purgatory

Yeah, that's me, floating here in nothingness.  A relationship adrift at sea with very little hope of salvation---I wish I could jsut move on.  I wish he would jsut get another job.  I wish for any reason to end it., and I realize that the reasons are all around me.  ANy hot nurse up here at Emory,, may have already happened.  But there are other reasons too, that don

time to say goodbye

Yesterday was your birthday.,  You are 32----right in the middlle of a busy, full life.  Your wife wished you a happy birthday on facebook, and it almost tore me up.  to see her write, happy birthday to my hubby, I love  you more and more as the years roll by.  You are an great husband and an excellent father. and I know he is on at least the one hand, an excellent father.  You are a special person---something about you, your spirit rises above the rest---it was calling me as you stood and looked at me from a distance down the hall.  Your eyes kept calling me.  And then you took off your scrub hat and I saw your big, round shiny shaved dome---and combine that with your mega-watt million watt smile---and that happy, amazinglaugh---and the way you listen to people and talk so easily and with such charm---kind of like my dad in the way you connect with everyone.  And you belong to Amber, and you love all those kids. 

I cannot take care of you anymore.  You are not my man---Amber needs to do all that I do now---and she does, and more.  She is food for your soul, too, apparently, something in her makes you keep coming back and coming back.   Did I have that power with my own husband---in spite of all the women he loved in the thirty years, he kept coming back to me.  yet I don't believe it was ever for me---it was for the kids, for the family.  As it was for me----the family unit, the be all and the end all.  

But for Otis, Amber is a big draw... God How i love this man----I love him.  It's ridiculous and I hate that bitch because she got that good man.  I torture myself thinking about what they must be doing at any given point in time---what are they doing now?   Where are they eating?  i  can picture him laughing across the table with her----he is really so easy to get along with.  It just kills me.  It eats me up to think about it.  I try to put it down in my mind---but it comes back to the surface.

I know that someday this will all pass and I will look back at it with hardly a memory---  I pray we'll be all right and watch us where we go-===in times where we don't know. let this be our prayer.  when we lose our way, lead us to a place, guide us with your grace, to a place where we'll be safe.   

Oh Otis, why did you pull me into your life?  I was happy befoer you.  And I haven't known any happiness since December, only torture and pain.  Sadness. Self loathing.  Everyone is happy in this relationship except for me.  For your birthday I want to give you your freedom--go now with your family and your wife and PLEASE, I BET YOU, SET ME FREE.  For your birthday, give me my freedom, set me free, please. As the tears fall down my face and drip off my chin and soak my shirt =-==set me free from your soul.  Set me free.  May God forgive me for every sin, for every failure to overcome temptation.  Yes the hell we live is the hell we create for ourselves on this earth----

What are you diong today?  What have you done all week?  I miss you so, and you don't even know how much, or what you have done to me.  You should not enter into a relationship like this with a woman like me---so desperate to love someone. So desperate tpo love.  And me, here with my sentimental husband, who can barely tell a story now without getting all choked up.  Did Imiss somewhere something with him.  Am I forgetting how he has treated me, how he will again. Is anyone perfect?  Oh Lord the pain of lving on this earth is sometimes beyond  my capacity to endure it.  It really is.

anger management

All I have to do to remind myself of my situation is to  remember when Otis looked at my face when we met there in the ER.  Yeah.....it's all good, he said.  And with that I think my face must have looked like the sky right before a tornado hits---boiling with impending fury and rage ----I don't want to hurt you .....he said, as if he cared -----oh you son of a bitch.  the worst thing you could EVER say to me---first of all, PLEASE!  The way he used me, as his "bailer-outer", and called me up at work and said "she CUT me!"  and how he was going to leave her ass====and all of the stuff that he just helped himself to when we would go shopping.  Oh spare me ===spare me from feeling sorry for me---dont EVER feel sorry for me.  DOn't worry about hurting me man----i can take care of my own fucking self.  worry about your fucking fat bitch wife===worry about your bad twins, worry about your baby, worry about yourself, but don't worry about hurting me sonofabitch.  Its tooooo fucking late for that asshole!

And I get so jealous thinking about him and her.  Making love to her.  I bet after their big blow out they made some mad good love ----i know they did.  I just know they did. I hate that they have kids together, that they are tied together like that.  I get so jealous thinking about him walking down to the corner and picking up Jaythanand the twins from school.  Seeing his happy face and his shaved head and his big, manly self.  and ?Amber getting to love ont hat, and that black skin for her onl,y  I want to fucking kill that goddam fucking bitch.  I hate her .  I can never go back to the days where I take him for groceries---because I know she will be eating that food---I would resent every penny I spent if I knew that she enjoyed any of it, in any way----I just can't do it anymore.  Amber can take of her kids, andher man.  I can't do it anymore

happy endings, new beginnings - amber bradley

The despair that I feel right now is about like the despair that I have felt in these past many posts---except for today we have here what I call the new reality.  Because now I know---i know---i know.  Saturday morning I took Otis to Kroger and I bought him abuot a hundred dollars worth of groceries, because he said they weren't due for more food stamps until Sept. 8th, Thursday, and there wasn't much food on the shelves.  To be totally fair, he NEVER asked me for any of this on this day.  But i said, well, what are you going to have for labor day?  Nothing! he said.  I don't have any money.  Well, lets' go by Kroger or Walm art and get something to make, i said.  I can't tell you what it does for me to imagine all those kids, esp the little twins, and Jaythan, with their shiny brown happy eyes, enjoying all the food that Otis would grill for them---seeing them gathered around the table while he made them burgers and hot dogs.  So we started planning on what we would buy---baloney (balogna) he said.  I love baloney.  I haven't had any in so long.  Baloney?  I'm thinking?  for real?  Baloney is cheap,so have at it.  Then I said, how about one of those big things of ground beef, and some more hot dogs, and some more beans.  Well, we hit up Kroger.  We got baloney, bread, hot dogs and hamburger buns, about ten pounds of ground beef, two packs of Ball Parks, buy one get one free, because he said nathan's were too salty, beans, honey buns and oreos, and baby formula for the baby, becasue they were almost out, and Amber was diluting the formula to make it stretch.  Also. a couple of containers of strained peas, and blueberries and apples, Imodium because Otis had the shits, from giving himself too much of the laxative, the moscato wine with the naked man on the bottle, Yuengling beer, and a pack of cigarettes.

We stopped at Burger King and I bought him two ciabatta breakfast sandwiches, one of which he gave his dad when he dropped his new pair of shorts that I got him, over to his dads.  I took him back to East Point and dropped him off a couple blocks from home, toting all the bags.  And I felt happy to know that he would have a good weekend, grilling and the kids would have something to eat, with their daddy.

Saturday night I went to work and it is always a little quiet and a little lonesome without him there, but I like it too, because then I can sleep if we don't have any cases.  If he's there and we don't have any cases, he comes and gets me and wants me to hang with him.  Saturday morning I get a call from him and he is profoundly upset.  He said he had been out walking since three in the morning.  Amber apparently got drunk (on the beer I had bought?) and for some reason went in search of his phone, which she found in Jaythans room.  She apparently found blank picture spaces on it where I had attempted to send him some pics, and maybe one of the shoes which I had bought that he liked.  I don't know about that becasuse it's hard for me to get the story straight from him when he is upset.  He said, she cut me with a knife, man!  I'm like, What?"  She CUT you.  Yeah, man.  And then she apparently tried to hit him with a candle, one that I bought for him.  So I guess he jumped up and ran out the house.  I was very upset, worried about him and I was driving home, went past Old National Hwy, and at Flat shoals I think, I'm just gonna go by his daddy's house and see if he is there.  Sure enough, there he was sitting in the garage with his daddy and his auntie, sitting there in the Roca denims I bought him, his True Religion boots and a wife beater shirt.  And how I love him in that.  He saw me go by and I cont. to drive but he ran down the driveway to meet me.  He was looking really nervous, told me that Amber had JUST been by to borrow money from his dad for gas?????? (Why was she there?  what the fuck, I don't understand anything??????????  He said she just left out of here.  Well I was so worried about you, I said!  LEt me see your cut.  It was nothing.  NOthing.  Barely a scratch on the skin.  what the fuck!!!!  Okay. well man, you were talking to me and then we got cut off----hell, I thought she stabbed you in the back and killed yoU!  I'm alright baby, he said.  Okay, well, I'm gonna have to let you go, I said.  Too much drama here for me.  He shook his head.  Yes.  I said.  But I didn't really mean it.  I'll go then, I said, and I pulled out, went dfown to the corner, turned around and drove past again, and I felt kind of pissed, the way he leaves me hanging like that, thinking he was cut up and maybe dead

So then I go to Walmart on Old National cuz I wanted to buy MY family something for Labor Day to grill and eat!  And he calls me.  I'm hungry, he says.  Where are you.  I'm at Walmart.  Oh, probably already in Union city already, he says.  No.  I'm right here on Old National.  What do you want, I can get you something.  Get me one of those pizzas we were looking at the other day---what kind?  Pepperoni and ground beef.   I picked him out a big meat trio pizza because there wasn't any just pepperoni and ground beef, three chocolate milks, two dr peppers and some club crackers.  I picked out my own stuff and paid, ---drove it back to his dad's house on Springdale.  HE came out to the end of the driveway and I handed over the goods.  Be careful, I said.  I drove away and I felt like I had at least fed my man==that he wouldn't go hungry.

Well, later that day I get a call from him from his sister Tam's house.  They were both on the line, and both saying that Amber had spent the night and all that day calling everyone in the family ten times and more, wanting to talk to everyone, and they were all like, why should we talk to you now, you never talk to us any other times.  so no one was spilling anything.  Also, one of Amber's friends had gotten on somehow under my FB page and said they saw all kinds of pictures of Otis on there, and while I do have one whole album dedicated solely to pictures of him, that album is visible only to me, and always has been visible only to me.  The other album is a pictorial tour of the OR and all of my friends, male and female, and there are four pics of Otis on there.  I was scared shitless and shaking though--scared about everything.  Scared that Otis was gonna get major busted by his wife, that she would have lots of dirt on him, that she would make my life hell, and etc etc.

