Bottom Line...

this week sucked. I've had "bad days" and "several bad days in a row" but this was a bad week. If I could have crawled in a cave and died, I would have. It was so bad I was actually afraid for myself.

But... failure isn't an option, giving up isn't an option and I may be "tired of livin'" but I sure am "afraid to die... and I don't know what's up there, beyond the sky.

It's been a long time comin, but I know, change gon' come.

At least I fucking hope so. Besides, my kid loves me.

Why the bad days? All the usual reasons but compounded by the fact that Shoefly asked me to charge some airline tickets for her on my Amex. Knowing that Amex wasn't going to be too happy about that, I told her that she'd better give me the money upfront, so that I could pay Amex and then charge the tickets. So she gave me half; I paid Amex immediately. The next day I tried to charge the tickets, and the fuckers wouldn't let me. They had imposed a limit on my Sign&Travel. I hadn't gotten a letter (yet--of course it came the next day), so I didn't know. And also, when I called, I told them I've been a Member since '94... and I've had rough spots (several, in fact) since '94, and I have always cleared up Amex. Didn't that count for anything? There was nothing they could do, the snippy Indian bitch said. I told her I paid half the price of the ticket the night before, and I'd pay the rest Friday... you can schedule an automatic deduction. But no. So I asked to speak to the Supervisor... snippy bitch said "She's only going to tell you the same thing I said" and I said, "that may be so, but then I can tell *her* how if that's the case, the first chance I get I'm paying off Sign&Travel, and cutting up my card. Cuz your advertising is false". Supervisor gets on, and "sees what she can do", which ends up being what I asked for.... they scheduled an automatic deduction for Saturday. The catch was, they wanted MORE money from me because of some credit limit they imposed on me (now mind you... this past month was the first time I'd missed a payment with Amex in YEARS) so I said fine... I'd give them the $300 I JUST GOT in payment for a freelance job I did for my old job.

So, the supervisor did all that and said I'd be able to charge the tickets. Only, several hours later, and several phone calls to Amex, and I STILL couldn't charge the tickets. I finally told Shoefly, "I'm done, and I'm sorry, but you're going to have to get your tickets another way. Fuck Amex". So I called up Amex and told them to cancel the scheduled deduction (and I have to check, actually, to make sure they did), that I wasn't going to get the tickets.

But I couldn't do a "Stop Payment" on the money I'd already sent them, AND I had to give Shoefly her money. Now I know I would have to pay Amex regardless... but I could have done it at the end of the month when the bill is due, and NOT NOW. Fuckers. I was highly annoyed.

And of course Sallie Mae is hounding me again... I swear they are worse than the mob.

But finally, I got a hit on my resume. It's a headhunter *sigh*--I'm not fond of headhunters cuz one has YET to find me a job. But it's still a hit. I was beginning to feel highly discouraged.

So the week ended up OK. OneHalf did a Karaoke Night at the kids school, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. My kid got up and sang the Killers "Somebody told me" with a little help from moi, and I got to sing "Chain of Fools". A teacher, LilacBlue and WhiteHorse got up to be my back up dancers (unbeknownst to me) and since they did that, I'm gonna shout them out and put a picture of us:

Don't I look like my Meez? Ha ha!

But the big news was that the Moon, who NEVER participates in anything, actually signed up to sing... and the Sun went with him. I was very, very proud of the Moon. Kid's a PITA, but he's a good kid and underneath it all I'm quite fond of him. Plus, I've known him since before he was born. Here's the Sun and Moon singing some song from Fallout Boy:


The Sun asked me several times on the way home "When is the next Karaoke night?" I laughed. If only he really understood how much time his mama spent singing karaoke... And then when we got home he said "The hard part of singing with someone is listening to them, listening to you and listening to the music". Ah, spoken like a true singer.

On Saturday we went up to the Bronx dojo so my Sun could work out with the Bigboys and Shihan. Another kid from the Yonkers dojo has taken to coming there, and so it's good for the Sun. Shihan told the boys it was important for them to see their senseis work out and learn, as well. Another good thing for the Sun is that there are two Albanian dudes in the class. Omigod did I laugh my ass off when I saw that one of the guys (the nicer-looking one of the two--he's REALLY tall) realized my Sun is one of them.

If you don't know anything about Albanians in NY... they stick to themselves. They rarely date outside the community, and rarer still do they marry outside the community... especially the men. The Albanian community in the Bronx is centered around Pelham Parkway, and it has grown very quickly in the last few years. But they don't hang out much with other people. Back in the day, when the Professor and I knew drug dealers, the Jamaicans were the bad-asses. They would routinely war with the Puerto Ricans, but NOBODY messed with the Albanians. When the guy realized that I was the Sun's mom, and that the Sun's dad was Albanian (the Sun told him) he kept looking at me as if to figure out "How in the hell did THAT happen" (uh, it's called "vodka")... and made sure to say "goodbye" when he left.

Next time TF blows through here I'll make sure he goes to the Bronx dojo. TF wasn't too cool about hanging with his own people. There were some major issues there. But it's good for the Sun... he doesn't get to run into too many Albanians in Spanish Harlem, or out here on the Rock.

So, I'm feeling better. Nothing much has changed... not yet anyway, but I can't wallow for long. Oh, and I FINALLY got a hit on my resume... that made me feel good, too.