To The Pain

Depressed

2012-02-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

It's official, after months and months of trying not to give in, I have crossed over the line from just being stressed out, frayed, and less than super happy to being seriously, seriously depressed.

I guess it could be worse. I am getting out of bed every morning. I am getting dressed, although to be fair, it is sometimes hard for other people to TELL whether I'm wearing PJs or real clothes, but that's just because I'm a really bad dresser. I haven't either stopped eating entirely or started eating massive quantities of chips or ice cream, or whatever it is you eat when you just stop caring. I'm not drinking excessively, not smoking at all, not taking drugs. I even made myself take my vitamins today. Really depressed people don't bother with vitamins, they understand that there isn't any point.

I keep thinking maybe I would feel better if I was doing any of those bad things on the list; if I could just let go and arrive at the point of COMPLETELY not caring, I could maybe stop feeling anything instead of feeling awful, sad, frustrated, tired, and afraid all the freaking time, instead of being annoyed with myself for not being able to shake it all off and Get All The Things Done. The brink of insanity (or the brink of sanity, I guess I could put a positive spin on that) is definitely the most uncomfortable region of the mental health spectrum. Felling dangerously close to tipping, still caring enough to try not to, but feeling too awful to figure out how to swing the balance the other way . . . it totally bites.

Coming back up is probably harder, especially if you behaved really badly in the period before you started to recover. I guess this is is slightly better than that. Instead of feeling embarrassed about what I did do, I can sit here and plot all of the absurdly selfish and hedonistic things I will do as soon as I decide to give in. Bwahaha.

Except not really, because there are a lot of other people that would suffer, a lot of things that would fall apart, blah de blah blah. Being depressed when you're in your early 20's and don't have kids, and your parents still don't need you , and your job's no big deal, you can always get another one just as good or just as bad, it's a LOT more, well, I guess not fun, exactly, but you can really dig in and relish it in a way that you can't once you're an "adult." Being a grown up sucks.

So I am trying really, REALLY HARD not to be depressed, but for whatever reason, sitting around telling myself over and over again to "get over it and get busy," etc. does not seem to be doing the trick. I'm kind of mean to myself sometimes, and I just end up hurting my own feelings, and that just makes it worse.

I could try an anti-depressant, and I will if I don't rally in the next couple of weeks, but I'm still less than two weeks out from a Really Bad Thing That Really Happened (the custody case being held over until April is the Really Bad Thing, not only because of the kids' safety, the ongoing uncertainty, my ongoing inability to schedule the remainder of my dissertation research, etc., there is also a massive financial component that has been added to the mix. It cost over a THOUSAND dollars in lawyer time just to get that sucker rescheduled, and a ton more in the weeks leading up to the not-trial, because my lawyer was frantically trying to prepare without knowing for sure what to prepare for. The bill I got two days ago was DEVASTATING. I guess that's what officially broke the camel, that and having to talk to Franco in person twice in 8 days and all of that. grrrrrrrr.)

I guess the point is, you're allowed to fall apart a little bit when really bad things happen, right? I'm pretty sure that's right; it doesn't become a pathology until you fail to recover in a reasonable amount of time, and I don't think I've exceeded that just yet. If I still feel like this by, say, Valentine's Day, I'll haul my ass to the doctor and see about getting some magical pills. Maybe I'll make an appointment right now for that week just so it's already made and I know have a safety net in place. I can always cancel if I feel better. Actually, that sounds like a really good plan, but I'll probably forget.

In the mean time, I've been trying to exercise every day no matter what, and I signed myself and the kids up for taekwondo. It's really hard to feel bad about anything when you're jumping around kicking things and yelling and stuff. I also made the Puppy take the Skyrim disk to work because the one thing that annoys me more than just not getting anything done (or not getting anywhere near enough done, I'm kind of an all or nothing thinker when it comes to being mad at myself) is accidentally discovering that not only did I get nothing real done, but I somehow managed to spend almost an entire day running fictional errands and taking care of imaginary chores for NON-EXISTANT GAME PEOPLE WHO RARELY EVEN APPRECIATE IT, which is what Skyrim is. It's so exasperating, especially because, as _I_ don't have to autosave all the time, there are actually quite a few things that take me less time to accomplish in real life than they do in the game. (Of course when people annoy you in Skyrim, you can just club them over the head with a mace and be done with them, so the game does have that going for it. Right now I consider that to be a really huge plus.)

OK, whatever. I've done _this_ which wasn't exactly an accomplishment, but it did kind of flush some of the stressful toxic thoughts out of my head for awhile, so maybe I can stop moping and be productive for awhile. I'm just not really sure what I should do, as the ability to organize and prioritize seems to be the first thing that goes when I start falling apart, and since I work at home with no fixed schedule and no direct supervision, having that skill suddenly go missing is a really, REALLY big problem. Maybe I'll just pick a book from the Books I Must Eventually Read shelf and do that.

Or I could spend a couple hours trying to make a comprehensive To Do list, and then get so overwhelmed when I see how long and impossible it is that I disintegrate into tears, and give up and go to bed and cry.

Or maybe I'll pick a book and start reading. I have a new one on pirates that probably won't inform or be incorporated into my dissertation in ANY way, but at least it looks interesting and I feel a slight glimmer of excitement about it, and can sort of justify as a "work-like" activity. Yeah, I guess I'll do that. Although I suddenly have the urge to play some Dance Central first, which the Comptroller of Dysfunction who lives in my head and orchestrates such things is trying to inform me would actually be OK, since at least it's exercise and it might clear my head, but I'm pretty sure he's not really trying to help, and really only wants to distract me.

He's such a jerk like that, you have NO IDEA.

Get your own pants!

2012-01-31T12:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was super fun, another mediation appointment with Franco. As far as I can tell, he basically just wants to maintain some bit of CONTROL over everything, even things that don't concern him. He wants to have lengthy, complicated discussions over even the minutest of issues that normal people can sort out in a two line email exchange, and he wants to have some kind of voting or veto power over EVERYTHING, no matter how small, so that even when I choose to do things with the kids on my time that don't effect him at all, we all "know"those things only happen because he gave his express approval. Ugh, whatever, that's as much detail as I care to get into.

It feels like he's still trying to forcibly wear Family Pants, which I just don't understand. I have MY OWN PANTS that have nothing to do with his pants, which is pretty much what divorce is all about, agreeing to stop having any sort of dealings with the former partner's pants. And I don't see what my wearing my pants shouldn't make his pants any less powerful or masculine or whatever qualities this metaphor is intended to convey. Whatever once again.

