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My thoughts drift to my family. Ed. The only one who will wake up in my mom’s house this morning. He will have to be there for all of us, opening stocking presents, delight in our traditional candies, smile happily at all the presents and watch as our mom pretends to like our gift. She never likes our gift, that is a tradition too.

My sister is at home with her family. My nephews up early, like me, excited because Santa came again with more presents than they ever thought possible. They will laugh and scream with delight, tearing off paper, discovering the exact thing they’ve always wanted. My sister will sip her coffee, take pictures and soak up the happiness on her boy’s face. Some of that happiness will transfer to her, but there is still a small hole of loneliness.  A hole that misses Jim, her siblings and her father. She will smile and laugh with the kids, but she will also cry a little inside, for those who can’t be there to watch her amazing children with her.

Joe went to Utah. I can’t pretend to know him anymore. To know why he does what he does. But the part of me that thinks I still know him-the parts of him that no one else ever could-that part, thinks he went to Utah to escape. To escape the Christmas that never should have been. Our family, broken, unable to celebrate the holiday the way we all wished we were. Part of me thinks he went because he knows he did this, he knows I didn’t come home for Christmas as planned because of him. He knows that Ed, my sister and I are alone today because he has torn our family to pieces.

I am here in Seattle. Michael sleeps in the next room. It’s too dark to see what cats are around me, but they are here. Soon my dad will come over and we’ll open gifts, play games, eat food and laugh. It will be nice, but it won’t be the Christmas I have been imagining all year. I guess I should prepare myself that Christmas will never be the same again. If the last six months are any indication, I will never have a traditional Christmas again. I guess it’s time to find new traditions.

Dawn, Joe, Ed and I make each other better people. We are all strong individuals, but we are unstoppable when we are all together.

This Christmas isn’t the end of the world. It’s one Christmas in the dozens we’ll have in a lifetime. Today, it’s hard. Soon, it will be forgotten.

There is always next year.

However, on this particular in service day, I had to go to school. I was in drama and dance and we had a dance competition coming up. We had to practice. My mom dropped me off in front of the school and told me she was going to stop by the office, since she had recently volunteered to help the PTA.

We practiced for hours. It was fun. Afterwards, we were all standing outside, chatting, waiting for our parents. Soon, though, I was the only one there. Me and our dance coach, who was anxious to leave. I saw our Principal’s Bronco in his spot, so I told her I’d go into the office and call my mom. When I got closer, I saw my mom’s van parked on the other side of the Bronco. Apparently, she’d been here the whole time. I told my coach she was here and went inside to find her.

The moment I walked into the office, I felt the air change. I couldn’t quite place what I noticed, what I was feeling, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I heard a noise come from the principal’s office, so I went over and knocked on the door. There seemed to be a lot of sudden movement inside, but I couldn’t place why that would be unusual or weird.

When he opened the door, I saw my mom inside. Me, being me, I walked right in, sat down at his conference table and started talking. My mom cut me off however and said we had to get going.

When we got home, my mom went straight back to her room and got on the phone (it was the only place we had a phone in our small house). Something was amiss, but I didn’t know what. I hovered outside her door. I caught snippets of the conversation:

“I don’t know what that was, but I liked it”

“We need to figure this out”

“Yes, I will be there in 10 minutes”

Sure enough, my mom  came out of her room and told me I needed to keep an eye on my brothers while she met a coworker to drop off some stuff. She was gone for 3 hours. Her coworker, called 10 times while she was gone. Wondering where she was. She, obviously, didn’t go meet him. Something wasn’t sitting right with me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

When she came back, my mom declared that we were going to spend the night in a hotel!! We LOVED spending the night in a hotel. We loved swimming in the indoor pool, jumping on the beds, being messy and not having to clean it up-hotel life was AWESOME. We were so excited as we ran around gathering our stuff. Still, I knew something was wrong. We weren’t exactly rolling in money. The only time my mom did stuff like this was . . . when she felt guilty. Like the time we were at Ed’s dad’s house and his wife (not ex, as my mother claimed at the time) came and got into a fight with him and he got arrested. We got to stay in a hotel then too.

