Medusa's Signature Poem - Read It - Know MEdusa

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

---

Translated by George W. MacRae

I was sent forth from the power,

and I have come to those who reflect upon me,

and I have been found among those who seek after me.

Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,

and you hearers, hear me.

You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.

And do not banish me from your sight.

And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.

Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!

Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am and the daughter.

I am the members of my mother.

I am the barren one

and many are her sons.

I am she whose wedding is great,

and I have not taken a husband.

I am the midwife and she who does not bear.

I am the solace of my labor pains.

I am the bride and the bridegroom,

and it is my husband who begot me.

I am the mother of my father

and the sister of my husband

and he is my offspring.

I am the slave of him who prepared me.

I am the ruler of my offspring.

But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.

And he is my offspring in (due) time,

and my power is from him.

I am the staff of his power in his youth,

and he is the rod of my old age.

And whatever he wills happens to me.

I am the silence that is incomprehensible

and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.

I am the voice whose sound is manifold

and the word whose appearance is multiple.

I am the utterance of my name.

Why, you who hate me, do you love me,

and hate those who love me?

You who deny me, confess me,

and you who confess me, deny me.

You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,

and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.

You who know me, be ignorant of me,

and those who have not known me, let them know me.

For I am knowledge and ignorance.

I am shame and boldness.

I am shameless; I am ashamed.

I am strength and I am fear.

I am war and peace.

Give heed to me.

I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.

Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.

Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth,

and you will find me in those that are to come.

And do not look upon me on the dung-heap

nor go and leave me cast out,

and you will find me in the kingdoms.

And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who

are disgraced and in the least places,

nor laugh at me.

And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.

But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.

Be on your guard!

Do not hate my obedience

and do not love my self-control.

In my weakness, do not forsake me,

and do not be afraid of my power.

For why do you despise my fear

and curse my pride?

But I am she who exists in all fears

and strength in trembling.

I am she who is weak,

and I am well in a pleasant place.

I am senseless and I am wise.

Why have you hated me in your counsels?

For I shall be silent among those who are silent,

and I shall appear and speak,

Why then have you hated me, you Greeks?

Because I am a barbarian among the barbarians?

For I am the wisdom of the Greeks

and the knowledge of the barbarians.

I am the judgement of the Greeks and of the barbarians.

I am the one whose image is great in Egypt

and the one who has no image among the barbarians.

I am the one who has been hated everywhere

and who has been loved everywhere.

I am the one whom they call Life,

and you have called Death.

I am the one whom they call Law,

and you have called Lawlessness.

I am the one whom you have pursued,

and I am the one whom you have seized.

I am the one whom you have scattered,

and you have gathered me together.

I am the one before whom you have been ashamed,

and you have been shameless to me.

I am she who does not keep festival,

and I am she whose festivals are many.

I, I am godless,

and I am the one whose God is great.

I am the one whom you have reflected upon,

and you have scorned me.

I am unlearned,

and they learn from me.

I am the one that you have despised,

and you reflect upon me.

I am the one whom you have hidden from,

and you appear to me.

But whenever you hide yourselves,

I myself will appear.

For whenever you appear,

I myself will hide from you.

Those who have [...] to it [...] senselessly [...].

Take me [... understanding] from grief.

and take me to yourselves from understanding and grief.

And take me to yourselves from places that are ugly and in ruin,

and rob from those which are good even though in ugliness.

Out of shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly;

and out of shamelessness and shame,

upbraid my members in yourselves.

And come forward to me, you who know me

and you who know my members,

and establish the great ones among the small first creatures.

Come forward to childhood,

and do not despise it because it is small and it is little.

And do not turn away greatnesses in some parts from the smallnesses,

for the smallnesses are known from the greatnesses.

Why do you curse me and honor me?

You have wounded and you have had mercy.

Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have known.

And do not cast anyone out nor turn anyone away

[...] turn you away and [... know] him not.

[...].

What is mine [...].

I know the first ones and those after them know me.

But I am the mind of [...] and the rest of [...].

I am the knowledge of my inquiry,

and the finding of those who seek after me,

and the command of those who ask of me,

and the power of the powers in my knowledge

of the angels, who have been sent at my word,

and of gods in their seasons by my counsel,

and of spirits of every man who exists with me,

and of women who dwell within me.

I am the one who is honored, and who is praised,

and who is despised scornfully.

I am peace,

and war has come because of me.

And I am an alien and a citizen.

I am the substance and the one who has no substance.

Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me,

and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me.

Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,

and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me.

On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me,

and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.

[I am ...] within.

[I am ...] of the natures.

I am [...] of the creation of the spirits.

[...] request of the souls.

I am control and the uncontrollable.

I am the union and the dissolution.

I am the abiding and I am the dissolution.

I am the one below,

and they come up to me.

I am the judgment and the acquittal.

I, I am sinless,

and the root of sin derives from me.

I am lust in (outward) appearance,

and interior self-control exists within me.

