Odd Man Out

Has anyone ever felt completely alone in a crowd before? I have. Not even so much a crowd, but in my own house. I never feel wanted here and I feel like I just get in peoples way. I'm doing my very best to maintain a good attitude, but these past few weeks, I have felt very alone. I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong, but I wish I did so I could fix it. My life has become a very boring, sad thing. I'm so scared of being lied to and being betrayed that I have let fear consume me and I am having trouble forging a smile around my own children. Being me, taking care of her, is a full time job and it is the most humbling and least satisfying job there is. I just never feel appreciated for anything that I do and I do everything.

I just don't think she will ever truely know how much I love her and how hard I fight everyday, tip by tip, to make enough money to keep the lights on, or to put a few groceries into our fridge, or to buy her that new pair of shoes that she needs. I don't think she could ever know the hours I stay awake at night trying to crunch numbers in my head on how I'm going to keep a roof over our heads, and worrying profusely that I will let them down. I just don't think she understands how I feel about her when I look into her eyes, and she doesn't even know that when I get home from working for 11 hours a day, that I lay by her side for another hour or so instead of going to sleep and run my fingers through her hair. Maybe she doesn't realize that my heart truly hurts everyday for some attention and to just be noticed, or acknowledged for the work that I put into this family.

Above all else, I believe in family. Someone tried to tell me that families don't work anymore these days, but I refuse to believe that. It's this new uppity laziness that exists now that truly ruins families. It wasn't like that before. I mean, I wasn't around to actually witness the times, but I worked in a restaurant for 7 years that was 90% senior citizens. It always brought joy to my heart to see the couples in their eating, still holding hands. Some would tell me they had been together for 50 years or longer. I was always so jealous of that. I would always take time to talk to them and have them tell me stories about how they stayed together for so long, and it would always break my heart the day one would come in without the other because they had passed away. That to me is what it's all about. "Work." That's what they said. "It's alot of work, and alot more patience." It's like that saying, "Nobody said it would be easy. They just said it'd be worth it."

I feel like the best days are ahead of us and we make steady progress in our situation and we are trying to do things the right way. It sucks that we are crammed in this apartment, but lets wait until we can afford a house. Why move from apartment to apartment? It just doesn't make sense.

Lately, I've been feeling like the odd man out. There is no longer time for me. Ever since her sister moved here, she always has some kind of plans with her. Tonight they are at a party at some penthouse. And once again, I'm here with the babies. I love spending time with my babies and I know I'm very important to them, but trust me, it'd be nice if I could be important to her. There are so many things I would love to do with her and I don't know if any of them are ever going to happen. There just isn't enough time for me.

I wish I could take her dancing. Not to a club, but to a dancehall. And dress up all nice. I envision her in a beautiful dress with her hair down and me in a nice suit, and maybe I'd have a corsage for her or some flowers and we could spend the night having a nice dinner and dancing the night away, just the two of us. Or maybe something stupid, like a bike ride, or a movie. Hell, I'd settle for an hour in a plastic seat at McDonalds with a dollar menu dinner, just as long as it's with her.

I really want her to know how much I care about her and I want her to feel inside that I am truly good enough and that I will protect her with every ounce of power that I have. I really want to be noticed just once in awhile, and maybe touched once in awhile. I feel like a leper most days. I'm not sure what it's going to take, but I worry that she will never know. You know the saying, "You can't truly love someone unless you learn to love yourself"? That's not true. Because how can you love yourself if you don't feel loved? And then how do I love her so much? I really hope things get better than they have been. I'm a sad guy right now. Here I go with another quote:

"Everything will be alright in the end. And if it's not alright, it's not the end."

And in closing, one more. This one I hold very dear to me because I have a painting I did in my entryway of me walking in the snow to work with my head down and eyes closed and it says:


"The woods are lovely, dark and deep- But I've got PROMISES to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."

Have a good night everyone. I love you all.

Looky, looky....

Guess who bought a car? That's right. Me.
Bad credit these days is a serious problem and I had to settle for some terms that were a bit steep, but all in all, I am a very happy boy. Let me tell you about my day.

We went out at around 11am to Freeway Ford because the lady Danica who was helping us told us she could get us financed. We get there and we get stuck with some man, Kevin, who is kinda just, blah. We waited and waited and waited around for him to give us the rundown on what we had to do to get into a new car. He came back and said the banks computers were down and we had to wait for an hour or maybe two for them to be back up. I think my credit report probably shorted the system. So, we headed out to Taco Bell for some cheap lunch and to wait for him to call us. Eventually he does and says the banks cannot finance me unless I have a co-signer or at least $1500 down. Since they appraised our car at $200, we were stuck. Here we were, so excited and picking out our favorite cars and imagining the possibilities and then... nothing.

Now, I know I have bad credit, but as of the last couple of years, I have been perfect with my credit cards and things like that, and I have been getting things paid. Give me a break.

So, I get a little bit angry and I head back to the dealership. I ask for Danica, the first person to help us (and a godsend at that), and ask her what's up. She explains that a few banks have recently gone bankrupt and most of the available financers are very cautious these days due to the economy. I give her a sad look of hopelessness and shrug it off and thank her for her time. She takes a few steps towards her office and then turns around and calls me back. "Hey Micah- come back here for a minute. I know what to do, but you cannot tell anyone I'm doing this."

She gives me a name and a number for a guy named Tim at GO Drivetime, and places a call to him telling him to put us in a car and gives him the thumbs up for us. We head down there and it's right next to our house. We tell him we have not much down but are in dire need of a car before ours dies on us.