But I looked back at my FB profile and saw that everything was secured and private as I thought, so we parted ways again.  He called me one more time from his mama's, saying he was going to go down to child support services and find out what he was going to have to pay because he kept saying, I'm done, I'm done.  I'm done with her ass.  And honestly, this time, I thought he really meant it.  I knew that this would actually be no good for me, because then Otis would have to find another Boo to put him up, because he literally had no where to go,---he just didn't want to go stay with his mama.  We found out last week that Tammy was no longer an option, --the big fat girl who told him her door would always be open to him, had found herself a fiance.  I also figured out something this morning too, as I was driving and thinking---Otis picks big fat lonely women for a reason---they're the ones who will do ANYTHING FOR a man, to keep him, to love him, ANYTHING.  I was one of those---big fat girls.
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Yesterday I read my horoscope and it was the most chilling one I have ever gotten---it shook me to my core---I knew something bad was going to happen after I read it.  I will retrieve the paper and write it down in its entirety as it was written---but basically it said your tendency to be overly generous is going to blow up in your face---I knew the whole situation was going to fall apart--I knew I was screwed.  Don't really believe in those things--but I believed in that one. 

Aries:  September 5th, 2011---A tendency to go overboard as a generous benefactor might not pan out.
toooo fucking ironic

Well, I went to bed and I was really expecting him to call me from work---so looking forward to talking things out---see what happened, what his next move would be.  And I realized that for me, him breaking up with Amber would actually be a bad thing, because like I said, he would then be on the make for another bailer outer (that's what he called me, once).  But the dreamer in me, I don't know, thought we could continue on for awhile---hell, I know we couldn't, maybe I thought it would be easier to break it off. 

But he did not call---I had that phone on vibrate next to my arm,, between my boobs, constantly in contact with my body so I could feel it vibrate and answer.  But 11 pm came and went, 11:30 , 12:00---i knew by eleven thirty he wasn't calling, and I felt puzzled, because I felt sure i would get a call and I would be able to commiserate some more with this sorry state of affairs.

But next morning I dragged my weary self out of bed---went downstairs after my shower and fired up facebook.  What do I fucking see first thing---Amber Bradley's post.  "I love Happy Endings, and new Beginnings."  I knew right then and there that the two of them had kissed and made up, and more than likely he had called her from his work phone, because she wouldn't know what work cell he had been given, so it was him who had to call her.  He couldn't stand it, he couldn't take it.  He can't stand not being with her, or the kids, or all of them. Or maybe he had nowhere to go, but back home.

I found my last twenty in my purse, because he had asked me, or did I offer it (my God I made it so easy for him to use me---pitiful fat old woman) because he needed money to get to the bus and to the child support office---I decided I wasn't going to answer the phone at first, because I knew we had to arrange to meet to hand off the money---but then I decided I would answer it and tell him he could go up to Level K and find it under the tool box on the Ranger.  Where he had left the honey buns and the oreos---which I also brought.  But then he called me, and he said, I'm down here in the ER---so I decided I was going to give him his honey buns and his (my) money, and  end it.

So I met hiim, ===I handed him the bag of honey buns and oreos, --I think my face said everything---yeah, he said, everything is good----yeah, I know you two are back together I said.  And that;s what i want for you, i said.  I was already choking up, becaues I was so frustrated with his weak ass====jacking me around, playing with my feelings, sucking me, and his whole family into his drama with that fucking bitch===I don't want to hurt you, he said.  Oh MOTHER FUCKER!!!  "The worst goddam thing that son of a bitch could EVER say to me.  dont give me your pity, don't feel sorry for me, don't need your pity-=---go back to your fucking wife.  I don't need your pity.  Give me a hug, he said.  Oh fuck you.  Thats what that bastard said to me the last time he MADE THE TIME TO STAY, but it was for the money, as usual.  And it was the most insulting shit hug I ever got.  Like you would hug your old aunt who pees on herself.    Oh nono nonononon ==fuck, you and your hug and i don't want to hurt you.  Stick that up your ass mother fucker.  I put out my arm and said NO.  No.  Then I said, Don't call me, don't call me at night.  He seemed surprised and sad.  Oh.  Okay, he said.  I looked about me wildly for the exit out of the fucking ER,l because it's like a rat's maze of doors down there.  Here, he said, right here.  He pressed the button to open the automatic door and I went out, but I was lost.  I turned around and watched him slowly walk away, and of course he never looked back.  And i idly wondered, where he got the really nice, oversized umbrella that he was carrying.

used, manipulated, taken for a ride,

Well this morning we had a fire drill at work and we were all herding downstairs past the cafeteria, and who did I see when I passed but Otis!  God, just to see his fine face like shocked me and hit me in my heart---honestly, he is so good looking to me---withthat shaved head and those amazing eyes.  I don't know what it is---but for some reason, I was also instantly pissed.  Because for some other reason, I was always under the impression that he was in a fucking hurry to leave the building to catch the bus to get home to the bitch.  He never can stay around to see me---but I bet he is sitting around down there chatting up the nurses---the smart ones who don't try to buy his fucking love--pitiful old fools like me, old white fucking sugar mama.  I am ashamed to admit how much money I spent on him this month--and for wht?  for nothing?  Barely a kiss---nothing.  If I try to tell him some little story or some little thing, he either interrupts me or is reading an evil text from Amber, and worrying about getting home to HER!  god how foolish can one woman be?  I mean, I am getting nothing out of this relationship!  NOTHINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.  but poorer, more in debt.  God is watching my foolishness and I am hell bound, hellbound, I am telling you.  Hell BOUND! 

We stopped by his mama's house yesterday, because that's where he has to sockaway all his treasures---it doesn't lookgood to Amber when he comes home with five bags of clothes and a Fossil watch.  He has to hide all his shit--otherwise, God knows what shemight do to it if she went on a rampage, his wife I mean.  His mama said, I'm mad at you.  I said, Why?  She said, because you never called me---I said, well, you know I never know if I am interrupting or you're watching TV or anything.....She says, That doesn't matter!  Call me!  then she said, listen, call me sometime.  I need to ask you something.  When can you call me?  I said, how about tomorrow?  I know his mama is gonna hit me up for money.  She was admiring the true religion boots that he was wearing.  I would wear something like that!  she said, in the winter.  Oh yes, I would--I lke to wear different stuff like that.  she was admiring his sunglasses, which I bought, and said, I would wear these too!  Oh my god, the hints were dropping like bombs.  She siad, Oh my God, I love your bracelet you are wearing.  It was a multi-colored stone stretch bracelet which was cheap.  I liked it because I could literally wear it with any outfit, which is what she said.  Do you want it?  You can have it, I said.  ANd she did not  hesitate.  Oh yes.  I love it.  I took it from my wrist and she put it on hers.  there was NO, no, really , I wouldn't dream of it.  None of that, give and take before one party says,NO, I want to give it to you.  What there was was, Yes, I want it.  SO I'm going to call her today and I know she is gonna hit me up for money===and I hope it's not a lot, but I'm gonna give it to her, because I'm gonna play this game out with thiese people,and know one thing, god is watching this shit.  Fifty bucks is my limit.  Fifty bucks. 

Theother day when I was picking him up from his dad's house, out comes his half sister Cheryl.  Supposedly a minister of her own church--how one achieves this status I don't know.  But out she comes---sslithering up to me like a predator, like a snake.  I just want to ask you one thing, she says,.  I would like you to make a one time donation to my church.  I said, well, I can't rigtht now, cuz right now I'm basically supporting HIM and your mother and sometimes to his daddy---She took out an envelope with her church name on it and wrote $100 dollars.  I wanted to puke right on that manipulative, user bitch.  Because one thing Iknow, that money wsn't go to her damn church.  It was gonna go in her pocket, for nails, clothes, a new hat, food, anything but the church cause.  She was at Otis' dad's house solely for th epurpose of borrowing money from Otis senior )not her real father, by the way).  Well he didn't have any money for her either. 
Yesterday, also, Otis dad was gonna lend Otis a hundred dollars so he could make his rent, because Amber shorted their land lord last month and didn't give him all the rent money

Okay, it is now September 6th and I'm just gonna continue this from up there, even though, as of this morning, I know that Otis and I will never be the same, and that I will never go back to what I did for him, or them.  But anyway, so Otis' dad was gonna give HIM a hundred, but then he instantly needed twenty bucks of it back==so then Otis needed another twenty to make the rent.  These people just seem to make the rounds with each other, driving around, if any of them have gas money, looking to bum ten or twenty bucks off each other.  And I see that they readily give it up, if they have it, BUT the undertanding is that it will be paid back---otherwise there won't be no next time!

It just makes me almost laugh at this process they have of bumming money, borrowing a five or a ten---
Anyway, what do you know.  I called Otis mama, just like I said I would, because I keep my word, we do in my world.  In my family.  To be fair.  In my family.  So me and Miss Pat talk a while.  We talk about Amber.  I just hate how she do him, she said.  He works all night , then he has to go home and clean everything, and she takes off and he has to stay with the twins.  And those twins, that one that looks like her, she's bad.  They're bad.  I said, you really think they're bad--because I saw those twins and they were sweet little girls, ---I don't care what his mom said, four year olds can't really be that bad, and they weren't.  they were well behaved.  They minded.  "I know they are!"  she said.  Specially that one that looks like her.  I love her but I don't like how she do him.  So there I had it then.  She said it==I love her, which means, I still respect her as his wife, or I respect her as a black woman---whatever.  Or maybe she just said it so I wouldn't think she would betray a daughter in law, in case I ever ended up as one.  Then Miss Pat said, well, I was afraid you were mad at me about Otis' clothes.  I'm like what?  she said, you know, how he had those nice shirts all balled up.  I wanted to hang them up, like you said.  But he said they would be okay. 