I am the hearing which is attainable to everyone

and the speech which cannot be grasped.

I am a mute who does not speak,

and great is my multitude of words.

Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.

I am she who cries out,

and I am cast forth upon the face of the earth.

I prepare the bread and my mind within.

I am the knowledge of my name.

I am the one who cries out,

and I listen.

I appear and [...] walk in [...] seal of my [...].

I am [...] the defense [...].

I am the one who is called Truth

and iniquity [...].

You honor me [...] and you whisper against me.

You who are vanquished, judge them (who vanquish you)

before they give judgment against you,

because the judge and partiality exist in you.

If you are condemned by this one, who will acquit you?

Or, if you are acquitted by him, who will be able to detain you?

For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,

and the one who fashions you on the outside

is the one who shaped the inside of you.

And what you see outside of you, you see inside of you;

it is visible and it is your garment.

Hear me, you hearers

and learn of my words, you who know me.

I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;

I am the speech that cannot be grasped.

I am the name of the sound

and the sound of the name.

I am the sign of the letter

and the designation of the division.

And I [...].

(3 lines missing)

[...] light [...].

[...] hearers [...] to you

[...] the great power.

And [...] will not move the name.

[...] to the one who created me.

And I will speak his name.

Look then at his words

and all the writings which have been completed.

Give heed then, you hearers

and you also, the angels and those who have been sent,

and you spirits who have arisen from the dead.

For I am the one who alone exists,

and I have no one who will judge me.

For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,

and incontinencies,

and disgraceful passions,

and fleeting pleasures,

which (men) embrace until they become sober

and go up to their resting place.

And they will find me there,

and they will live,

and they will not die again.

"there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average 
human being to supply any given army on any given day 

and the best at murder are those who preach against it 
and the best at hate are those who preach love 
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace 

those who preach god, need god 
those who preach peace do not have peace 
those who preach peace do not have love 

beware the preachers 
beware the knowers 
beware those who are always reading books 
beware those who either detest poverty 
or are proud of it 
beware those quick to praise 
for they need praise in return 
beware those who are quick to censor 
they are afraid of what they do not know 
beware those who seek constant crowds for 
they are nothing alone 
beware the average man the average woman 
beware their love, their love is average 
seeks average 

but there is genius in their hatred 
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you 
to kill anybody 
not wanting solitude 
not understanding solitude 
they will attempt to destroy anything 
that differs from their own 
not being able to create art 
they will not understand art 
they will consider their failure as creators 
only as a failure of the world 
not being able to love fully 
they will believe your love incomplete 
and then they will hate you 
and their hatred will be perfect 

like a shining diamond 
like a knife 
like a mountain 
like a tiger 
like hemlock 

their finest art" 
— Charles Bukowski

Blog to Live Another Day

Oh, for the love of dog and all that is unholy. I am blogging to live another day. Google 'revoked' my blog for lack of USE. I am compelled to blog. I live therefor I MUST blog. If they wanted a ranting and raving lunatic they have one now! I am the incarnation of Carl Panzram. Don't know who HE is? GOOGLE IT.

Carl was a man not known for his patience. He unrepentantly murdered over 10 men that we know of. And told his hangman to get jiggy with it. He was in a hurry to die.

So am I. It's the motherfucking holidays. (My mouth. I must be channeling a serial killer). I hate them. As a friend of mine, @PaulZink and I were discussing today, the holidays make us want to cram cell phones into the gaping maws of small children not necessarily our own. It is a small satisfaction that my son prefers his chickens kilt and skinned alive. Just kidding. But those are the thoughts that sprout like sugar plums into MY head during this festive time of year. Meh. Bleck.

So come on down with @Lonnie509, @PaulZink, the ghost of Carl Panzram & The Dude to your local bar/bowling alley for the holidays. We'll be drowning our woes in a nice Caucasian & having a quick game with Jesus and the boys.

I has blogged. As The Dude would say, "Fuck it."

Quiet People. The Quiet Race.

"Pascal said that most of the evils of life arose from 'man's being unable to sit still in a room'; and though I do not go that length, it is certain that we should have been a far wiser race than we are if we had been readier to sit quiet -- we should have known much better the way in which it was best to act when we come to act...
     If it had not been for quiet people, who sat still and studied the sections of the cone..., or other quiet people had not sat still and worked out the doctrine of chances..., if idle 'star-gazers' had not watched long and carefully the motions of the heavenly bodies -- our modern astronomy, 'our ships, our colonies, our seamen,' all which makes modern life could not have existed. 
     Ages of sedentary, quiet, thinking people were required before that noisy existence began, and without those pale preliminary students it never could have been brought into being. And 9/10's of modern science is in this respect the same: It is the produce of men whom their contemporaries thought dreamers -- who were believed to be useless, if anyone could be such. 
     And the conclusion, plain and simple that if there had been more such people, if the world had not laughed at those there were, if rather it had encouraged them, there would have been a greet accumulation of proved science ages before there was.
     It was the irritable activity, the 'wish to be doing something' that prevented it. Most men inherited a nature too eager and too restless to be quiet and find out things; and even worse -- with their idle clamor they disturbed the brooding hen; they would not let those be quiet who wished to be so, and out of whose calm thought much good might have come forth."
     --Walter Bagehot
     

An Unexamined Life

"Few of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished convictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance for doing so. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do." ---James Harvey Robinson #atheism #religion #fail 

Trolling & Baiting on Twitter

(I'm going to offend alot of people with this story but I have been begged to tell it, so here goes ...)

