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Life in Da Hood

YAY! for getting so trashed you take off your pants and pee in public!

You know the saying, "It takes all kinds." And that other saying - "Different strokes for different folks." It really is true, you know. It would be a boring world if we were all the same... or at least that's what my mom says.

I've had all kinds of neighbors. I had the 40-something wannabe rock star living downstairs and sleeping with a woman and her daughter at the same time. I've had the Chinese neighbors living above their Chinese restaurant next-door to me who used to hang skinned animals off of a laundry rack on their deck to "dry" (and be swarmed by flies.) I had the pervert Vietnam vet who gave me a drive-by hickey, the slightly mentally disabled couple that had me fix their computer at least every 2 days because they downloaded so much crap on it, it nearly collapsed and died. I've been everywhere, man. I've been everywhere.

I survived my crazy neighbors by having a warped sense of humor and writing skills. I've started a novel - you should read it. You'd accuse me of making everything up. But there's one type of "neighbor" I can't handle - "ghetto" people.

I live in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and a creek and a huge lake about 5 minutes away. Quiet, peaceful, lovely. Or at least it was... until the Ghetto People moved in.

I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. This isn't a racial thing (most of them are white anyway) and this isn't an anti-urban thing. My protest has to do with:
-wild parties that go all night
-drunk people peeing in my parking lot
-drugs
-people passing guns around in the parking lot and shooting at stuff in the backyard
-babies screaming for attention while they're parents are busy getting trashed
-beer bottles all over the backyard
-cigarette butts as far as the eye can see

You see, children, it doesn't matter what color you are or where you're from. If you neglect your kids, trash your own home, degrade yourself in public, do drugs and test guns at an apartment complex... that makes you "ghetto." It doesn't matter if you're one of those odd-looking fundamentalist Mormons living out on the prairie with your 27 children and 8 husbands, it still makes you "ghetto." The Christian in me says, "Tell them about Jesus!" The rest of me says, "Please don't kill me!" I think I have a right to be peeved, too. I moved here because it was beautiful and serene. I didn't sign up for a prolonged episode of "Gangland." When I sit on my deck, I want to look at the birdies, not the ciggy butts.

Last night, I was telling my husband how much I want to move, but then I thought about it. I REALLY thought about it. Why move? The crazies follow me everywhere I go! There is no safe place. Crazy people SEEK Julie Fidler. It's like there's an Association of Neighbors Determined to Drive Julie Fidler Insane and they've implanted a tracking chip in my brain so that every time I relocate, they can find me and continue their mission to send me to Bellevue.

So I guess we'll stay here and just learn how to dodge bullets. For now, anyway. My dad is a New Yorker and when I was a kid we always went back to NY to visit my grandparents. I don't know if you've ever been to Yonkers, but you have to drive through the Bronx to get there. You've never seen graffiti until you've driven through the Bronx. Anyway, stopping at a red light in the Bronx was always a treat. As soon as you so much as slowed down to 35mph, you were charged by 3 guys with bloodshot eyes, a bottle of Windex and a Squeegee trying to wash your car for you against your will. Mom always told me to lock my door and not make eye contact. Safe to say that applies to my new neighbors.

(And incidentally, I still don't sit down on public toilet seats and I always flush with my foot. Thanks, Mom.)

The scary thing is... the past 7+ days have been so crazy, I could write an entire novel about that alone, but the Ghetto People are dominating my thoughts. I'm going to have to blog again today if I want to keep my sanity. Unfortunately, little green people could infiltrate the apartment complex and I'd still be thinking about the Ghetto People. They could abduct me and probe me and I'd still listening for guns and rap music.

God, help me love these people. Keep me safe. And please remove the chip from my brain. Pin It

It's Amy Day

Amy Grant's long-awaited album released today.
I'm supposed to get a free copy in the mail... but it hasn't arrived yet.
What to do, what to do??
A decade ago I would have said "forget it" and bought it anyway. But back then I didn't have a car in need of $2,000 in repairs. I guess I'll opt to wait.
Where's the justice?

On the flip side of the coin... as I mentioned... the car needs like $2,000 in repairs. It needs a new engine. I can't afford it. Nobody can afford it. And it wouldn't really be worth it if anybody could. So we're left without a car again. Renting one for the week and praying about what to do after that. We are the most vehicularly-challenged (if vehicularly is a word) people in the world. I never met a car I couldn't destroy.

And in-law is in worse shape today.
Oh, and I still haven't met my new nephew.

