And the Daytime Drama Emmy Winner is.....

Mmmmm...sounds delightful! What a perfect Monday!

Not so much around here...of course...is it ever anything less than a soap opera at my house? After I talked to you yesterday, I picked up M at work. Later, he wanted to go to S's house, and I figured that was as good a time as any to address the whole you can't go there anymore because I have reason to believe his mom is involved in drugs talk with him. Yeah, that didn't go so well, as I'm sure you can imagine.

It wasn't a screaming fight like the other day; in fact, I kept my cool all the way through his absurd circular arguing. This is a classic, right here: He wanted to know why he couldn't go to S's just because I thought his mom was doing drugs. I said that I didn't think doing drugs with your kids was appropriate behavior for a mother. His response? "That's your opinion Mom. That's some kind of thing you made up in your head about what's appropriate and what's not."
Wow, right. Exactly. See what I'm up against? It's insane. He left as soon as the conversation was over; I took his phone and told him that if he chose to not follow our house rules (can't go to that kid's house) then he lost his privileges (phone, long board, computer). He was livid, but he gave it to me - not before deleting all the text messages - and left.

Then she called me, the mom. Left a message saying she really wanted to clear up these ridiculous rumors that I'm spreading about her. I had no intention of talking to her, or calling her back. Thing is, M never came home last night. Since he doesn't have his phone, the only way I can contact him is by calling her house...and then she would answer...and I just don't feel up to that confrontation.

He is supposed to work today at 1:00, which is interesting since his uniform is here and it's already after noon. I have no idea what he's planning to do at this point; I guess if he doesn't come home tonight I'll call the cops and report him as a runaway. My guess is that S' mom has a relationship with the local police on some level, and if they're anything like the school staff, they all know her name. It doesn't hurt to be Mrs. Chief M, either, since they all know ours, too. We'll see what happens today...

I tried to have a conversation with J about it last night, here's my RD version - told him I thought he needed to re-engage with the family and we needed to make some decision together about what we're going to do about M. His answer was basically that he could commit on the short term to helping M at all costs, but that he didn't know if he could follow through to the end. That at some point he might just throw up his hands and quit. I asked what he would do at that point (in my head: does that mean you're going to leave us?) and he said he didn't know. He told me that he knew I wasn't going to give up, so he guessed I was faced with choosing between him and M.

What a great day it was! So I got up this morning, had a healthy breakfast and went to the gym. Because in the end, I'm probably going to end up taking care of myself and my boys, so I might as well get started now.

I have no plans for today, other than waiting to hear from M, finishing laundry and ironing, while watching the first season of Crossing Jordan on my Netflix (which I just signed up for). I wanted to go out tonight for dinner and a movie with K & R; I thought it would be a nice distraction from all of this, a chance to spend some time together, but J says no, we can't afford it. Did I want to just have them over for dinner? No, I wanted to go out. I wanted to not have to cook or clean up or be in my house; I wanted to go out and forget that I have a teenage son walking on the edge of disaster and a husband who's not all that interested in parenting. I wanted to go out and have a Manhattan (because I don't have the stuff to make one at home) or two, or three, and lose myself in someone else's fictional world for a couple of hours. To spend some time with my friends who listen and care and want to help, to pretend that my husband might someday be like that too.

No, I don't want to have them here for dinner. Instead, I'm going to meet my friend JT, B's dad, the ex-crackhead who's a drummer in a band. We're going to meet some guy who's selling a drum set on Craig's list and JT has rigged up this great bargain for me. Plus, he wants to go with because a) he wants to make sure I don't get ripped off b) the guy has stuff he might want to buy himself, and c) the guy lives in a crappy neighborhood. How funny is that? So I'll meet him at 6:00 and we'll go do that; if I get this set, JT has offered to help me build it on Thursday while JJ is at school so that when he comes home, it's all ready to go. Who'd a thunk having an addict in a band for a friend would ever come in handy? Too bad he's in recovery, you know. I might have talked him into a Manhattan afterwards.

I just re-read that paragraph and I thought I'd put this out there: I don't have a crush on JT or anything. It sort of sounds like I do. He has the maturity and mentality of my 16-year-old problem child.

Anyway, I think I'll go get started on my stuff and stop avoiding it all. I hope your day continues to be blissful; I hope this entry finds you still in your pj's, maybe having moved on to wine by now, or maybe just waking up from a nap...

Love,
A