Once we checked in, my mom took my brother to go get dinner. I looked out the window and watched the car pull away. The lights shined in my eyes and I suddenly felt it hit me like a punch in the stomach: my mom was having an affair with the principal.

To be honest, I can’t claim I knew exactly what “affair” meant at the age of 12. What I did know was that my principal was married and in my gut, I knew that whatever was happening started that very day.

I wasn’t wrong. As the school year progressed, my mom and the principal didn’t do much to hide from me and my brother. I think they assumed we were too young to pick up on what was happening. So many parents make the mistake of thinking their kids are too young to understand. I, of course, told Joe what I thought was happening. We both stood by, helpless, as the principal began coming over to our house 1 or 2 times a week. He’d hang out with us and my mom would send us to bed early. Joe, the braver of two of us, once deliberately walked in on them having sex on the couch. The principal tried to hide under the blanket, while my mom yelled at him to go back to bed.

Lucky for Joe, he wasn’t in middle school yet, so he wasn’t subjected to daily interactions with the principal, like I was. He made it a point to stand outside the building where I had my first class to say “hi” to me every morning. As time when on, I hated him and took advantage of the situation. I was openly mean to him and ignored him whenever he came around me-especially if my friends were there to hear. I wanted to hurt and embarrass him-they way he and my mom were hurting and embarrassing me.

All of my friends were buying these Adidas shoes with a white, hard toe and stripes down the side. I hadto have these shoes. When my mom finally bought them for me, I was overjoyed. This was short-lived, however, because she had to tell the principal all about it. He decided it would be funny to tell kids I didn’t know, to come up to me and tell me they liked my shoes. From morning and through lunch, kids wouldn’t leave me alone, telling me they loved my shoes, the principal, smirking and laughing in the background. I am not sure if he wanted me to feel good because so many people liked my shoes, but once again, I felt humiliated. I asked my friend Ebony to trade shoes since we wore the same size. She was wearing the knock-off Birkenstocks that were so popular in the 90′s. In fact, after that day, I maybe wore those Adidas shoes once or twice, finally getting my own pair of sandals, which incidentally, I wore exclusively for 10 years after that.

I was never close to my mom and I never trusted her. We never had the kind of relationship where I could talk to her openly. She tried to pretend we did, but I knew all too well she used anything you said against you and lied to suit her needs. Therefore, I never said anything about her and the principal, even though it tormented me. Joe and I would spend hours talking about it, but we both knew we were helpless. There was nothing we could do about it.

We lived in a small neighborhood on the base. Our house was on the corner of the major intersection and everyone passed it to get home. There were many kids around my age in the neighborhood, so, naturally, we all went to school together. I wasn’t the only one who knew the principal drove a Bronco and soon enough, kids began asking why the principal was always at my house. I always told them my mom was on the PTA and my mom was helping with school stuff, but eventually, that excuse didn’t work anymore. I am sure their parents gossiped with other parents about it. I am sure the kids overheard. Before I knew it, everyone in my grade knew. Kids whispered about me all the time and I stopped hanging out with almost everyone. I would sit alone at lunch, it was better than watching the kids give looks, tease and whisper.

And then one day, I had had enough. I don’t remember exactly what had happened. Someone said something in a class and I ran out of the room. It was sixth grade lunch and the principal was in the cafeteria. I walked up to him and told him I had to talk to him. I began crying. Through my tears, I told him that Joe and I knew everything. We saw them having sex, we read the cards he sent her and we know they lied about whatever they had done 2 weekends ago (that’s a whole other story). I cried and cried. The principal listened and told me he was so sorry. He said that he knows what was going on between he and my mom wasn’t right and that they have been trying to figure it out. I don’t remember how we left it, but it felt good to get it out.

On my way to the bus that afternoon, I asked the principal if he told my mom what I said. He said that he would leave it to me. Ha! Little did he know, that I had placed all my hope in him, to end it, or something. There was no way I was telling my mom. She would flip out.

