Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: Halloween Recap

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Halloween Recap

November 3, 2003

I haven't posted much all weekend. It was all kind of a blur, and I didn't have the time or the energy to sit down and write it all down, even though I kind of wanted to. So, now I'm not even sure how exciting this will read to anyone. It wasn't a very exciting weekend - just a very tiring one, but a good one nonetheless. I'm hoping I will be able to channel my thoughts over the constant racket of coley talking and talking and talking and the damn dog barking and barking and barking. Damnit. I know it sounds bitchy, but if the child could go for 15 minutes without talking and if the dog could go 5 minutes without barking, my world would be a lot less stressful.

Anyway...On Friday, I went out for most of the afternoon. I can't even really remember what all I did. I think I had some pizza at Conan's, and then I went to Flightpath and answered all of my e-mail. It wasn't incredibly exciting, but I wasn't really looking for excitement, more relaxation and caffeination. Before I left, Monk had indicated that he preferred to go trick or treating with his papa, but of course L found a way out of it, so when I came home, I was informed that Monk would be trick or treating with me and cole and L took off immediately.

I felt instantly frustrated that here I was in charge of getting both kids ready for trick or treating and that Monk had been talked out of his desire to hang out with his papa on Halloween. I'm feeling like L will do anything to get out of watching the kids, even if it's the kids rather than me who want him to do it. Like he refuses to do anything that will make things easier for me, even if it will also make things better for the kids. And this frustrates me especially because I can't imagine approaching things that way. If I were to approach things the way L approaches them, he wouldn't see them unless they met at the playground and stayed there the entire time L was with them, because it truly is a burden and an inconvenience to allow L to take care of them in my house every day. And I would lock up all of the food because it's a financial burden to allow him to eat my food while he's here. And I wouldn't give a fuck if he missed his damn bus, because it's a burden for me to get home at the time I get home. I do all of these things to make things go smoothly for my children, and they also benefit L tremendously, but he doesn't/won't see it because he's a jackass. And you can bet that if I didn't have to work and the kids indicated that they needed me to be present for something and especially if I was only spending 40 freaking hours a week with them, I would at least attempt to spend some time accommodating them.

But then, I'm not a selfish ass.

I'm afraid I have temporarily abandoned restraint when it comes to calling L a jackass on my blog, but right now he really deserves it. He refused to carve pumpkins with them, wouldn't prepare their costumes...and I got Monk a bike for free, and I'm kind of assuming that he's going to refuse to do the necessary repairs to make it ridable. All of this because he doesn't want to "do things for me." And all of this says to me that either he'd rather be a substandard father than even attempt to make things easier for me, or he really IS a substandard father, and he's using his desire to make my life more difficult (I'm assuming in his mind he's thinking he's "making me do my job" - as if I don't already do enough) to sort of mask the fact that he's really not up for the task anyway.

While I'm on the subject, I'm really growing very resentful of the fact that he's not planning to pay any child support. He hasn't yet, and he doesn't have a steady job, so I'm not sure when or if he will in the future. The more I think about this, the more fucked it is. I can't even imagine being able to choose what jobs I want to take...and being able to choose not earning any money at all...now that I have children. You can't fucking do that! L, if you are reading this, wake the fuck up! You are a parent for fuck's sake. Taking the kids out to dinner once or twice a week doesn't count as financially supporting them. You need to pay for their way. You need to pay for their food, their housing, their clothing AND their incidentals JUST LIKE I DO. Gah. I don't give a fuck if you are "mad at me" for whatever reason, and don't want to give me money for fear that I will...what? What exactly do you think I will spend the money on? Do you think I might go on a tofu binge or something? Exactly what would I spend your fucking money on that wouldn't benefit the kids? A new COUCH, perhaps? Some rugs for the living room? New carpet for their playroom? Paint for Monk's room? Yeah...all of these desires I have to fix up the house are just so DAMN selfish. Snap out of your weird revenge fantasy world and pony up your share of the obligatory parental financial support, asshole. My impression of you worsens each and every day I have to deal with your smarmy idiocy.

phew. Sorry about that. I have been holding that in all weekend, I think. I just really wish someone would let him have it and tell him what an ass he is being TO HIS CHILDREN by not helping out financially. Evidently, he feels that watching them while I am at work is all that is required of him to qualify for father-of-the-year. He's such a hero for actually spending time with his kids on a daily basis that somehow just having him in our life is enough to compensate for the unpaid bills and the house falling down around our ears.

I better stop because my fingers are just typing the most heinous insults and I keep erasing them.

At any rate, L left, and I set to work getting the kids ready for our tricks or treats. The plan was that M and her son P would meet up with us and we would all walk over to pick up K, Monk's friend, who would then trick or treat with us back to our house, where we would watch a movie and eat some pizza.

M was a bit slow getting ready, and the kids were unruly and I was disproportionally agitated with her because that's how I get when people are late, especially when their being late causes me to be late for something. But I managed to contain my frustration, knowing full well that my frustration is more about me being a freak than anyone else being intentionally annoying, and when M called, I set out to meet up with her somewhere between her house and mine.

Coincidentally, we happened to meet up almost directly across the street from the house of the woman who attended her birth of P and my birth of C, which is where I went exactly 3 years ago, a week after cole's birth...and where I have tried to visit first every year.

Coley was so cute in his dinosaur costume, and Monk was a scary green-faced frankenstein's monster (he is thankfully content with just about any costume) and all agitation with M had cleared up the instant I saw her. She is sometimes maddeningly neurotic (as, I'm sure, am I!) but she is such incredibly good company. Really, that's the best way to describe her. She always has something interesting to talk about (for instance, on our walk, she told me about this report on NPR about the myth of candy tampering, after which she concluded "as is typical in the US - the only two things you really need to worry about on Halloween are your family, and cars.") and she keeps me going. I love her dearly, and was thankful to have her along on the 30 minute journey to K's house.