Did I mention Amy Grant's new album dropped today? Positive thinking, friends. Positive thinking. Pin It

This Day Deserves a Good, Hard, Vicious Blogging

Let's cut to the chase.

It started out good. My little nephew was born this morning in perfect shape.

I did a GREAT interview for a magazine article this morning (shout-out to Mitch & Diana, two very cool people) and even got to take advantage of some Starbucks caffeine. Yay!

Next thing I know, I find out an in-law is sick in the hospital. I call my husband. He tells me to pick him up from work early, so I do. We inhale lunch and hop in our car to go up to the hospital (about 30 miles away in another county). We get within about 3 minutes of the hospital... when the brakes stop working, the steering goes out and the engine light (and every other light ever created for a dashboard) comes on. By pure divine intervention, we break down directly in front of a gas station.

From there, with my cell phone dead and being far from home, a very nice gas station clerk lets us use her own cell phone to reach my in-law's girlfriend, who comes and picks us up. We eat our Subway subs as the tow truck hauls the car away.

We never made it to the hospital, but that's OK. In-law was discharged. Not doing well, but discharged.

Husband found a way to work tomorrow so that's good. I guess we'll have to rent a car. What can I say? I love nothing more than having to spend money I don't have. And I'm sure my nephew is just precious... but I wouldn't know... because I can't get to THAT hospital to see HIM.

There you have it. And it's still only Monday. And the REAL drama hasn't even hit yet. Maybe it's taking an Easter break, but I doubt it.

Tomorrow... I sleep in! Pin It

One of Them Days

Sheryl Crow, I stinkin' love you, woman. Sometimes you just say it in a way I never could. Tomorrow is Monday. My new nephew arrives... but I know there's a lot of other BS that's gonna arrive, too. Quote of the week and my mantra for the night: "So be it."

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New Life, New Office

Now that I've decided to make a go of freelancing full-time, I decided to turn my second bedroom into my home office. I just had to share some of the pics with everybody!





This hangs above my shelf. It's the first magazine ad I ever saw for my book.






One of my crazy ex-neighbors gave me this shelf, so I guess he was good for something. I painted the picture on the left. The guitar gives the illusion that I still play.






My desk - cluttered by colorful.






An essential item of any office - Play Doh. (Thanks, Dave!)




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I made this crooked cross from Sculpey.




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I painted this votive.




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love my Veggie Tales!






I also painted this votive.






One of my original watercolor paintings.






The Amy Grant Wall. I always said when I got my own office, I'd put these back up, and I meant it. Some people have sports memorabilia, some like the Beatles... for me, it's Amy.






Amy signed this poster for me in November 1996. I was 17 years old and I was in Nashville looking at colleges. I got to spend a Saturday afternoon with her at her farm. It reads, "Julie, hope you enjoyed your trip to Nashville. God bless you, (heart) Amy Grant" Pin It

Suicide and Addiction

This winter seemed to be a particularly harsh one for a lot of people. February and early March (knock on wood) saw the suicides of three celebrities: first it was fashion designer Alexander McQueen, followed by "Growing Pains" star Andrew Koenig (RIP, "Boner"), followed by Marie Osmond's son, Michael Blosil/Bryan (if one could call him a "celebrity).

Was there something in the water? I don't mean to make a joke of suicide, but I have to ask because I just came out of a very deep depression, as did several of my friends. I know seasonal affective disorder is a very real thing, but I swear the government secretly implanted crazy electrodes in our brains to make us miserable this year or something.

In all seriousness, it was beyond hard. The thing about having depression is (especially when people are committing suicide left and right) is that you always feel the need to hide it. At least I do. There are a few people I am very honest with, but for the most part I don't let on as to how bad it really is. You just don't want to worry everyone. As a teenager, I attempted suicide (didn't get very far, fortunately) so I don't want everyone automatically assuming I'm sitting on the other end of the phone line with a gun to my head.

You hear people say a lot of different things when someone commits suicide. For as much sympathy as you hear, you also hear a lot of anger. For every "that poor man" you hear "that was so selfish." And I guess if you're not suicidal, it does look terribly selfish. You're gone and everyone else is left to suffer. You will be mourned. Questions will be asked. That's the reality. But to someone suffering from severe clinical depression, the picture doesn't look like that at all. To someone with severe depression, all is lost, nothing matters, and the world is better off without them. Severe depression, in a sense, sometimes removes a person's ability to see beyond their own pain to how the rest of the world will react. You see that person as loved and valued; however, they see themselves as colossal failures who ca do nothing right and don't deserve anything good in their lives.