I was super agitated after the meeting, and couldn't understand why we even HAD that meeting, or why he keeps saying he wants to discuss things, and then refuses to actually discuss. Our trusty therapist guy tried to explain to me afterwards that he (Franco) seems to actually enjoy riling me up and drawing me into unnecessarily lengthy and frustrating conversations, because the fighting satisfies some kind of need for some primal thing he has, or something like that. So he does this on purpose, and I keep falling for it, because like the dummy I am, I keep assuming that when he makes a big fuss about opening up a conversation, it means he is expressing a willingness to negotiate and listen to perspectives other than his own.

That is wrong thinking, apparently, and the consensus is that he just wants to get me mad and start a fight, either to make me look bad, make himself look good for the court, or feed whatever beastie lives in his head that needs to spar with me to survive.

I really wish he would find himself a new wife, husband, BFF, whatever, just SOMEONE else he can do this dance with that's not me. Although I really don't want the kids exposed to that again, I don't want them thinking it's normal. I guess I'm back to just wishing he would KNOCK IT THE HELL OFF AND GET OVER IT ALREADY, which is a lot like wishing the doorbell would ring, and I would answer it to find a unicorn holding a large basket full of hundred dollar bills in its mouth, with a card that says "For Buttercup, sorry for all the trouble. The unicorn is a trained nanny and also does housework. Love, The Universe." The point is, wishes like that are generally not very helpful.

In the meantime, my instructions are to stop trying to reason with him, and not let him bait me into these pointless situations. And that's just fine, I would be happy to never try and reason with him ever, ever again IF he would stop proposing and/or actually doing things that harm our kids. As it stands, no one else (well, no one else SANE, apparently) seems to have any input or say over what he does, and I feel like I owe it to the kids to at least make an attempt. I mean, at least then if bad stuff does happen, and they say "Mommy, why didn't you stop this?" I can at least say that I tried. But I should try less hard, because sometimes if I try to hard to stop things, it seems like they just get it even worse. It's a tricky line between doing due diligence and doing too much and stirring up the wrath.

Apparently due diligence entails the following, I'm going to try very hard to remember:

State my objection or request one time firmly and clearly, and if he ignores it, figure out if there is anything else I can do about it, and if not, just get to work on Damage Control, which is pretty much the name of the game these days.

Don't let him try and sucker me into extended conversations once he's already made it clear that he doesn't actually care what I have to say and is just trying to put on a show or pick a fight.

Don't agree to mediation appointments unless they are about specific, kid-centered, current issues.

Don't get rattled when he starts Darth Vader breathing the second I walk into the room, and doesn't stop for a good 20 minutes.

Stop being an idiot and listening to that voice that says "but people DO change sometimes, just like Darth Vader, maybe THIS time will be different, and if I treat him like people, he'll respond like people this time."

Stop assuming that "people" in general are any more rational and logical than he is. Most people aren't, or at least aren't very, and logic rarely persuades anyone to change their minds, unless they are open to the possibility of having them changed at the beginning.

11.5 more years, then I'll never have to deal with him ever, ever, EVER again. Except when the kids graduate from college. And get married. And have kids, and stuff like that. So 11.5 years and I will almost never have to deal with him, mostly ever again.

That's still a vast improvement over now.

Oh, I thought I heard the doorbell ring. Drat, it was just the cat.

Better . . . mostly

2012-01-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

I think I'm finally over the worst of the bitterness attack. It's not always like that, I don't usually feel that bad, or that angry, or that rabidly hostile, but seeing him and having to listen to him talk caused some kind of catastrophic emotional backdraft reaction. It was very ungood, but the fire is mostly out, now. Or maybe I just shut the door and it's gone back to smoldering. Either way, I'm trying to move on.

But I still need to figure out why it got so bad, and one thing I realized is that I normally don't think about Franco very much, at least, not specifically. In my mind, he's more like some kind of wounded animal lurking in the woods behind my house than an actual human being. He's there, he skulks around being vaguely threatening, eating people's cats and knocking over garbage cans, but he's a not a person that I feel emotionally connected with, and somehow it's easier to deal with it that way.

Wounded animals ARE dangerous and stressful to have around, don't get me wrong, but they are what they are, they can't help being what they are, and it's up to you to act accordingly: Don't approach the wounded animal. Use extreme caution if you do have to get close. Always keep in mind that even if the beast starts to purr or whimper when you get near, it will rip your freaking arm off if you touch it or look at it the wrong way. (I learned that the hard way when my favorite kitty got mauled by a dog.) Most importantly, don't ever presume you can REASON with a wounded animal because it is not a thinking creature, or if it was, it is no more.

Lastly, and maybe THIS is the most important thing to bear in mind: if a wounded animal hurts you, it hurts you, but it isn't PERSONAL, that's just what wounded animals do.

Thinking about it like that is the only way I can deal with the constant, never-ending crap that goes on with him. Bad things happen and they annoy me and frustrate me, but I try not to let it affect me too deeply. I attempt to think of it more like "dammit, I tripped over the arthritic badger that lives under the deck again, I am very irritated" instead of"Wow, I can't believe another human being, one who supposedly loved me once, and claims to love our children so much, would intentionally behave in such a harmful manner. My feelings are deeply and profoundly hurt, and I may never recover."

I will allow him to irritate me, but he doesn't get to make my feelings hurt anymore.

At least, that's the theory.

The problem is of course, that Franco actually ISN'T an arthritic badger, though he may resemble one. He is a human being, and he does, apparently, put a great deal of thought into the way he behaves. So when I have to listen to him explain these things and remind me of this, it shatters the fiction that keeps me able to deal with him as gracefully as I do, which I admit is still not very graceful, but it is a BILLION TIMES more graceful than the way I'd like to deal with him, so I feel like I should get some credit for that.

I can handle seeing him when he comes to pick up the kids and things like that, as long as I don't make the mistake of trying to relate critical information to him, like rapidly blurting out auctioneer-style: "The princess got sick today, we just got back from the doctor, she has medicine in her bag, her next dose is at 8pm . . . " at which point he abruptly yells at me for not "sending him an email" and storms off. That can be avoided, of course, by only sending emails, which is what I try to do, but he never replies to 80% of them so I don't know if he reads them, and I'm always afraid that when it comes to really time sensitive stuff he might not get the information. Argh, whatever.