A tiny part of me hoped and hoped and hoped against hope that this was what she really wanted to talk to me about.  Oh God how I hoped that Miss Pat just wanted to talk about his shirts and not wanting to hit me up for money.  Oh, I said.  Those are Otis' shirts.  Once I give them to him, he can do whatever he wants to do with them.  I'm not mad at all.  I was sittng on the toilet, taking a crap actually, and I really hoped me and Miss Pat were having a lady chat.  but then as I was edging toward maybe goodbye, she said,Listen Lori.  I have something to ask you, but it's just between us, okay.  So I knew it was coming.  I need to borrow some money.  I need to get a car tag for my car and some some some blah blah fixed blah blah, (actually Otis had said something about this too,so it sounded like a familiar story).  I listened.  Well, how much do you need?  I asked.  Two hundred dollars she said.  Two hundred dollars!  I felt my heart sink into despair because I knew I wasgoing to go over my fifty dollar limit, and I was watching all my money go to people who don't love me but use me---opportunists, every last one.  I hated myself for being weak, and for being such an easy target,  (Jordan would never be this foolish),and for still hoping that maybe he might love me if I gave him mama money which I barely had for myself.

Well, I can't give you two hundred right now I said.  I've given Otis as much as I had, and I had to pull out most of it to cover some of my own stuff.  Well, how much can you give me, she said?  I think I can get you a hundred, I said, while crying somewhere deep in my soul at the absurdity of this situation.  How did I ever get into this, with these people?  

She was a little disappointed.  Well, alright then.  As long as you can maybe get the rest of that to me by December,  Her birthday was in January, so maybe there was some truth to the car tag story.  But I still felt to myself, the nerve, telling me to get the rest of it to her by December.  And Lori, I can't really repay you until at least February. that's okay, i said, because I knew i would never be repaid.  I didn't even ponder on that thought.  I hung up. feeling so utterly taken, so used, so unloved for anythjing except the money that I really didn't have, which made it worse, because I knew I was taking away from MY family, my bills, my needs.  My debt.

I had told her I would bring it by that day, after work.  And as usual, I was compelled, according to my upbringing, to do what I said.  I was also anxious to please her, my faux mother=in=law, so that maybe Otis wopuld be pleased.  And maybe I could do something for her that that bitch Amber couldn't. It gave me some sense of power over her---sick,but it did.  So after work I went to the credit union, drew out a hundred, (which by the way was money that was supposed to go to Otis for his birthday).  Then because I still wanted to look good in her eyes, I went to Chick a loes and got her fifteen lemon pepper wings, and THEN to the grocery story and picked out three grapefruit, the red kind, because that's what she said she would REALLY like to have, the last time I saw her.  Which at that time I had brought her two dozen bottles of water, raw chicken breasts and thighs (she preferred wings, I found out) nutty bars, and a twenty, which otis tried to grab, but didn't get. 

So then I drove over to the apartments and called her.  Well I swear I thought I had called into the twilight zone. Miss Pat?  It's Lori.  Oh, she said.  I'm surprised she didn't say Who?  Uh---well, uh, I brought your money, I said.  I thought you wanted it today..... Oh uh, yeah, honey.....I mean, well, I can bring it by another day, I said.  I got the most distinct feeling that she didn't want me to come up!  I can come down in my chair, she said.  Well, no, I don't want you to have to do that, i said. 
Well, alright, you can come on up then, she said, but she wasn't to excited about that prospect.  I'm thinking, what the fuck is going on here.  She called me up this very day, asking for money, here I am with it, and I'm getting this vague, weird conversation.  I was like blown out of the water, my mind was all confused.  It was like talking to two different people!  One who was so eager to talk to me, who was insulted I didn't call her every week, and this lady, who didn't really want me to come up to the apartment.  It was fucking weird.  So Imade my way through the electronic gate, some guy coming out let me come in.  I made my way to her apartment.  I knocked on her door.  It took her awhile to answer it.  She opened it.  I almost thought she was going to bar the door.  Well come on in baby and give me a hug.  I kind of walked past her and said, I brought you some wings, and some grapefruit, since you said you liked it.  I don't know how good they are since they're not really in season yet.  "Oh how sweet, she said.  I love grapefruit!  How did you know?  You told me, I said.  I took a brief glance around the small living area, saw no one , but got such a definite feeling that someone was in there, in the bedroom maybe?  A lover?  Man , I don't know how, she can barely walk,and when she does its bent over, she pees on ehrself worse than I do, and she wears dentures.  BUt still, we all need some loving, I guess.  She did not ask me in, to sit down, to talk, so I walked back to the door and gave her a hug.  Either she had someone there, or she was fixing to go and had no time to be polite.  So I gave her the bank envelope with the money, bent down to give her a hug, and she watched me til I got on the elevator, then closed her door.  I walked back to my car and sat there and ate all fifteen teriyaki wings that I saved for myself.  Too damn bad if she would have preferred them over Lemon pepper, or breasts. or legs or whatever the fuck---no matter what I got, she would always be wanting, or happier with the thing I didn't get.  I felt profoundly depressed---Otis mama didn't give a damn about knowing me or talking to me.   Hell,she didn't even particularly give a damn about getting the money that day---because I know in their world, if you get it, you get it, if you don't, you don't.  but somehow, they survive,any way they can.

late in the day in "august, thunder rumbling in the distance

Joe and I have been literally been sitting here in this family room all day, since about ten am.  We probably have spoken five minutes worth of conversation with each other.  When we drove home from West Palm Beach on Friday, we maybe had ten minutes worth of conversation.  What does this mean?  That we are so comfortable with each other that we don't really need to talk?  That we just don't have much to say to each other after 30 years?  Sometimes I fear it's because I am a very poor conversationalist---I do, but I don't think so.  Jordan and I talked almost the whole time when I was in the car with her, and last night at work, I carried on a four hour conversation with a girl I barely know.  I am atually very good at prompting people to talk, and very good at give and take in a conversation, not dominating it too much, except with my sisters maybe----I think they think I am a butt-er  in-er , but they are the only two people besides Rhonda who really listen to me, and let me talk.  I fear that we just don't have much to say to each other, Joe and I.  We just don't.  We just watched a movie, Life as we know it, with Katherine Heigl, ===it got bad reviews, but I thought it was sweet, myself .  But there was one scene, where Heigl is fighting with JOsh Duhamel, god he is so fine, ==and Heigl's doctor boyfriend said, If my wife and I had fought like that, we would still be married.  And to me, that is the truth----it shows you still care enough to fight, to figure it out, to communicate.  And friday night, I was sitting st the front desk, and Otis was clear downthe hall way, talking on the phone with Amber.  Only he was talking so loud, I could hear him from the front desk.  <Like his daddy, his voice gets higher when he gets frustrated.  Well, I sidled down the hallway, and I was listening.  He was passionately yelling into the phone,m sometimes taking it away from his face, gesturing wildly in frustration.  He said, that is not my gotdam fault I lost my job at St. Joes.  That was your fault . And .....what ever happened to for richer for poorer, for better for worse, till death DO YOU PART?  this man wants to stay married to this woman.  He loves her for some goddam reason that I don't gget, but that bitch knows how to play him like a fiddle. She's been threatening divorce and hitting him up for alimony AND child support.  Well he hung up with her and we were discussing it, andf all of a sudden he was afraid he hadn't disconnected his cell phone and he was freakng worried she heard us.  He dialed her back, but apparently she hadn't heard anything, he must have disconnected.  It bothers me so much to know and to realize that he cares  so much =-==that he tells me, fuck her, I'm fixing to move on for REAL, and yet, he is instantly worried about beingn caughtk, found out, busted, and losing HER.  ANd I keep thinking, what the fuck?  What the fuck I am doing here.?  This still is the rare  black man who just cares passionately about his woman and he wants to stay married to her  And it pisses me off that he keeps coming back to me to use me for all the little shit he needs at Walmart.  It hurts me.  It hurts me bad.

another day another dollar another day in purgatory

WEll, sittinghere at work.  Dr. Owings doing a thyroidectomy on a big fat black woman.  he said to me, cuz I think he is racist, not enough to eat for this one.  There ought to be some kind of government program available so this lady can get something to eat---of course all that said matter of fact straight sarcasm---cuz she weighed about 350 pounds.  She had a transverse healing abdominal wound that was still a little red and raw, mostly healed but still red and raw at the incision line.  I'm just setting the mood in here---we get no music because Dr. Owings can't tolerate music. He is an excellent surgeon. They say he was hell on wheels when he was young.

Jordan is home temporarily---between life phases.  We moved her home from Macon and all her stuff is filling up the dining room and the computer room.  As if the house wasn't cluttered enough---now I just can't thnk, clean or function---I'll let it all go til we pack her up and take her down to West Palm Beach.  Just when I get used to her being home---away she flies again like a little bird.  I worry so much about my daughter, about her future happiness.  What did she say to me yesterday while we wereeating our Thai chicken chopped salads at Panera.  Why is Becki so upset that Brianna is leaving?  I said, Because then she has to be all alone with Barry.  Jordan was upset.  Well Barry isn't very nice to her, she doesn't like Barry that much, ---you don't get it.  She says, you and Becki and Rhonda (Rhonda?_--how did she know Rhonda wasn't happy)  I don't think you like Dad.  I don't likeRhonda encouraging you, I don't like Facebook, you all encourage each other on Facebook!  Oh how little that girl knows---she simplifies the situation too much---Hey I said, I try to back Dad up when you and Tom get too rough on him.  No. You don't likeDad .  Its not very nice.

