Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Boo!



Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet, Give Me Something Good to Eat!

When I was a kid, I loved Halloween. I still think it is pretty cool. This year I am not going anywhere, but in general, I love the excuse to dress up in a slutty outfit and go out and have fun.

As a kid, in our house we were not allowed to eat junk. Halloween was like an orgy of sanctioned wickedness. One great perk to having much older siblings is that they are way cooler company for Trick or Treating. No "Mommy is cold", or "Daddy has to go to work." It is more like "Hey lets go home and get another pillow case." My brother took me, and we went all over the place. Blocks and blocks from home. We came home with pillowcases, yes that is right, pillowcases plural, of candy. He always got these great masks for himself. He had a werewolf one year. Chicks loved this, which pissed me off, all those girls all over him really slowed me down. My brother was the first boy slut I ever met. I could never understand why girls liked him since he was my brother and I knew what a retard he was. Then when I got old enough to like boys I figured it had something to do with the wash board abs, the blue eyes and blond hair, the whole genuine bad boy thing, the motor cycle, the pot, and all that other naughty stuff he did. He also had this Incredible Hulk mask that he hid around the house and used to scare the crap out of me year round, see I told you he was a retard. I liked to go as a princess, or a fairy, but one year I dressed up in this really great zombie get up complete with scars and blood and everything. Way cool.

Now that I am an alleged adult, I like to give out candy to kids, but it is not like it used to be when I was little. Only people who really know you come to your house now. I cannot imagine how hard it is for parents these days. There are so many people who are sick and want to hurt kids in some way, if I had kids I would need serious drugs to even be able to let them out of the house. When I lived in the city in an apartment, we did not give out candy. The only "kids" who came trick or treating were six feet tall, and wore gang colors. Yo, mother fucker, go steal a radio and buy your own fucking candy. Some people do not celebrate Halloween at all. I do not get this. Some people who are my friends do not celebrate Halloween, I have tried to talk them out of this, but they disagree. My main Friend Who Hates Halloween disapproves on religious grounds because Halloween is a pagan holiday and celebrates the devil. Now seriously, how can the devil have anything to with something so heavenly as free Kit Kats?

Our family is Irish Catholic, so we are all hot on any excuse to party, eat stuff that is bad for us, and dress up like idiots to boot. Once upon a time long, long ago in a land far, far away there was a pagan holiday at this time of year for Mickorific people like myself. It is a harvest celebration as developed in all pagan cultures. When Catholicism decided they needed to convert all the soulless heathens they co-opted a lot of pagan rituals in order to make Catholicism appealing to the unwashed masses. So, as a Catholic, I understood that Halloween is a religious holiday. You see, November first is All Saints Day. On the way to church, on all Hallows Eve, for midnight mass for All Saints Day, the faithful wore costumes to scare away highwaymen. My Mom was so proud of me when I discussed this earnestly with my friend I mentioned above who refuses to let her children be little devil worshippers in the name of candy. Turns out all that tuition my parents spent on Catholic school might have actually paid off.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Tighty Whities

Few things turn me off faster or more than a man in little boy underwear. White briefs are like the equivalent of anti-Viagra for me. Just, YUCK!

I am sure this has something to do with the fact that is the type of underclothing all of the male people in my family wear, and have worn since I can remember. Obviously I did not find this hot. My father always aggravated me by walking around in his underwear. My Dad asserted, "this is my fucking house, I pay the bills, and I will do as I please, if you don’t like it there is the door." You cannot imagine the shock and horror he experienced when he uttered a similar sentence and I left. To paraphrase what we later discussed, after I had lived on my own a sufficient amount of time to be able to have a conversation with my father that did involve high volume voices, my Dad told me he was thinking, "holy shit I raised a kid who not only calls my bluffs, but also does not bluff herself, I’m fucked. I guess this is good though, since this kid will always be straight with me."

Besides the fact that the men in my family, who I consider the romantic equivalent of the DON’T page at the back of Glamour magazine, all wear tighty whiteys, I also have found in my life that I do not have much desire for men who in the end turn out to prefer this type of under garment. It seems like men who prefer this type of underpants have in a lot of ways not ever grown up, continuing to wear, if not literally, at least symbolically, the underpants their Mommy brought them. Oh, puhleaze honey, get a life, grow up, experiment, get some grown up gotchies for the love of God!

It might help to mention here that I was pretty old when I left home, which I understand is actually pretty much par for the course in wacko families. I wanted to be able to stay gone when I left as all my siblings had been boomerang children at some point, and until the day they died my parents were being routinely mooched off of by two of my siblings. Not me though. When I was much younger, and still living at home, actually, several years before I moved out, I had a boyfriend who I really liked a lot. Enough to find out he wore tighty whiteys. This was so not cool with me. I told him I did not like them. I told him I did not like them because they were the kind my Dad wore and it creeped me out. I told them I did not want him to touch me anymore, the underpants were too creepy.

Being a guy, a pretty young and inexperienced one at that, he thought I was weird. Luckily for us, he had a very close family. That same evening he went on some male bonding ritual thing with his Dad, uncles, and Grandpas. One Grandpa, who had met me in the past, asked after me. My darling man informed his Grandpa that I was a weird freaky girl. Of course at this point everyone was intrigued, all the other men being significantly older knowing that, of course, weird freaky women are the best kind. He explained my aversion to tighty whiteys as well as the reasons why I had such an aversion. So you what happened then?

That is right K-mart shoppers, they all went shopping for new underpants for my man. They explained to him that if a woman tells you something she really wants, and you can give it to her you are a moron not to give it to her. They taught him that when a woman tells you something that upsets her you do what you can to make it not happen. They taught him that if a woman trusts you enough to tell you what creeps her out, you owe it to her not to be a creep. Man did we have fun trying out all the underpants they got him; they got every kind to try so we could see which kinds we both liked. We ended up liking boxers best. No creepo factor whatsoever for me, plus this accentuated his Obsession Ad ass off of which you could have bounced a quarter. They were comfortable for him in providing adequate dance space, his attempt to politely say they had enough "ball room" for his private parts, and they did not get all bunchy in his pant legs like he feared. So everybody was happy, and to this day, even though he is now an old married guy with kids, and I am still a weird freak, we both think this is funny, we both remember this fondly, and all the men in his family remember the freaky girl who hates tighty whities.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Terrorist

Regarding the Presidential News Conference Today 10/25/06

Sweet blessed Jesus, I cannot believe this man is the "leader of the free world." It is funny how he keeps saying ideology like he knows what it means. I feel so terrified that this man does not seem to be cognizant of the fact that the American ideology is not acceptable to a lot of people in the world. The apparent need of this administration to inflict the American ideology on the rest of the world is leaving us out in the cold on the international stage. I hope to God this fucker doesn’t get us all blown off the face of the earth before we can get him out of office. Praise Jesus and FDR for term limits.

