Armless Man Delivers Fatal Headbutt

Seriously this happened. It was in the news. They were fighting over a woman. In Snellville, Georgia, of all places. I know; go fig.
Imagine the dialogue between these three. . .

MWNA: "Hey! Git yer hands offa her, she's mine!"
MWA: "No she aint, she's mine! Plus at least I got hands to git offa her with. Yall aint got nuffin but nubs."
MWNA: "No, but I got me one fine lady, and yall is just jealous."
MWA: (shove)
MWNA: (kick in the shins)
MWA: (shove)
MWNA: (kick in the shins)
MWA: (shove)
MNWA: (kick in the shins)
W: "Now stop it you two! Stop it! STOP! I love both yall!"
MWA: "Whut? Nuh-uh! You caint love him! You're with me, and plus - he don't even got no arms!"
MWNA: (headbutt)
MWA: (drops to the ground)
MWNA: (long pause) "Dangit. I think I dun hurt the poor bastard."
W: (gets down, checks for pulse, breathing; looks up, tears in her eyes) "No you dint, you went'n kilt him!" (and takes a Winston out of his breast pocket and lights it. Then thinks better of it, and takes the whole pack and tucks it into her bra next to her lipstick) "Now you've really dun it. I'm gonna call the cops."

Maybe it was more refined than that but I doubt it.

Bottom line: DO NOT mess with the armless. DO NOT think you have the upper hand (NPI). These folks, the armelss, they are a plucky people, ready to headbutt at the first insult, no-arms-no-legs joke, or "hey can you give me a hand with that" request. All that anger built up. The schoolyard teasing. The gloves they can't wear. The rings and watches that taunt them from jewelry store display cases. When they get mad they don't just give the finger and move on. No: They kill.

Seriously.

Watch out.

And a question for the ladies: if you had your choice between boyfriend with arms, and boyfriend without arms? Is this really a tough decision? Don't make them duke it out. Someone will just end up dead.

Bottoms Up!

Okay, it's my favorite current event; I can't help it:

Last week, negligent comicide charges against Tammy Jean Warner were dropped -- Tammy Jean being the woman who gave her husband the fatal sherry enema in 2004. She wasn't trying to kill him, he asked her to help him out. The problem was, his BAC shot up to .47, and he died.

See, he was an alcoholic with some sort of throat condition, so he did what any good alcoholic would do: he got creative. And she did what any good enabler would do: she squeezed two bottles of sherry through a hose and up into her hubby's rectum. Actually, I think that's considered above-and-beyond, even by hardcore codependent standards.

Good thing it wasn't a Mai Tai; those little umbrellas are pointy! Ouch!

But here's my question: If red wine goes with red meat, and white wine goes with fish and poultry, what in the heck goes with rectal sherry?

So again I ask: WHY ARE PEOPLE SO WEIRD???

Feel free to the rest of the article here...

Mothers Against Drunk Dialing

OK, here's a "what would you do if you were me" question.

You're a recovering addict. You have 20 years clean. You, your husband, and your 2 children are sound asleep. Your cell phone rings at 3:23 a.m. You jump out of bed, run to the kitchen, grab your purse, dig around for the phone, and find it -- just in time to see "1 missed call" and then "number unavailable."

How weird, you think. Who could THAT have been? Wrong number?

4:19 a.m.: It rings again. You grab it asap (it's on your nightstand now, so no running across the house) and it's an old friend. That you spent years in AA with. Who is drunk, slurring, emotional, and tells you that the person they have been seeing for years has just left them. You respond, but your voice has that dead-of-night sleepy sound to it, and they say, "WELL. You sound tired, I'll let you go." AND HANG UP.

You turn your cell off and lay there wondering, worrying, imagining the worst. Are they going to drive? Overdose? Fall down? They sounded REALLY awful. Your husband, who is now awake too, is also concerned.

But what can you do? The friend, the breakup, and the booze are all out of state, thousands of miles away, out of reach in more ways than one.

When you wake up and turn the cell back on there is a message. Of course there is. 6:08 a.m. Same person. Still drunk. (more drunk?) Letting you know that they are really [messed]-up and that so-and-so has left them. Really? You don't say? It's like Deja Vu all over again.