Cole got back into the wagon after trick or treating at the midwife's house and fell asleep somewhere between there and K's house, and stayed asleep through most of the night's adventure...and K was waiting impatiently when we arrived there, and Monk had been so cool about hurrying along and not trick or treating until we picked up K, so we slowly wound our way back home, stopping at various houses along the way to pick up our Halloween booty.

It was really a magical night. Somehow I managed to grow up celebrating Halloween every year, and then had two children of my own who trick or treat on Halloween...and I never realized the social and community implications of the day. But on Friday, the importance of this ritual was hyper-evident. People were out on their porches, talking, excited about the kids...and, yeah, I know it was just candy, but they were all giving generously.

At one point, we ran into two grown men who were dressed up as some sort of lunatic mental ward escapee and his "keeper" - the lunatic was on a leash, and they came RUNNING at us from down the street, lunatic drooling and snarling and keeper trying to hold him back, and it FREAKED MY SHIT RIGHT OUT! They came right up to us, and I was sincerely freaked. The kids, of course, just laughed and said "Cool!" and M and I were like "holy shit I thought we were going to die!" hahaha. But afterwards I really kind of appreciated that it happened, you know? Because how long has it been since I had that kind of thrilling haunted house feeling?

So we continued winding our way through the neighborhood, with Coley totally passed out in the wagon and Monk and Kyra and P running from door to door totally having a great time. I kept trying to get Monk and K to wait up for P, and at one point K (who is prone to being somewhat of a brat, but who frequently makes up for it by being super cool and sweet and smart) yelled back over her shoulder "Oh, come ON...it's HALLOWEEN! Give us a break!" and I ceased trying to rein them in, although I really wish K would have stopped saying "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!" at every house.

Anyway, we were out for a total of at least 2 full hours, and the kids came home with quite a stash. Coley woke up and was able to trick or treat at 2 houses before we packed it in. And when we got home, the kids emptied their bags and examined their haul. Monk generously agreed to share with Coley, and since we had not been home all night, we had not given out any of our candy (and our pumpkin was miraculously unsmashed) so we just have tons and tons of candy - so if anyone out there was disimpressed with the results of their Halloween candy crawl, just let me know and I will send you something sweet and tasty.

Then the kids settled in to watch ET, which I had scored at the library earlier that day and even though I was no longer in the mood to make pizza, and it was like 9:30 at night, I was persuaded by pouting K to pop the pizza in the oven and then I allowed myself to be similarly persuaded to call K's mom to ask if K could sleep over. So it truly was like Monk's Dream Halloween with tricks or treats and tons of candy and a movie/pizza/sleepover party - the stuff of dreams, I tell you.

And M stayed through the movie and had pizza and we talked and admired our candy and it was nice to have her there to keep me awake because by this time I was DOG tired.

And then the movie ended, and there was some heated discussion about sleeping arrangements but everything was settled satisfactorily and M left and the kids went to bed and I stayed up a little while later just enjoying the "phew" feeling and had a little chat and then retired to my bed full of my children after tucking K into Monk's bed and leaving the light in the hallway on for her comfort and everyone fell asleep quickly and fell asleep hard and didn't wake up until the morning.

And there's more to the weekend, but I'm going to have to write about it later. That takes care of Halloween, though...how was your Halloween?

Posted at November 3, 2003 8:50 AM

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Comments

My halloween: First: A really uncomfortable dinner with my dad and sister, where he basically lectures us about living in sin (though he chose his words carefully, that's what it amounted to), which eventually segues into an uncomfortable discussion about gay marriage. He implies that he could ignore my sexual activity if me and Steve were to get "engaged" (even if we had no intention of marrying any time soon, just to provide some kind of veneer of respectability I guess) and get separate places. It was intensely depressing and made me feel like all the progress I thought I'd made with my dad in the last few years was totally illusory.

Then: I went home to find Steve stressing out and working on mixing his almost-finished record. He was too busy to talk to me about my horrible dinner, so I ended up falling asleep on the couch and waking up every 15 minutes or so when Steve would accidentally blast the first few measures of a song (the same song over and over, one I tend to like a lot but which subsequently gained some negative associations!). I know he didn't mean to do that but it was like a form of torture to keep falling asleep only to be suddenly awakened by a few seconds of disorienting musical onslaught. I was still too sleepy to just haul my ass into the bedroom where things were quieter. Well, eventually I went to bed and Steve came too and hugged me and told me my dad was full of shit. It was one crappy Halloween, though.

Posted by: susan at November 3, 2003 9:49 AM

p.s. L sucks!

Posted by: susan at November 3, 2003 9:53 AM

I've been a lurker here for awhile and thought I should finally speak. I'm feeling your split with L. My breakup with the babydaddy was remarkably similar. He was stupid enough to admit to people that he absolutely would not get a job because that would mean that I got child support. Like child support goes directly to me and doesn't affect my boy at all. Whatever.

Anyway, I'm glad you had a good Halloween despite all the bullshit going on in your personal life. It's nice to have a day or two in which magic things happen, especially when you aren't feeling emotionally well. Do your best to heal yourself.

Much love. xoxox

Posted by: Ms Lauren at November 3, 2003 10:48 PM

Hey, sorry L is being a horse's a** (should that be possessive or not?). Ya make a baby with someone, ya take responsibility for it; too bad L is opting out on his share, leaving you in the lurch. All too common for guys to do this, worse luck. Glad you're managing, somehow, to take care of your kids...

-- pw

Posted by: pw at November 4, 2003 11:08 PM