It frightens me that he says that those who do not support his agenda do not support freedom. Freedom is subjective. The people who live in Iraq live in a part of the world that has a rich and storied history. The United States of America is a whippersnapper compared to most of the other cultures and societies in the world. Just because the people of Iraq do not believe the same things we believe does not mean they are wrong. It just means they are different. As a rule, as a human, on a fundamental level I think we all have an obligation to help anyone we can, whenever and however we can. I do not think it is ok that once we help them we insist they do everything our way. On a larger scale I feel this is what this Administration is trying to do, to force the world to conform to a societal structure that is fundamentally counter to their belief system.

There are a lot of things for which we should all be willing to fight and kill and die. George W. Bush’s ego is not one of them. It is obscene to me that people are separated from their families for inhuman lengths of time, for shit pay, in grave danger. Yes, as in all military conflicts, some people are safer than others, some people are happy as pigs in shit to be away form their families, some are thrilled out of their minds to be able to fight and kill. Most are not. Most are just people who needed to find a way to be able to take care of their families and themselves, most are people who love and believe in our country and feel a duty and obligation to serve our country in the military. We have by far, and unquestionably, the most well trained and equipped military machine in the history of the world. Many of the people in our military do not support our president, his decisions, or the reasons we are involved in this war. They do support us and they do support our country. No matter what you think of our President, or our country, or foreign policy, we all owe a great debt of gratitude if nothing else to the people who protect us.

I did not vote for this man, I do not support his administration. I am a registered undecided. I did not vote for his Dad. I did not vote for anyone who has been President since I have been old enough to vote with one exception. I did vote for Clinton the second time because I did not think it was a good idea to vote a guy out of office for thinking with his dick. If we held philandering and lying about it against people in regard to their career the world would come to a screeching halt. I’m sure I will get on my high horse about that situation one day too, but today is President Dipshit's day to be number one on my rant list.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Baby Pictures

This is mon petit amour...


"I don't care if you're tired, I'm busy hogging the bed and watching TV."

My little furry hanging out in my bed, being irresistibly cute and kitty like.

"What do you mean I can't help you make apple pie?" "How come you have time to make apple pie anyway? Aren't' you supposed to be renovating this house? It looks like you've got a lot of work to do in here Mom. "

Here's my furry assistant standing on my recipe, on THE KITCHEN TABLE, adamantly asserting that kitties do too belong on the table.

"Well, looks like SOMEBODY has a lot of laundry to fold, luckily, I am here to supervise."

My cat wants to make sure everybody knows I have a kitty, so he makes it his business to hop on the warm clothes right away in order to be sure he gets just enough fur on them.


Sharky

My friend Sharky is like a sister to me. Like a real sister is supposed to be, like on TV, and in movies. Not like my real sisters who generally speaking wouldn't piss down my throat if my lungs were on fire, unless or course there was money in my throat, and they needed to put out the fire to get their grubby mitts on the cash. Sharky and me have been friends, our parents and older siblings claim, since we were fetuses. Sharky's been married to another one of my good friends, Sensei, for, lemme do the math, sixteen years. I met him a long time ago when he and Sharky were dating. He was a nice boy, now he is a nice man, and a really good Dad, and husband, and friend. Sharky's really cool, and a major freaking geek. She wears glasses, and has since I can remember. When we were little she always got in trouble for kicking the shit out of other kids. They had it coming. She is a soccer Mom who hates soccer Moms. Now that she is done breeding and lactating, she has gleefully returned to caffeine, chocolate and alcohol. She cracks me up with the rum and cokes because she gets buzzed off like half an ounce of rum in a 12-ounce glass over the course of an afternoon.

Sharky had a pretty crappy childhood too, worse than mine. Her parents got divorced when she was in grade school. Up until then her parents generally amused themselves by kicking the shit out of each other and their kids on a perpetual basis. Her Mom has really bad taste in men. Nowadays she is married to an abusive prick we all hate who occasionally puts her in the hospital. Sharky's Mom says he is sick and will die soon. She is sticking around for the money. Sharky's Dad is a creepy fucker. Since he got divorced the oldest woman he has dated that we know of was 25. He's almost seventy now. Still, likes the little girls. I keep and eye on him like a hawk around kids. He's pretty sick now too, so we have to keep an eye on him anyway and make sure he takes his medication, and doesn't have another heart attack. Sharky’s brother is kind of in charge of dealing with the parents. He does it best. He has always taken care of his sisters and took the brunt of a lot of the abuse when they were kids. He also took care of Sharky when we were in high school and her parents both decided they did not want to be parents anymore.

Having had such a tough time growing up, Sharky made up her mind she was going to be a good Mom and be there for her kids. Sharky and Sensei have four kids who are some of my favorite little people in the world, actually nowadays a couple of them are more like medium people then little people. They have Charlie who is in fifth grade, Lucy who is in third grade, Sally who is in kindergarten, and Linus who is too little for any school just yet. Their kids are such different people from each other, it is amazing to me to watch them grow up.

Charlie is very studious, and serious. He had ADD and takes medicine to go to school. I like him when he is off his meds. I think he is cool. It pisses me that to be in school kids are medicated instead of taught how to cope in school. It is not fair that kids have to feel like there is something wrong with them because they learn differently, and don’t conform to some Stepford child mold. He writes poems and stories that always surprise me that a kid wrote them. He is preternaturally aware of all that is going on around him.

Lucy cracks me up. We call her a Drama Empress because Queen does not do her justice. She is very bossy, and will lead other kids sown the garden path then narc on them for breaking the rules. It really is funny. We are waiting for her siblings and cousins to gang up and give her the ass kicking she has coming. She is also a very imaginative child, and tells the most fantastic stories. She is so loving and kind to animals, I cannot imagine what will happen the day she figures out where Big Macs come from. I remember the first time she came over my house and met my kitty. She lay down on the floor, and looked at him and introduced herself. It was really cute.