If I had been thinking quicker I would have explained things better.  I wouldhave said, You know, I love Dad. but I don't like him.  You see how he treats me.  You knowwhy the other day I didn't text him back when he  txted me about picking up lunch stuff for tom.  ?  You know why?  Because he texted me a picture of a carton of broken egg shells that fell out of the garbage can when he pulled it out from under the sink.  The caption was "GOOD JOB".  Now what the fuck?  WHo the fuck does that?  Was that necessary to do that?  Whatkind of unhappy son of a bitch takes the time to send that picture with that caption to his wife, while she is hard at work---in the space of time it took him to text that he could have cleaned that shitup and just gone on with his business, live and let live.  It was his damn fault for being in one of his goddam hurries.

That sonof abitch didn't deserve a t ext back from me..  If y ou're gonna treat me like shit,then you get treated like shit.  I wanted to tell her, want to tell her---you know what.  Why are you blaming me and Becki and Rhonda, esp me and Becki.  We're the GOOD GUYS!  We are the ones who have sacrificed everything, our happiness, love, peace of mind, to give  YOU, our children, a father, some semblance of a family---that's what YOU wanted Jordan.   You didn't want us to be divorced.  So we didn't get divorced.  I did it all for you, Jordan, for you, becaue I think Tom would have understood it, but YOU, you wanted to live an illusion---YOU--we are NOT the bad guys.  We do not text our husbands with nasty, mean picture messages, we do NOT give our spouses the silent treatment, make them feel guilty for laughing and enjoying life, yell at them, verbally abuse them, mentally assault them with put downs and harangues---no.,  We are not the goddam bad guys---good god almighty we fucking gave it all up for you guys---lived in hell for thirty plus years so YOU COULD HAVE A GODDAM FATHER!   THATS what I wanted to say to her---and I still might, because if she treats Chrislike that, he isn't gonna likeher.  Hemight love her, but he is gonna hateher too.  And I can't bear to think of someone hating my daughter--but she is like Joe---she watches him, she loves him, she hates him, and I know she is gonna be just like him.  Something IN her, is gonna imitate him, and she can both help and not help it.  I worry.

OL called me three times yesterday even tho heknows Jordan is with me.  He didn't call me at all last week, but something is up this week.  He called me twice yesterday and then once at night and we spoke briefly,and  he seemed so up, it was weird.  He said, I can't wait til I see you on Friday I have some things to tell you.  It freaked me out.  BUt they seemed like good things.  Maybe he got his drivers license, or ID>  Maybe Amber got a job.  I don't know.  But I am rather freaked.  and he said he wou ld maybe stay and see me in the morning,but he has said that to me fifteen times so far nd never stayed.  so this morning I knew w0ould be no diffrent, but he called me at 7:15 and I didn't hear the call cuz I had the sound settings messed up.  something is up. but don't know what.  Not overly concerned.  Just curious.  Don't care as much as I used to.  Hungry.  Where is my break relief?

the cycle continues

Well, not much new on this relationship front.  had a hellishly bad weekend a few weeks ago.  Amber posted on her wallthat she and Nate had a terrific meal at Two Thumbs Up==a restaurant that i had heard about and wanted to try myself.  She had a steak cooked to perfection,and he had the biggest pancakes she had ever seen, according to her post.  Well, just the thought of the two of them sitting across from each other. and see, I know how he looks cuz I have sat across from him many times now at IHOP---just tothink of them, him laughing sweetly at something she said, looking sheepish,diving into his food with such pleasure, being with his BOO, her getting to see that fine man across from her, and being able to claim him as hers,well it was all too much for me.  And then, to think, to think, that he bought that forher, while it is I who is continuously forking over the cash, or the creditcard, me, gettting nothing, just giving. 

I almostwent nuts with jealousy and grief.  Rhonda and i texted til my phone battery was practially dead.  i was determined to dumphis ass that Friday night, but then, there he was,..  smiling at me ---really, he never has a clue what i am thinking.  I eventually did tell him what was botheringme, asked him who paid, He said it was her, from the money Cara gave them for the down payment on the Expedition.  He told me they weren't very good anyway, and somehow, that made me feel better, because he loves those blueberry pancakes at IHOP.  But still, just the image of them eating together, and then, walking home because they had no car=-==Amber let the Uplander get repoed again.  I don't raelly understand the whole situation, but Cara lent Amber two grand to put down on an expedition, and I don't understand why they just didn't get the Uplander out of repo, but somehow their dealer/lender ripped them off bad=-=Nate told me they still owed ten grand on that car and he'd already paid like eight grand, so apparently, they were just going to start anew on an "Expedition, and he was going to pay the car note by himself, and not give her the money  anymore.

I decided it wasn't any of my business===none of it is my business, how they handle their affairs.  I don't understand why they just did't get the Uplander===someone is probably gonna screw them on that Expedition too.

He and I continue===even after he said we needed to re-evaluate the relationship, we continue, in some ways the same.  Insome ways different.  There are only so many times that I can be hurt and suffer before my feelings change, and they are changing.  For instance, I don't think of him so much anymore===not constantly, not night and day, not the first thing in the am or the last thing at night (well sometimes, the last thing at night).  so the obsession is gone.  And I really do feel somewhere in side me, also know the truth, that he continues with me in order to use me, to get me to give him money....and he never has to outright ask.  He just preys on my kindness.  This past weekend was Jasmine's sixteenth birthday===she wanted AirMax.  He said he saved a hundred out for that, buthe kept going on and on about that, ===and finally I said, would you like me to help buy those shoes for her.  I did after all buy Blesshawn hisbike.  I may as well get Jasmine's gift as well.  He said, would you?  All I have is a hundred to last for thenext two weeks.  But of course, he had enough money to buy Extenze for his penis size and pleasure pills (from the gas station!) AND I had to ask what for,?  who for?  why did he feel he needed penis extender pills.  You know what, they did something to him because his dick kept going up and down all by itself on sumday.  But here is the kicker, and where things have changed.  He doesn't seem to want to go with me anymore anywhere.  He just wants me to give him the momey.  I so desperately wanted to go out with him Saturday,just to be seen with him, to be with him in his company, but we had two hours to ki8ll before Foot Locker opened and I genuinely think he is trying to avoid pissing Amber off or giving her any suspicions as to his whereabouts-=-=it has been getting too routine lately for him to come home two or three hours late on a Satuday or a Sunday.  But anyway, he said he was too tired Saturday to go with me, and to kill two hours berore Foot locker, so I said, just go home.  Get some sleep.  He said he would call me after he slept, and i was figuring ten o'clock or something, so I went home and laid down, but couldn't do much beyond ten am myself.  I knew knew knew he woulodn't callme anyway, yet I contin ued to hope that he wo uld call so that we could go out and buy the shoes together, ===but he didn't call.  i took my weary self to Kohls, then to Publoix and got Tom two subs, and then i went home and walked, because I had no where to divert my restless energy, my longing.  Then I tried to lay downand sleep at abaout three, but sleepwouldn't come, and I knew I would be so exhausted that night at work.

It turns out that he didn't even lay down to sleep until noon, I guess he made everyone breakfast, ==and he slept til nine pm.

So that night, at work, I just laid downin the break room at nine pm, and sure enough, at about eleven, I hear a tapping on the break room door.  I tried to tell him I was tired and I was gonna sleep, and he said, oh, okay, I'll just go on and do my work, but he just cou ldn't stand it, and he hauledme out of there in about twenty minutes.  So I spent the whole night with him, following him around, sitting at the front desk, watching him sleep, posting cases===and I never got anymore sleep myself.  Hesaid, well, we'll just go on and get the shoes tomorrow morning (m,eaning Sunday{  and I said, I can't, you know i'm going to Macon in the morning to help my daughter move.  Well he was in a quandary then===but once again, I don't know how much I'mbeing manipulated or if I am being manipulated, or ifhe is just an innocent, dumb man who didn't plan right.  Because he never went out shoe shoppign on Saturday like I thought.  So then he ws upset, how was he going to get Jasmine her shoes, she should have them on her birthday etc. etc.  SO i caved and told him I would go through publix, get her some cupcakse, because shelikes cupcakes ,and we got her three helium balloons, and I went thrugh and debitedtwice and gave him a hundred dollars, and I told him he better get her some shoes, and not spend that money, and he swore he would.  And so Idropped him off, after stopppppping at Krystal for breakfast, and BP for cigarettes, all my idea.  And then I dropped him off twoblocks before his house, and he was happily carriying the balloons anda the cupcakes, and my moneyy, and he never looked back.  And so I fear that the relationship has truly changed from us doing anything, or rather, nothing at all together, to me just handing over  money to him, and watching him go.  That's how it's going down=-==is how it's looking to me.  And I'mchanging, my feelings are changing.  You can't use Lori wiegele forever///  sooner or later,this dumb old fool willcatch on .  