Once upon a time I met perky, young & vivacious young atheist/humanist named #Monick's. As I am dark, morose & depressing, she and I did not hit it off. In fact we stepped in it. Up to our asses in shit we hated each other so badly. I'll come right out and say it. So we blocked each other and I thought, but for the occasional mention, that we had gone our separate ways until one night a few days ago...

@DanGalanos tweeted me. He called me a bunch of nasty & profane names all in defense of the damsel #Monick's. IN fact, his bio at the time read (you can't read it now because his account has disappeared! Shocker!): "I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I get to hang out with #Monick's all day!" (I can't make this stuff up). He later tweeted me 'again,' this time calling me a ... lemme get this straight...a shitstorm narcissistic bitch of a loser. I pretty much just strung all his tweets together there. As his account has been deleted, you get the general idea. The guy was in love. After he was done with me...

A couple of days later I get ANOTHER tweet from one of #Monick's followers, @Ukle909, condemning me further. Don't look for THAT account either, as IT has also been 'deleted.' I took quite a beating during that conversation. Some people came to my aid as I was completely blindsided by the attack on my character and person. Unknown to me at the time was a benefactor, of sorts, who was 'ghosting' the trolling & baiting of the #Medusa. He was my #DeepThroat. 

One day I received a tweet from #DeepThroat, @z*****57. He is a self-confessed atheist & tweet 'reader.' He does not tweet. He reads interesting threads. Frankly he finds most tweeps base, back-stabbing & competitive. Pretty accurate description of most! That night, while I was under 'assualt,' he was watching the entire drama unfold. He told me the most amazing story. In the end it will be a sad tale. But you should be grateful to him as I would not be tweeting if not for his aid.

#DeepThroat told me a tale of such deceit that it made me sick and terrified of ever tweeting again. He told me that #Monicks had set up several dummy accounts that she tweeted from. I've mentioned one. Another one he told me about was @AtheistBabe with an avi picture that was a dead ringer for #Monick's. THAT account has also been deleted. She used these accounts, apparently, to bully people & retweet herself to better her odds of getting the top #atheist tweet of the day. (WTH?) A direct quote from #DeepThroat where he is discussing #Monick's behavior with another tweep said: "It just pissed me off. She ALWAYS gets the top. Look at @TheTweetOfGod @BibleAlsoSays @RosaRubicondior they have many followers. They make great tweets but never on top because she stacks the deck. This is my last tweet here. I will just read from now on but I had to say something to someone because it just got to me. Even the chick I talked to last night was not sure if I was screwing her. WTF man. Thanks for listing anyway. I had to vent."

I am the 'chick' he was referring to. Now I don't know if #Monick's is really that low down and dirty. But then I don't take #Twitter as seriously as she does, either. It would never occur to me to use multiple accounts like that & people who do are, frankly, nutters. She can deny this from Mt. Everest if she likes. She is better than I am at this whole deception game. At one point in her 'own' timeline she snidely remarked that "everything can be found in a cache somewhere!" She was referring to some tweets wherein, over the course of over a year, I casually mentioned her. 

Should I have remarked on her at all? Well, I think Ronald Reagan was a pretty shitty and underhanded boob of a President, but I haven't been trolled & baited by HIS family. From that I will have to deduce that I'm allowed, in this great country of ours, to comment on whom I please. If she didn't like that, she should have been a woman and told me to my face. But she didn't. She went behind my back & some STRANGER had to tell me. One of my favorite followers DM'd me during her underhanded ti-raid on me, to tell me that he didn't want to 'get involved.' What a scared little man you were, Martin. Shame on people like you. 

While undergoing this subterfuge, I never asked for help or for anyone to take any action against her. The entire time I was ignorant of the fact that it was her playing me through dummy accounts the entire time. And all the 'evidence...' has been mysteriously deleted. Except for one tweet in her timeline regarding me sent to the now defunct @DanGalanos: "I've recently learned from my friend Dan: Apparently it is very difficult to deal with crazy people without becoming one of them. (◕‿~)'" Quote. End quote. 

That 'crazy' person she was referring to was me. It's the only insult I can pin on her. Not that I want to pin ANYthing on her. Or even hear her name spoken. My workers are busy scrubbing the last vestiges of her name off my temple. What she did was unspeakably cruel and under handed. But one of my friends put it this way, and it's my favorite summation of the havoc she caused: "Well, SHE is infatuated with you! That's a compliment, eh?" 