Sally is a rough tough cream puff. She smacks the crap out of Charlie and Lucy when there are no witnesses, allegedly. She is very funny, and very frank, and we are saving up money to bail her out of jail later in life. One day I made her cry. Over at Sharky’s house, there was a pretty big crowd hanging around, standing room only. All Sharky and Sensei’s siblings, and their spouses and kids were there. So, I am standing between Sally and something she wants, and she some up to me and says, "Can you please get your fat ass out of my way?" To which I replied, "HEY! That’s not nice!" She then burst into tears. It was all I and anyone else could do not to laugh our asses off when she first said it, but I rightly figured I ought to point out that "excuse me" will do in such situations.

Linus is absolutely adorable. He runs like the wind in the opposite direction every time you call him. He thinks it is freaking hilarious to take off his clothes every chance he gets. He is having a very good time refusing to be potty-trained right now. Peeing on the floor is way more fun. He can’t have a meal without checking to see if any of it is good for his skin, and hair. He loves worms, and likes to swing them around onto girl cousins because girl cousins make these really great screechy noises when you put worms on them.

When my Dad died Sharky was the first person I called. Sensei was a pallbearer. When my Mom died nine days later, they were the first people I called again. Sharky came with me to make the arrangements for my Mom. Church totally killed us all when my Dad died. We could not take watching another coffin going up and down all those stairs again. We had a nice service at the funeral home for my Mom where we could be much more irreverent. I do not remember much of anything about it at all, but my friends tell me it was nice. Sharky also made me feel a lot better about the whole crapfest about my birthday. I was so upset about it when my parents died, Sharky told me "Lana, sometimes my kids do stuff that make me want to peel off my skin and die, but I still love them all the time, and nothing they ever do could make me not love them. Your Mom and Dad love you like that too." Like I said, Sharky is pretty cool.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Primary Care

My whole life, until the shrink and I hashed it out, I did all I could to make everybody else comfortable, and be tactful, and diplomatic, and smooth things over. This is how I ended up the Executrix of the Estate of Clusterfuck. My parents left the kid who knew how to get shit done in charge.

Well, I can tell you right now; homey don’t play that anymore. Now I look out for myself, and if you have a problem with me telling you no then that is YOUR problem. If you do not like me because I do not drop everything to respond to you alarmist tendencies, well, bummer, I will somehow soldier on. However, I still sometimes have trouble with conflict in some situations.

When I changed jobs I ended up with new health insurance, it sucks by the way, where I had to name a new primary care physician. Now, this was a bummer for me. I was used to just seeing whomever I wanted, whenever I wanted. In spite of my apparent propensity for health related disaster based solely on the realities of genetics, I am quite healthy. I am allergic to all kinds of stuff, but do not have any diseases, or illnesses, or defects. I am much healthier than either of my parents was at my age, and I am much healthier than all my siblings. I’m not sick, or crazy, or an addict of some kind. Being Catholic, I, of course, have guilt about winning the genetic lottery.

So, I met with the new primary care physician a few times. It is amazing what stress can do to you. I was miserable with my allergies, and even got strep throat for the first time in over a decade. I even actually got sick once with the flu and once with bronchitis. There were a few things I did not like about the new doctor’s office. It seemed like the people who greeted you, took your co-pay, and fielded questions were not much help, and also had a knack for rudely and loudly discussing patients who had left the room. I am not good at sticking up for myself when people are nasty or inappropriate, or infiltrate my boundaries. I always think I am being too sensitive.

A lot of what a doctor learns in school is just a basic jumping off point. The expertise comes with the acknowledgement of intuition, experience, and the accumulation of the ability to grasp and adjust to subtleties. I believe as a patient I have not only a right, but also an obligation, to understand what tests I am having and why I am having them. My doctor disagreed and informed me that she is the doctor, and I have no right to question the reason for a test, or to have the results explained to me. She screeched at me and gave a me a long lecture about how sick she is of people who think they have any business in making decisions about their own care. I found this to be unmitigated bullshit.

After that debacle, I decided to drop that doctor as a caregiver for myself. When it comes to doctors, I don’t give a shit if I like you. I’m coming to see you because of your expertise in a realm of health care for which I am a consumer. I am not coming to see you to invite you tea. I care that the doctor knows what they are doing, instills a sense of trust in their judgement, and behaves professionally. If it comes to the point where you have to stand in a hospital in the middle of the night and tell the people who love me you did everything you could, I want them to know you really did, and you really knew what you were doing when you did it.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Psycho

I’ve worked for, with, by, and near some pretty screwy people in my life. One such bundle of joy was a woman I lovingly referred to as the Mighty Queen of the Psycho Babes. I also coined a term to describe her with that is very, very, very not nice. It is a perfectly apt word that is a derivation of a very bad four-letter word most women despise. She was such a wacko I had to make a horrible word even worse. My new word is an adverb, but I also use it as a gerund. It has slipped into my lexicon, and into the lexicon of my close associates. I'm sure other people have also happened upon the same word from dealing with similar people in their lives. I wonder if I can get Webster interested in declaring it an official new word.

I am utterly convinced this woman must have photographic evidence of the owners of the company molesting sheep, as I cannot imagine how she got to be the Office Manager. My sweet innocent little darlings the depths and insidiousness of this woman’s insanity were unfathomable. When I went to interview for my job, I met with the person who would be my boss, then with the Psycho Babe, then with the Managing Vice President. My boss told me all about what would be expected of me, asked me all kinds of great stress questions, and really found out a lot about my abilities and shared a lot of realistic information about the drudgery and annoyances of the job. The VP was cool, also asked tons of questions, and gave me a lot of information about the company. Psycho Babe talked about her relationship, her excellent meatloaf, and her need to go to the dentist. No, actually she was not high, just the most fascinatingly self-absorbed over age skank I have ever met in my life.

Not only did I, and all the other brilliant, competent, and passionate people I worked with, have the joy of enduring the Mighty Queen of the Psycho Babes, but also her Idiot Spawn, all three of them. Ah, such joy. The only consolation is that they all smoked, and consequently they were all frequently gone from the office for several minutes at a time, sometimes blessedly all at once. We all lived for the times when they would take family vacations and all be gone for whole days. Ah, it was like Martin Luther King’s dream had come true, and we were free at last. Free from tyranny and oppression. Free from the vast vacuum if inane, petty foolishness.