Oh humanity.  Oh pain.  Oh love.  Sitting here at six in the morning with my son.  Couldn't sleep, so I got up at five thirty.  He got home at six.  I don't know where I went wrong with Otis.  Why he doesn't love me anymore, if he ever did.  I don't know what I did----I still love him and I still want him.  But somewhere between last friday and last saturday he had an epiphany and he said we need to re-evaluate this relationship.  And he said he would call me sometime next week but so far he has not called at night and I wasnt going to pick it up anyway, but I at least wanted to know he called, and cared. Why Oh Lord, did you put me through this.?  I met this guy for a reason.  yes I lost weight.  Yes I feel better, but I'm not sure any of it is worth this pain, this pain of knowing love, feeling love, being inn love, and losing it all, losing it all, and it wasn't much anyway, but still, it was like a drug, and it was powerful, and made me feel like a queen, made me feel on top of the world, like a million dollars, hopeful, happy, young, ...
Tom and I are watching World War II in color, and the opening montage of people in pain, people struggling, dying, ---all the folly of humanity, and somewhere in there, broken hearts everywhere,

Sometime sthis life is more than i can bear, because I don't understand it.  I don't understand this life, Lord.  What are you doing with us down here?  Are you laughing?  Crying?  Shaking your head?  I know I chose this Lord, so I deserve it, all the pain.  Lord, I pray that I may never be so stupid again....Let me try and love Joe again.  Let me try.  ANd forgive me Lord when I say it, sometimes I'm just ready to come home, too.  A life down here without the kind of love I just felt seems to be a sad, empty colorless life---void of everything --
I think about Otis, what is happening at home, in that busy house, I'm kind of obsessed with everyone, with that young, nubile Jordyn, her friends, what he sees, who he's lusting over.  what's going on, what he is eating, whois he hitting on at work.  Is there someone else at work. Man, I'm hurting so bad, I can't say.  I hurt so bad I can't even cry.  If Icry Imight die.  The pain is unbelievable.

in the beginning

This time last year, 2010, i was a fat woman----I had lost some weight but not much---I weighed at least 226 pounds, I only know because when I went and got a pap smear for the first time in 5 or so years, they weighed me.  I was depressed to see that i weighed that much---

Death be not proud

I only give this this title because I swear, if I had any guts, and it wasn't Jordan's birthday on the 23rd, I'd seriously think about killing myself. I have created for myself such a hole---such a pit of pain, that I don't know  how I'm gonna crawl out of it.  This thing with Otis---not good.  Not good at all.  Somehow managed to get $3200 back in taxes and it's all gone, and don't know where it all went.  I know I didn't spend it all on this man.  but I spent some of it on him.  My house is fucked up.  Imean, my HOUSE,----the people in it----everyone living with suspicions about me, their mother, their wife.  Who is this woman, who listens to rap and hip/hop.  Who is THIS WOMAN?

imaposer, just a poser, and grieving cuz it's over

*In all of these blogs I have been pouring out my anger on Otis, with Otis, at Otis, but I  never gave the aftermath of any of the situations---and I have come to the conclusion that Otis is just a simple man, he just wants to live, to live and be happy, thats what he said to me today, after we both mutually agreed to give each other up---to be friends.  He did what I prayed God that he would do---he said it, he said it----I think we need to reevaluate this relationship, with that wry sad smile===not wanting to hurt me.  He never want to hurt anybody---I so get it.  He is so fucking good to Amber.  It just seems that God does put together with wisdom.  He put me with Joe because he knew I would look beyond his behavior, and try tounderstand it, even when I don't like it---I would and do understnd it ,  So Otis is with Amber, and it fucking pisses me off---cuz he is so sweet.  and he hooked himself up by choice to  a she-devil.  He said, she is so gotdamn greedy.  If you pour yourself a glass of Koolaid and take it to her to give her a sip, she'll drink the whole gotdamn thing.  Butit's in he, it's in her I   tell you.  She'd try to take your puss all to herself too.  I know it.  But her greediness, her anger, it's in her, from her mom and her dad.  It pisses her off when I tell her that, but then she acknowledges---it's true.  So it is with Joe, his behavior is IN him, learned, formed as reaction to the environment, and I get it, and Otis gets it.  And here we are.  ANd he tried to explain, how he wished she wasnt like that and Joe wasn't like he was and then he and I could go out and just enjoy being together (here I didn't know what he meant, did he mean go out as friends?  because all that hurt me so bad, cuz I just don't want to be rfriends.  I wanted him to love me like Amber, like a woman.  I wanted him to want my pussy bad, to crave it, to have to have itl  And I don't think he did, I remember how whenhe first starting htting on me, how he said he would masturbate while thinking about me, and waatch his skeet shoot up andhit the bathroom door.  I don't know how much of that was bullshit, but I feel so fucking inadequate that i couldn't measure up to the fantasy.  I wonder if he got to thinking about the blood and how he couldn't take any more of that.

Oh my god how depressed I feel.  Here in my 52 year old white body---with a pussy that can barely respond anymore, no more wetness, no more rain coming from my body.  HOw I have never ridden, how I can barely suck dick, how I suck basically at lovemaking, or sex, or fucking, or whatever.  Troy---talking to Troy again.  I'm telling you Troy is 48 years old and he says he could still make love all night with a seven minute breather in betwwen.  He says, very sadly, Joanne is wasting a good dick, man.  A good dick.  It's such a waste.  He told me how he and Kelly used to just fuck everywhere, outside in the dark, leaning against there apartment, behind the car door on the fourth of July while Kelly's sons were sitting on the hood of the car.  Fucking like two rabbits.  How I envy people who can just fuck for pure pleasure.  How envious I am of that.  Man, do I ever have thepuritanupbringing.  Troy says black women are mean.  He says, now a white woman, if there is a problem in the marriage, or a little cheating, a white woman might suggest counseling, but a black woman would just tell youto    get the hell onout with your bitch.

SO YESTerday I got home after spending 300 dollars on him and as I drove away after dropping him off at his dads, i got the most awful feeling, the most helpless, horrible guilty feeling.  I knew it was all wrong, --and then, when I got home, I tried to lay down.  and my daughter calledand then she came, and my whole family was stting in the family room wqtching tv. Joe made us all gyros and served us all, and I could barely live with myself, look at my daughter, look aat my husband, theman i have been married to for almost 35 years.  and I could hardly live with myself, myguilt, my foolishness,  and I was convict4ed, and I said to myself, Ihave to end this tonight.  I do.  I was never more convicted

And it was so weird because at the very time I ws g oing through what I was feeling, Otis was going through the same thing.  I don't know when it started for him, yestedyY.  i blame that fucking waffle house!  wE walked in and sat down.  Immediately he seemed totally out of sync.  The waitress laid down our silverware, and I saw what I thought was speck of food on his fork, ---it turned out that htere was some dried grits on it.  and i didn't see when he handed the waitress the fork---was I looking at the menuj---so out of character for him to do that===she came over with a hot glass of water and sunk all of our silverware in the cup of hot water!.  I said, wht is this?  She said, I'm sterilizing your silverware.  I was alittle surprised.  In the meantime, he just became more andmore agitated with the noise, the bustle, the dirt, the eightor nine waitresses and cooks behind the counter, all talking and flexing and he didn't like ours either, theyt were all black, by the way.  He order pork chops and eggs, and he didn't like the pork chop.  He liked the hash browns and he forked them and his eggs down, and he couldnt get out of there faster.  I had  never seen him like this, almost what, pouty?  cranky?  not satisfied.  not greatful or happy with this breakfast.  I was disappointed.  I wanted him to just be happy to be getting a free breakfast and to be with me.  but he could not stand the environment---he never wanted to go to another waffle house, ever.  but in the meantime, while we were waiting, we talked.  He said, I saw Becki.  I said, becki who?  he said, becki.  You know becki!  Your sisiter Becke.  I'm like what? how?  On faybook-- she showed me.  Who?  you mean Amber.  you mean your wife?  He nodded.  i didn't really want to know what he thoght of Becki, or whatever pictures he saw, or why "Amber showed him those pictures.  and were they under my profile, or did she do a little stalking and go under beckis?   
I just looked at him.  We just looked int each other's eyes.  He has the best eyes.  The most beautiful eyes--yiou could get lost in his beautiful face  I do.  He justlooked at me so long and deep and I swear he was almmmost going to cry.  Is there somoething you need to tell me, I said.  I told her I was deeply in love with you.  He said it with such sincerity that I almost believed it.  Why would he say such a thing to me.  I knowhe would never say that to her---but why would he say that to me.  I am, I am, deeplly in love with you, he said.  You did not say that to her, did you?  I said.  Imean, you did't, did you.  He just looked atme, again, I thought he was going to cry---I got the feeling thne, that things had changed for him, something, somethingwas wrong, he was feeling some kind of way that wsn't right anymore, ---like me.  During all that time, Amber kept calling him and he refused to answer.  I said why don't you answer her, man.  that is driving her crazy.  All you have to do is pick it up----she doesn't understnd why you're not picking up  It doesn't look good.  what is she supposed to think.  Yet he refused to pick itup, or even text her.  I'm not sure why.  Did he feel guilty that he was with me and he couldn't pick itup and lie straight to her.  He does have a problem, if you could cll it that with lying to her---I can't lie to my best friend he once told me.  The irony, ---and how jealous I was to hear that too.  The only other thing I could thik of was that it was paybck to her, because she did't pick up when he called her many times too. and it drove him wild.  What sort of fucking game did these two have going  The only thing is though, that i tended to believe that she was up to no good when she did't answer.  She told him things like the phone battery was dead, the connection couldn[t be made, she had it on vibrate, etc. etc.  But I didnt believe any of that, because I believe hat woman always stayed connected through her cell phone---and she couldn't be reached only 8if she didnt want to be reached.

Well I dropped him off at his da

down and out in Atlanta

Sitting here on a Friday night, watching goddam Dr. Turner do his usual Friday night fucking bowel resection---this fool only has call through Friday night so you know he is good and goddam gonna make him some money on Friday night.  Feeling low because I realize tthat something inside me has died---the passion that I had for Otis.  Like we are reduced to me giving, him  needing and him taking.  That kind of relationship puts a relationship on an uneven playing field---things can't be right in that situation.  Especially when one of the people is twenty years older than the other, and that one being a woman.  I am so depressed to be 52 years old and not liking who I see, and it isn't fair, isn't fair at all that I have come into this situation with this man, and he's notmy race, so therefore I can not only not compete with any one my age, but also not my race.  And of course I have become fascinated with the race, and I see everyone through his eyes, and I only see beautiful black girls with firm strong smooth long black limbs and high tight booties and fine high bosoms and full lips and flashing brown eyes, and I feel so old, and so fat, and so white and so pasty.  and I don;t feel pretty at all, and I don't think white people are good looking anymore.  WHite people are really very ugly---and I'm hating everything, and myself most of all.  I can't be young and black===I can't be Jordyn, or even Amber.  and I notice he has not come by the room to see me tonight, and I think it's dead for him, too.  I feelvery sad to be witnessing the death of a relationship, to be a player in the death of a relationship.  I hate everything, and I hate Dr. Turner that mother fucker for always having to do a goddam bowel resection on a Friday night.  But what the hell, he and I have nothing to really say to each other any way.  It's pretty much dead.  dead dead dead and dead.  These two, Dr. Foote and Dr. Turner are just amiably chatting away while they slowly snip away at bowel adhesions and take their own sweet fucking time on this patient.  Disgusted with everything, you know?  Truly tired.  Need a change.  Need to get out of this.  Probably just tell him when I drop him off tomorrow---we're kind of dead, aren't we.  Nothing going on here.  Lets just move on. 

when you know . . .