Well, @Monicks. Stop being fascinated with me. You are the type of girl that mother's warn their son's about. It's a free country! @Monick's, the amount of time and trouble that you put into this little scheme reveal a petty and conniving young girl. I don't know what 8k+ people see in you. I am damn glad I am not one of your 110 awesome people YOU do follow back. I pity the next fool that pisses you off. 

But now I feel so much better getting that off my chest. And I won't get zoomed a second time. Because of what she did, she cost my followers something: The Medusa they grew to know and love is no longer as trusting. She is somewhat more embittered than before. So whoever reads this or gives it to her to read, thank you for saving me the trouble of doing so. If you read this and follow her, please unfollow me. I'm sure you will. She is perfection personified and I'm just me. If I hate you, as a Greek, I just spit on you and walk away. Well, #Monick's, consider yourself spat upon and take a long look at my fat Greek ass as it struts proudly away from you and your kind. 

Beware good tweeps, it's a dangerous #Twitterverse out there. Be safe. 

Happy Nations Have No History - Albert Camus

“What I'm sure of is that you can't be happy without money. That's all. I don't like superficiality and I don't like romanticism. I like to be conscious. And what I've noticed is that there's a kind of spiritual snobbism in certain 'superior beings' who think that money isn't necessary for happiness. Which is stupid, which is false, and to a certain degree cowardly.... For a man who is well born, being happy is never complicated. It's enough to take up the general fate, only not with the will for renunciation like so many fake great men, but with the will for happiness. Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time. That's the only problem that's ever interested me.... To have money is to have time. That's my main point. Time can be bought. Everything can be bought. To be or to become rich is to have time to be happy, if you deserve it.... Everything for happiness, against the world which surrounds us with its violence and its stupidity.... All the cruelty of our civilization can be measured by this one axiom: happy nations have no history.”
― Albert Camus, #otw #Ows #OccupyTogether. #OneRevolution #WorldRevolution #OccupyEarth


**And this is why we protest today because the #1 percent can afford all the time in the world. They can afford to lay their heads down in a dozen houses. But the #99 percent just want enough money to buy some time to breathe...and be able to enjoy what time they have**

Truth and Falsehood -- Albert Camus

“Don't lies eventually lead to the truth? And don't all my stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion? Don't they all have the same meaning? So what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in both cases, they are significant of what I have been and what I am? Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”
― Albert Camus


**In Camus' absurd view of the world, this scenario, while absurd to the 'normal' man, is normal to the 'absurd' man.**

Friendship Is Less Simple - Albert Camus

“Friendship is less simple. It is long and hard to obtain but when one has it there's no getting rid of it; one simply has to cope with it. Don't think for a minute that your friends will telephone you every evening, as they ought to, in order to find out if this doesn't happen to be the evening when you are deciding to commit suicide, or simply whether you don't need company, whether you are not in the mood to go out. No, don't worry, they'll ring up the evening you are not alone, when life is beautiful. As for suicide, they would be more likely to push you to it, by virtue of what you owe to yourself, according to them. May heaven protect us, cher Monsieur, from being set upon a pedestal by our friends!”
― Albert Camus, The Fall


(As I have been tweeting tonight exclusively upon the works of #AlbertCamus, the most preeminent philosopher of his time and a loving student of the human condition in all it's grandeur and despair, I wish to continue to inspire you with some of his longer quotations. Camus was a quiet and private man. His father was absent and his mother was deaf and mute. Camus grew up in a spartan home in almost complete silence. Nothing but he, his mother and, as he liked to say, "Nothing but the sky, the wind, the earth and the water." Almost a footnote in philosophical history, he, the father of the philosophy that all of life is absurd, would rejoice at the turn the world has recently taken. Many are dismissive of him or are completely unaware of the magnitude and influence of his work and how current it is to the spirit of revolt and revolution of ideas in America and other countries around the globe today. Camus would be proud. Enjoy the rest of the evening with me tonight from time to time).

The Final Punishment

"I came upon a child of god. He was walking upon the road. We are star dust, billion year old carbon. We are golden and we have to get ourselves back to the garden. Can I walk to beside you? I feel to be a cog in something turning. Life is for learning." Joni Mitchell, 'Woodstock' (excerpts)

On Twitter, I am a big, fat, Greek Atheist best known for my famous rants. I wasn't always this way. I used to be a meek, obedient, good Greek girl who went to Greek School & the Greek Orthodox Church every Sunday. Yup. The little Medusa...


People have been asking me why I am an atheist. This one is for you @Cin_Le2! You asked...
*************************************************************************************

The Short Version

My dad caught me when I was 11 or 12 with one of his gold coins in my room. I had it to show my friends. This was back in 1972ish. He didn't believe me. Everything was taken out of my room except for a bed, desk, one chair & a dresser. This gulag type of existence lasted for six weeks. (Remember. I was a felon at 11). All I had left was the Greek cross my YiaYia (grandmother) had given to me. It comfortably hung by my bed, reassuring me that I would see her again in the summer, the happiest times of MY life. The cross was given to her by her grandmother. It would be well over 100 years old now. If I still had it. 

