Blogging and Voting

Today I entered the Best Australian Blogs 2013 Competition run by the Australian Writers Centre.   You can vote for me by clicking on the button to the left (well after March 28!)

Funny.  I like to think of my blog as a way to vent about the idiot that I live with.  (Oh why can’t I fall for a normal guy that has the emotional capability higher than… say… a gnat? [And maybe being taller than 5’6” wouldn’t go astray…) 

Still; it is a vehicle to vent.  I can rant and rave about the Squeeze and his latest bout of “moodle-ing”; pausing to talk about the flaming, acid filled balloons of hate that the Harridan pitches at us from every direction; and last, but not least – the gift that keeps on giving….  the friendless kid that wants to be sitting on our sofa 24/7 with the 63 inch Samsung flickering at him.

But once a year, the AWC reminds me that while I’m slack at dragging myself to the keyboard to edit the book that is sitting on my desk; I am at least blogging.

Loosely speaking, and using averages, I tried to figure out how many words each post would be about.  Some have been veritable rants of biblical proportions and in to the thousands of words.  Then others have been a succinct “hand me a shovel and a bag of lime – because I’m taking her down!!!!” - Somewhat brief explosions.    So I figure each posting would be approximately 700 words.

And let’s face it; I’ve been blogging for a while.  I started Dating a Hunchback in 2010.  In 2010 there were 39 posts.  2011, posts went up to 200 (that must have been an ugly year.)  2012 – 148 posts.  So far in 2013 I’m at 14 if I can’t this one.  That gives me a total of 401, 700 word posts.

280,700 words all up!!!  If I had turned my mind to my books - I'd have a damned series!!!

My dad always said I could talk under water with a mouthful of marbles.  Smart man that.

The Carnival is Over

I've fought a long, hard battle; but eventually, even I have to stop banging my head on a wall and just walk away.

I realised that this was going happen about the same time as the Squeeze told me if I couldn't have the kid full time, then he would move out and have the kid whenever he wanted. That was moment.

I just hadn't figured it out yet.

But since then; all the discussion and negotiation... And it has achieved nothing really. I capitulate... Again and again. But it is never enough.  I have to give just a little bit more.  And although anything he does for my children is "just part of the package..."; I get to hear about it in comparison to my reaction to his.  I'm not sure how driving  with a car load of household items from Oakleigh to Mentone 3 times over a weekend can possibly equate to raising a 15 yo friendless boy 50-60% of my time but hey, I never said I was the most intelligent creature on the face of the Earth.

So it seems that I am to raise his child... Yet he can't spend 8 days in Perth with mine..?  Easter weekend would have been one thing...  But 8 days??!!  How dare I!   WTF is that about?   And in reality, I don't even want to know what that is about.  I don't even care about what that is about.

I keep waiting for the moment when I mean something. When I get to the top of the Squeeze totem pole.  When what I say or need or want isn't totally disregarded.  When some witch doesn't rule my world...

But we all know, that will be a cold day in hell.

So here I sit.  Notice given on my place.  Packing boxes scatter the floor. Odd cupboards and drawers empty...  Hollow.

And suddenly I see that it will never be enough.  He will always want more and display outrage when I point out how unreasonable these requests are.

And this just isn't something I want anymore.

She wins.

So I guess the Carnival is Over.

The King and I

We are in a bad rewrite of The King and I – “so it is written, so it is done”.

The Harridan pens, or in this case texts, what she has decided is the truth – and once uttered, it becomes the truth for her.  It’s actually kind of amazing to watch.  Hell, last night she did a quick rewrite of the facts in between Text Message Demand 1, and Text Message Insult 3.

As you can see, text message number one quite clearly states that she is going away and we are required to have the kid; then one of the other personalities that lives in her head swoops in and decides that if there is a change happening, it must be us doing it!  Astounding really.

Her lack of manners and civility means I’d rather chew off my own face than give her what she wants.  In this case however, I told the Squeeze “sure.  But swap.  I need my weekend off when I get it!”  