So yesterday on Amber's profile on FB she writes this pseudo poem, which was actually ---very good for what if managed to convey in very simple direct terms, about how blessed she was with her seven children, how happy she was with her man, who wasn't perfect, but perfect for her, how happy they would be until they were old and gray, and how she would never cheat on her perfect man.  And I wanted to puke because it made me sick to read it---sick to know that he does make her happy, in fact works hard to make her happy, that he is HER man, and if her is her man, than I am in fact, taking care of someone else's man and getting NOTHING, AND I MEAN NOTHING, in return for my money.  I get better hugs from Troy and Ralph inthe hallway.  I get no love.  No affection.  Not even a good hug.  Not a romantic text.  Nothing. 
I'm not picking up that phone tonight.  Or tomorrow night.  Or the next night.  I'll seehim Friday.  I'll give him his shit and I'll tell him---this is the last shit I'm giving you.  you are her man,.  She can take care of you.  Because why should I take care of you when you are hers, and she gets everything.  And I get nothing--not even a good kiss.  I get a call, and hints, lots of hints, about what you need, and what you lack, and yet, you always have forty dollars in your pocket and enough money for lottery tickets and the occasional kush.  No.   What a goddam fool I have been.  Lord, what a world this is where there is no real love anymore.  Everyone using everyone else to see what they can get.  To see how much they can get.  Man.  I have been so manipulated. 

You know what makes me sick?  Amber got on there and said she has been blessed with seven children---but what she didn't post was that she sucked about eight of them out of her---hers and his---she used abortion like it was birth control, and it made me sick to know that she has had five or six abortions because why?  Because apparently these people don't like the pill, for some damn reason.  She gave her daughters bags of condoms, but what the hell---give them the damn pill.  Now I see why it is that people oppose abortion---because, because, for a lot of people, it is birth control.  And to me, it is, simply, murder.  it really is.  Think of the nae naes and niyahs and Nathans that she got rid of---her blessings that she randomly or not so randomly chose to eliminate.  Why did she choose to keep nae nae and Niyah, and nathan, ?  Because he was about to leave?  Sometimes I think that is why she did have them, because her man, her food for her soul, was fixing to up and leave her ass.  And she knew, she knew, that the kids are what keeps him in. 

So here I am, a goddam pawn in this fucking game these people got going, and still, still, after all these years, nothing in it, for me. 

trust in God---he's all you've got when you realize you've got nothin' else --- a fact

Beginning to realize the futility of the situation---the foolishness of myself.  The pain I go through, the agony.  This morning I woke up and I asked myself something:  "What did I think about before Otis came into my life."  I mean, because he is the ONLY thing I can think about.  He is on my mind all night long---when I roll around in my restless, tortured sleep, he drifts in and out of my thoughts, when I awake fully, he's there.  All day long I think about him---where he's at, what he's doing.  ANd I would lay my last dollar on the fact that this is not a mutual situation.  THe saddest fact I ever had to face.  So, truly, what did I think about before him?  I mean, I can't think of anything meaningful at all that occupied my mind.  Must've been something.  Food?  What kind of flowers I was going to plant?  What parts of the house might I clean, albeit, half-assed?  I mean, seriously, even now, I can't think of anything to replace him with, in my thoughts.  The only thing I could think of is what sorts of things might take his place in my brain function.  Pitiful.  \

Friday  night I don't know why I got so pissed but I shorted out.  We were in room 15---he was cleaning it.  I was listening to him---he has falled in love with a song called "motivation" and he didn't know who was the lead female singer, only that it was with L'il Wayne.  So I dutifully googled it and up comes Kelly Rowland.  I printed off the lyrics for him and I was sorta sitting there waiting for him to come back-===he had gone out.  I don't really think it was that long that he was gone, but I guess it was long enough for me to either wonder about it or get bored, so I exited the room and started walking towards the front desk,and there he was, leaning against the wall in the case cart corridor with Yonnie leaning also on the wall and they were facing each other, and talking kind of seriously.  It looked almost more intimate than he and I talk.  It just pissed me off so fucking bad I don't know why!  I just flipped him the bird as I walked by and he immediately became alarmed or worried (what, maybe, my MEAL TICKET is pissed)? and he said something, maybe about the lyrics, or maybe I said something about the lyrics. and he said, Where are you going and I said, to drink my fucking shake, and like I said, something went down about the lyrics and I said, you want your lyrics, here's your fuckinglyrics, and I threw them over my shoulder and onto the floor.  He was kind of walking fast to catchup with me.  We sat down at the front desk.  I guess the pissed was all over my face.  I can't keep it off.  He must have felt guilty, there must have been something to feel guilty about, the way he came after me so fast, and the way they were standing.  It just goddam set me off so quick.  I don't like that, that jealousy--he said.  It knd of reminded me of, of, Amber . . . Well guess what mothafucka, me and Amber are probably both getting screwed over by you and I get it, I get her, and what the fuck.  He said, I was standing there telling her you were going to have my baby.  I'm like what?  I don't believe that.  You want me to ask her, he said?  No.  No.  I said.  What did she say.  He said, She said, How.  How could that happen.  Like maybe she thinks I'm too old to have any---that fat, dumb bitch (though I kind of likeYonnie).  Now I'm wondering if she was tellinghim that she thought she was pregnant, )I have given her two pregnancy tests so far --both negative)  What if she was telling him the kid mightbe his!?  He said, you think I would be interested in her?  But honestly, several months back, when Yonnie first started, Otis came to me and told me he thought he was going to be fired because Yonnie was going to say he was sexually harassing her.  And I always thought he was telling me this as a pre-emptive move so that if it came out that she would press the charges against him, that I would already know, and Otis would have already told me that there was no truth to what she said.  He in fact did say that there was no truth to that, and that that is why she was being moved from the Main Emory, because she had falsely accused too many people of that.  (I found out later that she had actually faked sickness and gone to the ER too many times---manipulating her way out of work). 

We sat there for awhile and I was burning with anger but not able to express or show it more than I did, because he is NOT MY MAN, and I cannot be jealous or possessive of what is not mine to begin with.  He said,man,there about seven girls up here who would like to do me right now.  One of them you talk to everyday.  And I'm like, Who, who is that?  I think he thought better of telling me the truth   He said. she's bi and has brown hair and brown eyes, andshe works in the cafeteria.  I'm like, I never go tothe cafeteria, so I don't know who you're talking about.  But looking back, I think he just decided not to tell me,in case I pulled an Amber and nutted up on him, caused a scene,and got us both fired by going ghetto and pulling an Amber, which I believe I have defined before---and it's got nothing to do with being ghetto---and everything to do with being cheated on and betrayed by the man who said he would love and honor you and not share his body with anyone else, til death do you part.  I should have said, SHOULD have said, why don't you then, in fact I did say that, and he said, I don't want to----I don't know why, I just don't want to.  TO THAT, I should have said, what do you mean, you don't know why you don't want to?  Because motha fucka, you're with ME, you're with AMBER, how many other pussies do you need to fuck.  And I reallize he's kinda frustrated because he can't have sex with Amber for six weeks.  I said, why don't you let her give you some head, ?  He said, NAW man, I need sex. SEx.  Of course, I know my pussy isn't tight enough for him anyway, but last week I was so paranoid that we were gonna be busted, or had been busted and I was gonna be fired from this Job that I have held for ten years, and desperately need, that I vowed that I would never have sex up here again.  And that pretty much leaves us screwed for screwing , cuz I'm not paying for sex, and he's got no money for sex.  The whole situation- the whole situation, so fucked up. So wrong. 

ANd then I spent the rest of the weekend and through today, Tuesday, thinking about that conversation, obsessing over that conversation, obsessing over who that person was "WHo I talk to everyday", and I want to kill that bitch, and I don't want to know who dat bitch is, because I would hate that bitch to my very core.  And it isn't her I should be hating, but HIM.  HIM>  I come to the conclusion once again, that there aren't very many good men out there.  Turning into a man-hater big time.  BIg time.   Big time. 

BUt what did I do.  Calmed down.  Swallowed the bitter pain in my heart, the jealous worm that reared it's head when I went by and saw him and Yonnie standing in the hallway, about three feet apart, talking.  I know he has conversations like this all up and down the hospital, because it is true, women are attracted to this guy, and flock to him like bees to bright flowers.  He just has something, someone put a spell on him when he was born.  So he said he would wait for me that morning, so I clocked out early to not hold him up, then couldn't find him.  Paced around looking for  him, finally found him down the hallway, talking to ANOTHER woman, who was I believe asking him to call her by her first name, or something.  She was tall and had a light green scrub h at and I don't know who dat bitch was but when I see her I'm gonna shoot poison arrow dagger thoughts at her and hope to kill that bitch cunt whore, too.  I just turned around and walked aruond the corner and he caught up with me and I didn't say anything.  Just talked like everything was normal.  I asked him what he wanted to do, if he just wanted to go home.  I think he had at first thought about going to get some shorts like I said I wanted to do with him, but he realized it was too early on Saturday so he said, yeah.  BUt then I said, well what about the gas for your van, to see if it was only just out of gas, and he said, okay.  So he threw back the passenger seatt and fell asleep, as always, and me, just watching him sleep---he is so beautiful when he sleeps, and tried to drive quietly and not hit any b umps.  It was my goal to get all the way to Wal-Mart and maybe into the store without him waking up, I wanted him to get some sleep, he was so tired.   I pretty much got there with that goal, but he did wake up once we got there.  I asked him he just wanted me to get the gas can and he said yeah, and he said, get me something good.  I think he meant some more Blue MOon, if it was anything else, I didn't know.  Couldn't read his mind.  And all I ever want to do is be seen with him, pretend that he is mine, show the world that I am with this handsome young black man, and that he is mine, in this pretend world.  BUt I do not even get this---he can't even be bothered to get out and ocme into the store with me---and Ijust want him to rest and be happy, but I wish he wanted to be with me as much as I want to be with him.  I got the stuff and came back out, went to the Shell station and bought five gallons of gas, pumped into the container, went through Bojangles, got us some food.  Don't think he was hungry because he had just finished his fish sandwich that I had bought him th enight before, but if it was free fo od he was taking it.  Got him to East Point and to Farris Street.  He got out and took the beer and the gas and set off towards his house.  And he never said thank you.  Never even looked back.

