Alright then. Enough angst -- on to Weird Boy Stories.

I'd been considering writing on several other topics (as I mentioned in a previous post), but then my nephew, Marshall (not his real name) did something the other day which was both appalling and amusing (depending on your sense of humor). Marshall's misadventure got me thinking on the topic of how odd boys really are. I'm sure it's caused by cooties.

First, about Marshall, Gwen's second-born...he's fifteen and has always been a bit of an odd boy among odd boys. By which I mean that 'oddness' itself takes on new meaning when you're talking about Marhsall. When he was a little kid, we always used to say that he seemed to be in his own world most of the time, and it certainly seemed to be a strange little world. For example, Marshall would get "noony". What being "noony" meant was that he would run around saying "noony, noony, noony" and running into you with his forehead. Repeatedly.

Eventually we had to buy a tranquilizer gun.

There was also the time when he pooped in the floor of Nate's bedroom. He was four-ish...recently and unreliably potty-trained - still at that stage where the after-potty clean-up requires adult participation. I was babysitting him and he'd gone to the bathroom and been gone a long time. I went to check on him and found him in there standing in the vicinity of the toilet...

On a totally different subject, I once found my dog standing in the shower. It wasn't on, he was just standing there behind the curtain, looking mournful. But back to the nephew.

Anyway, he was just standing there in his underwear and when I asked what he was doing, he told me he'd pooped. Well, I didn't see any poop. There wasn't any TP or anything in the toilet either. I checked his underwear to see if he'd gone into my bathroom to poop in his underwear (which would not have surprised me), and didn't find anything there either, except some very minor evidence that the pooping had actually occurred. Somehow I doubted the kid had done the deed, cleaned himself up, and flushed without any help from me. As I'd mentioned, he was new to the whole process.

I asked him, "Ok, Marshall...where's the poop?"

His response: "I don't know."

So now I was on a poop hunt.

After I'd assured myself that it wasn't in the bathroom, I went into Nate's room, and there it was. I stood in the doorway and hoped that the irregularly shaped 'thing' in the middle of Nate's floor was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure. I was holding out some hope still that angels or fairies had spirited away the runaway poop and I wouldn't have to deal with it. No such luck.

But Marshall's all grown now and as far as I know, his potty training issues are far behind him. That doesn't keep him out of trouble though.

Just the other day, he was on a bus, heading off to church camp. He and another kid got the bright idea to make a little sign that said 'Help Us' and hold it up for passing motorists to see.

After the THIRD call to 911, the police pulled the bus over to see who was kidnapping a busload of kids to sell into white slavery.

Marshall narrowly avoided being booked for Inciting Panic.

Marshall's brother Jackson (not his real name either), Gwen's third child, is almost as strange. He's eight now (I think -- it's hard to tell because he's recently taken up lying about his age). This kid will talk your arms off if you let him. That's not strange, but what is strange is that he went all the way through kindergarten without speaking a word. Not one. Not to his teacher, not to his fellow kindergarteners, not to the lunch lady, not nobody. His teacher called Gwen to ask if he COULD speak, and that was the first she'd heard of it. I assume when she asked him how school was going, he probably gave her the typical 'boy' response: 'fine', neglecting to mention the whole 'I'm pretending to be a mime' thing. He would do his work and all that, just never spoke. Fortunately, by first grade, he was over the silent thing. Or unfortunately - depends on your point of view.

I also recently heard that Jackson was keeping a dead bird hidden in his room. He didn't kill it or anything, just found it dead and brought it home. He was heart-broken when his mother made him get rid of it. See...boys think things like that are INTERESTING.

Cooties.

Nate himself still exhibits what I think of 'boy weirdness' from time to time, even though he's reached the ripe old age of seventeen. He still loves to lurk outside the bathroom door waiting to scare the bejesus out of whoever comes out the door. For more examples of his 'boy weirdness', please refer to my earlier posts.

PB is also gearing up to join the ranks of the Weird. He gave himself a haircut the other day with a 'shave your legs' razor. He was in the bathroom, on the toilet at the time. I guess he got bored. He is also at that 'adult participation in the clean-up' phase when it comes to potty training. When he called for Jadyn to come assist, it actually took her a moment to notice the patches of hair gone from his head...one in the front, one on the side...As she was spotting the razor on the floor, and the sprinkling of hair on his shoulders, he looked up at her and, pointing to the back of his head, matter-of-factly asked, "Am I bleeding?" No panic, he just wanted to know. And he was. He'd taken a little chunk of skin with the hair from the back of his head.

Fortunately she was able to shape up his hair and make him beautiful again. She could fix that, but there doesn't seem to be a cure for just being a boy. You just have to ride it out.

I took an Effexor this morning.

