Why did the THIRD monkey fall out of the tree?

Peer pressure, man.

The Blog Party looked like it might be a cool and fun thing. Or maybe I accidentally od'ed on non-dairy creamer again.

At any rate, join me down the rabbit hole, if you will. The party goes all week... add the link, tell your friends, post a little somethin' somethin' about yourself and enjoy the ride.

Even better? This kinda party doesn't require you to scrub the guest toilet and try and find actual hand towels. I'm SO there.



So anyway, something about me besides what I've yammered on for the whopping couple of weeks I've been doing this??? The short story is that I'm 40, mother of three... a 19 year old girl and 17 year old boy from my first rather short-lived marriage, and now an 8 month old from my second marriage.

This might indicate insanity, or so I have been told numerous times over the last 17 months.

Weird things happen to me. I mean REALLY weird. "Did that just happen??!?" kind of weird. My friends find this to be a source of endless amusement. Apparently I am some kind of universal joke... or an object lesson to others, I'm not sure. Either way, what are you going to do?

I have A.D.D., which I've spent a lifetime self-medicating with coffee. Mmmmmmm. As a result, I have a fine and healthy appreciation for a damn fine cup of joe. (btw, three points if you got the reference). ADD means never having to say anything that makes sense, at least in my house. (The mild touches of OCD are a bitch, though. I couldn't get the CLEAN OCD, oh no. No, **I** get to lose my shit if pictures and such are hanging the least bit askew. )

I guess I'm smart enough but uneducated. I never finished a semester of college and it stings when friends thoughtlessly make derisive comments about people who lack degrees. At some point, I'll make time to attend classes... (I did register for an accounting and a business class last fall and overwhelmingly bad morning sickness laid me low right before finals. )

My family has had more than its fair share of struggles with mental illness. I am the mother of, the sister of and the daughter of bipolars... possibly also granddaughter. We aren't positive on that one. My daughter and sister are both in treatment and for the most part, do very well. This has not always been the case and we have had some absolutely terrifying moments where we came horrifyingly close to losing both of them.

I did lose a friend to suicide, too. March 15th, the Ides of March, is the anniversary of her death. I miss her still.

If you couldn't guess, yes, I have gerbils... my very spoiled little rodent boys. I do love me some rodents, oh yes! And my oldest, Indiana Scones, is so tame, he likes to ride around on my shoulder. I also have a clanned pair - Bran Stoker and Jonas Salt. (My gerbs always have food-related puns for their names. The naming of a new gerbil pup is a huge mental effort as we try to top past names.)

I am a Game Geek. I have multiple game systems in my house and my video game collection outstrips that of my teenaged son. I rarely get to play, but sometimes I do like to handle stress with Playstation Therapy: pop in a disk, blow something up, feel MUCH better.

I am afraid of water. I can swim, and I'll swim some in a pool, but I truly hate being in a river or lake. A drunken neighbor kid came very close to drowning me when I was in junior high and to this day I avoid the water pretty much altogether.

I am afraid of the dark but only IN a house. When I was a kid, we had this psycho black cat (named Lucifer, naturally). One minute he was purring and rubbing against you, the next minute he was trying to rip your face off. And he liked to hide and leap out at you in the dark. That cat had been dead for ten years and I was still sleeping with a light on so I could see him coming! He also loved water. LOVED it. He'd sit in the fish tank. Wouldn't bother the fish, he just wanted to be in the water. A friend once spent the night - I think we were about ten - and she STILL talks about having to get up in the night to use the bathroom and having the cat scare the lights out of her. He was sitting IN the toilet with only his head sticking out.

And with that, I bid you adieu for the night... I have a date with my Ameda. Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.