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Don't stress about taking care of yourself and your son. If neither of you can cook, just buy a bunch of frozen dinners, and make sure you clean up after and do laundry at least twice while she's gone. You might want to find one person you can turn to for emotional support, if you can. Even if that means asking her permission to tell them the truth, or calling an old friend she doesn't know.

That's probably the most useful advice I've received yet.  Thank you.

And Roger, I knew I was oblivious.  It's just a shock to have it driven home so directly.

Congrats to twid on going back to school.  I would love to do that for the rest of my life if I could figure out a way to do it that paid the bills. School is one of the few places I always felt like I knew what I was doing.

No offense taken, Hollist.  He's 14.  She told him she's checking herself into a hospital for depression.

I agree with you up to a point.  It does hurt him to an extent to preserve the lie, but that's not my call to make here.  It's not really my place to tell him who his mother is.  At least that's how I justify it.

Thank you guys.  I'm coming to a certain peace with it, I'm just going to deal with it the same way I deal with everything else.  Just take the next step. 

That's an intellectual acceptance though, not really one I can accept at an emotional level. Right this second, at least.

So this looks to be the thread to go to whe you're trying to be a human who isn't a flippant asshole.

Which is probably why I've never posted here, but I'm out of options for people to talk/vent to and if I don't get this out somewhere, I don't think I'll be able to function.  And I need to be able to function over the next several days. So a semi-anonymous forum is going to have to do for now.

When I got home from work tonight, my wife announced to me that she's checking herself into Rehab.  For the last 9 months or so, she's been heavily abusing OxyContin.  She's taken money from our joint funds, from our son, and even run up a fairly large bill with her dealer.

And I had no clue.  Completely oblivious.  I knew money was tight, but money has always been tight.  I knew she's been distant, but she's never been an affectionate person or particularly open, neither have I, so I didn't notice any difference.

I don't stand in judgement over her, I have my own issues and I've had my troubles hammered home enough times and in painful enough ways that in my mind the only real sin we're capable of as human beings is pride and not acknowledging the truth that is starting us in the face.  Our lives take us to strange places and the best we can do is deal with them.  So she's attempting to deal with them.  I accept that.

But that doesn't still my anxiety.  That doesn't make up for not seeing my own truth.

This is a good thing, mind, but it's a painful truth not a comfortable lie.  But how the fuck do I deal with it?  How do I maintain the facade to our son for the next couple of weeks?  Like most married men, all of my friends are either our friends (and therefore not someone I feel like I can reveal such an intimate secret without her OK) or drinking buddies, with whom I'd never share something so intimate and painful with.  How do I take care of myself and the boy without her?  I'm the shitty parent who works long hours at a job that's hours away so he can bankroll everything, not a caretaker.

It's a bit odd, but right this second I feel like I'm more at peace with her actions than I am with mine over the next however long.  Not really looking for anything.  Wanted to send out what's in my head out into the world.  So I can see it and maybe know how I feel.

Nice.  Restrained, actually.


In a related note, we were discussing at band practice last night that Paul could very well have been a self-hating gay:

"I mean, he obviously hated women, while also loathing other gay men..."

"Plus, he changed his name to something less Jewish once he got really famous!"

He totally was. What do you think the "thorn in his flesh" was, an eye ailment?  No way, dude loved cock and he didn't want to.

Meh.  Needs MOAR goat blood and "hail satan".  Pentagrams doodled in thee margins would be a nice touch.  A reference to Varg having the right idea would also be a nice inside joke, too.

I think I'll pass on even trying P3nt, because if I manage to fap, I lose and if I don't manage to fap, I lose.  Some things should just be left unattempted.

Also, in the case of one rather well known fucknozzle, would it be too much to ask that his hate mail actually make sense?  I don't know what kind of drugs they're doing over there, but I suspect crokodil may have some bearing on his behavior.

And then EoC remembered krokodil exists and didn't sleep for a week.

I had no idea what krokodil was, so in the interests of broadening my understanding of the human condition, I googled it.  After reading the first few articles and noting the standard boilerplate "Drugs are bad, mmmmkay?" language my internal bullshitdar was set off.  Especially on the whole "flesh rotting off a living body" claim.  It reeked of the old "stoned hippie with the munchies eats a baby" story.

So I did a google image search.  HOLY JESUS FUCK.

I can't close my eyes anymore.  I must shake my fist at Roger and EOC now.  Just on general purpose, you understand.

I will ask all of you a single question, and I demand that you defend your answer; Is Roger beautiful?

Go.

See okay in order to answer, don't we have to spell out some sort of standard that we're using, which just gets us back to losing the thread?

