Demons of Stupidity

My mom has a saying, “God takes care of fools and children.”


Today, I fell in the fool category. I was in the car, driving my usual path to and from the house, when this disheveled woman, waved me down. She was dressed decently enough in a long, flowing gold and black dress with an oversized purse hanging on one shoulder. Her face carried a look of panic and desperation.

It was that expression that made me stop.

“I have been robbed,” she cried. “I have no money on me. My car is just down the road. Please can you help me?”

“Did you call the cops,” I asked. It's a perfectly reasonable question.

She nodded, “Yes, and they took a report, but they couldn't give me gas money or a ride.”

Ok, my first warning bell went off. I found it hard to believe that a police officer would just abandon a woman that had just been robbed.

However, I ignored it and let her get into the car. We begun the drive to where her car was parked, which was supposed to be just down the road. Turns out it was more than “just down the road.”

On the drive, I asked her, “So what happened? How did you get robbed? I can't believe the cops didn't help you.”

She looked away, “It happened last night and the cops didn't care. I just can't wait to get into my car and get out of this town.”

Another warning bell went off - Didn't she say she just got robbed?

She goes on to tell me how she was in town to visit her daughter.

“Would you like to call her,” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, she isn't here. She is out of town with her boyfriend. She didn't know I was coming.”

Ok, by now, I am thinking just too many “incidents” here. Then she goes back to rambling about how she just want to take a shower, and get in her car and drive back home. She just needed gas. As we passed a gas station, I ask her if she wanted me to stop.

She goes no. She has enough gas to get to the gas station. She is just asking for $20, and hands me some gold necklace, saying it's worth $200. “Here that's to compensate you. I am not a bum. This dress alone is worth like $150. I just need to get to my car, get a quick shower and then head home.”

While rummaging through her purse to take out the necklace, I notice she has about $10 sticking out the side of her bag.

Yes, at that moment, I was ready to run and get rid of this woman. She was lying. I didn't know why, but my sixth sense told me she had less than honest reasons.

We pull up outside some rundown apartment. “These people have agreed to let me take a shower at their house,” she said.

Then she proceeded to tell me that I can come in or wait until she is done. I took stock of where I was. Three men sat outside. She seemed to know them because they waved to her, and she waved back. The road, while not deserted, was still empty enough to be of concern, and yes, we are in the ghetto - a high crime area.

My heart started to pound double time. Is she for real? “I am not going into some apartment I don't know, and I am not going to sit out here waiting.”

“But..but..I need help. I need gas money, and if you could spare a $20.”

I shook my head. “Tell you what, you take a shower and I will meet you at the gas station and put gas in your car.” Yes, I know…idiot. I have done more than enough to help this woman.

Again the woman shook her head. “No, I don't need that. I have gas. I just need - “

“No,” I replied in a surprisingly steady voice. Even though inside, I was asking myself what the hell did I get myself into. This woman was talking crap, lots of it, and she was doing a lousy job of keeping track of her lies.

She hesitated for a moment, as if thinking it over, and honestly, I don't know where the courage came from, but I held her gaze and repeated, “No, this is all I can do.”

She then got out and walked over to the three men sitting in front. I raced out of there. Yes, I know stupid, stupid, stupid.

Perfectly Imperfect Day

In other words it was a perfect day. It wasn't supposed to be. I had a list of chores to complete, phone calls to make and jobs to apply for. However, when I walked into her room to pick her up, my little one was burning up. I took her temperature, and it came back 102.


I immediately called her doctor. I love her doctor's office. They have always been responsive.

“Can you be here in 30 minutes,” the nurse asked.

“I will make it,” I replied.

We walked into the office, and the first thing every one said is, “ooh…she looks so ill.”

My little one just clung to me. These are people she has known since she was two days old, and not once did she smile at any of them. Usually, I have a hard time getting her to keep still. She is running up to the nurses, chatting and playing peek-a-boo, but today, she just hugged me and buried her head in my shoulder.

After a couple of tests, we discovered it was strep. Her doctor order antibiotic, and after a quick stop to the pharmacy, we head home.

She was still hot, so I pulled out the Motrin and antibiotics and gave them to her. I also washed her down with a cool rag. For an hour, she just laid there curled up in my arms not wanting to eat, play or drink. I just held her, my heart sinking because I couldn't make it right.

Then suddenly, she sprang up, gave me a smile and insisted on being put down on the floor. I let her loose, and my little bundle of energy - a destructive force onto herself - was off. We played for five hours, only taking breaks to eat or drink. She roared like a lion. I roared and chased her. She danced, and I danced along beside her. She played peek-a-boo, I played it too.

Nothing on my chore list got done. No phone calls were made, and I didn't apply for a single job. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. We ended it with chocolate ice cream on a cone. She licked the ice cream and spit out the cone, and I laughed.

She is now in bed. She passed out the moment her head hit the mattress. Yes, she was exhausted, and I am too. However, tonight I know I will be going to bed smiling. It was perfect day.

I Love This Kid

Tonight, she insisted on taking teddy to bed, so I let her. This is how she fell asleep. I couldn't resist a picture.