I've been mulling over the advice I've been given by people I know and by people I don't know (that would be all of you 'anonymous' people....and hey, would it hurt ya to sign a comment? Do you have any idea how much I need closure?), and I've decided to go ahead and try the pills. This comment was particularly helpful: "Do what you love to do. Feel every moment as a precious thing. Tap into the love and joy around you and in you. Laugh. Resolve to let go of the fear that grips you, or at least loosen its suffocating hold. Leap before you look. That's how you can resolve to be happy. While you learn how to do all that, pills can help. You can always stop taking them if they don't."

I've read through that a bunch of times. There's a lot of good stuff in there. Doing what you love to do...that's important. Joy is important. Now...the leaping before you look part....well, I have lots of stories about the times I leapt without looking and the results were generally not pretty. But the idea of leaping before you look is dear to my soul. I'm just afraid to do it much anymore. I think that part of me just expresses itself in increments with tiny little laspses in my impulse control.

Perhaps I should just try bungee jumping as a religious experience. The ultimate leap.

Nah. That's too cliche.

Maybe pole vaulting would be better. Yeah...how many 40 year old first time pole vaulters do you know? That's what I thought. Although I do wonder if I came running up to the thing (the goal post, the bar...whatever you call it), and I pushed down with that big stick and started to jump....is it possible that my weight could actually snap the stick in two? That would be embarrassing. It would probably require therapy to get over it. And then I'd be right back where I started again.

Leaping without looking is how I ended up out of the south and back in Ohio (and coincidentally, it's how I ended up in the south in the first place). I'm not saying it's an entirely bad thing being here...I wouldn't have met Jadyn if I'd stayed in Georgia; but it was definitely a huge leap without much forethought. I just knew that I needed SOMETHING to change. Anything at all. But when I got back here, I just felt so shell-shocked. I walked around in a fog for weeks wondering, 'omigod, what did I do?' until I finally got used to the idea that I was here.

I had managed to forget while I was in Georgia what my family is like. And let me interject that I love my sisters and my mother...but I'd forgotten what it can be like to be around them. I'd forgotten how much drama they move about in and how easy it is to get caught up in it. I'd forgotten how abrasive their speech to one another is. I came here and felt like my skin was going to be burned off my body by all the caustic remarks. I'd come here in the first place to have their support, but I didn't realize how tender I'd gotten in the years apart from them. I wasn't used to being spoken to that way anymore. It hurt until I toughened up again and learned to dish it out as well as take it.

It's funny...Jadyn says she could tell early on that I loved her because I was tender with her. I didn't talk to her like I talked to my sisters. I don't know if she ever understood that talking to them the way that I do was self-defense.

You know how I said a few posts back that I was attracted to 'tough yet vulnerable'? I think that's what my family is like in a way. Abrasive as hell on the outside, but I think they're all fragile on the inside. They've all been hurt. The worst thing you can do to someone in my family who is upset or sad is to try to be kind to them. You have to call them 'bitch' and try not to hug them or be too nice. Being nice opens the gate for tears to come, and we all hate that. We like that vulnerable stuff to stay inside where it belongs.

But here lately, my inside is all hanging out on the outside.

And that's why I took the effexor.

Odds and Ends:

It seems like 9 times out of 10 when I visit my little fish bowl, I can't see my picture -- just a little placeholder where it ought to be. So what I'm wondering is can anyone else see it? And if not, you should be able to see it if you click on the website link on my profile. It's the portrait in the upper right hand corner of the page. One of these days I'm going to get one of those cool websites where you can click for a high res image of my paintings and really see them well, but for now...well, I'm still kind of a rookie.

And...I'm wondering how many times I'll have to post before that little line on my profile that gives my average weekly posts will read 1 instead of 0. I guess that's what happens when you go an entire year without posting.

Also...still haven't started the Effexor, although I've given it more serious thought these past few days. I think PMS has arrived though, so I'm going to try to wait that out and see if time cures me. I'm still mulling the comment someone posted on here regarding chemicals not being able to change my soul. It does seem like there is, or should be, some fundamental part of ME that is and always will be ME...but what about cases like that guy who got a spike through his head and his entire personality changed afterwards? (Read all about it --> http://www.deakin.edu.au/hbs/GAGEPAGE/) You can't deny that your wiring and your chemicals play a big part in who you are.

Sigh. It's probably just that I don't like to take pills. I don't even like to take an aspirin. I'll walk around all day with a headache until someone makes me take an aspirin, but I always feel so much better after I've had one. And I'm taking two pills for my blood pressure right now already. I hate to add something else to the mix.

I also hate feeling crappy.

Do you think it's possible to just resolve to be happy?

Alright then. I never meant to have one of those chatting about my life kind of blogs...I wanted to tell stories, so even though I probably won't stop pondering about my day to day stuff...here are the stories I'm incubating: The Thanksgiving We Checked Mom Into the Nuthouse, and How Jadyn Became Known as The Virgin and Made Her Karoake Debut All in The Same Night, and The Time PB Gave Himself A Haircut, and The Time Jadyn's Sister Got a Speeding Ticket. Just haven't decided which thing to do first. Suggestions are welcome. Which isn't to say I won't totally disregard them.