I can also handle seeing him in court without too much distress, as long as he keeps his damn mouth shut and doesn't start lying or being smug. God, is he smug. I can even tolerate the stupid mediation appointments if the conversation stays focused on specific issues and agenda items, but for whatever reason, he's never content with that, and either interjects weird personal statements that seem to be designed to provoke an emotional response (he basically peppers the conversation with 1-2 line mini-guilt trips. It's hard to explain, but it's very, very real,) or he pontificates at length about why he thinks such and such REALLY NOT OK thing is perfectly fine, and how he and his therapist and his parents, the mailman, and his siblings have all discussed it at length and agree.

It's then that it hits me how deliberate and conscientious his actions are, that he has a whole community of people who in reality, or at least in his mind, totally support him, and that I'm not dealing with just Franco, but with TEAM FRANCO, all 6000 pounds of it. (That was low. I feel a little bad. But not bad enough to untype it.)

It's then that I am reminded that his infamous "Meal Policy," for example, wasn't an experiment he came up with on a whim that accidentally got out of hand. He actually typed out, like, a 10 page manifesto detailing EXACTLY how it would work and why he had to do it. He even, at some point, tamed it down from what he initially envisioned to what he actually implemented, which scares the crap out of me because what he did do was so severe. How much worse COULD it have been?

The point is, that when he does decide to torture the kids, or me, or whoever, it is NOT the instinctual response of an injured creature. It is a carefully planned out, pre-meditated course of action, and it is VERY, VERY PERSONAL.

And I am apparently not fine. I'm breathing really quickly, and writing way more than I intended to, and I keep getting off track. What was intended to be a quick, (seemingly premature,) "nothing to see here, everything's fine" note is turning into a crazy, wild-eyed rant.

Maybe that's for the best. I try NOT to rant and complain about it as much as possible because I am so freaking sick of hearing about it. I mean, I am sick of living it, and I am sick of hearing myself complain about it, but the bad stuff WON'T STOP HAPPENING, and right now, there is nothing I can do to make it stop happening.

Trying not to complain in spite of that makes me feel less defined by it, and less like a one hit wonder, and I guess it also makes me feel like: "Ha! I am tough enough to deal with all of this and not let it get to me. See, do see how I'm not complaining? Do you see how Franco's not REALLY winning? I mean, I guess you don't actually know how much I'm not complaining, because if I don't tell you about the shit that's going down, you won't know how restrained I'm being, but I really am, because there is, like, CONSTANT shit and it is in a constant state of going-down-ness, and I am seriously being, like, Mother Theresa with laryngitis with my silent suffering here, you've got to believe me."

So it seems, -ahem-, that there is also a pride issue concerned with the trying not to complain, but I think it's not working, because my attempts at being stoic only seem to cause the stress and anger and frustration the situation causes to build up to toxic levels, and then I just COMPLETELY snap, and it takes days to fully recover when that happens.

So I guess I'll keep complaining. It's not like anyone has to listen. I mean, if you are so bored with the internet and it's infinite distractions that you landed here and stayed to the end, even if you found the post to be annoying, boring, infuriating, or what have you, you've got MUCH got bigger problems than my incessant whining, right?

You said "right." I like it when we agree.

(If you do have bigger problem, though, you should totally check out Nyan Cat. It really puts things in perspective.)

Bitter

2012-01-23T21:23:00.000-08:00

I spent almost a full hour with Franco today at a mediation appointment. I spent most of that time listening to him justify the elaborate tortures he has concocted for the children with the kind of perfect, perfectly misguided, logical and theological clarity that makes me certain he will never understand, or bend, or change.

He explained that a very popular parenting book is the basis for many of his parenting "tools." After the meeting, I went out and bought it and read it cover to cover this afternoon, dumbfounded by the notion that a book once recommended to me by someone I greatly respect on such matters could POSSIBLY say the things he suggested.

It does. Sort of. That's not really what it's intended to say, it's meant for a very different kind of audience than that represented by Franco and his clan. But it can be read to say those things, to justify punishments so harsh and callous that most sane people would get queasy just thinking about them. I mean, if those sane people were thinking about administering them to THEIR OWN CHILDREN as opposed to, say, particularly violent inmates at the state penitentiary.

The details of the book and its contents don't really matter that much, the point is, he has found A Book that without too much selective reading can be used to easily justify all that he has done and worse, should it come to that. It doesn't matter that there are hundreds of other books out there that would offer dire disagreement, there is One, and it is a best seller, and it cites the Bible widely, and that is all it takes.

I feel deeply and profoundly suspicious of any Christian parenting book that ONLY employs passages from the Old Testament, by the way, especially when most of them come from Proverbs. Please.

You do get some real winners that way, like "OBEY your father and mother, or they'll end your sorry life" (Exodus 20:12) and "if you really love your child, you'll beat the shit out of him regularly." (Proverbs 13:24) IDVJV*

But you miss out on some other very important gems, like:

"Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4) NIV

You know, the Lord, the dude who said "let the little children come to me, and if they don't obey me, I will starve them until they learn their lesson; ungrateful, no good, parasites. . . " (Matthew 19:14) BGSSFPV**

Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like any kind of Jesus I've ever heard of. I mean, I guess it does kind of sound like Conservative Politics Jesus, but as far as the Jesus in the Bible goes, I seriously don't remember there being an Obedience Oath people had to swear before he handed out the loaves and fishes, or the eternal salvation. Quite the opposite, as I recollect. I think there was even free booze now and then, which makes me almost certain I'm imagining a different guy.

I must be mistaken, and it must be in there somewhere. People who whimper and disobey, and don't eat everything they are served, those people should just fucking starve, ESPECIALLY if they're children.

I mean, consider the ravens, with their constant squawking and complaining and complete lack of industry (and field goals, apparently, suck it, Baltimore,) I'm sure God wouldn't give THEM any food, and they are way less important than children. Children are our future! What kind of world would it be if small children grew up receiving handouts from their parents all the time, feeling safe and secure knowing someone larger and more powerful was there to provide them with resources they were too small to acquire on their own, and help them up when they fell down?!? Society as we know it would collapse! The commies would win!! Worse yet, the Democrats!!! Dear God, where would it end?!?

Which brings me to the point of this post: the soul-scorching bitterness and resentment that is steadily growing in my heart, and threatening to eradicate whatever happy, light-hearted, non-hostile bits might have been left in my weary excuse for a soul.

It's kind of a problem.

I am ANGRY and DISGUSTED by Franco, and even more so at the system and the missteps it has taken that has allowed his reign of terror to continue. I am HORRIFIED by the way he and his people have managed to corrupt and twist the notion of Love itself into nothing more than a mechanism of dominance, fear, and above all CONTROL. I HATE that there is nothing I can do about it, no way I can convince him to see things differently, no way I can stop him him from acting on the distorted ugly ways he does see things.