When I resigned to take a job in my field she informed me that it was inconvenient for her for me to give only two weeks notice. She needed more notice to hire a replacement whipping boy since she had important vacation and shopping plans, as well as a great desire not to do any actual work. I said no that was not possible as my plans were based on the customary two-week resignation notice. My plans were to take some time to recover from the psychological warfare and move into a new job with an open heart.

Some of my favorite things this woman did are;

Flying across the office to screech at me to answer the phone when no one else had answered the phone either, answering the phone was not my primary responsibility, nor was it a responsibility for which I was a primary point person. Further, because of tasks that were my sole and primary responsibility, the reason I did not answer the phone was because I was already on it with clients, vendors, or coworkers, and hence not free to answer the phone what with only having one mouth, two hands, and only one hold line.

Requiring me, and only me, to fill out detailed time off requests if I would be coming in late, having to leave early, or take a long lunch. Everyone else in the office understood that there were frequent and unforeseeable instances of these events. I was not only working full time, but also going to school full time with the blessing of my immediate supervisor as well as the Managing Vice President. I was further dealing with parents who were frequently in a state of needing emergency medical attention. I was unable to fill out a request as my parents did not black out, or have cardiac issues, fall, react badly to chemotherapy, fail to urinate for days, or fail to stop defecating for days on a schedule.

I was required at her insistence to have a designated lunchtime. No one else had this requirement.

Our office was rather small probably one thousand square feet. All on one level with cubicles. It was very easy for us all to see, or find each other. One day I went to lunch, for a lunch hour, and punched out on the time card as always. Anybody who might wonder where the hell I was could check my time to see if I punched out and how long I had been gone. So, I am sitting in our lunch room, about fortyfive minutes into my lunch hour, where anyone can clearly see me if they were to just look in the door, or happen to walk by. My cell phone begins to ring, and I see it is my office on the caller ID. Strange since I am sitting right the fuck there. Once my phone rings everyone hears it and I hear a chorus of people screaming "she's in the kitchen!" As if I had been hiding. No one was calling my name. No one had ducked into the kitchen looking for me. She insisted I must come back immediately to perform a menial duty that is actually the responsibility of one of the Idiot Spawn, who had failed to perform it of late. It is something ANYONE could have done. It is not my job, and many times in the past Psycho Babe had forbidden me to do it. That day I need to be hunted down on my lunch hour to do it.

I was forbidden to get office supplies. I was not allowed to have simple things, like pens, and a functioning adding machine, without having to go to the Managing Vice President for written approval to ignore the Psycho Babe’s refusal.

When my parents died, she complained to anyone who would listen about how I had no right to take two weeks off and how awful it was that she had to field some of my phone calls, and answer questions from vendors and clients. The fact that during those two weeks both my parents died, and I had planned and somehow managed to survive their funerals apparently was not a mitigating factor. I explained to her that I understood how she felt, as my parents’ deaths had been quite disruptive and inconvenient for me as well.

Fucking cuntly bitch.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Transubstantiation

As far as I know, as a Catholic, I am to believe that "through the miracle of the mass, the bread and the wine substantially are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ." I don’t buy this. Haven’t for a long time. Not sure why. Trying to figure it out.

I went to church yesterday just to go to church for the first time in years. I liked it. It was fun to see all the people I know who were there. It was a lot more crowded than I expected. Standing room only. It was weird because I did not have a missal. That is the book you use to follow along, so you know when to do Catholic aerobics. Stand up, sit down, kneel, bless yourself, prepare for gospel reading, and the sign of peace that could be anything from a friendly nod to a full on hug depending on who wants you to be at peace. The missal also gives you the prayers like the Apostle’s Creed, and the Our Father to follow along. You need a hymnbook so you can sing along because nobody KNOWS any of the songs except the first verse of "Amazing Grace" and at Christmas time "Away in a Manger" usually has good participation.

Because I have been to church so many times in my life; I easily rattled off all the prayers and remembered all the rituals, like riding a bike. This reminded of one of the reasons I became such a heathen in the first place. It seemed to me that people were not cognizant of the meaning, and import of the words we were all mumbling, kind of like how we all rattle off the Pledge of Allegiance. Do we really stop and think what it means? Do we consider if we really do pledge allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands? Do we really believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church? Maybe it is just habit. Maybe it is has meaning beyond description. Maybe it is too frightening to really examine.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Mom, Baseball, and Apple Pie

The neighbors across the street have known me my whole life. They were helpful in every way my parents would allow as things became more difficult for us all and have been very kind and helpful since my parents died. One of their favorite things to do is to give us fresh vegetables and fruit they grow. Today they gave me a huge bag of apples that have me thinking about my Mom who made really good apple pie. No matter how old I got everything my Mom made tasted better than anybody else’s, even my own, and I am a pretty slick customer in the kitchen myself. It was like since my Mommy made it, it was special, and better. My Mom was really good at most stuff.

My Mom seriously kicked everybody’s ass in Trivial Pursuit, suckered us all in gin rummy, and really should have gone on jeopardy since I never saw her answer wrong. My Mom loved baseball. She was a rabid fan who never forgave the Dodgers for leaving Brooklyn where she grew up. In our home we were forbidden to watch American League games, and I rebelled by secretly being a Red Sox fan, and not really following baseball all that much at all anyway. The Yankees are the Anti-Christ. My Mom always felt so sorry for Billy Martin. She thought he and George Steinbrenner had a co-dependent abusive relationship. She really hated George Steinbrenner.

In our family it was weird, my Mom was the one who knew all about all kinds of sports. My brother played Little League, and was something like the third string kicker on the high school football team. My Mom liked to go to the games. She would cheer like a maniac, and was really proud of my brother. Girls were not really allowed to do sports back then, and I don’t think any of us wanted to anyway. It was fun to play in the neighborhood. There were tons of kids around when we were growing up, and everybody liked to play in our yard. My Mom liked all the kids and liked having them around.