On Saturday night Yonnie told me she had gone on a date.  What is it with these people and DATES?  I said with who?  She said, Big MIke. She said he took her to Waffle House and she ate asmuch as she could eat because it was free, andshe didn't care.  She wasn't paying.  Yonnie, by the way, is married, not that I have anything to say about that---but the MO seemed sadly familiar to me----if someone is gonna buy something for you, GREAT!  Take it while you can, and as much of it as possible while you're at it.  I don't understand why anyone would be attracted to Yonnie. She is fat---with all of her weight in her gut. She wears glasses and she smokes like a fish and so she exudes cigarette fumes, they like come out of her pores. I mean, Otis smokes, but he doesn't just reek of cigaretteslike she does.  She is really hard core.  And she coughs and hacks like lung cancer personified.

So then, in lonely agony for the rest of the weekend.  Joe off at volleyball tournament til Sunday night.  I dug up my flower beds and went to HOme Depot and Walmart and TArget and walked,and allthe non-stop movement in the world couldn't suck the restless out of me, couldn't stop the apocalypse going onin my heart andmy soul and my mind. Knowing,knowing, that I need to end this, but not knowing how, or who should do it, or when.  And begging God for mercy, peace, forgiveness, direction, clarity, conviction---and starting it all over again and again in my mind==my God, the agony, I can't tell  you.  The pain,the pain, of loving someone who tells you "I love you" but fails to demonstratethat love.  So then you don't know if it wasreal, if he meant it, whatgame he's playing, if he's just a simple-minded man, with nodepth,and if he says it he means it, but that's all you're gonnaget.  The pain of not understanding really, what he means whenhe says "I luh you."  ANd finally, finally I concede, and I say, God, just take it.  I put it in your hands.  Because I don'tknow what to do anymore.  You didn't quite see me to this---I went into this by myself, but I know you're gonna see me through it.  Because in the end,that's what this life is all aobut---it's about coming to God, again and again and again, however many times it takes for a person to finally get it---that without God, we're shit.  Without God, and taking our directions from God---and acknowledging that he is KING< he is KING, we're screwed.  Destined to live in the hell we create for ourselves here on earth, and maybe, then in the next life too. I begin to realize that hte Bible is truth.  Because it is true, everything you need to live a life of inner peace and outward happiness, it's all right there int he Bible.  He tells you how to be happy.  Don't cheat on your spouse---cheating only brings a terrible hell to your soul which you deserve.  DOn't covet  your neighbors goods,  it just hatches a worm in your soul that eats it up---don't murder, you end up jail.  I mean, truly, it's all there.  So even today, I agonize, but I say to God, here it is Lord,  I gotta problem, and it's yours now.  I knowhe'll take it, and he's working on my behalf to help me fix this bitch of a situation.  It's not gonna end how I want it to end,  Otis is never gonna love me like I want to be loved.  It's another sham of a situation---created by me in my own little mind.

a sucker born every fucking minute

So that was me, a sucker born on March 28, 1959 at 11:36 am.  Nathan ended up being born on April 21, 2001 at like 12:44 pm.  Amber only had to give it four pushes and out comes kid number seven.  Otis got to cut the cord.  He called me about two hours later, and I realize that it wasn't so much that he cared enough to tell me but that he was hungry and wanted some Chick-a-Loes, and a way to get home, and maybe some fucking money to get the bus pass back to AMC for the evening festivities with the family and the queen of baby production.  And me, always the fucking love sick fool.  I mean, like, he calls me and says, where are you?  Hey fucker, where do you think I am?  I'm at home.  But he just expected me to drop everything to come, because guess what, that's exactly what I did, and would do.  And me, always, always trying to buy his love.  Everywhere we go he knows half of south Atlanta, so we went to Chick-a-Loes, where they do have the most awesome chicken sandwiches I have ever tasted.  But two young boys went by and he was afraid they might know Jordyn, so he said go back to the car and wait, so I did.  I told him flowers would be nice for Amber and so he said okay,  So I went into Kroger on Old National Hwy, and he said, yeah I would love some Blue Moon, and yeah, get a pack of Newports.  So I went in and picked out some pretty pink and white roses for $25 dollars, the beer and cigarettes.  He asked me how much the flowers were and I told him.  He said $25!  Amber is gonna kill me if she thinks I spent that much on flowers.  So he called his dad and said, the flowers are from you, okay,?  10-4?  He turned to me, ---see this is what i hate---this lying.  I felt like saying, this whole fucking relationship is a lie and you're worried about the flowers?  Why can't you just lie and tell her you saved a little money to buy these flowers ---it kind of blows the whole point of the flowers if they come from your dad.  What would he want to give her flowers for.  But there you have it.  So I dropped him off near his house and he was talking on the phone and hell, I didn't know we were right there by Farris Ave.  and he said, whoa, what are you doing, trying to get me killed.  I swear you're trying to get me killed.  He wasn't mad but hey, get off the phone and tell me where I should drop you. 

Dear God.  So oh yeah, he was talking about maybe Tim would give him a couple bucks to catch the bus back to the hospital and I realized by now that that was just a hint that he would like for me to give him some money to take the bus back.  I opened my ash tray where I keep some money and I said, here, take this, these are the last dollars that I have to my name.  He said, no, no, don't give me all that, and I said, they're just singles anyway (and one five dollar bill).  So that was all the spare cash and inside of four days I pretty much spent all my fifty bucks on him.  And so now it's Friday night and I was just burning to see him, even tho I saw him yesterday, but he must have called out, or maybe they gave him time off for the baby, or he had already planned to take it off, but do you think he could have toldme about that.  No. I come in here looking for him and I feel so immediately lonesome for himand missing him so bad, and so fucking angry, with him ,and myself.  I know he is home with Amber and helping with the baby and everything---and I can just picture it all.  But he could have at least told me he wasn't going to be here.  And so tonight we probably won't do shit, and tomorrow, when he does come, I'll probably fucking work allnight long  That's just par for this course.  And Dear Lord, dear Lord, how is it that I could allow myself to be used.  I'm so sad about that lord. 

Just talked to Boone and she told me she thought he was on leave, but he did not bother to tell me that, so I guess I will not bother to tell him when I am going to be out, and that I will be in Savannah, and I hope he finds some other sucka to support his habits, she will probably have  to be w hite, because only white women are that stupid.  Maybe another fat black woman like Tammy cook.  But a beautiful hippy black woman ain't gonna be buying no shit for this man, and I feel like I'll be damned if I buy him one more fucking thing in this life time.  Though I know that I will.

Nathan Manuel Logan

So tonight is the night.  Tonight is the night Otis gets to watch his Amber bring forth the fruit of their passion for each other into this world.  One steaming night in July, he said.  Otis will watch his beloved writhe in pain and watch the contractions on the monitor and he will worry about Amber and be so sad that she is in such pain----a pain she has been through six times before.  He will watch her push that baby out into this world and marvel at this miracle and the miracle his woman has produced---his son, with her.  His and her son.  hE  will worry about her blood pressure which is sky high, he will fret  and worry and be so sad----and it all just fucking eats me up.  He called me at about six pm and told me where he was and that was so kind of him and I really think he genuinely cares for me, knows how much this bothers me, for I have told him how jealous I am of /amber, how much I would like to have his baby, how hard it is for me cuz I can't have kids anymore----or maybe he called me because he was more worried about her and needed reassuring.  He did tell me he was hungry and he wanted a Wendy's and I guess the twenty I handed him this morning to get a Marta pass with, (so far I've given him money three times for a Marta pass and three times he hasn't gotten a Marta pass.  On Saturday he had to go buy a screw driver a special one, so that his dad could get to the engine on his van.  Yesterday he bought himself some kind of sandwich and I would't doubt if he bought Amber one but I don't know----he said, I got it for myself!  And today, I guess it's going for a Wendy's, maby some for him and maybe for Jordyn, who is with him, i know, cuz she put it on facebook. 

And me, in pain again because the whole situation is just totally ridiculous===there is no where to go with it, if only because of our difference in ages.  God, so stupid!  Welcome to the world, baby Nate.  It is a fucked up world---I'm so sorry for it. 

Proverbs 7

Dear Lord in your infinite mercy have pity on me---a repeat sinner and an old fool.  Lord, there really is nothing worse and more pitiful in this world than an old fool. 

So what happened was, Otis needed money for a Marta pass for the week.  Even though I swear this guy always has cash in his pocket.  There was enough that he was going to buy some chinese food Friday night, without of course, offering to buy me anything.  But I always want in on this action and i always want to buy his love, so desperately.  So I threw down my fifteen dollars and then I was happy later on when Joseph called him and asked if I was his girlfirend, because I want everyone to know, and I have no pride at all.  I'm a shameless harlot, just like in the Psalms, the one who leads a young man astray.  So Otis wanted that money, and I don't know what happened.  He was going to wait for me in the morning again but then he told me Amber was waiting outside and then the next thing I know he said "She just left"  and I'm like what the hell is going on.  And now thinking back the only thing i can think of is that he did not answer his cell phone when she called and so she got pissed and left.  So he waited for me and we left and I asked him if he was hungry and he said yes and by his own admission once he said he was greedy and then I said, why don't you call your daddy and he can go out to eat with us too.  He liked that idea and I think somehow likes to show off in front of his dad----like, look dad, I got me a white sugar mama. 