And most of all I hate hearing my baby boy, in the rare moments of calm when the massive apparatus of anger and hyperactivity that has become his Ultimate Defense comes down for a while, and he talks about what happened, always out of the blue and always very quietly, like saying it too loud might bring it back. It hearts more than I can bear to hear him talk about the nights he stayed up too hungry and too afraid to sleep, about how he became convinced that three days was the longest a person could live without food, and how he would just lay there on the third night certain it was coming, terrified and wondering if it was going to hurt. I hate that I couldn't protect him and make it stop even after I knew it was happening, even after he begged me for help, and that it happened to him again, and again, and AGAIN before the Authorities finally bothered to intervene.

And more than even that, I HATE the person who did that to him, the person who has never apologized to him, has never admitted it was wrong, the person who stared me down today and laid out an elaborate justification, right to my face, of all that he has done and keeps doing using some hack parenting book that happens to invoke the Bible, which means it can't possibly be wrong.

I hate feeling this hatred. I hate feeling bitter. I hate feeling angry all the time, and I hate being afraid.

I know it's up to me to find a way inside myself to stop feeling like this and feel something else, but it NEVER STOPS. The asinine control-freak assault on the kids never stops, it morphs here and there, but it never really stops, and the threat is always there that it could suddenly get much worse. Gus' PTSD reactions to what happened before and what continues to happen never stop, and by the time we do damage control and get him settled down after the last round of crap, it's time for him to go back and start the cycle up again. The calls from the kids when they're there and are upset about things I can't help them with, those never stop. The pleading that I don't send them back never stops. The legal bills, the headaches, the forced debates and negotiations with a crazy man over things sane people would easily agree to, NONE OF IT EVER STOPS.

And none of it ever will. I guess I need to stop caring so much, or figure out a way to remain invested and concerned about the kids and their safety and well-being without being too affected by that concern, or too rattled when they suffer harm. That should be easy . . .

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRAAAAANNNNNGGGGHH?!?

I don't know, fly casual.

Maybe I could stop thinking of them as small human beings who I owe some kind of protection to, and start thinking of them as talkative, part-time pets. Or maybe I should just be more selfish about the whole thing. "It's good Franco gives them hell, because it makes them like me more." Oooh, yeah, that's the ticket. "If they suffer a lot when they're at his house, they'll be extra appreciative when they're here, way more than other people's kids seem to be. Hell, maybe I should THANK that mother-fucker. I mean, it's just like Good Cop/Bad Cop, and now I don't even have to live with the prick. I'm going to order him some flowers right fucking now, and send him a bottle of champagne!"

That doesn't seem to be helping with the bitterness.

I guess I'll have to think of something else.

*International Domestic Violence Justification Version

**Buttercup Gets Smote Smartass False Paraphrase Version

Stress Economics

2012-01-13T15:07:00.000-08:00

It's been a really difficult week. Last Friday evening I picked up a couple of unusually wound up and distressed boys, and one very cool, apparently non-affected girl from Dad's house.

Normally everyone gets transitioned and settled in and the worst of the explosiveness and extreme sensitivity dies down by Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure we ever got to this point this week.

Gus just FLIPPED OUT on Saturday morning because the custody evaluator wanted to talk to him on the phone and ask him a few follow-up questions. It took quite a while to break through the hysterics and figure out why that was upsetting him so much. We finally got him sorted out and decided an in person meeting was best, and the kids all had what I hope was a productive talk with him on Wednesday, but there were more than a few "I want to Kill Dr. S! Wait, I want you to tell Dr. S. to KILL DAD!! And I want you to kill the Jester and PrettyP!!!" Armageddon-grade tantrums that took place between those two events. It was exhausting. But he's been doing a lot better since the meeting, and I'm really glad about that.

It occurred to me last night that as disturbing as it is for other people to listen to (especially the twins) the fact that Augustus is now directing his angry, desperate screaming-fits at other people is actually a huge improvement. I mean, at least he's not talking about wanting to kill himself, anymore. There are few things more disturbing than a genuinely suicidal 7-year-old.

The Jester is also having trouble, and went to GREAT LENGTHS on Monday to feign an illness that would get him sent home from school. I talked with his teacher and the office staff the next day and found out that he actually goes to the office all the time, like, numerous times a week. He's told me about some of those occasions and indicated that he is being sent there because he is trouble in class.

As it turns out, that it's usually a voluntary thing. He gets stressed out, or bored, or a kid hurts his feelings, and he asks to go to the office. His teacher lets him, because when he does blow up, he REALLY blows up and scares the other kids, what with the chair-hurling and all, so he asks for a break, and wanders down to the office where he spends lord-knows-how-much time chatting up the secretaries, asking what they're doing, telling them about all the things he's having trouble with at school and at home. He is especially fond of hanging out in the principal's office whenever she is in. I imagine they drink tea and eat cookies and gossip about the cafeteria staff.

He gets away with this because he is far too smart for the first grade, and finishes all of his work within seconds of it landing on his desk, and apparently it has been going on all year, which is just EXASPERATING, because not one single person has ever explained this to me. Not in conferences, not when I've specifically asked. Sometimes I get information about a particular incident, but not about the larger pattern. It's bizarre. I guess having Gus at charter school for his first two years really spoiled me as to how much communication one should expect from the teachers, but still.

Pretty-P is doing fine with all of this. I don't know why she's doing as fine as she is. She's probably just storing up angst for when she hits puberty. I expect her to have a mowhawk and a pierced eyebrow by her 13th birthday. I anticipate flying off to retrieve her from a runaway attempt to New York or LA at least once before she graduates. Until then, I'm really enjoying her easy-going and upbeat personality.

Aside from dealing with kids' things, there have been custody case things, most of which have been bad news about the case being delayed, etc. The small glimmers of good news I have gotten, I can't actually talk about because they came to me in unofficial "but you didn't hear it from me" sorts of ways.

I really, REALLY hate HIPAA, for the record. The welfare and safety of minors should trump HIPAA and every other kind of privacy-protection law in this country. Adults' rights should mean jack shit when protecting them puts children at risk.