He understands this also.  The 'no friends' thing has become so stressful that the Squeeze finds the weekend exhausting.  Worry, stress, worry; dealing with me; wondering WTF is wrong here...  And it is exhausting, because you have to continually entertain a kid who for all intents and purposes, should be off doing what kids do.  Hanging in a pack.  Chasing girls, smoking, wagging, Hell - I'd even take shoplifting at the moment because it would show that there is something there at least!!!

So he offers the swap but then gets a barrage of demands about what we “owe”; including a swoop in comment stating  "you only did 2 nights over his 6 week school break…"

Yes.  Of course we did.   I mean she is lucky enough to have school holidays off.   We are not.  Even with how difficult time is for us when we are both working full time, these are the days that we managed to have the Kid:

Friday, November 30.

Saturday, December 1.

Sunday, December 2.

Friday, December 14.

Saturday, December 15.

Sunday, December 6.

Wednesday, December 26.

Friday, December 28.

Saturday, December 29.

Sunday, December 30.

Monday, December 31.

Monday, January 7.

Friday, January 11.

Saturday, January 12.

Sunday, January 13.

Monday, January 14 – Dinner

Friday, January 18.

Saturday, January 19.

Sunday, January 20.

Sunday, January 21.

Thursday, January 24.

Friday, January 25.

Saturday, January 26.

Sunday, January 27.

Monday, January 28.

Tuesday, January 29.

Wednesday, January 30 – Dropped back home from camping.

Thursday, January 31 – Stays for the Day

Friday, February 8.

Saturday, February 9.

Sunday, February 10.

It is almost amusing that she hasn’t learned by now that I keep everything… I’m organised and document every single damned thing.  Last time she tried this tact the Squeeze sent her my calendar entries so it is beyond foolish to try it on again.

We are in discussion at the moment re us moving and a rearrangement in custody.  Frankly, I think I was more than generous in saying let's do "one week on", "one week off".  Of course, that wasn't good enough for the Harridan who, although a martyr, although ‘every single thing’ she does is for the kid, she has now decided that she wants us to have him full time.

I can’t do that.  I won’t do that.

So although we have been accepted for a gorgeous house that I can already picture what goes where...  We are on “pause” until he clears this up – because I’m not going to be a full time mother to this kid.  If that has to happen we are back to me living here and him finding a new “clean freak hell” with the kid.

Moodlicious

The Squeeze is once again in Moodle heaven.

Gone are all the discussions we have had on the three way split for France.  There is no line in the sand… No stone…  Because there can be no lines in the sand with kids.   We talk for months, and in one meeting with the Harridan, our discussions are dead in the water.

All those months of repeated “I will pay one third and that’s it!” has of course, slipped out to “the kid can’t pay so the Harridan and I will have to suck up his third and spending money.”  I pointed out that although he was narky each time I asked if either of them had saved the money, he could probably see why I needed to ask every week.   

I mean I wanted to know the exact moment when the man that is supposed to be, for all intents and purposes, my legal, defacto husband – shrugs off our months of discussion/decision and bends over while the ex-wife rogers more money out of him.

Frankly, I'm beginning to think he enjoys it.

And by June, the Harridan won’t be able to pay whatever she committed to pay.  At that point, his 3^rd will become a fully paid kid trip to Paris with the school band, including spending money.  Which would be about what I said would happen six months ago.

Hell.  Lucky this kid is going to write music scores for motion pictures!  Then he can fund Squeeze retirement; because the poor bastard sure as hell won’t have anywhere else to live.

And yes folks.  That includes living with me.  Not on.   Not happening.

The things that I think are important, like funding a house so that we have somewhere to live when we finish work; are not on any priority list for the Squeeze.  His priorities are all about the ‘family’; and I can be a legal whatever, but I’ll never be considered even equal to the ‘family’, let alone above.

Tonight, I realised that the Harridan is marking time until we move and I suddenly saw I'd have this kid living with me 24/7.  Not a friend in sight.  Just a TV, phone and a laptop combined with the incessant ask for money.  And I will have no say. 

Moving just went off the table…

Anywhere but here…

I’m not sure I want to be here anymore.

I am the outsider in my own home.  I feel as though any discussion that breaks the barrier of “Squeeze” family business; is just that.  Family business.

And I am most certainly, not that.