Things started to unravel for me when the waitress, a black girl in her late 20's, early 30s, named Takela, started to hit so hard on Otis, and to a lesser degree, his dad, that I almost couldn't believe my eyes and ears.  The hits were so blatant and disgusting and disrespectful that I was completely ---shocked.  I realize that she may not have even considered that Otis could be with me, or mine.  Maybe she thought her was my son and his dad my husband.  If she thought we were together and still continued with her shameless behavior.  but I realized with a devastatingly sad jolt was that he was NOT my man, my territory, to defend, and that he never would be.

Later that night I was talking to this with Yonnie, my new friend from Housekeeping, and Jimmy heard it and he told me in a phrase that I didn't understand exactly what he was trying to tell me---but he told me firstly.  You're married.  You have a husband.  And HE is not your man.  I haven't said anything until now but I'm telling you now, and then he said the phrase, which i forget, but the best I can interpret it was "WAtch yourself" or shape up, or get smarter, or quit being a fool, maybe that unique phrase meant all of it.  I don't know.  I know that Jimmy has not been lliking what he hAS been seeing, and I can only attribute it to one of several reasons, or all of them, or some combination of them.  One---he is morally opposed to a black and white combination,  Two---he expects better from me (though he never stayed faithful in his own marriages, or to his current girlfriend, so I don''t understand this hypocrisy coming from him), three, he is jealous and wishes he had hit me up himself.   four--that I'm making a huge fool of myself and to watch my behavior because my reputation was about to blow up, and maybe five, that I am an old fucking fool and making a fool out of myself.  Like I said, I really think Jimmy's feelings run to a mixture of all of these, and so here I am, feeling just what I am, an old, fucking fool who should have known better.  Should have, should have, should have.

And so this morning, in an agony of guilt and remorse, my conscience just eating me up (and what did my mother always say, as long as you've got a conscience, that little voice tearing you up, you can still be saved,.  And now my Lord, convict me, save me, forgive me.

What part of me actually loves Amber too?  I don't know why, but I do.  Because when I get obsessed with  a man, I like get obsessed with everyone in his whole life and this time that includes the wife.  But I like her, cuz she is one tough black bitch, and she knows how to get a man and not have to buy his love.  I want a man who buys me shit.  I realize how very much I was just literally buying Otis' love, and he took it, took it all.  so for him, he can't feel like a real man as far as I'm concerned, because he can't take care of me like he takes care of her, all of her needs.  he does all of the housework, did loads and loads of laundry because he doesn't want her to tire herself (she's so fat now with the kid that she huffs and puffs with little exertion) he buys her everything, takes care of his woman.  And me, I do not feel like a woman when I buy him things.  I just feel like a pathetic example of a female who will do anything for love.  Otis' dad was telling a story about a brother or friend who had just gotten out of jail after 27 years, and women were still running after him---said how back in the day women would come by and he would tell them, I need 2000 dollars, and the stupid bitch would pull up with 2 grand and the guy would tell Otis' dad, count tht money, make sure it's all there.  And then a second woman would pull up with 3 grand, and the brother told Otis' dad, count the money, make sure it's all there.  "And this went on with a woman bringing four grand and five grand.  I'm llike, what the hell, where they getting this money?  And I realize that I am these women, buying love, only on a smaller scale. And Otis' dad said how this man would say to a woman, i want these shoes or that coat, and the woman would say, but they're 600 hundred dollars !  And the guy would say, /buy 'em.

There are basically two kinds of women in this world---those that have to buy a man's love, and those that do not, and they somehow get the man to buy them everything,  Amber is the latter kind, and  I am the former kind. i ADMIRE HER.  Of course, she also had several baby daddys who beat the hell out of her, and I have never had anyone ever hit me, ---nor would I ever accept that---being hit.  Maybe "God just decided to send her a good one, for once.  And here he is, cheating on her---but I almost think he can separate that in his mind  I almost think that it's not so much that he's cheating on her, but getting something extra and free for himself.  Little prizes, little gifts, from me, that make him good----but that the real prize is at home---his woman, his amber, the woman he kills himself to please.  "And it makes me so angry and so sad because I can see this rather clearly now---And I love him so much and need to extricate myself from this very bad situation, bad for me, that is,  because I'm the only one not getting anything out of this---just more broke. 

The other thing that bothered me was Amber texted him and she wrote, What's good for you, Otis, is what's gonna be good for me!  In other words, if he;s cheating, and I'm not sure who she thinks he's cheating with, cuz she doesn't seem to think it's me, if he's cheating, she's gonna cheat. And nothing strikes more fear in him than to have her threaten him that she's gonna cheat.  I don't know what kind of hold this woman has on him, but Goddam it this fat black bitch has him twisted around her little finger so tight that he would jump through a ring of fire for her.  I don't what she has, but he has it for her, bad, and I am so jealous of her It eats me alive---she has some sort of charisma----the X factor-==she does. she commands respect,  she is  fearsome black woman.  A force to be reckoned with, and he just loves her.  I feel it.  I am so jealous of it.

Also, he has called her ghetto before, basically when she goes back to ghetto behavior when she has to set the situation to rights---but this is what i learned just from having a black woman hit on MY man (well, hell she didn't know he WASNT mine,  the definition of ghetto is this:  a woman, any woman of any race, who has been wronged and scorned and who is now going to set that situation right"  that's ghetto.  And I have myself gone ghetto before---when one Karen Agan was messing with Joe, baby I went fucking ghetto on her.  Told her I would cut her kids fucking ear off and mail it to her in a box, told her all kinds of shit, on her answering machine.  I went ghetto on Joe too.   Screamed at him for sending her roses, after their break-up.  GHETTO is what a woman has to stoop to to get her point across, because that's all the fuck-up hoe is gonna understand who is trying to steal her man,  I don't blame Amber for going ghetto---because I saw first-hand that a woman will steal your man right out from under your damn nose, while you're looking her in the face, and her without shame, if you don't set that bitch straight from the get-go.  I asked Otis what would have happened if Takela had been hitting on him in front of her.  He said oh hell, she would have gone all ghetto on her, there would have been screaming, a big scene, we would have been kicked out of here before we got our food.

I went to Kroger and got Otis a six pack of blue moon beer, and his daddy two packs of Archway oatmeal cookies, because he said he couldn't find them anywhere at the two grocery stores he visited, and he was hinting so blatantly in the back seat that I knew I needed to get him his cookies.  I got forty dollars cash back from my debit card, came back to the car and handed over the goods, and a twenty to Otis for his marta pass.  I took them back to Springdale Street and dropped them off.  Neither one said thank you and neither one looked back as I drove away.  And I realize that for them to thank me would then be an indication that me paying for their meals was an acknowledgement that they couldn't afford it and couldn't treat me, a lady, to breakfast.  No, me paying for their breakfast showed the daddy that he still had the gift, and the son had the gift, of getting a desperate woman (and how much better because I am white?) to buy their shit, give them shit, buy their love and acceptance, and to take it because they thought they deserved it---took it as their due, just took it.  Just took it without thanks, as being perfectly acceptable and natural.  And why not?  If a woman is willing to do it, then they are more than willing to let that foolish, desperate woman buy her way in.  Oh Amber.  Amber.  Show me how you do it. 
Teach me your ways.  I want to be the other kind of woman.  I want to take, and not look back . Accept it.  Feel entitled to it.  Show me how, Amber.  I do not know how.  Your man and his daddy. they good and goddam know NEVER, never, to put their hands out to you, and expect you to pay.  Girl, you got it all right, and girl, I've got it so so so so so so wrong!

roll up

If I could roll up and die right now I think I would,  And that's sad,  because I have two really good kids---my daughter is about to graduate from law school,.  She is beautiful and smart and sensible,  Always has been my pride and joy.  My son has made me proud too.  He works hard and steady. He is a good man---both of my kids, so sensible, steady and upright,  So what the hell happened to me?  God forgive me for this weakness in me.  Obsessed with a man I can't have---obsessed.  Feel suicidal over a man who doesn't give me a second thought all day, I bet.  He says he does, but I doubt it.  How can you have time to think of anyone else when you've got six kids under foot and one on the way and a wife who is always with you, and who you have also described as your best friend, alternating with ghetto, bad bitch, etc, etc,  The pain and the obsession is killing me.  Killing me,  Lord take away this ;pain,.  Take him from my brain,  I want him to love me but I can't take it anymore. Get him another job somewhere Lord,.  Take him from my sight,.  I can't look at him anymore I want him so bad to be mine  Why oh why oh why did you put him in my life, Lord. I'm so sorry that I failed the temptation test.  Failed again. Failed again.  And why always a man who takes and takes, gives me NOTHING in return, not even a text, not nothing but the random night time call when I'm so fucking tired  God WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.  i JUsst want to be free from this pain.  It wasn't worth it, Lord, knowing him.  Even though he woke me from my grave, Lord, It seems I was better off dead.  I was happy dead.  Now I can't even make it through the front page of the newspaper my mind wonders away so bad.  Wonders away, and thinks only of him.  I am so restless Lord,  NOthing worse than feeling so restless that you could just float away---your mind, wish  you just float away and then pop somewhere over the ocean into oblivion.  Jesus Lord, take this pain from me.    Lord please take this pain and obsession from me,  Put me in  a good place with him Lord,  A healthy place,.  I hate being just his friend---because that opens the door for him to find someone else----how that will hurt.  Oh my Lord, take my pain from me,  heal me, Lord  Heal my pain.  Let me love him in a healthy way---in a caring way,.  Forgive me.