And now I've got a cold, and I'm frustrated and tired (I had a really weird dream last night that I was on a Skyrim quest to arrange a secret rendevous between Tebow and Katie Perry, who apparently live on opposite ends of the realm, and it was REALLY annoying because it had to remain a secret, and people kept spying and finding out about it, so I kept having to bash their heads in with Mr. Flamey, my fire-damage mace, and then I woke up at 3AM and couldn't go back to sleep because my head was stuffed up and my throat hurt,) and I'm kind of on edge because the kids just went back to Franco's house, and that's never fun. It's supposed to snow, which scares the shit out of me because he really is one of the top 5 worst drivers that I have ever met and it worries me when he has the kids in the car. That's not the only thing that worries me, but it's on the list.

And finally, I feel like I haven't gotten ANYTHING done this week. I tallied it up and I actually have gotten an impressive amount of things done, all things considered, but I'm so stressed out about the trial being held over, the kids breaking down, all of that, that I have to concentrate about 3000% more than I normally would to fight through the ADHD and the distraction of seemingly endless difficult phone calls to accomplish them, so I guess I just feel like I didn't get a very good return on my Effort Investment, and thus I feel dissatisfied. (One of the things I did get done was a fellowship application for the economic history association.)

I just want this custody thing to be over. It was supposed to be over 12 days from now, now, who knows. It feels like it's NEVER going to be over, and that totally sucks.

Horn of Vengeance (Happy New Year!)

2011-12-31T20:43:00.001-08:00

I randomly decided to add a plastic vuvuzela to my Amazon.com order the other day (I was buying memory for my laptop, so it was a natural mental progression,) and it arrived a day early, which means it came today, which was some seriously serendipitous timing, if you ask me.

I was expecting it to make some kind of indescribably godawful racket, but it actually produces a very lovely sound, somewhere between a conch and an actual-horn hunting horn. (I think maybe all those years as a trumpet player are probably to blame.) I'm honestly a bit disappointed it doesn't make a more obnoxious sound.

But it is LOUD, oh, is it loud. It is also collapsible, lightweight, and portable, and stealthy matte black, which is exactly how all ninja noise weapons should be.

So, HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!!!! Especially to the delightful coven of CC kids that live in the house next door. Remember your late night beat-boxing jam sessions on the front yard this summer?

I do. Bwa ha ha!!!

Oh, and the Puppy just informed me that we still have fireworks left in the garage. It's shaping up to be a pretty good night.

Echo echo echo . . .

2011-12-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas was all kinds of fun. The kids are now the most Spoiled Creatures on the Planet, however, and they're kind of getting on my nerves.

Specifically, it's the Nintendo DSis that my mom got them that are getting on my nerves. More specifically, it is my auditory nerve that is being got upon. The devices come with a sound studio application that lets you record sounds like, say, SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS into the device, and then you can modify it, by, for example, turning it up to super Chipmunk speed, and THEN you can play it over and over on endless repeat mode.

It's super neat.

Right now Gus is making recordings of himself screaming "ALVIN!!!!!" as long and loudly as he can, and then making it play back lower and somehow louder. Meanwhile, the Jester and Pretty-P are recording Chipmunk movie dialog and speeding it up, and then they all play them back simultaneously at max volume . . . if my ears were actually capable of detaching themselves from my head and running away, they would.

I suppose I could put a stop to it, but they are having fun and being creative, and most importantly, they are currently cooperating and not fighting, so I'm just going to hide in my office for a bit until this gets old and an argument breaks out and we have to move on to something else.

I finally got the results back yesterday from my echo-cardiogram. My heart's not just fine, it's super, rockstar, textbook-perfect, we are now rethinking our skills at reading ECGs, so sorry to have worried you like that, especially over Christmas FINE, so barring accidents, the apocalypse, random acts of violence, plagues, natural disasters, and so forth, there should be many more Christmases to come.

Next year, I want a DS. I also want some freaking Legos. I actually meant it and no one believed me! I got a coffee maker, instead. (It IS a very nice coffee maker, and I have been drinking an AWFUL LOT of coffee since it's arrival, but I can't take it apart and transform it into something else. It doesn't shoot foam darts or have a laser sight. It doesn't make FlipNotes. It just makes coffee. And tea. And cocoa. And hot water. All in 20 seconds, at the touch of a button. It really is very nice, but the kids will not trade me a cup of cocoa for a turn with any of the good toys, so in that regard, it is completely useless.) Specifically, I want Star Wars Legos. Not any of that apocryphal Jar Jar Binks crap. I want a Millenium Falcon, that big giant one that costs hundreds of dollars and takes up a whole entire room in the house. I also want my own Nerf gun. As it is, I have to wait till the kid go to bed to play with their stuff. Greedy little punks.

And now the greedy little punks are demanding my presence for a photo shoot. You can also take photos with the DS and edit them by adding wigs and Mario noses, playing with the color and perspective, drawing mustaches on them, etc. Maybe I'll hold a competition and whoever makes the funniest mom-picture wins, and whoever loses has to choose between giving me their gameboy whatchamajigger for an hour, or letting me tear down and rebuild their best new Lego set. That's a genius plan, and there's no WAY it could go wrong. (Mommy thinks I'm a loser, waaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Mom said I'm better than you, nyah, nyah. *Bam* *Pow* *Crash* AAAAAAALLLLLLLLLVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNN!!!!!!) -sigh-

The paparazzi awaits.

Reindeer Paws

2011-12-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

Playing Santa is harder than being the Tooth Fairy, especially because the kids don't really believe in Santa, so we're actually just trying to see who can trick who more convincingly.

I'm trying to wrap presents early, but doing so NOT under the influence of last minute Christmas Eve delirium and/or eggnog is making me painfully aware of the environmental travesty this process represents, and I may have to abandon it until the last minute after all.

I want a Nerf gun for Christmas.

My lawyer just sent me an email reminding me that she needs an additional $10,000 added to her retainer in preparation for January's court date. I'm pretty sure she COULD have waited to send that until next week.

I also want my own set of Star Wars Legos.

And a pony.

And an electric guitar.

OK, I lied about the pony. What the hell would I do with a pony? Maybe my lawyer would take it in trade.

Ho ho ho.

Underwater Archaeology - The Dream That Would Not Die

2011-12-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again . . . the time that the underwater archaeology school in Menorca sends out a bulletin cruelly reminding me of its existence. I was seriously planning on going a few years ago, but two different professors lectured me severely about not screwing around and wasting time and getting distracted with things that won't actively help me finish my dissertation or further my career. And then I met this really famous underwater archaeologist (er, famous as in he was on the History Channel recently, not famous in general society) who explained to me in painstaking detail why the chances of finding any medieval cargo or ship structures intact in the waters of the Mediterranean were pretty much slim to none.

