I just don’t know what to do anymore. Erin called me again last night. Drunk, as usual. Its the only time he ever calls me anymore. He told me that he’d been in jail this past week, twice. Once for underage consumption & once for obstruction (that was for 3 days). He told me it was terrible & that I shouldn’t ever go to jail (yeah, cause I’m a rebel who does things that will get me put in jail. Not.) He said that he had DTs when he went to jail the last time. Of course, that broke my heart, but I knew it was coming, he’s been drinking way too much. He has such an addictive personality to begin with. he gets obsessed with things way too easily, all I can do is hope that he sees the road he’s walking down & decides he doesn’t want that for his life. He said they were heading for New Orleans this week, so I guess I won’t be seeing him any time soon.

Wow. The years have just flown by. I never imagined myself being able to say that I’d been married, for 16 years, to the same person. But, I have. 16 years ago today, I made the best choice I’ve made in my life. He has been my best friend for more than 16 years, he quickly took that place in my life not long after I met him & he’s had it ever since. I never really understood how important it was to marry a friend, until I married my best friend. You stand to lose so much more if your marriage fails & as a consequence, we work that much harder at making it work.

He has been such an amazing father and accepted my children as his own from day one. There are many people in our lives that have no idea that he isn’t their biological father. and they’ll both argue with anyone who says he’s not. He has experienced the joys and the pains of parenthood, right beside me & has been as hard on himself and his skills, as I have been on my own.

He has been a terrific husband, partner and friend. He takes care of me when I’m sick, even if he worries a little too much. He makes me laugh when I’m sad & knows how to get me to look at the brighter side of every situation – even if it takes awhile. He puts up with me when I’m angry & knows that I’ll get over it, if I’m given time to be angry. We play together, read together, work together and love life together.

Happy 16th anniversary, baby. I love you, so very, very much.

Today is Troy’s last Tuesday working a regular shift for at least two years. Its really sad, because I used to really love Wednesdays, because they were his first day off & a good portion of the year, I had him to myself on that first day. Yes, its selfish, but when you marry someone & already have kids, time alone with that person is a precious, precious thing. I’ll adapt. Eventually. I don’t like that his first day off rotates every week, or that he works on payday, but I imagine we’ll figure it out.

Erin is in Reno, he’s been there for a week or so. I should say, he was in Reno when he called me on Sunday. He was with some new friends and had just gotten back from white water rafting & was all keyed up (and drunk). The other friend that he went there with left him & headed onto Portland without him. I talked to one of the new friends, her name is Cori, I think its her phone that he’s been using. She sounded pretty normal, she wanted to reassure me that Erin was okay & was taking care of himself. I wasn’t reassured. I’d feel better if he was living somewhere & not sleeping on the streets. I don’t care that he doesn’t want to live here, as a matter of fact, it didn’t surprise me that he wanted to leave, he’s always hated this place. I care that he’s living a dangerous lifestyle that causes me to have to worry about him every day. I have never tried to tell my adult children how to live, I just want them to be safe and happy.

My daughter has to remediate a couple of classes from last year so that she can graduate. For those of you not in this area, that means she has to go to the SEA center and pay $40 a quarter to do a class online and another in a packet (that’s a total of $80). I guess I know where my money is going this week. Hopefully, she’ll pass her stupid UBSCT math test this time around and actually qualify to graduate. That whole thing makes me so angry. She passed her math classes, but because this test stresses her out so much, she hasn’t managed to pass it yet & if she doesn’t, she can’t graduate. Thank you “no child left behind.”

Anyhow, I need to go start my dishes and take some chicken out of the freezer.

If you have dogs or cats & buy their toys at W@lmart, you need to read this article: News for cats and dogs – Expertox Finds Lead, Other Toxins In Wal-Mart Pet Toys. I think I’m just going to have to start making toys and treats for my pets, its getting harder & harder to find anything that isn’t made in China & those products become less trustworthy with each passing day. I currently buy Beggar Dog biscuits for Tiny, but they have corn in them, which can cause problems for dogs who are sensitive to it. I’m also looking into changing their food to something better for them. It seems like every time I turn around something else is making our pets or children sick

Its really sad. These days I either spend my days feeling angry or worried. Angry at Troy’s boss, who now has a colorful & profane new name – it begins with an A & ends with an E – for not being a better human being and caring about what he’s doing. Worried because Erin called me on the 11th & told me he was in Nevada. he said they got a ride to Las Vegas & got left there, nearly got mugged & hitchhiked to Pahrump, which is where he called me from. He called me again on the 17th, at 12:32am, I didn’t care, I was relieved to hear from him & was excited because I thought he was back. He wasn’t. He was calling from Reno. He said that he and a “friend” were heading for San Francisco & after that Portland and that he might be home in a couple of months or so. The “friend” he’s with is a kid named Ernesto. He met him at a concert in Salt Lake City earlier this month. He was squatting up there and came back here with Erin. I’m supposed to believe that this person has Erin’s back & that they’re watching out for each other. I wish I could. He called me again this Wednesday, but I missed the call, he said he’d call me back yesterday, but he never did. That just makes me worry more.

