BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD


jax walked up to me the other morning before i left for work and kissed me on the cheek. whoa! this 17 year old will kiss me ANYTIME i say, “come here and kiss your mother. right here” touching a spot on my cheek. but a spontaneous display of affection? whoa! i say again.


he said “you know, i don’t feel like i’ll ever use again. the thoughts i have are so rare now, and they go away so quickly.”



i said, “god must really love you to give you this.”


“i think so, too.”

...

when the boys were 9 (j) and 13 (m), we were having a discussion about god -- mostly matt and i were. he said that he couldn’t see how there could be a god, it didn’t make sense to him, he needed some kind of proof, this is my mathemetician, logical, pragmatic. i turned to jax, asked him what he thought.

“i believe in beavis and butthead.”

my life ROCKS.

MEAN PEOPLE SUCK!

ok. somebody needs to explain why everybody hates my beetle. it is the best looking car EVER! my dream car. finally not a van. MY car. a white 2001 beetle with a sunroof and a “who” bumper sticker. not possible that there is any cooler car. but I’m not asking anybody else to want this car or to even have to agree with me about it. just keep your hands, feet, spit, food (more on this in a sec), or anything else off of it.

i’m getting used to the pointing, laughing, and yelling at me / the car. i get it. you don’t like it. like i care. i balance that out with the “club”-like behavior that exists between all (almost all) beetle owners. we wave at each other in support / appreciation of our choice in vehicles. a very nice (my kids think it’s weird) friendly camaraderie.

but who the hell do you think you are that you absolutely MUST let me know that you hate this car by damaging it? i really thought the kick dent near my driver’s side door was enough. but saturday night took the cake. i never even ever HEARD of “fooding” a car. but you did, you fucking asshole. or maybe this was your ultimate expression of creativity by inventing this interesting form of "communication." fried rice with sweet and sour sauce on every single window and the sunroof, every surface of the car. and the final insult. the kicked-off piece under the back bumper.

you think this is funny. people like you just don’t get it though. you walk around thinking you’re cool like the emperor walked around with no clothes. too literary a reference for you? blame your stupid parents, stupid. the rest of us got it, and see right through you. we all think you’re trash.

i lied about keeping them shorter. oh well.

bill and i have three children. We are more grateful than we can say for these “gifts.” matt is 21 and a senior computer science major in college. he is brilliant, compassionate, loving, funny, and handsome. he’s going to graduate late this year, marry in august, continue his teaching assistant and research assistant work for the next year and a half. he and his future wife are planning to continue their schooling by pursuing phd’s in their respective fields.

mark is 22 (he is not our “real” son, but has been a part of our family since he was 15 when his father took a job overseas. his mom lives overseas also). he is an electrical engineering major (i think he’s a senior, but he’s been co-oping; so i’m not sure). he’s loving, thoughtful, funny, determined, and hard-working,. he’s been a blessing in all of our lives.

jackson is 17 and is home-schooled. he’s a gifted guitarist, loving, compassionate, creative, and just a sweetie. he is also a recovering drug addict.

when we found out a year ago about jackson’s use of drugs, we decided along with his drug counselor that out-patient treatment was the way to go at that point. in spite of jax’s powerful cocaine problem, insurance required that out-patient treatment was necessary before in-patient could be approved. we weren’t sure about this, but john, jax’s counselor who had previously run an adolescent addiction treatment unit in our area, felt that the holidays were the WORST time to hospitalize a kid. short-staffing problems, due to vacations, and depression because of family separation were big problems. he suggested that we (jackson) start the out-patient treatment, with the option of in-patient long-term treatment if jackson relapsed. that was the deal we made.

the holidays last year were verry difficult. both bill and I were devastated, matt and mark were very angry and not sure that we had made the right decision in not hospitalizing jackson, and jackson was struggling mightily. not a good time. we kept a very close reign on jackson. as bill works out of the house, he was able to be there with jax. If he had to be away, jax would go with him (unless jax was at work). in february, jackson was fired from his job. at that point, we realized that his life wasn’t working, and we HAD to do something.

