is still there for past transgressions. I'm working though that though.

In defense for Karen, she really is sick. It is miserable and painful, and we have a prescription for nausea that we can't afford until next week. I try to get her to do things around the house and she runs to the bathroom instead. She's not having a picnic. The metaphor of furniture is to describe the ability she has right now to help me while I clean and work, not for her laziness or her lack of commitment. To put it another way, if she went full out cleaning, I would have to clean the house and the vomit from the floor. She understands she has an obligation to uphold, she just cant do it. The "Breaking point" was an internal one for me, rather than one in our relationship. I'm falling apart an there's no one that can help me at this point. I found myself kicking a box across the room over not finding a dust pan, screaming at my two year old for being two, and having nothing to do but write about it. Nothing much really has changed about how I deal with things I guess, Instead of bringing a notebook with me everywhere, I use my computer.

anyway, I am shocked by your insight man. You've done a lot of growing since I last saw you. I also need to meet this chick of yours. Kristi said she liked her, so that gives me... well nothing. I appreciate your concern and thanks for the post.
one more thing: CALL YOUR DAD! He came into home depot a few months and we were in a consensus that you were a bum that doesn't answer your phone :^}, take it easy man.

My Playlist for the end of 2007

We watch the ball drop on another year at the homestead here in the Bozone MSU campus. As always, I intend to stay up all night and have an evening of fighting myself over having another year passed. Personally, my life seems to pull itself away from those I love and that causes stress. I am tired as always.

Tonight I heard something again, but for the first time, it made sense. My wife was talking to her mother on the phone and mentioned something that was so profound that it was hidden in the monotony of every day speech. Her words were "I was going to clean the house... but I'm just too tired to even try." Something I have heard from her many times, but until today, it seemed to be conjecture about the day. To see it more clearly was an excuse to be comfortable.

Well, if anyone has read my blog before, one can see I am always tired. Perhaps its the poor diet of crap and soda that makes me sluggish. Perhaps it is the extra half of a full grown person I have in my stomach. Perhaps it is the lack of exercise that I get in an average day. Perhaps it is the crash from sugar and caffeine. Or perhaps I;m a lazy fat ass fxxx who should've died 21 years ago from a severe Asthma attack that made my lips turn blue until some fool gave me a remedy in the emergency room... I think that is how it happened, I'll have to ask my mother about the details. Perhaps I should've died when my friend crashed his fathers Nissan into two mailboxes. Maybe I should've died when I made a new driveway with my Chevy Corsica and a barbwire fence looped around the front of my bumper. Maybe I should've bit it when i wrecked into the sod farm sign next to the driveway that i made for that person on the corner. They needed the Jaws O' Life to get me out of that one. And yet I persist. A tired mass of shxx that apparently doesn't pull his weight enough around the house and deserves to be teased by breaks "where I don't have to lift a finger." Like I lift a finger anyway.

If we could have a dog in our apartment, we would have a dog house. If we had a dog house, I would be in it, and if I were in the dog house, Miss Pearl would make sure I was stuck in it with all 300 pounds of me and set it ablaze like the Fourth of July. So, in short, moving to a place that allows pets would bring me that much closer to having a patriotic barbecue of axxHxxx that is so well done the dog gets a new house and a char broiled table scrap of butt cheek. I have spoken my opinion and I forgot that being in a relationship is like being in AA. "Hi, my name is Ryan (Everybody: Hi, Ryan) and I... gulp... am a husband (low clapping) It has been 4 months since my last decision. I had a moment how ever, when I had an opinion or two and failed to call a sponsor to talk myself down until the urge subsided. The doghouse is very small and hot, especially when my wife pours a bag of Kingsford over the kindling and barricades the door shut. The dog will be fed however. Thank you." The free coffee gets distributed, I hug a fat man's bitchtits and remain the Instamatic husband who seems to do things to himself without his knowledge.

So, I've been listening to Linkin Park tonight. I always can go to a few choice songs on Meteora and they epitomize my feelings about things. The lyrics are raw, simple, and colloquial and they match my spirit on this foul night. I have four songs looping currently in a particular order that seems to speak to me more than a million Tolstoy or Dostoevsky novels ever could.