They took our car as trade in and gave us, wait for it....... $1100.00 as trade. This was a shocker to us because nobody wanted it. NOBODY. We looked around the lot and I found a Mitsubishi Galant that I've been wanting for awhile. He OK's it, we sign some papers and go over some stuff and off we went. Waving that miserable scrapheap behind.

They gave us the CARFAX report on it and everything was clean. It has a warranty in case anything goes wrong also. Plus it only has 70,000 miles on it as opposed to the 170,000 that the Kia had. Brand new tires, perfect body, nice sound system, 26 MPG (decent), and runs beautifully. It's so quiet. Our car was like an amusement park with jolts at every turn and noises that belong in a haunted house. It gets detailed and waxed on Tuesday and we couldn't be more excited.

However, due to my poor credit, the car is gonna cost me $13,000, which isn't too bad and I actually thought it would be more due to the interest rate I would get. But thats OK. It is a necessary bill to have and having an auto loan on your credit in good standing can raise your credit score up to 100 points. That would do me good.

So, YAY!!!! I can drive now!!! I'm fully insured and feel very good about myself. I'm very grateful for Danica who was so sweet and helped us out tremendously to make sure my family had reliable transportation. It wasn't her problem, but she made it her problem.

Maybe it's karma coming back to me for helping that homeless girl. Yeah that's it. It's all full-circle, my friends.

Who's that guy?

Amen to that

Did everyone watch that speech last night? I'm very optimistic about Obama and he nailed that speech. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Update of boringness

I realize that I haven't written in quite awhile, but I just haven't really been up to it. Life has been its normal stressful self and I have been very busy trying to get some things taken care of. First of all, I paid off my license (finally), but I have been waiting a month and a half to recieve this license that they keep saying they sent. I called them and asked where it was because they told me it would be about 5 business days. She said she had sent it to the wrong address, but that was the address they had on file and she could not change the address on file, BUT, she could resend it to the wrong address again. She was extremely rude. So, I had to log onto the AZ DMV website, change my address, and pay for a duplicate license. Still waiting. I have been looking into getting myself a vehicle too. Our car is a piece, and it's not gonna last much longer. I found a place that won't rip you off and are genuinely nice and caring of your situation. They gave me a voucher for free credit repair software, some advice of how to raise my score without much trouble and told me to come back when I wasn't broke. The place is called Freeway Ford and it's "Troubleshooter Tom Martino" approved so I feel comfortable with that. They have pretty much assured me that they can finance me but would like something down, and our cars trade in value was $200. That's sad. So, we're gonna hold onto the little guy until it just poops out, because $200 for a car? C'mon.

On a good deed note: On our way home from the dealership we stopped at a red light and there was a lady standing on the corner. Stretched out brown shirt, dirt on her face and arms, raggedy hair and a sign, "$20 away from a hotel room for the night. Sleeping on the street, Please Help."
So, I honked, the lady came over and I handed her a $20 bill. She immediately began crying and thanking me with a shameful look in her eyes. I told her "Keep your head up." She folded up her sign and headed straight for the hotel. Some people truly need just a little help and it feels good whenever I can do ANYTHING for someone to help them, as I have recieved my own lions share in my life.

So, if you haven't heard, the DNC is in Denver this year and what a nightmare it is. Not so much in my neighborhood, but Denver is CRAZY right now. There are snipers on rooftops, millions of cops, the freeway is shut down on Thursday, and they have makeshift prisons set up all over. The security is staying in Lakewood in the Hampden Inn next door to my work, so we have been slammed with cops and such at the restaurant. I really wanted to go to the Pepsi Center to see Obamas speech, but you gotta be someone important or something. So, I'll just watch it on TV.

Kaiti and I have been having our issues again, but after a long talk, we are trying to make it work. Our issues by the way are completely stupid and it would be a real shame if they caused our family to seperate. She's bored and tired of not having a social life and being "stuck" at home with the children all day while I'm at work all night. Stuff like that. I know that must be hard to have no one to talk to or no real free time to go have fun, but believe me, I'm on the same boat. Kaiti is my best friend though and I'm content with just being around her and the kids. It may be because I'm older than her and I've done things, but most of my fun came when I was like 18. I had my first kid when I was 22 and since then, my life has been reserved for them. I drink here and there, but mostly here, at home. Our situation is a tough one but I am confident that we will be just fine. I just have to focus on reserving time for Kaiti and I, and finding a reliable babysitter. No more just hanging around the house when I'm home. Time to get out there and do something. Maybe when there is a new car that can get us places is parked in our carport, we will have more options. I'll keep you updated, but I know we'll be fine.

On a good note, Kaiti has started school. That was very important to me, because she always says she's a loser and all that crap. So I helped her study for her GED and then sent her on her way to get it done. When I got mine it was $30. It's $90 now. I guess thats not too bad when you consider it's like a high school education. Anyway, I know some girls who go to PIMA Medical Institute and they love it. So they recommended I have her check it out. So, she did, and on Monday, she had her first day. It was so cute. She came home with her big ol' backpack and she had homework and stuff. This is a step in her happiness. That's what matters to me. It gets her out of the house and away from screaming kids and lets her be able to socialize and do something with her life. She will be the first in her family, or the first O'Malley period, to graduate from college. It's only eight months long and it's only from 8am-12pm M-F, so it's very doable.

Anyway, not much else has been going on, but when I get some pics taken or something, I will post them, along with any updates.