When she got home from work, she was normal and I felt safe. That is, until, I heard the phone ring and I knew it was all over with. My mom screamed for me to come in there and when I walked through the door, she slapped my face so hard I fell down. She began yelling at me, calling me a liar. She told me that I couldn’t do any of my school activities anymore. I told her that I had practice for the play all day tomorrow and the play was next week. She said as long as I was a liar, I couldn’t do anything. I went to my room and cried and cried.

She eventually came in and told me that if I apologized to the principal for being a liar and telling lies about him, I could be in the play. The next day, I stood in front of a man, who just the day before admitted the truth to me, and told him I’m sorry I told lies about him. He accepted my apology. To this day, I can’t believe two adults-one of them my own mother-could do that to me.

After that, they eventually broke things off. I am unsure of exactly what happened, but he stopped coming around. The school year was almost over and he announced that he wouldn’t be back next year, he was going to be a principal of an elementary school. I was so happy he was gone.

I heard, a few years later, that he lost his job at that elementary school because he got caught sleeping with a teacher. His wife divorced him and he never got to see his kids. My mom, never dated again after him. In fact, this past July was the first time she started seeing anyone since I was 12 years old. It was never my intent to put her off dating, I just didn’t want her to sleep with my married principal.

I didn’t think it was too much to ask.

To this day, she denies she ever slept with him. Joe has even said to her, point blank, I saw you having sex with him. She always gets angry and says Joe was too young to know what he saw. I don’t believe she’ll ever admit the truth. She has too hard a time with it. The Truth. It’s one of the reasons we’ll never be close.

It’s no surprise, that later in life, I generally only slept with married men or guys who had girlfriends. Although, that has as much to do with my dad, as my mom. I never felt right in a “real” relationship. It’s been a tough road for me and Michael, in that respect.

This is also one of the reasons Joe and I are so close. We survived this together. This is the point in our life when we stopped fighting and antagonizing each other and started depending on each other. This is the point when we became best friends and told each other everything. He is the only one who can understand my soul because he was right there with me, in the trenches. He’s the one who came into my room when he heard me crying and made me feel better. No one else can be that person.

And I need that person.

I wish I could say this is about self-reflection, the new year or trying to grow and be a better person. But, it’s about him. Everything is about him. I need him. I need to do whatever I can do to get him back (save pretending to be his ex-girlfriend. Dumbass).

I am not sure the best way to go about this. I tend to start things and not finish them. Especially when I have to take a long hard look at myself. For now, the general plan will be to list out what I think all my flaws/weaknesses/strengths are and then, to look back. Look at how I got here. I want to write stories of my life that may or may not be significant. I know I can’t pinpoint the moment “Oh! If I would have just veered right, instead of left, it would all be OK”, but I can try to find where certain behaviors started and maybe figure out why.

Basically, my blog just became therapy and anyone who reads it became unwilling participants.

I have thought about therapy, real therapy, but I know I am not quite there. Last time I did it, I wasn’t honest, I didn’t listen to her and I didn’t change one tiny bit. I have too much trouble opening up to people. Even people I am closest too.

Hopefully this won’t be ALL I write about, but writing helps. Which is why I have felt so frustrated lately. I haven’t been able to put words to anything and it’s been hurting me. I feel like if I start to look back, tell stories I’ve told a million times (thank you Gonzales genes), it might be easier. It might help. It can’t hurt to try.

So . . . here goes nothing:

The list of me, as I see it:

1. Stubborn. Unrelentingly stubborn. It’s worse than a fault. It can and has been crippling me
2. Mean, mean, mean. I can be so mean and so cold if I don’t like you. There is no reason to be so mean.
3. Generous. I try to give as much as I can to the people I love. However, sometimes, when it comes to “things” I try too hard. I think I use money and presents to buy love, much like my parents did with me, though they each did it in different ways.
4. Fiercely loyal. . .
5. . . . though, to willing to cut someone out of my life whom I think has wronged me or a loved one. I also tend to do this, if I think there might be some argument between us. I’d prefer to cut you out first, before you can do it to me.
6. Too demanding. I expect way too much out of people, it’s impossible for them not to fail me
7. I am very insightful and give great advice to friends and family. I tend to be the person most people turn to.
8. I am more sensitive than I let on. This is a weakness in my eyes, but maybe a good thing if I ever let people know it
9. I am so, so lazy. Once I get going, I kick ass, but it takes A LOT to get me going. So. Lazy.
10. I am very self-aware. I don’t always use this to make myself better, but I am very aware of all my bullshit

I am certain there is so much I can add to this list, but it’s a start.