So, I don’t sleep well these days. Sometimes I sleep, but I wake up after having nightmares about him. When I don’t sleep, I lie there and worry about him & wonder where he is. I know he isn’t even thinking about what this is doing to us, because he hates to make me upset & doesn’t like me to worry. I just feel so helpless in this situation.

I just wanted to put this here. Budweiser aired it only once, during the Super Bowl of 2002. It still brings tears to my eyes.

I’m starting to think it would just be better if I never started standing up for myself & just sat back and took whatever life threw at me. I vented to a couple of my friends on Thursday, when I found out about Troy’s schedule change. Apparently, me being human, honest about that fact that I was upset & crying led to further discussion by them the next day, since they felt it necessary to tell my best friend what was going before I even had a chance to.

In my IM with the two of them, mention was made of gaming on Sundays & I said there was no way that I could stay up late to game on a Sunday night because I get up on Monday at 6:20am. No one said anything about how that shouldn’t be a big deal or anything else. No one expressed any concern that I was crying or having a hard time dealing with change or anything else. The only thing that was talked about was the fact that there’s no way that Dawn (my best friend) is going to have dinner cooked & over with by 5pm on a Sunday. Part of the reason for that is that everyone (except Troy & I) has decided that they HAVE to eat over there on game night, so she has to wait until people get there so she knows what they’re doing for dinner. She shouldn’t have to cook for everyone and she really can’t afford it. We have started to show up later & later to give all of them a chance to eat, but then they start coming later, too. This friend’s solution was for us to have a potluck every week and for one family to be responsible for the big main dish each time.  I tried to explain that during the chat, but didn’t get my point across.

So, fast forward to Friday, the first thing each of them had to say to Dawn was “Have you heard what happened with Troy’s schedule?” Well, no, she hadn’t, because I hadn’t had a chance to tell her & had planned to when we took her to lunch that day. The one female friend was concerned because I said I had been crying all day and was really upset. This led to speculation on my ability to cope with change, which was brought on by Dawn saying that I usually react this way when a huge change happened & there was nothing I could do about it (which is true) and the male friend saying “Yeah, Dy doesn’t handle change very well.” (not true) Then the female friend couldn’t understand why getting up at 6:20 after staying up late was a problem for me, because she stays up late on Friday nights & gets up at 4:30 the next morning, and how we wouldn’t have to stay up that late if we did a potluck every week, because dinner would be out of the way. Again, in our earlier conversation, the male friend never mentioned my inability to deal with change & the female never voiced her opinion on my not being willing to sacrifice sleep for a game. They both waited to gossip with my best friend about it.

I waited until it was just the smaller group there on Friday & I brought both things up. I told the female friend that it was a problem for me to get up early if I didn’t get to bed by 10pm the night before (today’s a good example, I got to bed late, got woken by the phone an hour later & am exhausted). I pointed out that I’m almost 42 years old & can’t do the things I did when I was her age. I also told her flat out that I wasn’t doing potlucks. I don’t know how to cook a big main dish, I have a small family and I really can’t afford to buy the ingredients for everyone once or twice a month. Then I told the male friend that I didn’t have problems dealing with change when it didn’t change my entire life or when I at least had a choice or could do something about it. The female friend left angry, and apparently she’s still angry, because she didn’t IM me this morning & didn’t call Dawn to go walking either. The male friend took it in stride & realized that I was hurt that they were gossiping about me & probably that I wanted to tell her myself.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel like I should have to apologize because they were talking about me & I didn’t like it. I’m sorry that she got angry & all, but I dopn’t know if saying, “I’m sorry I pissed you off.” is appropriate, I don’t really know her that well & how she’d take it.