So, anyway, I had pretty much given up on this entirely, but THEN back in September I stumbled across a book on archaeogeology that included an article on ballast rocks. (What was I doing then, anyway? OH, it was when I was looking for the early medieval marble trade, which . . . has pretty much nothing to do with my dissertation. See, you can't STOP me from getting distracted, why try? Why?!?)

So, what are ballast rocks, and why do we care, and what do they have to do with archaeology camp in Menorca? Let me explain. No, there is too much (and I have errands to run.) Let me sum up.

Here are some important things you should know about boats:

Boats (ideally) float in water.

Like an iceberg, only part of the boat is above the water line while it floats, and part of the boat is below the water. (If the whole thing sits on the surface of the water, it is NOT a boat, it is a raft, and we are not currently concerned with rafts.)

If the boat is too light, (or rather, too buoyant):
1.) It can easily tip over.
2.) It is really hard to steer.

So, ESPECIALLY if you're planning to take your boat out on any potentially rough water, like an ocean or sea, you want to make sure that your boat is just the right amount of buoyant before you set out.

"Easy," you might think, "you just build it correctly in the first place, and you should never have any problems."

But you are a silly, technologically-spoiled modern person, and you have forgotten to take into account the weight of the cargo. You are not thinking like a medieval sea captain, who is going to leave town with a boat load of lightweight textiles and locally-grown saffron, and maybe a couple of salamis, haul it a couple of hundred miles to another port where you'll exchange it for a load of timber and heavy iron goods, which you'll then sell in another port, and return home with a hold full of grain and pepper and cast iron pots from India. You're not thinking that way because if YOU want to go somewhere and take stuff with you, you just throw it in the back of your car and go.

But in a boat, the weight of the cargo matters, and it is constantly in flux. The ship must be be buoyant enough when it's empty that it can accept a large volume of cargo without sinking, AND there must be a way to adjust the buoyancy for anything less than a full load. That way is called "ballast," which means "random heavy stuff added to the hold to keep the ship from tipping over."

Apparently the most common forms of ballast used in the Middle Ages was big rocks. A ship heading out on a trading expedition might well leave with minimal cargo and a whole bunch of rocks. Then, just before entering the next port, there would be a place to dump the ballast rocks outside the harbor (because, if people dumped their rocks IN the harbor, it would fill up really quickly, and that would be bad.) And if you again needed ballast before you left again, you would pick some up from the pile on your way out.

So, imagine that a ship begins it's voyage in Genoa, with a ship load of alum and helmets and other heavy stuff, and sails up to Bristol, where they sell it and buy a whole bunch of wool, which is really light, thus they also have to pick up a whole bunch of ballast rocks while they're there. Now, a lot of other people trade with Bristol, as well, so the rocks they pick up from the pile actually may have originated in Norway or Flanders or Vinland (that's right.) So then the ship sails back to Genoa, and upon arrival dump all the rocks in the ballast unloading zone, so now at the entrance of the harbor, you have a pile of souvenirs not just of where the Genoese have been themselves, but of where the people they trade with have been, and could, in theory, trace an entire trade network based on ballast rocks from a given time period.

Because, one of the really cool thing about rocks that I probably should have mentioned sooner, is that it is often possible for geologists to look at them and tell you EXACTLY where they came from, and sometimes even when they were cut. And even if it's not possible to date the rocks themselves, a lot of harbors went through very specific phases of expansion or decline that we know all about, so you can point to a particular bit of water and know when it was actually in use, and when it consequently stopped being used, so you could still learn something interesting if you know when they were deposited.

So the point is, even if the only medieval Medieval ship remnants being found are in the mud and buried drydocks and such, and are almost never, ever discovered by underwater archaeologists, there are lots of OTHER things under the water, like ballast rocks, that could be studied that would tell us a lot more about medieval maritime history. (Like coral fields and sunken quarries and port architecture and so forth.) So I think underwater archaeology school is back IN, right?

-sigh- I don't think I've even managed to convince myself that I can make an academically-justifiable case for this. However, it could still be a really fun vacation. $2400 for a two weeks snorking about in Menorca still doesn't sound too bad. At least if I just said that was what I was doing, no one could yell at me, and THEN when someone says "hey, we were diving around looking at coral in Portovenere, and we saw some Latin carved on a rock under the water, I wonder if there's anyone around who could make sense of it." I could jump up and say "ME, ME, ME!" and go check it out.

Most likely it would just be a sign that says "DROP BALLAST HERE, NOT IN THE HARBOR. VIOLATORS WILL BE BEATEN BY THE LONGSHOREMEN," but that would still be worth it.

Dragon Hunt - Christmas Edition

2011-12-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

There are NO Lego Ninjago Ice Dragons left in existence (OK, there are some, and people are scalping what was a $17 toy for $50-$75 on the internet (inc. shipping) but there's no way I'm going that far).

I spent several hours this morning searching for one, going to stores that allegedly had some in stock, only to find out that they're all a bunch of dirty lying so-and-sos trying to sucker people in with false promises of cool Legos, when all they've really got left in stock are stupid Megablocks. (I don't care that they have the Halo licensing, Megablocks are crap.)

I recognize that this isn't remotely important in the greater scheme of things, and I'm sure that if the Jester even notices that he didn't get one, he'll have plenty of other things that will distract him. . .

But I HATE being thwarted. So very, very, much.

And yet, going to such lengths for a silly toy is starting to get a bit ridiculous, so I am hereby officially abandoning the search. (Er, I should note that going to more than one store for ANYTHING is already, in my book, "great lengths," so going to fours store in two days officially ranks as "extreme and unprecedentedly absurd lengths.")

Sure, there's a chance that maybe I'll have to go back to the store later today because I forgot to buy cat food, and the cat is being a real jerk about that (I told him to go catch another bird and leave me alone, but he just bit me, so I'm guessing that was either a "no" or I need to lay off the feathered hair clips,) so I just might go to a different store than I usually go to, and maybe swing by the Lego aisle and take a quick peek to see if they might have one lying around, but I am no longer officially on the hunt.

Hear that, ice dragons? I'm sounding the all clear. If you were hiding somewhere, it is definitely safe to come out now, because I no longer have any interest in you. Really, it's OK.

Weekend Update

2011-12-18T20:20:00.000-08:00

The home visit went well, at least, I think it went well. The kids were pretty wound up and didn't behave exactly perfectly, but I tend to think that when kids behave absolutely perfectly, something is probably amiss.