I don't know the story behind Alexander McQueen's suicide, but from everything I have read, Andrew Koenig and Michael Blosil felt exactly that - worthless, hopeless, miserable. If you don't think you have a friend in the world, then in your mind there isn't anyone to leave behind in despair.

Then there's Corey Haim. When I was growing up, Corey Haim was a teen heartthrob. I was never particularly "into" him but I certainly knew who he was. He died this past week at the age of 38 - the same age as my husband. Too young. He battled drug addiction and had a number of health problems that I'm sure the drug use exacerbated. He reportedly died from heart congestion. Though the toxicology results won't be known for several weeks, however, from all accounts he was addicted to prescription drugs... Vicodin, Valium, Soma, maybe others. A few months ago, troubled actress Brittany Murphy died from pneumonia and drug intoxication. She filled a prescription for Vicodin 11 days before her death on Dec. 20, 2009 and it is believed she took 109 of the pills in those 11 days.

These are the stories that break my heart. A teenage relative my husband and I are very close to recently got out of drug rehab. She told me she tried everything but heroine, but her drugs of choice were prescriptions. Maybe celebrities can get oodles of pills from crazy, money-hungry doctors in Hollywood, but Joe Simpletons like my relative buy them on the street from other kids - God only knows where they get them. They think that because a doctor prescribes it, it must be "safe." My relative has told me stories about being "careful" not to overdue the Xanax. But nobody knows what their body's breaking point is.

I'm convinced I'm not a drug addict today because my parents made it very clear that if I did illegal drugs, I was dead meat. I would have to find other living arrangements. I was terrified of my mother - in this case, it did me some good. But even I, as a teenager, tried this and that. Ritalin was the biggie when I was in high school; I gave that a shot. We used to chug Nyquil. We sucked on the whipped cream hose at Friendly's for a high. One time, in college, when I was particularly naive and in the worst depression of my life, I unknowingly huffed CD cleaner.

We tried it for a quick high, a little fun. Isn't that why most kids light up a joint or smoke a bowl? But my relative got so hooked on alcohol and prescription drugs that she couldn't even wake up for school until she was higher than a kite and she took the stuff all day long to keep going.

These kids think it makes them hardcore. They think it makes them cool.
Meanwhile, the rest of us sit back and see sad, broken little children who can't handle reality. Oh, and you can be a broken little child at any age.

My husband and I watch "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" pretty faithfully. OK, I'll admit it - at first we started watching it because we were amused at the idea of washed-up, B-rated celebs trying to get off crack. But with every episode, we got more and more sucked in, and for legit reasons. I started to identify with some of the patients and my husband saw his brother (a recovering drug addict) in a lot of them. We started to cheer them on. It made us realize that underneath it all, people are just people. It really doesn't matter how much money you have, how many albums you've put out, or how many movies you've made. We're just people with our own history of pain and every one of us faces a decision - "Am I going to deal with this or not?" Are we going to to face reality like the intelligent, grown-ups capable of healing that God made us, or are we going to hide like the sad little broken children, pushing away reality with a needle to the arm, a puff of smoke through a bong, or a line of powder snorted up our noses?

Since my relative has been out of rehab, I've heard a lot about "higher powers." In 12-step recovery, anything can be your higher power - God, Jesus, a toilet seat, your recovery book, your roommate, your cat... you get the idea. You pick something and say "this is stronger than I am" and then you rely on it to keep you from getting hooked back on whatever you were hooked on in the first place.

From where I sit, I look at all the broken little children - and I was one, but I never got sucked into drugs - and I want to hold them all and give them the love they missed out on and tell them... the only reliable higher power is Jesus Christ. Period. You want to kill yourself? You were bought with a price by the blood of Jesus. Your life is no longer your own. Go ahead - jump off that bridge. Your body will be in a thousand tiny bits, but what about your soul? You think you're damaged goods and the best you can do is drugs? You are created in God's image. He made you beautiful. HE CAN HEAL YOU. Not some book, not a statue of Buddha, not your Golden Retriever. Jesus can heal you. If you let Him.

It's a choice. You chose drugs. Will you choose the Savior of the world?

My favorite band is Casting Crowns and they say it better than I ever could:
"I'll take a shack on a rock over a castle in the sand."

Sad, broken little children like me... make your choice. And if you screw up, make it again.

But never, ever give up. Pin It