One Day at a Time

I took some positive steps today. I hope that means the “happy pills” are kicking in. I actually got off the sofa and cleaned the house. Tonight for the first time in almost three weeks, I will be sleeping in my bed.

Tomorrow, I will talk to a professor about whether the program his school offers would be a good match for me. I am contemplating taking my writing and journalist skills into the digital world with a Masters in Digital Media. I actually get excited when I contemplate this prospect. I see possibilities with it.

Not so much with the job hunt. I came across two horror stories today that just fill me with dread.

One is a coworker who was laid off in June 2008, and she still hasn’t found a job. She is ready to give up. The other was a comment a perfect strange made in the supermarket.

I was there with the woman I consider the baby’s second mother, when she bumped into an old friend.

It was a casual question: “Are you still doing the medical thing?”

The stranger shook her head: “Nope, there were just no jobs. I took what I could. There were just no jobs anywhere.”

That is when everything inside me turns cold with fear. It’s the same thing I hear over and over again – no jobs.

But then there are stories like the one of another coworker who was laid off the same time as me. Within a week she had a new job.

Couldn’t I be one those lucky ones? Just this one time couldn’t I be? I am seriously trying not to stress it as I continue to send out resumes and look over job boards.

Right now I am looking at things like this. I made it through today. Tomorrow is yet to come, so just take it one day at time.

Duice

My little one and I battle over her drinking water. She has become a juice addict and would rather that over water any day. I, on the other hand, plan to break that habit. Right now she gets juice once a day, and water throughout the day.

This morning, after breakfast and drinking a cup and half of soy milk, she looks at me and goes “duice”

I walk over to the fridge, pour out water and give her the cup. The little bugger wouldn’t take it. “duice,” she insisted.

So a little part of me decided to experiment, I picked up the bottle of grape juice and pretended to pour it into the cup.

I handed it to her and this time -- she took it. I couldn't believe it. My little one knows the difference between the water bottle and the juice bottle.

Of course the game was up when, she tasted it and discovered it was still water. Can you say temper tantrum?

Me vs. Normal

Here is the thing about me; I am just a little bit touched. That’s how I like to describe it – just a little bit touched. Isn’t that better than saying I am slightly insane or that I suffer from chronic depression. Over the years I have develop ways to cope, to appear like one of the normals.

However, when shit happens I can’t keep up that façade. I need to withdraw from public light. I basically go into isolation. I don’t answer phone calls. I talk to no one. I see no one. It’s just me and all my crazy thoughts, going around and around in my head until finally they make sense. Only then do I emerge and let friends in.

I understand that other people do it differently. Normal people function differently. They let their friends in. They talk it out with friends. I can’t, not until I have some basic foundation to stand on.

I did that last week when I lost the job. I withdrew, turned off the phone, didn’t return phone calls. It was just me and the baby. I took pleasure in just watching her, while my thoughts tried to center themselves, to find some hope for the future.
Now according to one of my normal friends, I am rude hypocrite for doing that.

I know where she is coming from. She copes the normal way. For her that means talking to friend or at least a text that says, “I’m ok.” For that reason, I apologize to her. It seems that isn’t enough, and it’s precisely the reason I avoid friendships with people I consider normal.

If you aren’t a little bit touch in some way, then you aren’t going to understand how I cope. You are going to get upset, get offended and take it personally. You are going to tell me I am wrong that I need a better way to cope.

Then, I am just going to quietly back away from you because I have tried it the normal way and the pressure of trying to keep up the façade inevitable leads to me cracking, and I literally end up in the nuthouse. I have learnt that before I can deal with anyone, I have to deal with me, and unfortunately that means a withdrawal from the world.

My friends that are a bit touch get this. When I am in isolation, they will text, send me little words of hope, but don’t take offense that I don’t answer them. They wait for me to come to them, and welcome me with open arms when I do. The flipside is I have to deal with them when they get their little touch epos ides. However, like them, it’s always an open harm welcome when we emerge.

The point of this whole ramble is that I have lost a friend, in addition to a job – sigh. I need to stick to my own rules. Don’t ever become friend with a normal, no matter how nice they are. Why because it’s inevitable that when I sink into isolation they will get piss, and I will lose a friend when I am at my vulnerable point.

Dear God

Every night I go to bed, I utter the same pray to you: “Help me provide for her.”
When I was pregnant it was: “Help me provide for this new life.”

Instead, the pregnancy became complicated and I was put on three months of bed rest. Suddenly, my paycheck was cut in half. The mortgage grew and the bills piled up. In the end, I fell behind on the mortgage and now the house is in foreclosure.
She came and I got back to work. Income was coming in, but it wasn’t enough – not with daycare payments. That was a second mortgage. Then her father started the custody to avoid paying child support.

I wipe out my 401k. Half goes toward a lawyer for the baby and the other for a lawyer for the house. Now it looks like the house will be saved, but today, I lost my job. I can’t pay a mortgage now, even a reduced one. I was one of 50 laid off in what was the third round of cuts in a year and half. Hey, I was lucky to survive a year.

So tonight as I do every night, I will pray from the very depth of my soul. “Dear God, please help me provide for her.”

But looking at how the last year and half as gone, I don’t think he is listening.