Hopefully the start of something good.

1. I hate this blog. It’s SO boring and depressing
2. In the last few months I have started writing over 15 posts and can’t ever seem to finish them
3. I used to write things that I found funny. Actually, I used to write things that made me (if no one else) literally Laugh! out loud.
4. Why am I such a sad lou now?
5. What now?

I can’t really solve all those things. It is what it is. The last 2 years have been pretty hard on me. The blog reflects that. I don’t want to not have a blog. I have met some of the best people in the world because of it. I am not ready to hang it up quite yet.

But I do want to tell funny stories. I don’t know why I stopped. Some of it has to do with Twitter. When I post something funny on Twitter, I kind of feel like it’s redundant to elaborate any further on the subject. It’s not like I have millions of Twitter followers and millions of blog readers. It’s basically the same people. I am pretty sure they have enough of my repeating the same shit over and over (save for my sister, or Heidi).

However, I really need to just get over it, because, when I look back at my blog, I don’t want to think “What is with this whiny girl?!” I really want to think “You, my dear, are hhhiiiiiilllllaaaarrrriiiooouussss”

So, with that in mind, here is the story of the fire alarm, that I regaled my sister with today:

I have been reading some good books lately, so I have been FORCED to go to bed later, thus, forfeiting my beauty sleep. Last night was no exception. I was [finally] blissfully asleep when, at about 3:30 AMish, our fire alarm in the bedroom beeped a few times. It wasn’t the annoying, short beep that says “Change my battery! Now! Or I will drive you insane! Don’t test me!”, no this beep was the beep it makes when it smells smoke (and by smoke, I mean the person who lit up a cigarette. In Boston. It’s one sensitive bitch. “Kiki? Kiki-kins? Who’s smoking? I smell smoke. Is someone smoking within a six mile radius of where I’m standing! Stop them Kiki, stop them!” I digress).

I go into “Fire mode”. My sister makes fun of me because last time we were faced with a fire situation, I checked my door before touching the handle. Because I graduated 5th grade. Once again, I put my fire skills to use, but alas, nothing. After about 10 minutes, Michael and I decided it was an anomaly and went back to bed. Not more than 40 minutes later it beeped a few more times.

This time, I remembered that the smoke detector we bought for the bedroom was also a CO detector. Read: we were all going to die. I made Michael go find the manual (yes, I keep every manual that comes through my door), while I started crying. Like, hysterically. In my defense, it was 4 AM. I told Michael that it was OK if we died, but that I just didn’t want The Grays to die. (Although, let’s be serious, who would put up with their shit if we were gone?) Michael comes back to tell me that it makes a different noise if it’s CO, so we will live after all. Of course, I don’t believe him and I make him prove it. Which he does. Know-it-all.

We, once again, go back to bed. And sure enough, about an hour later, the beep goes off. This time, I just roll over as I mumble to Michael to take care of it. He does, by taking the batteries out.

Of course, less than a [restless] hour later, I have to get up and get ready for work. By that I mean, I slept later than I should and didn’t wash my hair or wear make-up. I am HOT today. As I was getting ready to leave the house, Michael was still sleeping. I went over to kiss him, like I normally do, and I whispered to him

“I hope you don’t die from CO poisoning. If you do, that means you will have killed The Grays and I will have to bring you back to life so I can kill you again”

I am the most loving girlfriend of all time.

Fuck you. No, really. You can fuck off and die. Is that too harsh? I really don’t think so.