on that day we told jackson that we were looking for the proper treatment facility for him. we started searching the internet and right away decided that a wilderness treatment facility looked best for jackson. two days later, bill had a hearing in federal court that he needed to attend alone. we decided it would be safe to leave jax home alone for two hours as I was only 20 minutes away at work and would keep in near constant contact. when I called home and didn’t get an answer, within 10 minutes I was on my way home (hysterically crying all the way). i continued to call all the way home, as did bill, who was also on his way home by this time. no answer. i pulled into the garage, got into the house, screaming jax’s name all the way in. when I stepped foot in the door, I heard a moan. screamed again to try to get another response. he moaned from the floor of the downstairs bathroom. he was passed out on the floor, wedged up against the door. i continued to scream to try to rouse him. i had my cell phone in my hand, but bill’s phone was busy. calling me on the home phone a long way away from the door that i felt i could not leave. my phone rang. bill. told him what was happening. “call 9-1-1!” i hung up to do so, but jax roused and got to his feet at that moment. “what’s going on??? did you take something???” “no, i didn’t feel good, came into bathroom to throw up, and must have passed out!” shit. on the way to an entire day at the hospital, where after 6 hours, blood tests confirmed alcohol and another interesting substance. looked like a cold medication, the doctor said.

so he got shit-faced on alcohol that morning. we found out much later that he had stolen a bottle of gin from the grocery store during a break at work.

but the cold medication. hmmm. I couldn’t remember j having been sick in the last couple of months. here comes the truth as jax knows he’s on his way. somewhere.

robitussin d-m. if you’ve got it in your house with your teen-aged kids, throw it out. we didn’t know this, the kids know it though. drink a bottle (yes a bottle), and it feels like an l-s-d trip. yummy. jax’s addiction / need for drugs was so powerful that this fit the bill perfectly! lunch break at work, walk next door to the drug store, “yank” a couple of bottles, or maybe even buy it, and you’re hooked up.

found the perfect place. aspen achievement academy in southern utah. these people are angels on earth. believe me.

we were sending our baby away for at least 7 weeks to utah. the only flights we could find connected in cincinnati. what a leap of faith that was! put him on a plane in cleveland, pray he’d get on the connecting flight in cinci to salt lake city, where he’d be met at the plane by somebody from aspen and under CONSTANT supervision for the next 7 weeks. i can’t even write about what aspen meant for jackson. these people saved his life and opened his eyes to what life could mean for him. after 5 weeks of therapy and treatment at aspen, the psychologist told us that jackson’s problem was so huge that they met and felt that residential treatment (at least a year) was necessary. the only alternative was COMPLETE devotion on our part to jackson’s recovery. yes! yes! we would do ANYTHING!

when we brought jackson home, EVERY SINGLE MINUTE of his life was supervised. there was no hearing, deposition, meeting, ANYTHING that bill attended that jax didn’t tag along. unless he was here at work with me. intensive out-patient treatment, a.a. meetings took up every single evening of jax’s life. when he graduated from iot, he filled in the empty days with MORE a.a. meetings. no one – no one – has worked harder to fix themselves than this boy.

he wanted to be in school again to be with other kids, and have some kind of normal life. we found a school, but in early august, he told us that he couldn’t stay sober AND go to school. knew that if he wanted to stay sober, he’d have to give up the idea of a normal life.

we will not, have no reason to, feel shame. this child was a gift to us from god. his addiction was a gift to him from god. god said “fix yourself or die, buddy.” so he’s decided to fix himself.

he goes to meetings every single day. oh wait. once in a while he spends a saturday night with US. he is a deeply spiritual, caring, completely giving young man. completely sober. believes that god must love him so much to have given him this past year. god does. and so do we.

my postings are way too long. thus the blah, blah, blah... i'll try to be better. shorter.

bill's bugging me about when i'm going to update my blog. he says it's cuz he likes my writing, but he can't fool me. i know what he's looking for. he wants a contest. he thinks that i think he was "just being nice" putting that counter on my blog. whatever. i'll show him. i'm gonna write about the refrigerator.

the refrigerator in our kitchen died, oh, i don't know... MAYBE 10 YEARS AGO. and so bill somehow -- my memory fades -- transferred this refrigerator to the basement. i think he needed to make sure it was dead, and the only way to do that is to do what he does with EVERYTHING in the house HE wants to make sure is destroyed (the basement floods over and over again) is to PUT IT IN THE BASEMENT. so after a year or so, when he was sure it was dead and not coming back, i asked him (i'm sure i asked him nicely the first two or three hundred times -- i can't be sure about the next SEVERAL THOUSAND) if we could, please, please get it out of the basement and trash it. "sure. i'll do it."

at some point (maybe in year three. up to that point, it was just laziness), this became a contest of wills. a contest i have to admit that i AM losing. bill says "sure" EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME I ASK. or demand. whatever. i'm entitled. tell me i'm not.

