…I’m tired…

…so, I'm tired.  Tired of coming home after work and doing laundry.  Tired of coming home after work and picking trash up off the floor.  Tired of coming home to put food away from the night before.  Tired of coming home to empty milk containers that are sitting on the counter 6 feet from the trash can.  Tired of coming home to a full trash can.  Tired of coming home to clean up after an adult and a 12yr old because they "couldn't get anything done".  Tired of not being able to say anything because the adult will get mad that my expectations are too high.  Tired of being told that if I say anything about cat vomit on the floor, I'm being mean.  Tired of it… just tired…

I'm depressed.  I'm emotionally drained.  There is too much wrong with this relationship to try and fix.  The relationship with my 12yr old is permanently broken.  My wife does not allow me to have any discussions with her because I'm too mean – since I can't accept her the way she is.  I thought that if you had a 12yr old that was over 300lbs and had incredibly bad eating habits (read: eats whatever/whenever because mom can't say no), that you were supposed to help them.  So, I say no when she wants a bowl of icecream (by bowl, I mean atleast measured cups) after huge (read: enough for 3 people) meal.  Therefore, I'm mean.  My wife 'takes care' of her by letting her have the huge bowl of icecream later, after I've gone to bed.  My wife supports my 12yr old's sleeping habits so as to avoid any contact with me.  She sleeps anytime I am home and awake, and is up watching tv, reading, and playing on the computer while I am at work or sleeping.

My 12yr old daughter successfully made it through the entire Father's Day without saying a single word to me.  Nothing.  The only thing she did was to sign her name on a card under duress that my wife picked out.

I hate this… everything…  why did I choose to do this?  Things were soooo different 3 years ago.

I don't have any feelings left… just drained…

…just tired…

…my place…

…so, I’ve been reflecting over the last couple of weeks looking for something inspiring and thoughtful to write – and I am trekking down the karma path again.  I feel like my place in life is to get close to understanding; get close to a known, a truth, a full realization of an abstract definition… only to find that I kick the can of enlightenment out of my reach again (not out of sight – just to make it more painful).

The miserable point of this is that I don’t directly remove the knowledge and truth about the subject (life, love, marriage, work, happiness, how to tip at dinner theatre’s) right at that moment right before epiphany(sp?).  I find that I’ve kicked the can out of reach sometime before. Maybe days, weeks, or even years.  It just sits in wait as I constantly attempt to adjust my life and my ways – until the light starts to get brighter, then it springs forth as furious as the day the regret was born.  And again, I get zapped by the karma monster.

Well, anyway… here’s some good things to refocus my attention before I fully bake in the depression for the day:

I haven’t had any alcohol in over 9 weeks.

I started working on my degree finally.

My wife says that the only reason I haven’t cheated on her is that I haven’t had the opportunity.

(ok, that last one wasn’t good – but I just can’t shake it… and she said it 4 days ago.)

Back to the college… I’ve taken a few CLEP’s.  I’m amazed at how much knowledge about random stuff I’ve accumulated over the years.  I’m a high school graduate.  I turned 18 in boot camp (17 years ago).

I CLEP’d out of: Social Sciences and History (6sh), College Algebra (3sh), English Composition (6sh), English Composition with Essay (6sh), Humanities (6sh), and Introductory Psychology (3sh).  Yep, I passed them all.  Tomorrow I take Introductory Sociology.  Then I take the courses that I know I can’t CLEP out of:  Calculus II, General Chemistry, Statistics, and Computer Programming.

Ok, that worked.  I’m sufficiently refocused.  Then I’ll be the 4th out of 5 in my immediate family to get a degree (even though I’m the oldest kid).  My Mom and younger brother both have Masters Degree’s, and my Dad has a BA.  Mine will be a BSAST (Bachelor[sp?] of Science in Associated Science Technology with a major in Nuclear Engineering Technology).  Of course, my Mom’s Masters in Education looks impressive and my younger brother is a lawyer.  So, maybe I’ll have to get a second degree.  That just leaves my youngest brother.  He’s in finance and is the smartest of all 5 of us.  He gets too easily bored with the general subjects.  I’ll have to talk to him about the CLEP’s.

Well, this was good therapy.  I feel better and need to shower and get ready for work.  This blog thing is good therapy.

…oh, and to help get the karma can moving down the field in the other direction, I helped my daughter1’s friend’s mom out by fixing a flat…

…but, don’t let me forget to talk about daughter2 and ex-son2 – just not right now… 

…quiet watch…

…so, I'm just sitting around enjoying a nice quiet Memorial Day weekend.  Nothing too exciting.  Went for a drive to a Kaneohe beach last night.  Very nice.  Very quiet.  My sweet little 14 month old girl decided she didn't like the taste of the little hawaiian acorns.

The ex called.  Says my daughter finally learned to ride her bike without training wheels.  That's cool.  I'll have to go by and see her this week to watch her ride her bike.  If it's like anything else she's learned to do, she'll be all smiles for days and want to show off for everyone.  She's so cute.

Really, all three of my girls are sweet and cute in their own ways.

Anyway, I have spent my free time over the last week buffing up on my html.  I have given up on my Dreamweaver program.  Sites that promote open source code have inspired me to go back to the 'old-days' of hand coding.