Today, I woke up in a good mood. I might be tempted to say GREAT mood. But, if I did that, it would just tempt YOU into shitting all over it. You don’t have to lie, I know I’m right.

Was it necessary for my blow dryer (not more than a year old) to break when my hair is half wet and totally frizzy? Did you find it HILARIOUS that the people at Starbucks forgot to make my sandwhich, but by then I was running late, so I left without it and now I am starving? Oh! Here’s a good one: I couldn’t avoid a branch in the road, so, when I drove over it, I heard it scrape the bottom of my NEW car. Also? That bump made my coffee spill all over the inside of my NEW car. It must have been just the BEST when I saw the huge blue stain on my white shirt. The white shirt I washed yesterday and was pristine when I left the house. And when I sat down at my desk (oh yes, all of this happened before 9 AM-so awesome) my mouse mysteriously no longer worked and my space heater was broken. High-five! You today, are PRICELESS.

And you know what? I decided that since you suck, I’m not going to be upset. I’m not going to be cranky and I’m not going to be mean. I will KILL you with kindness, even if you try to kill me first. I was presented with an opportunity to help a friend and all the fun and joy that comes with it easily overpowers anything you can throw at me.

So there. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Love,

Jeni Angel

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Generally, when we bowl, we go to nice places. The kind that let you chose which players get bumpers. I always get bumpers. I can bowl a 50 with bumpers. I’m that good. This place wouldn’t let me have bumpers because I was over 12. They didn’t understand that I really needed those bumpers.

My other secret to bowling is being funny. I am a horrible bowler. My only option is to make people laugh. I don’t just mean my friends-I’ve already bought their love. I mean the people in the lanes surrounding us who watch me and are horrified by my bowling skills. I need them to know that I know I suck and it’s hilarious. I spend most of my bowling time drinking beer and being hilarious. It works.

In any case, we recorded a short video on Friday of each of us bowling. In my defense, I chose 20 minutes of sleep vs. washing my hair and I had to wear a lot of make-up to compensate for my bad hair.

As you can see, my bowling skills are second to none. And yet, I don’t mind sharing with the world.

Your welcome.

For awhile, I have wanted to have a  family website. I didn’t want it to be a blog, per se. I wanted everyone in our family to have the ability to contribute. BUT, I knew if that was to be the case, it had to be EASY. Like, not just easy, but easier than sleeping. I mean, I knew if it was too complicated (i.e. having to log-in or send a friend request or anything that required me to literally show them, multiple times, how to do it) no one would do it.

Enter Posterous. This is PERFECT. You never have to log-in. Not even to see what people are posting to your site. All the posts can be emailed to you and you can email all the posts in. If you send in a link to a You Tube video, it will automatically embed it for you. If you send in 10 pics from your vacation, it will create a gallery for you. If you send in an mp3, it will convert and embed for you. All through email. You can even reply and comment through email. EASY. It couldn’t be easier. I KNOW everyone in my family checks their email at least once a day (even my grandma). It seemed perfect.

I told Dawn “This will either be my greatest achievement or an epic fail”

The jury may still be out.

I sent an email to the family (there are a good number of us) and explained the idea and how easy the site was. I got a few favorable responses. Then? Then I got hit over the head with a frying pan.

I named the site GNN. It seemed fitting. We have used that word for years (no, seriously, like probably 6 or 7 years) to describe family news. “What’s the latest GNN?” = “What’s up with everyone? Anything new I should know about”. Hell, GNN is one of my categories on this blog. I generally use it in posts that have news of some sort, especially about family. From my perspective, it’s always been a positive thing.

Apparently, my grandma wouldn’t agree. She has taken it (again, for 6 or 7 years) to mean Grandma News Network and that it’s only gossip. Meaning, we think she is the queen of Gossip. Now, I don’t want to debate the veracity of that statement, but I’m not gonna lie: our family DOES do its fair share of gossiping. Honestly, it’s netiher here nor there. The crux of the problem is that for 6 or 7 years, we’ve been saying something that has hurt my grandma.