But I don't. 

Because, after I got done packing up all my things -- including my 600 volume library of which I was so proud -- and had had dinner, and I was in bed waiting for my father... He came in with a an angry, red face. Huffing and puffing with strained breathing like he was restraining himself from attacking me, he took the hammer in his hand and pulled out the nail that held that cross to the wall, and then looked at me and said:


"YOU, you little shit are a thief. And thieves don't deserve GOD." 


With that, he turned around and left. We never spoke of the cross again. 
We never went to church again. My Grandmother could not convince him to return the cross to me as that was her wish.


I received my library back after 6 weeks and began reading all sorts of philosophers, wise men and women...anything and everything to decern a "GOD" and did not. I spent DECADES. I have made my decision based on what I have learned & can prove. What I cannot prove, frankly, I don't worry about proving whether or not there is a God. I got a life here to live. He can fuck with me later. I just don't have the time for him now. 


Kind of like he, in his omnipresence, didn't have time to intercede into the mind of a mad man and save one of the most innocent of his beloved flock...a child. Me. 


I have not spoken to my father for over 20 years. He has Bipolar disorder 3. Untreated. He is 83. He is a lunatic. 


So, to Christians, I don't expect you to understand why or how I became an atheist. But you have a better insight into my personal choice. Barring this, you'll have to buy the book. I took many paths to 'spiritual' enlightenment, or whatever we're calling it today: Dogma d'jour! I respect your right to believe. Please try and use my story to understand how SOME people may have 'become' non-theists.


We all have to live on the planet together in peace. Whatever that is.

Our Common Ills

#Our Common Ills, World Population & Politics:

*The most prescient problem in our world, on our planet, is an over abundance of human beings and a rapid depletion of resources. There is, a mass migration of immigrants from third world countries into industrialized nations. Because it seems that those nations have an abundance of resources. And certainly, recently, this has been proven to be true.

In America, for instance, it has been said that 95% of the entire country is in the hands of the wealthiest 1%. How can this be? That is easy: Politics. But, when the 'immigrant' arrives looking for abundance, there is none. They become angry and want to change the system. They learn the laws of their new land and change them. This is democracy at it's core. And we call these people criminals. Illegals. How can a person be illegal.

It should be illegal NOT to feed the hungry, no matter how they got that way.  "How can our common ills be SHAMEFUL to us?" said Euripides. He cries further, "If any man should fall, support him with your HANDS." These are just not quaint ancient Greek quotes from obscurity. They ring true today.

"The human lot is a HARSH one without being made STILL harsher by one's 'friends," said R. E. Meagher (fr. The Essential Camus). And yet we kick them when they are down and they keep coming. And they will keep coming  because industrialized nations pillaged their countries throughout history. For centuries. So now they turn to the most 'powerful' countries for aid: To America, to Russia, to Europe, naming but a few.

Perhaps it is time for a world government. All I know is that the city or country which forgets how to care for their 'strangers,' has forgotten to care for itself. And now watch it all burn. Because we have forgotten to care for each other. And it is long past the time necessary to set it all right again. What do we do now? 

Put down your weapons and pick up a plow.

Follow this link: 

World population clock w/ diagrams: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Toodles, I've Lost My Marbles

     I never thought I'd be this 'down' i my entire fucking life. If it were not for my mother, my son and I would be living on the streets. Truly. My 'spawn,' as I affectionately refer to him, has only known poverty. We live on about $500 a month and that has to cover food and all bills. That breaks down to $369 in food stamps and about $170 in child support. The streets are just outside though. Waiting.

     You see my husband used to be a big time drug dealer. He is 61 now. But in his misspent youth he dealt cocaine. He has a hole in his nose where the septum has worn away from YEARS and kilos of use. It drips blood in the mornings. I could put a ring in it. But I'm the gross one because I've put on a few pounds after having three kids. I have never expressed this to anyone. I'm so down I don't know which way is up.

     My parents bought a house for 'us,' when my husband was with the family. He has his own home. But 'we' can't live there as a 'family' because that was where the home invasion robbery happened. Joshua hasn't been back to that house since the night the robbery happened. Luckily I had the other house from my parents. My husband hates my parents. They put down $120,000 as a down payment...half the value of the house. My husband put down $35k towards the down payment. Now he wants his money back. Or at least my mom should loan him some money. That bitch, he said. I don't know why he hates my parents. But then he struggles to understand why HE HAS no friends or family. They can't stand him. This has been a life long problem for him. Hmmm.

