I’ve been trying to rid myself of magical thinking over the last year. No more belief in fate or karma. I want to eliminate any non-logical beliefs from my life. (Except that whole superstition about your right hand itching when you’re about to get money and your left hand itching when you’re about to lose it- that one always fucking works).

So it’s been a hell of a test the last few weeks when nearly every asshole to cross my path has made a marching band noisy return into my life. The latest (and I blame Anna Belle for bringing it up in comments- I believe she cursed me but I still adore her. Wait- that’s more magical thinking!) is the Kid’s fuckwad father.

It is incredibly difficult to believe that the universe doesn’t have some horribly sadistic plan for tormenting me at the moment, or that there isn’t some big life lesson I need to learn about tolerating assholes who refuse to die like I wish them to. But no more magical thinking. This is just an annoying rough patch and I will survive.

But back to the Kid’s asshole father.

I left him partly because he was a raging drug addict. I almost could excuse his neglect of the Kid for the last 13 years because it really is better that as a fucked up addict he stay far away from the Kid. Almost.

But he tells me he’s been clean and sober for 7 years.

7 fucking years.

And no child support?

WTF is his excuse for that? No seriously. If he got himself clean, then didn’t he have to go through that whole taking responsibility thing? Did it really take him 7 fucking years to remember that he has a Kid he’s been neglecting for nearly his entire life.

And now he “wants a chance to be the father that (the Kid) deserves”.

Except for that whole feeding him and clothing him and housing him part. What he really wants is to show up for a few hours with some age inappropriate toys (that’s what happened the last time he wanted to play daddy) and spend a few hours assuaging his guilt.

After having dealt with my own dad recently, I’ve decided that parents should be made to face the cold hard truth of what their neglect does. So I gave the Kid’s asshole of a father the run down on how hard life is without child support for his kid.

The thing is, I also said he could see the Kid IF the Kid wants to see him. And the Kid is a loving, forgiving kind of person. So he said he’d meet his dad.

But after giving his dad the run down on just how much he’s failed as a parent, the emails have dried up (along with the paltry child support payments I finally started seeing after the state threatened him with jail time). Suddenly doing the actual work of being the father that the Kid deserves seems like to much trouble.

I know him well enough, even after all these years, to be able to tell you peeps word for word what’s going through his mind right now (he did seek help from an MRA group when we split up after all, they are pretty boring in their mindsets). He’s thinking that I’m a bitch for keeping his son from him (which I’m not). He’s thinking that this is all about money and that I’m a greedy cunt (except that most of parenting is about money- making sure your kid is housed and fed and clothed are pretty basic and the amount he’s supposed to pay in child support doesn’t even cover a quarter of that).

But I really don’t care what he thinks about me. What I care about is that he has (and will) look for any excuse to neglect his Kid. And that breaks my heart for the Kid.

As for magical thinking, whatever the universe is trying to teach me right now I don’t wanna know. I just know that the parade of assholes must end sooner or later. There are a limited number of assholes in my personal history for a reason.

I’ve been trying to eliminate magical thinking for the last year. No more

And the anniversary of Roe V Wade.

The question this year is: What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?

My wish (said in total Pinky and Brain speak) is the same one I have every day. I want bodily autonomy to be as much a right as freedom of speech. No one should ever be allowed to control what I do to my own body or how I do it. And no one, not a rapist or a nurse with a godbag agenda or a bunch of old white male politicians in ugly blue suits should ever be able to take that away from me or any other person.

I want that in the constitution cause these dudes should never be allowed near a uterus again.

Micheal Lind has been running a series on Salon about how to fix the economy, and while I disagree with him on some things (complete elimination of corporate taxes, for example) I think there is a lot there to be impressed with. There’s also a lot of things that I’ve been saying since forever- so yay me.

Today he writes about an economic bill of rights based on FDR’s plan.

Check out the rest of the series. It’s pretty good. And I hope our new dear leader is listening, cause so far his plans don’t do anything that we really need.

The lovely Susan from That’s Me On The Left has tagged me with the 6 things meme. I think I’ve done this before, but I’m sure there’s more than 6 things about me in the world.

1. I was a magazine cover girl at age 4. Just one small trade magazine, but there ya go. I was also in the newspapers a couple of times and on tv twice, once for cheerleading and once in high school being interviewed by the local news on HIV testing for high school seniors (I was all for it)

2. At the moment I have the world’s most gnarliest hangnail. And I’m a giant baby about it.

3. I gave my kid the name he has because every guy I ever met with his name was hot. Seriously. I was 19 though, so I should be given some leeway for picking that name for that reason.

4.I make up twisted lyrics to songs all the time. All. The. Time. Grandma got run over by a reindeer has been Bambi got run over by a John Deer for years.

5. Ruth likes watching cooking shows with me because of the faces I make when they cook something awful. Paula Dean, Sandra Lee and that doochebag with the scary bleach blonde hair are the main focus of my wrath. And I will totally scream at the tv if they start to burn their garlic! (PS- we also totally think Tyler Florence is gay gay gay. And closeted. But gay.)

6. The older I get, the more squeamish I get. I have to hide my eyes when anything gross happens on tv and the other day I had to leave the room when someone was describing their bloody mucus. I used to be much better about that kind of stuff, but now I get all nauseous and woozy.

So who to tag?

I tag you if you’re reading this since I think I’ve tagged everyone and then some all ready. Drop me a linky in comments.

sums up exactly what I’m feeling. And it ain’t good.

Sacrifice? Be the change?

What more do I have to sacrifice? We have no money. Every month it’s another round of pay rent or eat (this month both lost to some extent). I have no health care, so I can’t give that up. I was kinda hoping that I might actually get healthcare from a Democratic government, but that got pushed aside for banking reforms.

I’ve sacrificed finishing my education. There’s no money for that. Next year I’m sacrificing my kid’s public education. There will be one less child sucking on the educational teat. A special needs kid at that. Is that enough sacrifice?

And I’ve been the change, since I was a tiny girl stomping her feet in patent leather shoes. The only thing left for me to change into is a Republican. And no body wants that. Or do they?

I want to see billionaires sacrifice their private jets to taxes so that schools can have smaller class sizes. I want to see Halliburton and KBR sacrifice the Iraq war cash they’ve disappeared like Pinochet’s prisoners to their rape victim employees. I want to see health insurance sacrificed to make room for healthcare.

I want to see Wall Street bankers be the change by giving their bonuses paid with TARP money back to the government. I wanna see the Big 3 car makers be the change by developing green cars and green jobs.

I am the change, I’ve been the change. I’ve given up 5 years making sure that students go into the world knowing how to use computers and get a job without a raise or benefits for myself. I don’t have anything left to give, except my voice. And I’ve been giving that away for free since I learned to talk.

to this article in the NY Times

is this video

Go wax faux nostalgic at this piece. Really, it’s worth the read.