Yes, yesterday was spectacular, if by spectacular you mean “of the nature of a spectacle.” I already outlined my loan officer woes, but really, there was so much more!

There is the ever present reality that my husband promised I wouldn’t have to go to work, that he would step up to the plate and start being a grown-up. And that by “grown up” he means, actually, that I will be the grown-up, that I will be the mother, the Wendy to his Peter Pan, and not only fill out his damned applications, but that I will also find the jobs for him to apply to. I’m sure if there were a way I could interview for him, he’d want me to do that too.

He is happy to sit and play with his RC toys (did I mention he’s 35 years old?), living the life of a lazy rich boy, while the inheritance we got from his grandmother dwindles. He is clearly hoping, on some level not too far from the surface, that I will become exasperated with him and go get a job myself, leaving him to his Land of Perpetual Childishness.

And yes, I do appreciate that his playful way of looking at the world is fun and refreshing. But it is also tedious if he can’t be an adult and do the right thing when the time has come to do that. Sadly enough, I think our society supports this. We portray people like J as happy-go-lucky losers, just waiting for their big break. Except life is not a movie, and in real life, these actions become grating and burdensome to the people surrounding such a person. As with everything, there has to be a balance.

So there’s that, always overlaying everything, ready to create stress at a moment’s notice.

The money needs… I am tapped out. Next friend that asks is going to have to be turned away. Because … I don’t loan money that I can’t afford to just kiss off and because I am now a little worried about the dynamic it can bring into a friendship. As with my brother, when someone can’t make the payment they promised, or whatever, they are avoidant. And really? It’s not that I need the money back right away — like I said, I don’t loan it if I can’t be without it. It’s that I just want to know what’s going on. I’m not an orgre, and even if I were, what could I do? A personal loan between friends or family without a contract doesn’t go on a credit report anywhere.

Friends falling apart? Yes, they were part of the spectacle yesterday too! Tales of Daring and Tragedy! One of my oldest friends — gods, I think it’s been a hair over twenty years now? — is finally getting fed up with being a door mat. She is finally starting to see that her low self esteem is creating a perpetual cycle of suckitude with the jerk she’s with. She is finally, after dealing with this loser for the past fourteen years, thinking that maybe it’s time to leave. She doesn’t need money, but she does need support and I badly want to give it because I think she deserves so much more. I offered to help her find an apartment far, far away from Loser Guy, but I wish I could do more. Thing is, she’s a pretty big project, and I just can’t ask my family to do it — to take her and her three boys in — after the year we’ve had.

Then another person I know, a person I find myself having less and less respect for, IM’d me yesterday to tell me that she was sick of her kids. So sick, I guess, that she whapped one of them with a spatula, which is a return to old behavior and bad, bad, bad. She is one of those people who have to do the “alternative” thing, simply because it is alternative. But she’s also one of those people who, when the going gets tough or when someone tells her something she doesn’t want to hear, takes her ball and goes home. She does it a lot and unfortunately, she does it in ways that her kids can’t help but notice.

And now it’s all starting to come back on her. Three years ago she jerked her kids out of school because she didn’t like what the adminstration had to tell her. She said she was “unschooling” them, which may be a method that works for some families, but which in her family meant no one did a flippin’ thing. She works for a couple hours every morning and these kids, who are now almost-11 and 13, are at home alone for that period of time. My husband and I stopped letting our kids spend time with them about two years ago, when it became clear that they were out of control, totally lacking boundaries, rude and exposed to things they shouldn’t be exposed to (what 11 year old needs to have Scarface as a personal hero??). Don’t get me wrong. I am really not a prude, but these kids are rude and violent with each other and with their mom. Just not what I want my kids around.

So yesterday, in addition to revealing that she has hit one of them, she tells me she is sending them back to public school because they are rude, they cuss at her and call her names, and because they mess up the house every day. So I asked her, “Basically, you’re sending them to school as a punishment? Don’t you think that might backfire?” She agreed. Yes, she’s sending them to school as a punishment. Because she doesn’t care. The fact that these kids will likely test into grades far lower than they should is their fault. Can I just say that again? The fact that these kids will likely test into grades far lower than they should is THEIR fault. Um. If I may — BULLSHIT. It is her job as their parent to see to it they get a good education. When she decided to homeschool them, it became even more so. And she flubbed it. It is her fault. I was so flabbergasted I didn’t even respond. I made up some excuse and quickly became invisible on my buddy list.

The next drama came at the post office. We have lived in this house for almost six weeks and in that time, have been unable to have either the property owner or the home owner’s association take responsibility for getting us a freaking mail key. We were ping-ponging with the post office too, until they pulled out their little book and said the mail box was definitely not their property. So we’ve had our mail on something called “will call” where they basically hold it for us because we can’t get into our mail box.

So yesterday, I went by to pick up the mail, and this incredibly rude bitch-of-a-postal worker slapped it down in front of me and declared that they weren’t going to hold it anymore.

“But I don’t have any way to get into the box.”

“Uh huh.”

“So… I can’t get my mail out of it.”

Uncaring silence.

So I decided to return pissy-for-pissy. “Okay. Well, then, here’s how it will go down, ma’am. You will put mail in my inaccessible box until it is overflowing. That should take about two or three days, which is the amount of time I wait before coming to pick up my mail anyway. Then, your postal worker will bundle up that huge pile of stuff, which will now be in even worse shape than it is now, when I pick it up here, because y’all are so careful with my mail, and bring it back to the post office because my box was too full, and I will come pick it up. Just like now.”

“Uh huh.”

“Just so long as we’re clear.” And I walked out. Bitch.

There was another worker in the lobby whose tag said manager. He witnessed the whole thing and I think he started to say something to me, but I was too pissed to stop. I hope he chewed that dumb bitch out when I left. Honestly? If she had delivered that bit of news in some other, even marginally pleasant way? I probably would have been fine with it and would have just put some serious screws to the property management people. But the fact that she was so goddamn insufferable made me instead want to gouge out her eyes and pee in the sockets.

I came home, convinced the universe was just out to smash me flat. I called my closest friend, and she came over with another friend and I vented and bitched and drank wine and we read tarot cards for her friend and now I feel a lot better. Oh yes, and before she got there? I was opening a bottle of wine and the damned cork broke in two, forcing me to push the broken bit down into the bottle, and everytime I poured a glass, I had to pick little cork bits out of it. Yes. It was just that kind of day.