I just don’t know what to do, or even what to feel, at this point. My day was going really well, I was excited that my computer would be here today & then, Troy called me from work at 8:30. Its never a good sign when someone won’t tell you what’s going on up front, but instead starts a conversation with, “I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t want to fight, so tell me what to do.” That automatically got me freaked out, because I had no idea what was going on. Then he tells me that his boss is changing his schedule. We’ve fought about this before, he knows how I feel about it, he knows that in my life, having him work Wednesday-Friday (and every other Saturday) doesn’t work.

He’s worked every other Saturday and Sunday through Tuesday for over 10 years, its closer to 11, really. When we lived in Colorado, he worked Sunday-Wednesday or Monday-Thursday. There was a 2 year stretch when we first moved to Utah when he worked from 8-5 Monday-Friday & 9 months when he worked weird rotating, 3 days on, 3 days off shifts. My whole life revolves around a schedule that we had to learn to live with years ago. Everything we do socially, is scheduled around Troy’s days off. People’s weddings are scheduled for his days off, which will not be the same, and the Saturdays he has off will be the opposite ones that people have scheduled things on. We can’t ask people to reschedule their lives. He probably won’t even be at his own daughter’s graduation now. Or even be able to give her a wedding rehearsal, because he never wants to inconvenience anyone at work by taking time off. Doesn’t really matter that my whole life is now inconvenient, as long as his boss is happy, and trust me, this is all about his boss being happy. This person has been after Troy to change his schedule ever since he’s been his boss. He wants more time working with him during the week. Let’s just ignore what works for him & his family.

There are so many things about this change that upset me. He’s worked every Christmas for 3 years, and Christmas Eve for 2 of those, he was going to be done with that for a few years after this one, now I’ll get one Christmas & he’ll go back to working on Christmas. He was going to be off for Halloween fort he next few years, after having worked for the last 3 or 4. Yeah. He won’t even get one at home. We had planned to go to the Las Vegas Renaissance Faire in October, he already put in for the day after as a vacation day. Yeah, that day will be his normal day off and he works nights the day we were going.. and the night before, so even if he can get that Saturday off, we won’t be able to leave when we wanted, because he’ll have to sleep all day. Our anniversary party? He’ll be working. Halloween party? At work. Everything we have scheduled for the rest of year socially? Working. I won’t even get to see our friends anymore, unless I go by myself.

Let’s not even talk about the fact that we get paid on Fridays & go grocery shopping that day. Now he’ll be working & not be off until Sunday & I can’t do the shopping alone. Someone has to be out in the yard with the dog, while the other person brings the food in, its the only way it works. Tiny can’t be left in the yard alone, she escapes & will get hit by a car. Not to mention that I’ve been doing it with his help for over 16 years & I’m not sure I’m even able to handle it alone.

It’s so frustrating, because no matter how screwed up it is, I can’t do anything about it. I cry & cry and there’s no solution. My feelings don’t count here. If they did, this would have never happened, because I already told Troy there was no way I was going to “adjust” to this new schedule. Its 100% unworkable for me. My new computer is sitting in my kitchen, unopened in its box, because I don’t even care about it anymore. I just want my life back.

My monitor came today! I’m hoping that everything looks okay to folks with all of the varying resolutions, because I have to readjust it to look okay to me & my resolution is 1440×900. The table at 90% was just way too much of the screen for me, there’s enough I’m going to have to get used to as it is. I do love it, though & I can’t wait to get my computer! Troy’s now wishing that he had bought a new monitor, too, poor guy. I really love that I have much more room on my desk now, I didn’t realize how huge my other monitor was until today.

Our daughter made the chorus in Oliver! and now she is thinking its not worth her time, since she didn’t get a “real” part. I wish I had tried out for a play that had a chorus, quite frankly, because I was cast as an understudy in Jane Eyre (I was Mrs. Reed) & did a lot of practices & memorization so that I could be on stage crew & not in the play. We’re trying to get her to see different viewpoint, but I doubt that she’ll consider it.

Erin called me today. I knew he was gone, because the area code was one I didn’t recognize right off when I saw it on my caller ID. The first thing I asked him was “Where are you?” & he answered, “In Nevada.” I asked him why & all he could say was that they just kind of ended up driving to Nevada. Some girl drove him & one of his friends to Las Vegas & apparently left them there. After they were nearly mugged the first night in Vegas, they hitch-hiked to Pahrump. He says that he’ll be back, and that he was just letting me know that he was alive & such, since I hadn’t heard from him for a couple of weeks. I don’t know about him sometimes, I think he’s making up for rarely making me worry when I was still raising him.