I mean I can honestly answer yes and no, arrive at both answers using multiple lines of reason and it would all depend on what we're calling beautiful.

Roger is beautiful because he's the end product of billions of years of evolution, all the way from a simple single celled life form up to a hairless ape that can change its environment.  That's beautiful in a sense.

Roger is not beautiful because no matter how dolled up he gets, I still don't want to stick my penis in his mangina.  (Sorry, Roger)

Roger is beautiful because his insights are the product of a mind that fights hard against the things it's been programmed with.

Roger is not beautiful because he's frequently a sullen asshole.

Again, I probably lost the thread.  My bad. Don't punish me with the spiked dildo, please.

Not sure if this goes anywhere, except to reveal that I'm less of who I'd like to be and more of an aggregation of desires that may not wholly be my own.

Thanks IJ and others. The above was the kind of theme I was trying to explore, more just as a personal exercise but it seemed worth sharing.

It is, but then again, perhaps the fact that these are desires that have a root outside of myself, doesn't necessarily make them invalid.  Sure, Molson-Coors has a vested interest in making me consume their product, but it doesn't necessarily follow that I don't kinda dig beer.

Perhaps it raises the bar on what I would consider a desire that is authentically my own, but that doesn't mean it's not a desire I authentically feel.  It's not like were all fucking Buddhists here.  At least I don't think we are.  We're allowed to have desires. Just might want to be a little more discerning about the extent we allow those desires to dictate our actions.

Or hell, I don't know, maybe there is no real me, the buddhists are correct and it's all just socially programmed bullshit.  Still doesn't mean I don't like beer though.

And then?

you'll be replaced by some other asshole, and nobody will smell the difference.

And then?

Wait.  Does Mike have any sway with regards to staffing decisions at all?

You can't understand America™ without understanding Honey Boo Boo.  Fact.

Most everyone has seen this little mutant and her sideshow freak mother, which is aired on The Learning Channel.  Let me repeat that:  On THE LEARNING CHANNEL.  Ironic?  NO.  I firmly believe that TLC is upholding the mandate implied by its name.  It is trying to teach America™ something.

And what is that?

Well, see that fat woman and her energy drink-addicted kid?  That IS America™.  Listen to the words that come out of that ruined child's mouth..."A dollar makes me holler!", for example, is the very SOUL of America™.  The horrible rolling in the mud the entire family does for a measly $40K/year is also uncomfortably close to what everyone else does, isn't it?

The plain fact is, that entire clan of po'buckers says and does nothing that 99% of Americans don't also say and do.  It's just that they're so hideous about it...It's a funhouse mirror of everyone in this country.  People laugh at these yahoos because the funhouse mirror distorts things just enough that they can't quite recognize themselves.  The quiver of unease that goes through viewers is just an added thrill.

So the next time you find yourself laughing at these caricatures, take a moment and reflect on the idea that they're YOU.  They just get PAID for it.  A little, anyway.  You, on the other hand, go to work and smile at people you hate, all in the pursuit of that dollar that makes you holler.  You smile while they shit on you.  You roll in the mud, and bite the heads off of chickens (or an equally humiliating equivalent).  And you do it for peanuts, just like they do.

So, keep lauging, America™.  Laugh until your guts bleed.  Laugh until you can't stop screaming, until your throat is raw.  Laugh so hard that you won't have to see what you are.  Laugh yourself to death, and you'll be replaced by some other asshole, and nobody will smell the difference.

Well done.  Assholes.

And then?

Gross. I can understand tenure in terms of protecting people from office politics, but there's a point where sheer incompetence just needs to be fired.

Well, it's not actually tenure.  It's that we're the forgotten station.  Nobody remembers we're here.  That's why Mike was exiled here from the parent facility.  It's like I work in Siberia.  Or an oubliette.

So then his current assignment is punishment for being a goddamned Jackass to begin with?

Yep. 

I, on the other hand, was hired on here.

I can't decide which is worse.

Then you must fuck with him at every opportunity.  It's a moral imperative.

I'm on the phone with him right now.   

Draw an unreasonable line on how much you're willing to help clean up his latest fuckup and insist that you're meeting him halfway.

Gross. I can understand tenure in terms of protecting people from office politics, but there's a point where sheer incompetence just needs to be fired.

Well, it's not actually tenure.  It's that we're the forgotten station.  Nobody remembers we're here.  That's why Mike was exiled here from the parent facility.  It's like I work in Siberia.  Or an oubliette.

So then his current assignment is punishment for being a goddamned Jackass to begin with?

Yep. 

I, on the other hand, was hired on here.

I can't decide which is worse.

Then you must fuck with him at every opportunity.  It's a moral imperative.