My Mom was one of the smartest people I have ever met. She was one of the smartest people everybody who met her ever met. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the just about anything that had ever interested her, and was absolutely fascinating to talk to about anything. The cruelest thing about her becoming ill was not her increasing physical limitations, but the diminishment of her intellectual acuity, and trips in and out of lucidity. She was aware she was "losing her marbles" and it terrified her and pissed her off immensely. Me too.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

"Flow it, Show it"

My hair is haunted. It is naturally curly, and overrun with cowlicks. No matter how sleek and sophisticated I get it to look with the aid of various shellacs and instruments of hair torture, it looks like I brushed it with an eggbeater by the time I get where I am going. My friends refer to it as bed head, in a devilish just rolled around doing anything but sleeping kind of way. I usually am having as much fun as my hair, and wish to hell everybody else would too. I just love getting my hair cut. I do it every six weeks, rain or shine, feast or famine, and have for a long time. It is one of the things I do for myself, all me, just me. I love having my hair washed, and seeing the forsaken locks falling to the floor in a flurry of scissors artistry. Watching my disheveled countenance once again become respectable. Everyone should find something to do just for themselves. I don’t care if anyone likes my hair, I like it.

When I was younger, and unsure of myself, a bad hair day could send me to bed in tears. It was an occasion worthy of using a sick day at work, or missing a day or two or six of high school. I stopped coloring it when the shit really hit the fan in my life. I simply did not have the time to sit there and wait for the dye to set. Things were so erratic, I could not even be sure I could be there for a scheduled appointment. So my roots began to show. This was actually funny to me, and a lot of others. I, and they, had forgotten my natural hair color. None of us had seen it since junior high. The owner of the salon I was going to at the time told me my hair is dark blonde. I refuse to be a blonde. I have light brown hair, and am a brunette, and that is final. There are gray hairs interspersed, multiplying day to day. I see them shining like diamonds in the light every time I look in the mirror. They don’t bother me. I earned every one. My hair has been all kinds of shades of red, and brown and blonde. It even had some jaunty purple streaks for a time. It was the Eighties. I am better now.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Gravity

I was watching Dr. 90210 on E! last night. This of course brought to mind my intermittent obsession with my boobs. I have had a love hate relationship with them since the miracle of puberty bestowed them upon me. In my family I got the recessive boob gene. I am thinking it might skip a generation since most of my nieces are also seriously stacked.

My Mom claimed to be the only flat chested fat lady in the history of the world. Both my Grandmas had big boobs. My Dad had big boobs too, but not ucky man boobies. He was a big fat guy, but he had more like body builder boobies than man boobies. My parents said it was a good thing I got my Mom’s nose and my Dad’s boobs, and not vice versa.

My older sisters teased me about my boobs. My oldest sister told me boys do not like big boobs and nobody would ever love me. As if a boy liking your boobs means he likes you. Turns out I've managed to meet a man or two who liked me and my ugly boobs.

I have wanted a boob job forever, and told my parents since I was a freshman in high school that they needed to get their asses in gear and make some money so they could leave me money for a boob job in their wills. I still have not had a boob job. Seems like I have frittered away all the money I ever have gotten my hands on for frivolous crap like a college education, home renovations, and other immature stuff.

What I want to do to my boobs, is make them smaller and higher. I vaguely remember having perky boobs. It takes a village to hold these puppies up nowadays. God bless America, apple pie, and under wire bras. My boobs are not freakishly humongous, just a little too big. Since I played a musical instrument for years, not only can I talk incessantly without taking a breath, but I also have good posture which helps me not have back pain that a lot of women who are similarly endowed suffer.

I know a lot of women who have had either a breast augmentation or reduction. I am planning to get a boob job for my mid life crisis, if I can find someone I trust to do it. I am worried about how the surgery needs to be done. If you want bigger boobs, they can stick them in up through your belly button, of through your armpits and if you get high grade implants that are appropriate for your body type, and follow your surgeons care instructions, you can get some really nice looking and feeling boobs. Breast reductions and lifts are a lot more involved, take a lot more skill, and can be royally screwed up much easier.

To get smaller and higher boobs they have to cut out your nipples, and cut out some skin below where you used to keep your nipples. The surgery can be done a few different ways. The one I most understand is similar in my mind to a tummy tuck. Basically they cut out around your nipple, push everything up, poke a hole through the pushed up bits for your nipple to show through, cut off extra stuff at the bottom, and then sew the edges or your areola to the new hole they poked through. I am not worried about scars. I have other scars in other places for other reasons. The thing that deters me besides the whole unnecessary surgery, man this is really freaking vain, and this shit costs more than my roof stuff is the whole POSSIBLE LOSS OF NIPPLE SENSATION. My nipples are sensational baby, and I like ‘em like that. Man, gravity sucks.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Porn

I usually have one of three reactions to porn; boredom, revulsion, or amusement.

I really like the shoes though.

Monday, October 9, 2006

Mon Petit Amour

There is cat fur all over everything I own. I have no idea why my cat is not bald with all the fur he leaves all over my stuff. I love him very much. Unavoidably he will someday pass into the great catnip field in the sky, when this happens, I will probably need sedation. I have to leave him home alone all day when I am working. I am afraid he is lonely. I wish I could bring him to work with me. I know that is weird, but I do. Whenever I come home, no matter how long I have been gone, I feel so badly because he just wants to be with me. He did not get the memo about kitties being aloof. He will mew at me plaintively when I get home until I pick him up. He has no patience while I put down my purse and keys, and remove my coat; all hell breaks loose if I have the audacity to do anything else before addressing his needs. He wants me to carry him around for awhile each night. Snuggled with his head nuzzled into my armpit. I guess he likes Secret. I got him from the dog pound almost six years ago. He came right up to the bars and rubbed his whiskers on me. I was his, he had marked me.

My cat is a homo. He really likes men a lot. It takes him a long time to warm up to any other women besides me. One of my best friends says my cat is not a homo, he just knows how his bread is buttered, nah, he’s a homo. Men I date, male relatives and friends, contractors, and male neighbors who stop by to visit enthrall him, he is all over them. He runs enthralled around their legs, marks their tool boxes with his whiskers, and hurls himself in their laps to have his ears scratched. I think maybe I just know a lot of nice man type people since they all, every one, have always enjoyed his misguided homoerotic attentions, and have been just as happy to pet him as he is to be pet. I would really like to get him a puppy. Aside from being a homo, he also really likes dogs. I think he is very confused, but I love him in all his furry glory with all my heart. My cat does not go outside. I want to protect him and have him live a long safe happy life. He meets dogs that come to visit him, dogs of relatives and friends and neighbors. He likes them a lot. He likes to play with them, and sit with them, and tease them.