     But I'm the bitch that ruined his life. During 20 years together he has had five or six jobs. He got himself fired 'on purpose' with a dirty drug test because he didn't like the boss. Yeah. I know how to pick them. He turned down a Postal job to sell knives door to door. He was 'laid off' from a job in a boat yard...he's a stellar carpenter...but he said he heard thru the grapevine that the boss said he didn't fit in. He quit his last job as an insurance salesman because he was .... sad and depressed. His shrink told him to quit. 

     I too was sad and depressed but got up and went to work every day. Hmmm.

     I was the family earner, throwing myself into the burgeoning nursing industry. Kept us in high style WITH benefits. I paid extra money out of my paycheck to up our medical insurance to cover his #Hep C treatment. But I've fucked up his life. 

     My parents just bought me a laptop and a new car. They pay my rent, most of my bills for Josh and I. My husband pays $170.00 per month. That is it. It barely pays two bills. What's left over is used for luxuries like soap and toilet paper. But I'm the bitch. 

     I have stayed at home with my son since the day the robbery occurred. I was fired a few weeks after the robbery because my gem of a boss decided I needed to spend more time with my family. It was her way of saying I was spending too much time on the phone talking to shrinks, doctors, security firms, Josh, my ex. Maybe she was right. It still was a dirty deal, but that is life, right? And Nick did not understand that he had to take a more active role as a parent if I was to work and Josh needed to be homeschooled and taken to his activities. That was all too much for Nick. 

     Think my ex would pick up the torch while I acclimated myself to being a stay-at-home mom, get the hang of homeschooling & learning medical billing so I could work from home? By that time, my ex was not working. This was all during the time immediately after the robbery. All of us were diagnosed with #PTSD. We were each given 20 shrink visits a piece. What a learning curve that was. Got lucky, though, and found one who was raised in Compton, California. He knew gang violence, guns, robberies... he was perfect. My husband hated him. 'He's a quack.' Oh, I see, he can actually communicate with our better than you, because he is a professional, but that makes him bad and you hate the man.

     He wanted to change Josh's shrink. I fought like a hell cat and won. Only problem was I had to kick down my husband's bedroom door and tell him to get out of the house. @a_okafor007 would appreciate that detail! 

     Well, my ex did sort of pick up the torch. He 'made me' make him a website. Which he was convinced was going to magically make boat loads of money. AND, he moved back in the house.  In the mean time he took over the education of our son which basically consisted of, "You idiot." "What's wrong with you, the other kids 'get it!'" "Are you stupid or something? We just went over this!" "Fuck. All your friends get this shit." 

     I had to listen to that while I wrote copy about a particular friend of my ex's. His name was Greg. And my husband thought this guy was so cool because he and his #gf DIED after smearing each others body with cocaine and over-dosed. I just snapped. I knew it was going to get a lot worse before it got better. For him, not Joshua.

     My brilliant solution, because you know I'm perfection personified and never make mistakes, was to start smoking clove cigarettes and drink a lot of vodka. Vodka is so versatile. It goes with everything and you can cook with it, too. Brilliant crap, that vodka. As you can imagine the POlice were at our home frequently. But I was the caller usually. 

     The vodka and cloves, though delightful, had to go. 

     You see he had two guns in the house. I had to stay up at night. One night we had a very violent argument. In my mind, this thing was just the right excuse to call the cops and have them take the guns. He hated me for that. I prefer to think I was acting responsibly. 

     When his website went up, my adoring son came and said to me that dad said I had to loose a lot of weight so I could go to those fancy art parties. You want to talk about Medusa. He barricaded himself in his bedroom (he snores), but I still managed to kick the door in. Without the vodka. With a kick my son taught me! Sho Shu!

     He was kicked of therapy by our shrink for being difficult & non compliant with therapy. Well, all that did was throw more gas on a huge fire. He was even more against Dr. Lewis. All he could talk about was how much he hated that doctor and how famous he was going to become as an artist. It's been five years. No one has bought anything because he over priced everything. Not that I cared. By this time our son was old enough to be embarrassed by his fathers 'occupation.' His dad wasn't like the other dads. His dad slept on the couch all day or in his bedroom watching TV. 

     That was the end. He had taken another loan out on HIS house, $24k, rather than look for a good carpenter's job. It was just too hard. 

     That night I thought of all the times at night when he did not get up and nurse our precious infant son; the times when he was too busy growing his dope than to find a 'legal' job or bond with his son; all the school lunches that never got made; everything that he missed in this child's life...for nothing. Josh wanted him to go. I always defer to my son. You're only a kid once. I am ashamed that I was part of a lifestyle that left my son with less of a childhood than his father and I enjoyed as kids. 

     I was working on Joshua and myself. So when he called me to talk, I told him to get a shrink. I wasn't 'smart' enough to fix him. I was busy trying to 'fix' our son's life. And he asked to come back...

     He would call me all the time to argue or to beg. But when I'm done with you, that's the end. You might as well be made of stone. I have said I've always been the Medusa. I meant it literally. He tried to get back at me by stop paying all the bills at the Lodi house, the one my parents bought for us. He was trying to force 'us' out so we would feel as bad as him. Because, little narcissist that he was, no one could suffer like my ex.