I've taken up XHTML and CSS.  With these you can build absolutely beautiful sites, with not a lot of hand coding frustrations.  I got into using Dreamweaver because I got tired of hand coding table layouts.  Now I'm free.

Hopefully soon I'll be uploading my first template to openwebdesign.org.

What else… well, I did apply for a part time job.  Yes it will totally suck.  No, I'm not going to say more about it yet…

For now, I'm going to make some coffee and watch some t.v… 

…I hate my life…

…so, I went to pick up daughter2 and x-son2. They had a slumber party all weekend and were ‘too tired’ to spend time with me. I told them it was ok, that maybe I’d be able to see them the next weekend or something. Then I went home and cried.

I can’t talk to wife2 about it because she just gets irrationally mad that I ‘have a better relationship’ with the ‘other kids’…

…so I cried for a while then wife2 and I went to the bookstore to get some coffee and browse. The coffee section was closed for construction. I wanted to cry again…

…my daughter…

…so I get to see daughter 2 today (names omitted for privacy).

I feel like doing some miniature golfing or maybe bowling.  She enjoys that stuff.  So does x-son.  Kind of cool outside today and breezy, so it would be perfect for something outside.

Anyway, just to understand how bad I've screwed up my life and how it's affected others, I have 3 girls.  Girls 1 and 3 live with me and my wife (their mother).  Girl 2 lives with her mother and my ex-goodfriend.  I had girl 1 out of wedlock with mother 1 (wife 2), then married mother 2 (wife 1).  Then ex-goodfriend and wife 1 decided they'd be happier together, so we divorced – really ugly divorce (but they planned it out so well and so far in advance that they were able to get married within a week of the divorce! good on them).  Got back together with mother 1 and she became wife 2.  Then we had girl 3.  Meanwhile, while married to wife 1, she was already the mother of 1 girl and 2 boys.  Therefore x-girl1 and x-son1 and x-son2.  Since the divorce and remarriages, x-girl1 and x-son1 really don't want much to do with me (I was dad3 for x-girl1 and dad2 for x-son1 – and no, none of wife1's kids have the same dads).  But, x-son2 still loves me like a dad1 even though for him, I was a dad2.  And he will always be a son1 to me.  Of course, this causes problems with wife 2…

…but I've said too much already…

I think I'll go wash the car… before wife2 wakes up…

…there’s got to be a name for this…

…so what is it called when someone goes to start a project, and you offer your advice (since you're helping) on how you'd do it, the other person says ok or nothing at all, you go on with the project, then at the end, the other person is insanely mad at you for changing the plan?

Let's swap shirts:  I'm going to make a dinner and am going to cook something in a certain pan.  Someone has volunteered to help and recommends a different pan, and they even get it out.  Hmmm… if I behave as in the first scenario, I'd let them do what they want and get mad at them afterwards for changing the plan.

What I'd really do is say "no, that's ok, I'm going to use this pan" get the pan, and continue on… because anything else is getting mad at someone for letting them control my actions, which is really just getting mad that I'm weak willed… right?

Please tell me if I'm screwed up on this viewpoint of mine!… Please…

As it is, I think I'm sleeping alone tonight because I didn't wash 2 cars at once…

…nevermind, this suddenly seems silly and I'm letting someone else control my emotions about a silly issue… let them be mad…

"…the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…"

…karmic incidents…

…so, I was writing about my day and I forgot 2 karmic incidents that I wanted to share.

I was on my way back from picking up breakfast – eggs benedict, my wife's favorite (I made them for her birthday and they were sooooo good, but I just wasn't ready to do the hollandaise sauce yesterday).  At the last major corner before my house there was a bum standing there with a sign, as there often is.  Normally I'm against handing out cash to the homeless, but I almost couldn't stop myself as I reached in my pocket, pulled out a $1, and gave it to him.  He said "God bless you", and I drove home shaking my head mumbling that I'd have to shell out a lot more than a dollar before God's gonna pay any attention to me.

Then near the end of out drive, between Kailua and the park by the zoo, I was admiring a red 67ish mustang when it stalled out.  We were stopped at the light a couple lanes over from it as he kept trying to restart it with no success.  I drove down to the next light, U'd around, parked, and offered him a push.  I pushed him through the light and into the marina parking.  He said thanks.  I got back in the Jeep with my family and drove off.  Just as we were pulling away, I looked at my wife and said "that was karma's punishment for me eating some of that chocolate".  We joked and decided it wasn't the chocolate, it was the custard pie we had after breakfast.  Then she points out the bumper sticker on the car in front of us…

"Be an angel – practice random acts of kindness"

…so, that was kind of spooky weird coincidence thing – right?…

…beautiful day…

…so it was a totally beautiful day.  Went for a drive.  Went up to Pali, then down to Sandy beach and through Kailua.  We brought apples, cheese and croussants with us (sounds snooty, huh).  It made for nice picnic snacking.  Hadn't really had my camera out much, but I found some inspiration out in the activities of a Hawaiian Sunday.

I'll try and upload a couple of the better ones.  Of course I'm still new to this and am learning.  I definitely had a calm and relaxed feeling throughout the day that I hadn't felt in a long time.

My oldest daughter even went with us!  You may not understand why that is surprising, but she hates me.  Completely and totally hates me.  She's 12.  But today, things were pleasant.  She even let me snag a couple pics of her.

So, I think we're going to watch a movie-on-demand and chill for the rest of the evening.  What a nice day…