but... goddamn it. sometime in year 9 or 10, the refrigerator started making noises like it was TRYING to work. but then stopped again AFTER THE LAST FLOOD. you ask him why he's kept the thing plugged in all these years -- i'm not getting into that fight. maybe it has something to do with the directive he gave me about how if he was ever in a coma, i was NOT to accede to any pressure to disconnect ANYTHING. he'll die when he's good and ready. so, you see why i won't bring THIS up to him. it will just be an excuse for him to maintain a philosophical position on this. like "i won't be responsible for disconnecting the fridge. it's in a coma."

and it's not like he needs to schedule somebody to come over to help him. well for sure NOW he doesn't. the "kids" are 17, 21, and 22. when the fridge was first moved to the basement, they were A LOT younger, so, yeah, he probably did need help.

so. here's my problem. i need you (all three of you, and that's probably counting bill) to go to his site, and leave a comment to get the fucking, dead thing outa the g-d basement. i know we'll need the haz-mat team to inspect it (at least SOME OF the living organisms inside of it must be toxic). i promise never to bring it up again. he will have WON the refrigerator war, right? is that not enough? does he want to KILL me?

umm. err. hi.

i'm freaked out by this blank space here, so i'm gonna "cheat" and post something i sent to my husband and sons a couple a months ago. just to fill this blank space a little bit. i feel like whatever i post here (on this first day) has to be really, really genuine and really, really reflect who i am. so i'm gonna just get it over with the easy way. i'm not even gonna re-read what i had written back then, cuz i don't wanna be so self-conscious. crap.

needing a mocha -- badly this morning, i am faced with my first decision (second if you count the choice i was forced to make between a mocha or a gingerbread spice latte) on my drive in to work. westlake promenade starbucks or north olmsted. north olmsted always has a slight edge cuz the people like me there more than the westlake store who staffs only people who want my husband -- the only exceptions are the straight males, of which the staff has maybe 2. for all shifts. AND the nice little handicapped parking space is a little harder to maneuver into. into which to maneuver. whatever.

and i'm running a little late. so as anybody knows, if you're running late, you stop closest to your destination because even if the stop would take the same amount of time wherever you stop, common sense tells you anyway that you won't be as late if you make the stop closer to your destination. don't argue with me about this. you know it's true.

so, north olmsted it is. and they have those two REALLY, REALLY nice handicapped parking spaces. before i pull into the parking lot, i can see one is taken up by a really, really big suv. i don't know what kind, jax, sorry. i think it's called a gargantuan. no handicapped thingy as far as i can see. oh. but wait. the car (is that proper to call it a car?) is RUNNING. as everybody knows, if you leave your car RUNNING, it's a-ok to park in a handicapped spot. it implies you're in A HURRY. you know. a HURRY. but wait. that's not all. there's a REALLY, REALLY cute dog in the passenger seat. so OF COURSE he could park there!

there's an oh-so-cute, wiggly young woman tapping at the REALLY, REALLY cute dog's window, singing "hi cutie pie." this is really a nice looking dog by my standards -- it's an all-white (coulda been an albino) bull dog. so he didn't like her calling him that. his reaction was not friendly, and i'm happy about that for some inexplicable reason. i get out of the car as gracefully as i can, cuz she's standing right next to me waiting. being cute. for what i don't know. she must think she can talk this dog into changing his first impression of her. so i get out and she turns to me all cute like and says, "cute, huh?" i say "yeah, nice dog -- does he have a handicapped sticker?" cute doesn't bring out the nice in me, as you all know. cute and nice. overrated. she says all cute like, "i don't know, it's not my car." really? thank god, cuz if it were, you might want to consider getting a different dog is what i'd like to say. but i want to hurry up so whoever does belong to this dog and car can see a handicapped person actually going to starbucks. a handicapped person in a hurry. some REALLY, REALLY cute young guy comes out of starbucks. the two cute young people catch each other's eye. the cute girl (woman?) says, "really cute dog" as i'm approaching him. i say, "yeah. cute. fucking asshole." he's beaming as i pass him cuz he's caught the attention of a really, really cute girl. evidently with his REALLY, REALLY cute dog and big car (?). you know what they say. big car. big gas bill. must have money.

so as far as i can see, i've played a part in this really, really cute hook-up. when they're done talking about the dog, they can talk about me.

i hope the dog bites her. i hope the guy spills his coffee in his big car. i wish he woulda said something back to me. i had a lot more to say to him. fucking fuckwit asshole. i woulda said fucking fuckwit fuck, but i thought that would have been over the top. maybe not.

i'm not in a good mood.