I tried getting him a cat a few years ago. I wanted him to have someone to play with and keep him company when I was at work. I got him a used kitty from an acquaintance whose mother could no longer care for her cat. The new kitty I got was a bit long in the tooth, and eventually I found out she had some serious health problems. She only lived a year after I got her. In the end she turned out to be more of a dominatrix than a companion for my kitty. She constantly hissed at him, hogged the litter pan, and stole his food. This was a very dark time for my kitty. He expressed his displeasure with the interloper by having a pissing contest, literally, with the new kitty. They peed my rug, my bed, my furniture, Everything. Thank goodness I found some amazing cat pee remover.

Since the suspicious demise of the other kitty, my cat has been a very happy only child. He basks in the sunshine of my love. Helping me hone my housekeeping skills by rubbing himself all over clean dishes in the dish drainer so I have to wash them again. Impishly glaring at me as if I am insane when I demand he remove himself form the kitchen table and cease using my date's salad as a play toy. He is kind enough to see to it that I do not get over heated when I sleep by gathering the blanket around himself, after he has grudgingly moved slightly from his fully stretched out diagonal position across the bed to allow me to sneak in on the edge. He helps me with laundry by hanging from sheets as I fold them, knocking over neatly stacked piles of folded clothing, and letting me know it is not a good time to fold clothes by stubbornly sitting on top of the laundry basket.

He makes sure I am properly potty trained by accompanying me every time he sees me go near the bathroom. He is mindful of my hygiene by sitting of the edge of the tub staring in around the shower curtain to be sure I wash my hair, and do not miss a spot when I shave my legs. He cleverly sees to it that I do not spend too much time sitting on my ass doing nothing by napping on the remote so I must get up to manually operate the television. He is a computer whiz, and makes sure he sits on my desk between me and the keyboard. He needs to assure I attain maximum efficiency, occasionally rolling onto the keyboard in a fit of pique at my poor grasp of technology. I fear he is only using me for amazing dexterity with a can opener, having no thumbs himself.

Sunday, October 8, 2006

Why I Hate My Birthday – Well, I Think I Am Over That Now

There are very few people in this world who I truly consider to be my friend, and whose friend I consider myself to be. I know a lot of nice people. A lot of people think well of me. But there are those few people who really know me, and love me. These are the people who stayed up all night with me when my parents died. They are who came to the funeral home with me to make arrangements. They are who have been there for me when my family wasn’t all my life. Besides all the irrational, yet understandable, family related issues I have surrounding my birthday, I have managed to do a few other things to compound the torment.

One of those things is to have what are unrealistic expectations about what it means to have people remember your birthday. Intellectually I know it does not mean they love you if they do, or they don’t love you if they don’t. Sometimes, they are sucking up if they do, and are just too damn busy to find a card, and put a stamp on it, and get it to a mailbox because they have jobs, and kids, and spouses and issues with their family of origin of their own. To me a birthday is kind of like Valentine’s Day in that if it is the only time you show up, you might as well not bother. Friendship, being part of a family, or nurturing a relationship happens between holidays, not on them.

All my friends know I hate my birthday, and because I am generally a very happy, very supportive, kind and gregarious person, it is hard for them to see me upset. It is hard for anyone to see someone they love unhappy, it makes you feel powerless. Consequently, everybody kind of lays low, knowing, I will come up for air eventually and be my old self. I will talk about it if I need to, I will stew if I need to, and I will call them up and tell them I am pissed if I need to.

Like a lot of people my birthday is a benchmark to me, a time to reflect, and review. In the past, it was a benchmark of all I had not accomplished, all I had not done, all I had not achieved. I was very glass is half-empty about it. I reflected on failed romances, failures as a child, sibling and friend. My failure to have achieved some sort of stability in my finances and career. Failure in my educational aspirations. FAILURE. After my Mom and Dad died, I had a lot to do. It is so hard to deal with the death of a parent, not to mention losing both of your parents within days of one another. No matter how grown up you are, how independent you are, and how you know to the core of your being you did everything they asked and everything you possibly could, it still is one hell of a shock to the system.

Major life events bring out the best in good people and the worst in not so good people. I’m a good people. A lot of things in the wake of my parents’ deaths were hard for me. My family fell apart, and I was the only one who cared. Probating two wills is expensive, and time consuming, and heart wrenching. My parents were of very modest means, but it was still complicated. They made a lot of legal decisions that were not popular with most of the family. Have you heard the expression kill the messenger? No, death would have been a relief; it was more like torment the messenger. For my thirty-sixth birthday, I did not care. I was in no mood; I just wanted to curl up in my pajamas for a couple weeks. I was so beside myself.

For my thirty-seventh birthday, I did not want to do anything special. I spent the day doing dorky stuff I like to do, such as; not work, sleep late, drink tea, hang out with my cat, talk with friends, work on my house, read, and sipping a Dunkin' Donuts medium mocha coolatta with skim milk and no whipped cream at the beach at sunset. I used it as a time to reflect. I thought about how wise I was to finally have gone to a shrink for the first time in my life to talk about everything that pissed me off, and what a priceless gift that was to give to myself. I thought about the college degree I had finally earned. The career I finally have. I thought about the house I now own, that is the house I grew up in, and how each and every cobweb I literally clean corresponds to a cobweb in my heart that I lovingly and necessarily clean. I thought about men I have loved, and how smart I am to not have married them in spite of loving them so much, and that I have pretty damn good taste in men all the same. I thought about all I have accomplished in my life, and how far I have come. I thought about how next year I ought to go to Aruba and become a cradle robber of cabana boys with a poor grasp of the English language. I thought about how lucky I am that I was able to talk to my parents about our family, and forge a good and healthy relationship with them. I thought about how lucky I am that the last thing I ever did to each of my parents the last time I saw each of them alive was to hug them and say, "I love you."


My glass is full.

Saturday, October 7, 2006

Why I Hate My Birthday – No, Seriously, I’m a MAJOR Asshole

Over the years, I had of course voiced many times the whole thing about how my birthday sucked and why to my parents, family, friends, strangers on the bus, my cat, the family dog, and any other poor schmuck who happened to somehow get on the topic with me. Truly, I am an asshole about this. So, after my thirty fourth birthday, and a lifetime of my parents forgetting my birthday, forgetting when they did remember that is all about me, me, me, and when they remembered to get me a gift, getting me stuff I hated, I announced that they’d had thirty four chances, and now they were shit out of luck. I would no longer be succumbing to the mandatory spend it with my family requirement.