Linkin park - somewhere i belong

Tom | MySpace Video

The first song is an obvious angst song. It starts with an inverted acoustic guitar riff, adds a pulsing musical osstinato and bursts with a harsh forte of sound. It dies and starts the vocals:

When this began,
I had nothing to say, and I'd
get lost in the nothingness inside of me,
I was confused,
then I let it all out to find that I'm not
the only person with things of mine
Inside of me
But all that they can see is the words revealed
It's the only real thing that I've got left to feel
Nothing to lose
Just stop, Hollow and alone
The fault is my own, the fault is my own

(and then, My prayer, not to god, but to my heart bearer)
I want to heal, I want to feel,
what I thought was never real
I want let go of the pain I've felt so long...
...and find somewhere I belong

I think that this part is played in her head everyday, but she doesn't know the song

've got nothing to say,
I can't believe I didn't fall
right onto my face
I was confused
Looking everywhere only to find
That it's not the way I had imagined it all in my mind
So what am I?
do I have the negativity
cus I cant justify the way everyone is looking at me?
Nothing to lose
Nothing to gain, hollow and alone
and the fault is my own and the fault is my own.
I
will never know
myself until I do this on my own
and I will never feel
anything else until my wounds are healed
I will not repay
anything til I break away from me
(and the part that I wish she would hold)
I WILL break away, and find myself...







This song, for a long time, explained my faith in God for a while, and it brings me to a reflective state.

In the beginning of my anagnorisis to the nature of God that made sense to me, this song crystallized what I was feeling.

the refrain especially
...Everyone is so far away from me...
trying not to break, but I'm tired of this deceit, every time I try to make myself get back up on my feet, all I think about is this, and the tiring time between and how trying to put my trust in you just takes so much out of me.

I used to yell the bridge in my car at the top of my lungs just to see if God himself would be present to catch my plea for his evidence. It's not only a matter of getting God to come out, I found, but it was by searching for him that brought me to where he was... a lesson about God's nature I never forgot.




This song brings us to the past three weeks events. This is my song to her at this point. the first verse was parallel to what I told her a couple of days ago, which has kept me in the burning dog house.

"Tired of being what you want me to be!
feeling so faithless, lost under the surface.
don't know what you're expecting of me.
but under the pressure... I'm caught in the undertow"

then Mrs. Pearl replied
"every step that I take is another mistake to you"

then I wanted to say it. I really did want to explain the theory I have been making in my off time from Lilas and Life. We got the house clean at one point this break. It was nice. However, at that point, the requests and demands to keep the house in working order, I felt, fell squarely on my shoulders. I think that after all this time, she still has no faith in herself to keep what she has started going. That a lack of modivation would keep her in her gloomy disposition. As a result, she delegates these tasks to me, because she knows that there is a better chance for me to finish them than her own lowly ability. She starts to obsess about the details, squeezing the last bit of order out of the way things are, so that she can cling on to the happiness of cleanliness. There are also ficticious appearances of people who are spying on us apperently. I think that if she feels that she can run her own home, she can finally prove to "everybody" that she is worthwile. She tries to validate herself with works and not faith. When she gets overwhelmed, she gets pushy with the nitpicky details, risking aggrivation and hypocracy. I wish I could explain that she is a beautiful woman who just needs to see that her clay pearl is the most valuable thing in my life, and I wouldn't hock it for twice the money to get it back from the guy I hocked it to. having those moments without it while I bought it back would last too long and be torture. But I can't prove that to her, that is a path she must take on her own.

"Cant you see that you are smothering me?
Holding too tightly, afraid you will lose control,
cus everything that you thought I could be
is falling apart, right in front of you.

I know that I might end up failing to,
but I know, that you are just like me with someone
dissapointed in you."

My list is long with people I have failed to take a bullet for, and people who I accidentally shot. Trust me, I've disappointed people. and so have you.



I hope that this statement is not a resolution. I made a resolution to never make a newyears resolution starting the next year when I was 14. I didn't want to change because of guilt, but go a bit deeper and find why I feel guilty. Change the thing that causes the guilt, not be changed by the guilt. That is the difference between surviving cancer of the emotions and succumbing to it.
but anyway. I'll be up until new years starting my plan to keep the house clean. It's an issue of disciplining myself to clean the house when I don't want to. If I wait until I want to; if I wait until Motivation strikes, It will be like standing on stairs waiting for someone to push me down them. In the end you could've sucked it up, walked down the stairs and saved yourself some time in traction.
Madame Pearl has had on a white board in our living room three weeks of planning that she was compulsed to write by that need to bolt down her fleeting happiness. It's like eating your feelings only its with tables and graphs instead of cheesecake. Basically, she gave herself a high pressure ultimatum that caused a lot of stress and strife, and I doubt she is still following it. here is my new solution. I wrote a new three week schedule on the smaller white board on the fridge complete with algebra representation of our house:

this is our house if it was a messy, unresolved equation.