Suffice to say, my sister and I were horrified. We, along with my dad, pretty much coined the term and use it liberally. FOR SEVEN YEARS. We’ve been hurting my grandma and building resentment for seven years. I felt like the most horrible person on earth.

BUT I was mad too. Because, apparently, Grandma has told EVERYONE except us (meaning my dad’s branch of the family) that she hates this term. So, for seven year, everyone knows she hates it, yet we use it in conversation-especially when family is together-ALL THE TIME. We have looked like the biggest, most insensitive assholes for years.

I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t say anything to us. At least to my dad, who could have trickled the information down the pipe. OR, for that matter, why didn’t my aunt or uncle or cousin say something? We’ve used that term around them plenty of times when my grandma wasn’t even there. A simple “hey, you should know, Grandma hates when you guys say that” would have been appropriate. No. They couldn’t do that.

Why? Because it was better for them to be the kind, understanding ones whilst we are the mean, assholes. I’m not joking. There has been animosity towards my dad’s branch of the family ever since I knew what the word animosity meant. Why, it was only a few years ago that, while planning for a huge family camping trip for my Grandparents 50th wedding anniversary, that an ugly letter went around complaining about certain people in the family. The outcome? The trip was canceled by my grandfather. AND THEN, a few weeks later, all the people that were supposed to go on this camping trip, MINUS my dad’s branch, went camping together. One big happy family.

I don’t understand the resentment. I don’t know what we did. All I know is that, as the years go on, my delusion that we are the best family ever invented has slowly faded away. I know who I can trust, I know who really loves me and I know who will stab me in the back for a kind word.

Is it the way it should be? No. But it’s the way it is. All part of growing up, I guess.

Man, I feel like a reject lately. I actually can’t think of a time where I have felt more un-loved. It’s not just Joe, either, it’s almost everyone I know.

My dad. We always joke about the “favorite”. It’s a joke that lives in truth, because whether my dad will admit it or not, there is always a point where he treats one of us with more . . . esteem than the others. I was the favorite for quite awhile. Now, I have been feeling like my dad chose sides in the whole Jeni vs. Joe (aka WWIII) debacle and it feels shitty. I’ll admit, I’ve pulled away a bit. Some of the things he’s done made me question the kind of person he is. I don’t feel like I can go to him, trust him, with problems. The final straw came last Friday when Dawn told me he was going to NM in September. See, earlier this year, he flew Joe out to MN to spend some time with him. Then he flew Dawn and her family out in July. He knew I couldn’t take time off (because of my shitty job), so he promised he’d come visit in September. He hadn’t mentioned it in awhile and so I asked him. He said he didn’t have the time anymore, which I was fine with. Until I found out he had time to go to NM. Now, I know that he’s not going expressly to visit Dawn or Joe, but it’s not like he won’t. I am so tired of being chosen last, if at all, by everyone.

Cara was in Seattle this weekend. One of her friends is having a baby, so Cara came out for the baby shower. I was supposed to go over Friday to help Cara cook and then have dinner with her on Saturday. Neither of those things happened. So much was going on with the other group of people, Cara just couldn’t find the time. I DO understand and I told Cara as much, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.

And my other friends. I haven’t seen Louisa in almost 2 months. We were supposed to get together the weekend Michael was gone. She texted me she was sick. I told her to get better. Apparently she did, because I saw on Facebook she had a bunch of friends over to her house the next day. I know it’s me and maybe I am too sensitive these days, but it felt really personal. It felt the same way when Heidi and I made plans, but they had to be later, because she had spin class. I told her if she decided not to go to let me know (she was hemming and hawing, not really wanting to go to class) because I would just be doing nothing until then. She didn’t go to spin class, she went bowling with some other friends instead. When I said something to her about it, she got defensive and then didn’t call me at all the next day, even though we had made plans.

Look, I don’t expect my friends to be at my beck and call and I know things happen, but it seems they happen more and more lately. I would rather people NOT make plans or, at the very least, tell me you have a problem with me or with yourself and that you don’t want to see me. I GET that. I feel like that too sometimes. But I tell people that.

I am just emotionally exhausted.