Then, by the time my thirty fifth birthday rolled around I was the main care taker of two terminally ill people I dearly and desperately loved, and about whose impending demise I was trying to bullshit myself and everyone else. Of course, all bets about the whole I am not spending my birthday with you crap from the year before were off. A few weeks before my birthday, as I sat on the floor of the emergency room, yet again, waiting with my parents, my Mom asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I literally could think of nothing I really wanted to do other than take a freaking nap. My Mom asked if we could go out to dinner together.

By then my parents had given me power of attorney, made me executrix of their wills, appointed me to handle their affairs and given me the legal mechanisms to become their conservator if necessary. I was taking them back and forth to doctor after doctor, constantly terrified something was happening to them when I was not with them, working full time, going to school full time and trying not to slap the shit out of my sisters who were seemingly doing dick to help. I was so tired. I really thought I did not expect to do anything for my birthday. Pretty much if I wanted something that was affordable as a gift I already had it, like books, music, clothes, and stuff like that. Everything else I wanted was unreasonable to expect as a gift like a Porsche 911, a cure for what was killing my parents, firm thighs, or a husband to help me with all that was going on.


Several days before my birthday, my Mom brought it up again. I had forgotten. I said sure we could go out to dinner. She said it would be a surprise. So, on the day we were supposed to go, my Mom, Dad and younger sister, who lived with them, were supposed to come pick me up at noon. By around 12:30 I was monumentally pissed. Seriously could nobody just get the fuck out of their own way to just do something, anything, for me ever? Having amazing psychic Mom powers, my Mom called my just then to tell me they were running late because my sister did not clean out the car yet.

Now that is a feat unto itself. Some Dad’s play golf, some fish, some go to the gym, my Dad acquired cars, old junky ones that he somehow kept running with the aid of copious amounts of duct tape. Both my parents were children during the Depression, and like many people of their generation were consequently pack rats. Their house, cars, everything were just packed with junk. I’m still sifting through it all! By this time my Mom and Dad were both having extreme difficulty getting around. They had only one vehicle they could both get in and out of by then. Of course they could not clean out the car themselves. Of course my sister could not just do what she said she would do when she said she would do it.


Then about an hour later my Mom called and asked me if I could come over and then drive where we were going in their car since by then my Mom could no longer get in and out of mine. I said sure, I would be right there, thinking we would go hang out somewhere near their house or something. Oh, meanwhile, my Dad is always a pain in the ass about going anywhere. He would pull this stunt where he would refuse to go, and then need to be talked into it such and extent that by the time he agreed to go you a) did not want to go yourself anymore and b) wanted to kill him. So when I get to my parents house my Dad is in full on pain in the ass mode, my Mom is doing that pained put upon guilt inducing thing Moms do so well, the car is still not clean, and they have decided that my sister will drive my Mom in their car and I would drive my Dad in mine. Great, I get to be trapped in the car with the mighty king of the backseat drivers while he is in full on pain in the ass mode. Happy Birthday to me!

Oooh, it gets better. Another joke in my family about me, besides the never seeming to even pause for a breath when I talk, is that they say the hospital gave them the wrong kid since they claim they are beer people and I am a champagne child. Mostly this is ok, and a source of great amusement to one and all. But, it was my birthday, dammit! Could we not go somewhere I like or do something I like? Admittedly, when it comes to eating establishments I am a notorious snot. I like to go places with tablecloths and what I refer to as a pepper dude. This is the guy whose job it is to carry around the pepper mill, and ask you if you would like any pepper. So, I am supposed to get in my car, drive 50 (FIFTY!) miles with captain crab ass, and go eat at a restaurant that serves a kind of food I notoriously dislike. AAAUGH! I was so tired. I was never sleeping. My car did not have much gas. At the time I was commuting almost two hours each way to and from work, and did not want to drive anywhere else against my will. I do not like to drive in the dark. I do not like to drive on the road we would have had to take to get there. I do not like my birthday.

I really would have liked it if they got me a manicure since my nails were bitten to the quick, or a facial, or something, anything just for me. I was terrified of being so far from home and the good hospitals with them. I was afraid my parents, my Mom in particular, would not fare well on such a protracted adventure. I was afraid both their little oxygen tanks would run out. I was mystified as to how they could think driving all over hells half acre with their lives in my hands could possibly be my idea of a good time. I really had hoped it would be something simple they wanted to do for me, something where they understood how exhausted I was, how terrified I was, how much I wanted and needed to just sit down for a minute and not have to worry for a minute. I was burnt out.

I did not appear sufficiently thrilled about driving the fifty miles there with captain crab ass, then the fifty miles back in the dark. So, my Mom gave me that withering guilt inducing make you realize all the crappy things you have done since you ever born Mom look, my Dad refused to go, and my sister STILL had not cleaned the car. So, to review, for my birthday, I am to drive a long distance to a place I do not want to go, to do something I do not want to do, two hours later than we were supposed to leave, with my guilt emanating Mom, my sister who so desperately needed a kick in the ass no jury would have convicted me, and my Dad who was in full on pain in the ass mode. I do not know why I did just not start doing heroin right there.

So, then I said I would not go either, and I left. When I am upset I go for a walk, when I am really upset I go for a drive. I like to drive, even in my idiot mature responsible adult car that I had acquired the year before because you cannot get two old people, two portable oxygen tanks, and a wheel chair into a two-door sports car, really, you can’t, I tried. I can think well in the car. I find driving anywhere but work soothing. It was a nice day. I had a good time driving much too fast, until that day I had no idea my practical car could actually go that fast, with all the windows down and playing music too loud. So I was busy thinking about what an asshole I am, and how much I hate my birthday, and what kind of scumbag am I to ditch two terminally ill people who love me. So I went back.

My Dad was really mad and had gone to get coffee, which is what he did when he was upset. Of course I freaked out about this too since he was not supposed to be driving. I talked to my Mom. I tried to tell her why I was upset. I didn’t feel like she understood. My Mom said, "this is how you are." My Mom just figured I am an asshole about my birthday, and that is just how it is. I went home and felt sorry for myself. I even did not call them or anything the next day. The day after that, my actual birthday day, I went over to put their meds together for the week, as if Mr. and Mrs. Non-compliant Patient took their meds. I also compulsively needed to check on them, hover over them, and make sure they were eating, feeding the dogs, and to see if my sister was doing something, anything, to help. They weren’t mad anymore and happy to see me. I was still sad, and still hating my birthday, and still could not figure out what the fuck made anybody think I would want to go anywhere but bed and do anything but sleep when I got there. This was my last birthday with my Mom and Dad; they were both dead within six weeks. I’m an asshole.



