Man, it's been a hell of a week. Paper was late, broke up with my boyfriend, told some chick I was going to beat her ass, and have $20 to my name. But as I write this on Mother's Day, complete with hangover, I can still sit here and think, "It's going to be okay."

Seriously, I thought I was going to have a stroke. Everything was already behind because I felt like I'd been fucking with advertisers and trying to get money and make ads and get them proofed all month that I had neglected the writing. And it's hard to sit down and write something good. So I was way over-caffinated, wasn't sleeping, hearing bitching from my mom and my kids because I was working so much and irritable. Okay, I was beyond irritable. I was losing my fucking mind. I actually started having a fluttering vein in the back of my head.

When I get in over my head, I tend to shut down. I don't know if it's depression or what, but my mom always said, "You're like an ostrich - you get scared and you just stick your head in the sand."

That's why, after everything had fallen to shit and the paper was two days late already and nowhere near done, Dennis, our new savior, called me at 11am on like Tuesday and I was sitting on the couch in a near coma watching a marathon of Basketball Wives. Which is actually a really addictive show, like everything on VH1.

Dennis really did save our asses this month. A lot of people offer to help, but very few actually follow through. So when he said, "What can I do?" and I said, "Ah, shit, well, there's a couple of easy pieces on Skynyrd and the Pennington Music Festival you could do..." and then he turned both of them in like 7 hours later - I was shocked. He kept saying, "What else?" So I kept giving him shit to do. And unlike most people, who could never work with me because I'm always asking for shit done at the last minute - he was already a nightowl and didn't mind. Honestly, it's been something I've desperately needed for a while now, and made a world of difference. With him on staff, it's going to make my life so much easier.

Too bad he can't help with my lovelife. It was funny how many people had seen my late-night, sleeping pill induced post "Bella is once again, very very fucking single" and commented on it. I'd see people out and either I would bring it up or they would - but it's been consuming me. I don't want to go into the details - but suffice to say that I am a fucking handful and pretty damn jealous, and even though he is a really good guy, we're both in insanely tough places in our lives and it was all just too much for me to handle.

I probably don't need to be dating anyone for a while, so ignore my once-again late night posts about finding me a date, lol. I know somewhere out there is a good man, who is coming home after a hard day's work and sitting at his kitchen table in a lonely house, maybe drinking a beer, and longing for a good woman to be at the stove cooking something yummy and telling him how cute he is and how she likes it when he smells like sweat and sunshine. Who wouldn't even mind the built-in family and love my little rugrats as his own. Teach them cool stuff like how to fix cars and shoot an arrow. Who even though may be a little on the quiet side can still cut up and laugh while snuggling on the couch and watching Airplane.

But it's never that easy. I even know where a man like that is - but real life and stress and problems always get in the way. I guess if you really love someone, you don't let it get in the way. Hell, I don't know. And my dumbass writes a love and sex column.

As much as sometimes I feel like I'm drowning and need a hand to reach down and save me, that's just not a good way to look at life. It's very hard for me to accept help even when I need it - but I'm trying to be better about it. And then sometimes I just look up at heaven and ask, "Can I just win the lottery?"

Ah, but that's the clincher. I have won the lottery. I am so blessed. My children and the people I love are healthy, and for the most part happy. I don't have to worry about feeding my kids and I have a gift that I'm able to share with the world, and would like to think in some small way even making it a better place. That's really all I can ask for.

God, this has been a melancholy and bittersweet post. I'm sorry! Maybe it's the hangover. But I did just watch two-year-old baby Bella try to put my sister's sweet golden retriever Charlie in a headlock. That was pretty funny.

Last night at the bar I met this dude, we'll call him Sammy. It was way past last call, and he wanted to show me a trick. He said, "Give me a dollar." Then he put the dollar on top of a beer bottle, and said, "Now give me four quarters." I only had one, but he pulled a few out of his pocket, and I'm already thinking, "This is some kind of con..." lol He put the quarters on top of the dollar, and wet his two fingers and tried to pop the dollar and whip it out from under the quarters without moving them. It didn't work, he got most of the way off but not quite. He said, "Shit, I need something bigger." And that's when I laughed and said, "Shit, I'm not that easy!"

He was kind of chargined, and had a real sweet smile. He was short, but he was deeply tanned and wiry with laugh lines around his eyes, and you could tell he's the kind of guy who spends from dawn until dusk on the roof.

And he looked pretty rough. I thought with that and the hustle he tried to pull that he was homeless or dopesick, and we went outside and talked for a bit. I asked him straight out, "Man, what's wrong? You got a place to stay? Are you dopesick?" And he was offended as shit, saying "Hell no, I don't do drugs. I'm staying at a motel. I'm down here working a job." I was like, "You don't even smoke pot?" And he laughed and said, "Well, shit, everybody smokes pot."

We sat out front smoking cigarettes as drunks filed into the cabs and stumbled out to their cars - I was smart enough to know after doing 10 damn Lemon Drops and god knows how many beers not to drive, I was waiting for my sister to get off work and trying (and failing) not to drunk dial my recent ex.

I asked him, "Man, would five bucks help you out right now?" And he said, "Hell, five bucks always helps out." So I pullled out my money, and said, "I've got $25 bucks - I need to keep twenty on me un case I need to get a cab, but here, maybe the five will help."

He gave me this look, this keen, apraising look, and said, "You're a good person. Thank you." It was enough to get him a ride back to his motel, so I didn't have to worry about him stumbling down 60 in the cold and getting run over.

He said, "I spent 15 years with a woman who's feet I rubbed every night, even though I come home from bein' on a roof all day, my hands so blistered I could hardly move 'em and my back just aching - and I'd sit there and think, 'Even though this is killing me to rub her feet, I sure bet she appreciates it.' And then she left me for another man."

He looked down and flicked his cigarette and said, "I just want somebody to love who's gonna love me back."

So I told him about my situation, and asked if I should call my ex, and he looked at me real serious and said, "You need to be callin' me. You need to come back to my room with me."

And there was something that hit me - even though he was cute I wasn't in the mood for sex because I love someone else - but there was a part of me that ached for the fact that this dude needed, just, shit, someone to hold him. It was actually a very motherly instinct that hit me. I wanted to kiss him on the forehead while he laid his head on my chest, smooth my hand over the back of his neck and tell him that everything was going to be okay.

But I'm bad about that. It's that kind of feeling that gets me in trouble a lot. Now that's not a bad thing, as long as the other person can hold me together when I'm falling apart, hold me tight and not let me go....not let me go for nothin'.

So I could bring it all full circle and say something cheesy like, "So on this Mother's Day, give someone a little mothering! Nuture, love unconditionally, remind them that there's always hope..." - but I'm a little too sad for that. I've been cryin' for days and I'm probably going to be crying for a few more days. Not just because of my man, just because everything's been so fucked up. I know what I need to do, it's just hard sometimes to get up and do it. Hell, cleaning my room would be a good start.

But not today. Today I'm going to take my kids outside and down to the drug store to get their Grammy a present. My mother, who even though I swear gives me more shit than she gives my three other siblings combined, still lets me live in her house and helps take care of my kids, and if it weren't for that, I couldn't try to make my dreams come true, so I thank her for that. And of course, making me the kickass girl (ahem, and woman) that I am.