The next morning, I got the kids to school, and went to see my doctor for a physical. Everything was great, my blood pressure is low, my cholesterol levels are superhumanly awesome, all of my organs are functioning well, none of my moles are turning into cancer. That should have been it, but then I asked her if she was going to check my heart, because the whole reason I went in for a physical in the first place is because I don't understand why my Dad died like he did, and I want to make sure there isn't something wrong with my heart that I don't know about, too. So they did an ECG, and it came back . . . slightly abnormal, not the actual function of my heart, but the direction it's pointing or something is a little weird. It's almost certainly nothing, especially since I don't have any symptoms, but I still have to go in for an echocardiogram next week just to make sure it's not some kind of congenital defect. I'm not supposed to worry about it, and mostly I'm not, but everytime I do happen to forget not to worry, I start to have a vague, psychosomatic ache in my chest, which is really, really neat.

Anyway, I got home from that appointment only to discover that Franco, who has been largely not speaking to me even when I REALLY, REALLY need him to, decided to send me five very long, very stressful emails in a row before he left for work. I set about trying to respond to them, and about 5 minutes in, I got the first migraine I've had since September (the day before the deposition). Seeing as I almost never get migraines anymore, I don't have a prescription for any migraine meds, and the hassle of going to urgent care for one stinking headache just isn't worth it, so I just wrote off Thursday as a totally non-productive day, hence the lack of an update on the home visit.

The rest of the week has been super busy, and the Puppy's still sick with a never-ending, ever-morphing cold, and there are many stressful family things going on (Grandma's dementia is getting really bad, really quickly, and I don't know what to do, AND her freaking 75ft tall maple tree decided to wait and drop ALL of its leaves just as it started to rain, etc., AND she's still driving all over the place,) and the kids are off with Franco, and that's never fun, and as soon as the Chargers finish demolishing the Ravens (ha ha, suck it, Baltimore, I'm going to be a silly Mom and drive across town to get Jester the last Lego Ninjago Ice Dragon in existence, because it's one of the only things he specifically asked for, and it's not very expensive, and my heart might explode and die before next Christmas, so I want to make sure this one's a good one. Er, ha ha.

(I'm not REALLY worried, see, but it's a hard thing to completely ignore, and I like to imagine that saying the silly worry out loud and exposing it makes it almost impossible that it will happen, the same way that saying "gosh, I hope it doesn't rain" will invariably make it rain on your picnic or wedding or camping trip. OK, fine, it probably has no effect on anything whatsoever, but mocking the peril makes it seem a bit less perilous, I KNOW that is true.)

Home Visit

2011-12-14T11:32:00.000-08:00

The custody evaluator was supposed to come over for his home visit on Monday evening, but let me know on Sunday that he had to reschedule, so now he's coming tonight, which was a whole big near-disaster in and of itself, trying to get that set up.

We're not supposed to tell the kids what's going on in these matters beyond very basic information they need about things that immediately concern them, which is tricky, because they are REALLY inquisitive and tend not to accept "it's a grown-up matter, and that's as much as you need to know" as a satisfying response. Oddly enough, SOMEHOW, the fact that a doctor with a funny name is coming over for dinner tonight so he can meet the kids and see our house and stuff has Augustus really on edge, and I'm afraid he's going to blow his top.

Also, he was supposed to go to counseling this afternoon, which he really looks forward to, but the guy's office just called to inform me the doctor is out sick, so now (because someone forgot to take him to his last appointment,) he's going to be a month without between visits, and won't have a chance to check in and get any support before the next big holiday dinner extravaganza is foisted upon him, and that just sucks. Gus does NOT do well with unexpected things happening (or not happening) so that just adds one more tiny stick of dynamite to the tinder pile that is the Home Visit Experience.

I'm also really on edge and nervous because of the judginess of the situation. The guy comes over to watch us eat dinner, and he apparently sits down at the table with us, but doesn't eat, which is frankly just creepy and weird. I imagine he doesn't eat because he doesn't want to get poisoned, or have to deal with the awkwardness of not liking other people's cooking, or maybe he thinks it would stress people out MORE to know they were cooking for him, as well, but the notion of having someone come over for dinner just to observe, not to eat is really peculiar.

So, anyway, because we are being evaluated, and because mealtime is still so potentially stressful for PTSD-boy, and it's virtually impossible to predict when he's going to suddenly go apeshit over some food he usually tolerates, iI wanted to serve something for dinner that all the kids like and no one will complain about, but now I'm worried that what I picked (chili dogs) isn't a very classy or healthy meal, so I might get docked for that. "Mother is a white trash cook, I imagine she grew up in a trailer park. Children's excitement over substandard food is disturbing and demonstrates the utter lack of sophistication with which they have been raised." (Chili dogs, for the record, are actually healthier than you might think, especially when you buy fancy hot dogs and lowfat chili, but it still sounds like junk food.)

And what if the house isn't clean enough? I mean, my assumption is that everyone faced with this kind of thing makes sure their house is as clean as it can POSSIBLY be, so when he sees people's houses, I assume that HE assumes that they are at least 300% tidier than they normally are, so if it's messy when he comes, he must assume it's normally 300% messier than THAT (anxiety logic like this is my specialty). . . and also, it's early release day, which gives the kids (who HATE it when the house is super clean, for whatever reason, and immediately set about sprinkling toys all around whenever it gets that way to rememdy the situation as quickly as possible,) FOUR hours to trash the house before he gets here. I could run around nagging them to keep it clean for the doctor, but that would be stressful for all of us, and either make them mad at him for coming here and forcing us to be unusually neat, or mad at me for the same reason, and the last thing I want is to drive them so crazy that they all scream "we hate mom, she's so MEAN, save us!" or something like that. (The house isn't normally dirty but it does usually boast a pretty liberal dusting of legos and stuffies and in-progress art projects, and a seemingly impossible number of small, discarded socks.)

And I'm sick and my throat hurts, and when he called to confirm the visit this morning, my voice wouldn't work when I first answered the phone, and he assumed that I had been sleeping and apologized for waking me up at 10am, and I tried to croak "no, no, I'm just sick," but first impressions are everything, so now I'm afraid that he thinks I just lay around sleeping all day when the kids are at school, when really I was WIDE awake, fretting away, waiting for 5pm to arrive so we can get this sucker underway.