Friday, October 6, 2006

Why I Hate My Birthday – The Plot Thickens

As I got older there were things about my birthday that sucked. My family insisting I spend time with them, then being late to show, and being assholes when they got there. Also, buying me gifts that in the midst of all the emotional angst I felt about the occasion felt as if they had never even met me. Seriously what the fuck were they thinking? Did they ever listen when I talked? In my family it was an ongoing joke that I never shut up. Did they ever hear anything I said I like? I think not. They should have tried to think of something I liked, not something they liked, not something I mentioned I wanted four years ago, that is now on sale at 90% off. Ya know, just fuck you. Obviously, I had a major attitude problem about it all.

So, in addition to my birthday apparently being just too much trouble for everyone else to bother, they also were all quite ding dang pouty about their own birthdays. See, now I really did not think it was fair to expect their birthdays to be an occasion, when nobody apparently gave a shit about mine. On the other hand, I am not big on spite. I give a crap when it is somebody else’s birthday. It matters to me. If you are my family or my friend, I care that you were born and I think it is a thing to be celebrated. Now do not think I am some party-throwing freak. I just mean, how hard is it to make a phone call, shoot off an e-mail, or God forbid, drop an actual card in the mail to let someone know you care about them? At some point we all become grown ups and we do not need or want the proverbial ice cram, cake, and pony rides. I would not expect people to go nuts other in regard to planning or financial investment in regard to my birthday. With not being a Rockefeller and all, I have long since stopped giving gifts to adults and concentrate on children with the material possession bestowal. There are exceptions of course, such as boyfriends, milestone birthdays of friends, and of course I always got something for my Mom and Dad.



Both my parents were notorious for not planning. Since they have died, this has become, for me, even more endearing. Like a lot of couples, in a gift giving situation my Mom picked up something and gave a card to the recipient from her and my Dad. This was also a lucrative deal for me, since as an older child and well into my twenties, I would extort payment for shopping services from Daddy for procuring items on his behalf for Mommy for Christmas, and her birthday, any other time he was on his own. Twice, once when I was a little kid, and once when I was in college my Dad forgot their anniversary. Both of these instances were nearly instantaneously funny to all us children due to the circumstances. In time they both became family legend, and to this day give anyone who knows about them at least a good laugh. My Mom liked to buy people presents, and would often pick up stuff she thought people would like in her daily travels. The problem was she they put them in a safe place and forgot about them. This is what has been endearing. Since they died I keep finding all kinds of stuff she had tucked away for me, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, and her friends. For me, it is one of the fun things of being responsible for all that needs to be done to give these little treasures I find to the recipient even if said recipient has grown too old for the gift.

I loved my Mom and Dad a lot and am so grateful that as I became older we talked about our family with each other and came to terms with our family’s past with each other. This is truly the greatest gift they ever gave me, besides the whole conception thing. Though I was there, I don’t remember it, but they claimed it was fun. Yuck! But, still, for me, with my parents, the birthday thing was a HUGE issue. They never got it right, and even though in what I jokingly refer to as "in real life" I am a competent and highly functional alleged adult, in regard to my birthday, in reference to my parents, I literally was a petulant, miserable brat until the day they died. So, this is my legacy of eternal assholeness to myself. I was the witch who was pissed at her parents once a year every year for their failure to grasp something, anything, that would please me.

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Why I Hate My Birthday – The Early Years


My birthday comes around once a year, God willing, just like everyone else. I have a lot of feelings about it. Most of them are neurotic, I think. Some of it stems from my childhood, but I also know some of it has to do with things I have done and/or tolerated since I have become an alleged adult. Being a Virgo, I’m going to be free and clear of any raging birthday related anxiety for several months now. Somehow I would like to figure out a way to reframe it for myself so that it is not such a suck deal for me anymore. I actually have made some progress, which you will see, I think. Of course as an adult, I know lots of people had similar experiences, and have similar anxieties, but this is my blog, so it is all about me.

There are a lot of issues from childhood that make birthdays a psychic wince for me. My family growing up was a cross between the Manson family and the Addams family. It was very scary, very strange, and very inappropriate at times. It was really kooky, and quirky, and hellaciously fun at times. If you had a "bad childhood" you get that it does not suck all the time. If you didn't, well, now ya know. Some of the things you learn from having crazy parents, or crazy relatives, or craziness in general are not so bad, and actually carry over into some pretty formidable life skills as an adult. I can spot bullshit a mile away. Most of it amuses me. I really appreciate and recognize good situations and good people. I am very flexible, organized, and have a strong work ethic.

I have four siblings. Four of our birthdays, including mine, are within a month of one another. Of those four I am the youngest, quite significantly younger. The older kids have a different biological mother than me since my Dad had a total freak show ex-wife. Everything got lumped together. When you are very little and all kinds of people show up for your birthday, the one that is lumped together with everybody else’s, and don’t even say hi, or happy birthday, it is very hurtful and damaging, and devastating. Why did my parents allow all these crazy people over my house on my birthday? Why did I just get all lost in the shuffle like that? What the hell possesses anyone to be such an asshole to a little kid? Oh, and another thing, we are mostly Irish, a little Dutch and really Catholic about it all. This is a good time to point out another good thing about my bad childhood; I am a wickedly cool guest at kids’ birthday parties. I am not an asshole to kids, ever.

Even though there were all kinds of screwed up catastrophes going on at home, we never talked about it. Yes, that changed, our family changed, things changed eventually, but not for a long time.

It was violent sometimes, lots of times. It was unbelievably terrifyingly violent.

Like most crazy, screwed up, hair trigger tempered, overzealous party animal, lace curtain Irish, guilt ridden Catholic families special occasions in our house were ripe opportunities for all the shit to hit the fan. Birthdays, being special occasions, were just one of the many opportunities for family wide dysfunction to spin out of control. I stopped having birthday parties, like any friends at all, when I was in third grade. When I got into junior high I would go skating or something with a couple friends. As a teenager, my family was way too embarrassing to even admit I had one. Mostly I just hated my birthday.