     Never a thought to what he was doing to his son. 

     One night my brother in law, his brother called and told me that my ex had never wanted a kid or to get married. When confronted with what I always knew, my ex called his brother a liar. Which he may have been. How was I to know. For the record, to date my parents have contributed almost a quarter million dollars to 'raise' my son and keep off the streets and off the public dole. 

     My parents shell out over $1k a month to keep Josh and I afloat. But Nick, well, he still hates my parents, my mother, specifically. He's mad because she won't loan him any money. His family has contributed almost nothing by comparison. You see after my ex's mother died from pancreatic cancer, truly a saintly woman, the boys went bonkers in different ways. Tony, her spouse of fifty years waited a scant two weeks after we planted her in the ground, to call me and ask ME FOR PORNO. Why? Those two years of chemo were hard on my sex life. I wanted to vomit. 

     Did I mention that my husband hid 20 kilos of pot in the family wood shed. That was a splendid argument. 

     But I 'left' my ex after only 9 months of marriage. The growing, the selling meth and using, were things he kept doing after we left him when my son was 2 years old. But Nick kept following us around. Asking for second chances like they pass out 2 dollar bills. Not a lot of effort was put forth by him. Or he'd get it right & then fuck it, Josh, up again.

     The news is not ALL bad. Now that Nick has quit his LAST job to draw pictures of animals and children I feel so much more secure. Because ... darn it, Josh and I may be barely scraping by, but NICK IS HAPPY. Nick is fulfilled.

     Our son. Still struggles with abandonment issues, depression, his #PTSD, nightmares. He has fallen behind in school because all he can think of now is finishing the divorce. He is the driver of that issue. He feels he can't move forward and feel secure and happy if I am still married to my husband/ex/Nick. Josh is so tired of being broke. But I can't go back to work until after the divorce, because Nick, darling that he is, will seek alimony from MEdusa! Him and what army. Of course, I want to be free again. On paper.

     There. Those are the contents of my mind. I don't care if anyone reads this. I doubt it will help anyone. I don't know if it even helped me. I just know that the next three weeks can't go by fast enough for me. The final hearing. It's already turning into the longest three weeks of my life. 

      I hope getting this out of my head will at least make me feel better. Maybe I can become my old self again on Twitter. It has been my only source of social connection for the last 2 1/2 years. Thanks to some very loyal followers.

     Efahisto, my babies. Kalimerimerimerimesi! Oopa! To your health xOx #TheMedusa 

     

I'm Still Afraid of the Dark Rant

When I was a child, I had horrible night terrors. Dreaming I was in a home in which people
were murdered. Or I was in a home that was being robbed, but I kept looking for something. 
I was looking for my son on the night of the robbery. I dream about dead people. Like my father's 
mother, my YiaYia (Greek for grandma), because SHE understood his rages.  My father
was bipolar and had about 200 guns and ammo. I say the wrong word to set him off & I'm a 
dead girl. He was always up at night.


We used to go camping at Death Valley every year. Several times a year we went shooting 
with my Uncles's. 1 Marine; 2 Navy; 4 Airforce and one in the army, as well. Demolitions.
As my father became sicker, I relied upon these men to keep me alive. It was a pretty regular
thing for my dad and I to disappear for a couple of weeks in the desert ...by the bombing range.
From time to time, I thought my mother was trying to get me killed by sending me off
alone with my looney dad, with guns, no GPS then, and she would stay home. A nice gig
if you can get it. He could've wasted me and left me out in the desert, telling mother that
"She just wandered off, Joyce." or "The .45 misfired, she's 'gone' honey." How would she
know with all those pills, brandy, TV and bad novels?


Now I'm always up at night and mostly throughout the day, as well. You see people break in 
throughout the day. Small noises, big noises, medium noises...anything that doesn't sound like
it belongs to the daily going's on of this house is immediately suspected. So you hear this alot 
in my home, "Noise"; "It's ok, it's just me." "It's your mother." But it happened to us at night. 
until the sun is up. I'm awake by that time after a nap and ready to patrol the fortress while 
he sleeps. 


Josh, after seven years, still has nightmares about the break in. I think of the two #Petit girls 
and what they had to endure. How does a child's mind recover from such horrors. Sometimes
I think that you should be awarded with death to spare you from the memories of the trauma.


My son and I both sleep in the same room. We have a TV, a mini fridge  & two day beds & three authentic 
Kitana's. And several other noxious sprays, a variety of blunt objects. If someone tries to
break in again, they're in for a rude awakening. My mother thinks that's totally weird. But what she
doesn't understand is that Josh cannot just get over this trauma. We tried meds, therapy. I re-
fused to admit him to a hospital for observation. He'd still be there. When he sees me in the 
room with him, he can sleep. But by way of example, he didn't sleep at all last night because I and
my bad back slept on the couch. 