3X^2+ab-30+c=c+ab-x^2+19

week one, solve for zero:
This means just get the house CLEAN! There is a difference between CLEAN and ORGANIZED. I believe the mistress Pearl has been biting of more than she can chew by trying to solve this equation in it's current state. So, I'm starting with the office, and moving across the house. any papers I'm basically organizing into school, music, money, other and trash. Any other Items I plan to place into homogeneous piles of crap and keep them in neat stacks for week two. I'm going to be done with the whole house in a week and as a requirement for that, I have to keep the upkeep going on the house as well. Mrs. P can put in her two cents in the project of course, but unfortunately, I can't wait for her to get the complicated equation to fit into a logical sequence, so I'm just going to set the whole damn thing to zero and simplify it. Sorry honey, I can't wait for you anymore.
After one groups all the crap into homogeneous piles:

3X^2+x^2-30-19+ab-ab+c-c=-x^2+x^2+19-19+ab-ab+c-c

And simplifies everything back to zero:

3X^2+x^2-30-19+ab-ab+c-c=0

upon consolidating and making the house presentable, not just neat, the equation comes to:

4x^2-49=0

Week 2: This is when we can finally organize this stuff. We will look through the piles, and organize anything that is out of place, factor out what we don't need, and then simplify everything into logical patterns. In other words, now that the house has a starting point, we can then go into the things that make everything fall apart every semester.

See our newly zeroed out house become a factored quadradic.
(2x+7)(2x-7)=0

this makes this so easy. Once we start at zero we can make a better system of keeping the sides resolved besides just panicking about the mess. we have a week to put the equation of the apartment to this point.

week 3: solution! the answer to the whole thing is to work when we are tired. Both of us hate this concept because we both have parents who were chained to being busy, out of necessity, and we both have that kind of resentment towards that kind of neglect, even if it was for our livelihood. It also means that we have to be grown-ups and that is a benchmark that we refuse to accept for some reason. For me, it means that the ideas that plague me at night will have to simply be choked down for the sake of the whole and for my wife, it means that she may not have a chance to be an adolescent adult. Her mother saw to it that she played mom to her own little brother and so she didn't get more than a month of youthful reckless abandonment... (which was rekindled a year after that month and my daughter was born.) and I hoped that she would get to be more social, once again, I'll take another bullet and keep her off of my shot-on-my-watch list. Go be a girl, be forlorn and sad. Go have friends, go spend money, just come back and act your age so I don't have to carry us both. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow will die.

That's why this song is the last one. I'm breaking the habit of letting the house fall to hell. "I don't want to be the one the battles always choose, but inside I realize that I am the one confused, cus i don't know what's worth fighting for, or why I have to scream, but now I have some clarity to show you what I mean, I don't know how I got this way, I'll never be alright(or rested for the rest of my life) so I'm breaking the habit tonight. happy new year. It's the first. I've got a lot to do tonight. farewell.

Well, I don't know what the kcuf is going on.

I've been working at my new job now for about 4 weeks... Well, I had a week where I had to attend and perform at a wedding... And 4 days without experience due to a slow day that I was supposed to work until volume and was sent home... And a few days that I had to tie up some loose ends at my previous job... And all in all, I have probably been working for a week and a half, but what the heck! Yea, I've been working there for four weeks.
In that time, I have learned that I have no idea what is going on... EVER! I work as hard I can for as long as I can and can't keep up. Joe, the proprietor of the establishment I make my occupation even observed motive to interject "Ryan! Have you learned anything in the past 4 weeks!" And to tell him the truth, I had learned about 1 and a half weeks worth of information which was more like a religious dogmatic tripe, point being that I have learned about 5 ways to prepare a house salad and all of them conflict with each other and the crappy training video I watched in the bar of the Outback Steakhouse 4 weeks ago.
I arrived at 3 on a Wednesday afternoon to work in order to open cold side, or the salad, fryer, and dessert stations for the whole night. I had never done it before and was given an ultimatum "Have it ready by four." To put it into perspective, it was like asking my baby daughter to report on her findings about the underside of the couch. As much as she sees the underside of the couch, she lacks the verbal skills to make such a report. I lacked the common sense of a restaurant to set up the stuff I was using. I wish I did; I would have not about had a nervous breakdown in a walk-in cooler after Joe informed me that it was 4:05 and he had to bail my ass out. The night before I had run out of... All salad making material. Upon my restock of the line, I had 20 minute salads... (A salad is late after 2 minutes) On top of that I was also having to make the fry stuff myself because the guy that should've been doing that was busy closing the stations. I didn't know how to make a lot of the stuff that they asked me to and when I asked about it, well, let's just say they are all vets of the arches and this makes them fry jockeys and jackasses to boot. It was like calling a San Fransisco condominium complex, I couldn't get a strait answer. (but a whole lot of gay ones.)

It's not all bad though, I actually got a compliment form Joe. He said that I did a good job today. John, one of the other managers, said that I was improving, and they did realize that I had worked a week and a half, not four as the books said. I am still working to be better. In the end, this chick Gracy told me that it would be impossible to learn all of this stuff in a week and a half and so long as I bust my ass she has no problem with me. She then said she wanted a beer and continued to grill steaks until the sun began to rise again.