Month: March 2023

I had this narrative all this time that you missed me, loved me even. You made maybe one half assed attempt to reconnect years later (after shit went to hell) and long ago (ten years, but late night and provoked by other circumstances). I guess I’m happy for you that you’ve moved on and that you’re occupied, even though I moved on and am occupied for some time now. I honestly feel unbalanced. I loved you and you wouldn’t have – no, you refused to believe that I could, but you were my refuge at one point. You abandoned me in the thick of things, we both know that, and I’m older and torn somehow knowing how life is now. I want you to be happy but I guess I hoped you’d try harder and if you were too weak to try, I had hoped you’d be alone because you destroyed me. We were both so stubborn then & probably now, and I’m so happy for the life I have now, but we could have chosen each other at one point and we chose to be callous. Honestly, you chose to be callous when I needed you the most. If that doesn’t say enough, I suppose I was right to not confide and stupid enough to think it mattered. It confirms all I felt then. I can’t say I don’t wish you well, but the fuck it hurt and probably the better off we are for escaping.

I hope you’re well.

I am.

I’m waiting with the rest of the parents at the basketball hoops for the elementary school exit, when a conversation to my left grows to loud to dismiss. Two moms are talking and it seemed they’d had familiarity enough with each other to have their phone numbers. It appeared to me that one woman had flipped the other off in a joking manner as she passed while she was walking in the snow and the other was using a vehicle earlier. The woman in scrubs, offended by this action then took to verbally assaulting and humiliating the other woman with the dog in front of all of us. She called her a ghetto ass batch, white trash, jobless. Nasty insults and completely uncalled for in my opinion, the woman being yelled at tries to extricate herself from the situation as soon as she realizes the other mom hadn’t received the gesture as intended.

An older woman comes to to greet the woman with the dog, and its not long before scrubs lady comes back around with the insults and escalating volume.

I intervene. I should tell her she’s being cruel, but instead I use my best mom voice to tell her she needs to drop it. She tries to counter with something not worth remembering, and I tell her she’s not dropping it, she’s stringing it out. Something about my presence gets her to finally cease. The basketball yard is flooded with kids and I disappear into the crowd to find my own. I’m shaking with anxiety of the whole interaction, but am greeted with smiles by someone who missed me and is excited to tell me about their day.

The parent teacher conferences come later. My kid is above and beyond the reading requirements for this stage by a very large margin, however struggles staying on task and handwriting neatness. We’re hoping the arrival of the new eyeglassws glasses might improve some of this, and the teacher suggests task timers to move the kid through helping at home.
We stop by the book fair on the way out thats being held in the library. There’s a sweet paper mache rainbow tree in the middle of the room and the books on display for purchase around it. My kid picks a book about a kitten so cute it causes everything to explode, and she asks to get a picture with The Cat in The Hat display by the doorway.

The current pricing for works of comparable size and quality flesh works that I produced would range between 100-200.

At my husband for some sideways comment about my weight. ( I’ve admittedly struggled with my mom bod but I have the expectation of my partner to respect my feelings and understand when they’ve been hurt and why) He works with a bunch of his bros where that kind of talk is the standard and meant in friendly jest. I’m not so keen on it.

However I use my anger to overcome a hurdle I’ve been fencing for awhile and finally lay down some tattoo lines on my fleshy fingers. I’d been building it up and overthrowing it for so long that it felt necessary to just do it to get it done instead of fretting about a design or symbol. The lines were clean enough , a little geometric criss cross going down my middle finger followed by a star on my pointer to balance the moon on my ring. It felt good to get it out but the heal will be the real judge for quality.

My husband apologizes when I wake him up to show him. The next day he allows me to lay some ink lines down on him too with my version of a little pirate skull he picked out from a tattoo coloring book some years back.

I’d been warned by my professional friends that the cheaper machines could be a little more biting. He chose his ankle for placement and is quite twitchy during the overall experience even though he has a number of large pieces himself, there’s not much blood at all but we stop before taking a shader to it. Regardless, I feel like the resulting piece came out pretty decent. Many of his friends he shows are complimentary, and I get a few volunteers for future practice. Could have turned out worse.
The following dayis Valentine’s and he takes me to my favorite restaurant, The Brutal Poodle. As always the food is excellence , and an absolute treat since I’m always the one cooking at home.