Parents, people, professionals don't understand that you can lead a teenager to therapy, they can
pretend it's good for them, but it's not working, and they're faking it. And they will harbor
a deep resentment, as you betrayed to a 'stranger' all their deepest, darkest feelings without 
their permission. According to teens, that is unforgivable. When they want therapy, they will
ask. You, the parent, have to learn how to be patient and wait. Perhaps for years.


What else have you got to do other than raise children. And I'll tell you that the stygma-
tization of the mentally ill has got to stop. I had to take my son out of school to home school him
because the teachers said there was something 'wrong' with him, but couldn't pin point it.
Once it was pointed out, though, it became as plain as the sun rising in the east.


My bottom line is this: Make sure your home is safe; trust no one, not even your relatives; you'll either make it out of this mess with your little family intact or you will come out of it with a 
family that resembles none like it on this earth. 


I wish his dad had just taken 13 seconds to shut the front door. Kids are so intuitive these days. We should 
listen to them more often. 'Paranoia' is really that inner voice so strong in kids. So listen to them when
they feel scared. What's the worst that can happen? Nothing? Or something & you stopped it.

It's been some time since I last posted anything to my blog. Kept it hidden for my own venal reasons. This will be the third and final post to my blog on the topic of home invasion robberies. Since my last post there was a horrible crime committed in Connecticut. The Wm. Petit family was murdered, raped & set on fire in the sanctity of their own home. Men with guns. How I hate those words. Moral men with guns is one thing. We call them cops. But just 'men' with guns has every American endangered. 


The damage a #HIR wreaks upon a family is sudden, loud, violent, bloody, surreal, you are terrified for your kids & spouse. But even if you survive, the damage is just as real as death. I wish there were a 'god' to help us. But there is not. If we are made in 'his' image, then 'god' perpetrates these violent acts upon 'his' people, whom he loves above all else.


They asked Dr. Petit if he was glad he was alive and he gave the pat answer, but the real answer was in his eyes. He'll never feel safe anywhere for a long time. I don't even feel safe in a new home, in a 'god' fearing small town, a quiet neighborhood. No. I still have a .45 on the premises. And I ditched my husband. Now I practice with that gun. I want to be ready. If it happens again, I will be ready. They will drop in the house. They will not get away. it is self defense. My home. Their bad. I'll flip the tables on the perps.


So it follows that i trust very few people. When I was in hospital for a month getting ready for my kidney removal, it was very hard to even trust the nurses, doctors, priests, parents, friends. I felt like I was finishing up the dying part of the breakin at the hospital. "You want to give me the last rites, mom? Ok fine." "Any priest will do, right," my mother tentatively inquired. "No, mother. We're going to give these people a show. Get me a Greek priest."


It was, even though an atheist, a magnificent bit of theater. Incenses, holy water, saintly relics, purple, lots of purple and that strange tongue. He circled my body several times. It was mysterious. I didn't know what was happening, really. It made my mother happy. It would've been a rotten time to ruin it for the audience and scream from the mountain top that I was a big, fat atheist. By this time, in #ICU, no one was listening to me unless I ASKED for a holy man. I should've asked for a Rastafarian. Imagine that.


I hated my husband for years. After all the robbery happened because he didn't shut a door. That's sneevy, though. There are plenty of other things to be mad at him about. A home invasion robbery is like a hurricane, a tsunami, an act of god. You know your life will never be the same. We had a 9 year old son. After everyone was patched up at the hospital, had it not been for the apartment I had in Lodi, my young son would've had to spend the night where the trauma began. But he was spared that.


NIck, my ex husband stayed a few safe, peaceful, blissful days in Lodi, but had to go back to the Stockton house where he dope was growing. And I think that is where the fissure occurred. Josh would never be able to VISIT his dad at his dad's home anymore according to the my son's shrink. 


We tried to make the marriage work with two different homes. But that didn't work out. As the 'season's' of growing require the adamant attention of the gardener. As my son grew, he saw this as a choice his dad made because he did not want to see him. So Josh decided not to see his dad. 


I was just all fucked up forever. Energy. I barely have enough to get out of bed, do the housework, cooking, teaching, cleaning the yard, shrinking my son. He is 16 years old now. Today his dad was over with some art he made for me to look at. There's no one else in his life that know that much about art. Josh had not spoken with his dad for 2 years. My son just has trouble with males in his life. Any male. The one male who was supposed to be able to save him from ANYthing, his father, was over come, pistol whipped, shot, beaten, dragged ... but TODAY, he invited his dad to Xmas Dinner. 


That's the trouble with psychiatry and children. Until their brain ages to 25 years old, it is very difficult to treat them: with meds and or therapy. 


My husband and I are not reconciling. Josh will always be suspicious of men, because of the 'men with guns' who broke in. And me. I have serious trust issues. And they make me feel safe. And this is the first time in my life that I've felt this way. 


(conclusion, Part 3)