10:40 a.m., a hang-up from "unavailable."

Then a series of emails stating a) it was a one-time thing; b) that it's been happening "occasionally"; c) that they want to quit.

Of course alcoholics lie. DUH. But you try to help someone based on one story, then the story changes.

"You can always count on me being honest with you," they say.

But they've been drinking for years and just happened to forget to mention that to you. OOPSIE.

You suggest AA, they get all irate. Say you're rigid and judgmental and everyone else was nice and you are mean. Everyone else "listened" and "supported" them. You say a million times you love them no matter what, but they continue to say you didn't support them.

Was I supposed to have hopped a plane and stayed up to watch the sunrise while salting margarita glasses? What does a recovering alcoholic/chemical dependency counselor/friend/suburban mother of two supposed to do for her drunk friend in the middle of the night, 2 states away?

These are rhetorical questions I suppose, because there really is no point to this -- the friendship had been over for longer than I wanted to admit, the drinking had been going on for longer than this person cared to mention, and to quote Carly Simon, I haven't got time for the pain. I haven't got room for the pain. I have a life, a very full, very healthy life, filled with non-toxic people who know better than to call me in the middle of the night drunk. If it's an emergency, call 911. If it's not, it can wait till daylight. The people in my life are very precious to me, but I also need to be selective about who I let in. And who I let out.

Everyone I talked to -- family, friends, co-workers -- they all reminded me how insane it is to try to talk rationally with an irrational person. An addict in relapse is not a rational thinker.

So I put some distance there. Possibly permanent distance. If I wanted to hear from drunks in the middle of the night, I'd have been a bartender.

9 months later...

Yeah, all those new year's resolutions? Not so much.
Too much else going on. Can't write! Can't even blog! Lucky I get my hair washed!

Excuses, excuses.

What has been going on since I last blogged?

• Beachglass came out in paperback in June - I like the cover and look/design so much better than the hardback! It's super-pretty!
• I'm not writing. Like not at all.
• Paid off the car.
• Went down to LA in July for my 20th year high school reunion. I was reminded a) of how I kicked a classmate right in his poor little 7th grade family jewels in our English class (arguing over grammar, no doubt); b) that spending lots of time in the sun doesn't make you look very good later in life; and c) the 80s were a better era for music than I give it credit for. There were the requisiste amount of sloppy-drunk guys dancing alone and badly (1), inappropriately-dressed 38-trying-to-look 18 oversized breast implant girls (2), people who used to be cute that aren't anymore (13), people who didn't used to be cute who are (2), people who used to be fat who are thin (2), and people who used to be thin who are fat (8). There were a lot of people I would have loved to have seen who weren't there, but luckily our fave classmate (appropriately voted "Most Popular") organized a space on ning.com, so we have all gathered there for a myspace-like virtual reunion, which I love more than anything.
• We did the flagstone-and-bamboo project in the front yard that I have been wanting to do forever. It's sooooo lovely.
• We are no longer on dial-up and gave up the land line, which was quite a leap for people a little leery of change...but we are a cell phone/high speed family now. (I know, I know: Welcome to the 21st century, right?). I can go on YouTube at home! email photos in less than 20 minutes! Leap from site to site like a little grasshopper, pages downloading as soon as I hit "enter" -- I tell ya, this internet thing is gonna catch on.
• We have been up to Orcas Island a few times and fallen madly in love. Going back in November. Someday we might have to lose our ferry ticket home and accidentally stay there.
• And did I mention I haven't been "working on anything?" That's the question that comes if you write a book, you know. If you're writing another one. It's like kids. You have a baby and people ask when you're having another one. SHEESH.
• I miss summertime terribly. We had many dinners on the sand at the lake, many nights of ice cream outside, walks to the park, mornings spent pushing the baby on the swings and watching the pre-teen climb trees, but now we're back to Seattle gloom. I'm trying to think of it as "cozy" instead of "suicidally dismal."

That's the update. I actually have a topic I want to post, so I'll start writing that next. Maybe. Hopefully.