I'm sure it will go fine, and I'm pretty sure that I am worrying to much. On the other hand, this custody evaluation is by far the most important process we've ever gone through, and will affect all of our lives on a daily basis for the next 12 years, at least, at therefore it IS the most important thing that we've ever gone through, and the evaluator only asks for information and doesn't GIVE any indication of what he is thinking or which direction he is planning to go, so not only is it ridiculously important, it is also completely opaque. The point is, I'm really not sure if it is possible to worry about this evaluation "too much."

But worrying just for the sake of worrying really doesn't help matters, any. I guess I'll go vacuum something, and pray we can all make it until 8pm tonight without any meltdowns or disasters ensuing. argh.

The Trouble with Truffles

2011-12-07T15:32:00.000-08:00

I have always wondered what all the fuss was about truffles. Not the chocolate kind--there's nothing particularly mysterious about gooey stuff dipped in chocolate--I mean the fungus kind that costs hundreds of dollars a pound, and has to be hunted by specially trained pigs and dogs.

(The first time I ever had a chocolate truffle, by the way, was when I was about 10, and didn't know what they were. Some kind relative of mine asked me if I'd like to try a truffle, and I was imagining the other kind, and was SUPER excited . . . and then I discovered that what I was being offered was just a stupid piece of chocolate. I should have learned right then and there that truffles only bring disappointment.)

And see, I'm serious about the "always" part, because truffles and truffle-pigs showed up on cartoons when I was a kid, like, ALL all the time. Fine, maybe not all the time, but often enough. I remember distinctly there being truffles on the Smurfs once, and then there was the time that Rebecca Cunningham bought a truffle pig instead of buying parts for the Seaduck. (Talespin, anyone?) I'm sure there were other examples in between, but the point is, it's been firmly etched into my brain since I was a small child that truffles are some kind of fabulous, exotic, nigh-magical foodstuff that are worth an inordinate amount of money and trouble to acquire, and are probably the most amazing thing a human being could ever hope to eat.

That's what I always assumed, anyway, but then my watching cartoons all day phase was interrupted by a moving out and going to college and not owning a TV for a few years phase, which went along with an extreme poverty that would have prohibited the acquisition of truffles, anyway phase, and by the time all of that was over, Talespin wasn't on anymore, and I pretty much just forgot about the existence of these mythical fungi, and never got around to actually trying them to see what all the fuss was about.

That is until I noticed that truffle oil had randomly appeared at the grocery store a few months ago, and I thought "oh yeah, I never did find out what that was like, cool!" and bought some. I was planning on making some super fancy truffle risotto, and was once again super excited about the whole thing, until I opened the bottle and discovered that . . .

TRUFFLE OIL SMELLS LIKE DMSO.

DMSO, for those who don't know, is dimethyl sulfoxide, a byproduct of the paper-making industry that is also an AMAZING anti-inflammatory drug. It's not actually approved by the FDA for use in human beings, but they use it on race horses all the time, and where I'm from, it is widely understood that if something is safe enough to use on a race horse, then it's certainly safe enough to use on people, so I grew up having it applied to my (numerous) sunburns, sprained ankles, etc. The thing is, it works GREAT, and I still keep some around for burns and back spasms and things like that. The only real drawback to DMSO (er, aside from it being technically illegal to use on humans,) is that it SMELLS TERRIBLE. Not only does it smell bad when you first put it on, but it gets into your saliva and your sweat, and you can smell like DMSO for hours and even days after using it, regardless if how many showers you take. It's definitely not the kind of smell you're going to forget.

So when I opened that can of truffle oil, and got a whiff of DMSO, I was really, really horrified and confused, and suspected that I must have been imagining things. So I tasted it, (the natural course of action when you encounter something that smells unexpectedly foul,) and much to my surprise, it also TASTED like DMSO dissolved in oil. I couldn't very well cook with that, so I abandoned it for a time, and when I looked it up later, discovered that truffle oil is actually a synthetic substance, completely made from chemicals, without one speck of actual truffle going into the mix. The Internet insisted, furthermore, that truffle oil is nothing like actual truffles, and is a shabby, villainous impostor that can't be trusted.

"That must explain it," thought I, "there's no way real truffles taste like DMSO. They're just so amazing that they can't be synthesized. CLEARLY that is the only possible explanation, because who in their right mind would go to all that trouble over a substance that tastes like a papermill smells? So many pigs and Frenchmen could not be wrong, now could they?"

So last week, the Puppy and I were downtown, and we went to a fancy spice store and spent a while smelling all the fancy spices. (Er, the jar that says "use caution with opening"? They aren't worried, as I assumed, that you might spill it, they are trying to warn you that the contents of said jar include VERY, VERY hot peppers ground into a VERY, VERY fine powder, and if you take a big non-cautious whiff, you will basically end up pepper-spraying yourself, and spend the next half an hour or so coughing and sneezing and tearing up. For the record.)

One of the many things they had there was little baggies of black truffle salt, which they assured me (before the Caution Jar incident) was made with actual REAL truffles, and was chock full of little dried truffle flakes, and tasted as genuinely truffle-like as anything could possibly taste, short of fresh truffles. So I bought some, or rather, the Puppy bought some while I was busy sneezing, and once again, I forgot about by the time we got home, until this morning, when I decided to just try it, instead of trying to think up something amazing to do with it, and put some on my scrambled eggs, as the package suggested.

So what does actual, genuine black truffle salt taste like? It tastes like salty freaking DMSO.

My whole life is a lie.

Truffles are not amazing and delicious and magical.

They are disgusting, stinky little fungus balls, and they should just let the pigs and Frenchmen have them.

Now, before you tell me I'm crazy and wrong, and just have a poor sense of taste, I have since been researching the matter further, and it turns out that the reason that truffles smell and taste like DMSO, is that they contain dimethylsulphide. Which is DMS. Which is the SAME thing as DMSO minus the -O. It IS, in fact, the substance that defines the truffle flavor, and is what the truffle-hunting pigs are actually looking for. See, I'm not crazy, it's science:

Dimethylsulphide (and Truffles)

I suppose it's still possible that fresh black truffles have some other flavor components that get lost in the drying process and go very well with that delightful DMS flavor, but I deeply and sincerely doubt it. If I ever win the lottery, or happen to be somewhere where truffles are being served and I don't have to pay for them, I'd probably give them another try, but until that happens, I am DONE with truffles.

The worst thing about all of this, of course, is not the disappointment in and of itself, but the fact that cartoons LIED TO ME. And so did the internet. And so did Wolfgang Puck. -sigh- I may never recover.

(Seriously, though, if anyone wants a can of truffle oil and a little packet of truffle salt, you are WELCOME to it, just let me know.)