Friday, November 30, 2007

For Lori

I do not usually respond to comments, but today is an exception.
I logged into my e-mail for this blog for the first time in a long time. In there was a comment about my "Today Sucks" post that I wrote on Mother’s Day. I consider it more than a coincidence that according to the time stamp on the comment it arrived on my Mom’s birthday.


Thank you for writing. I am glad that it was helpful. I want you to know that I am thinking of you, and that you will really be ok.

You will not feel ok for a long time, but one day you will realize that not only do you feel like yourself again, but that you feel like a new improved kicked a lot of ass took a lot of names version of yourself.

Everything you feel is ok, it is normal, and you are entitled to have all the feelings you have.

A lot of people will say a lot of stupid shit to you. They mean well, try not to kick them.

This is a secret club; nobody talks to you about it until you are in it. You will often be surprised at the comfort you receive, as well as its sources.

Lastly, people will have different ways of dealing with this. Try to be gentle with yourself and others for the differences in how you each handle this situation.

My sincere condolences go out to you by way of cyber space, remember to take care of yourself.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

True Story

Like all cancer survivors, my Dad had to go for regular check ups after he had prostate cancer in 1998. He was notoriously reluctant to go the urologist. So, when the little reminder post card came, I called up and made the appointment, then I went and talked to my Mom.

Me: Mom, Daddy has to go to the guy gynecologist for his check up. I am going to schedule the geezer van to pick him up. Can you go with him?

Mom: How come?

Me: Because he is naughty, and if I put him on the bus by himself he will take the ride to the doctor, and go hang out at Dunkin' Donuts instead until the bus comes back. You know how he is always complaining about the urologist being a fucking Nazi who likes to Roto Rooter his dick. What the fuck is the Roto Rooter anyway?

Mom: They put a big tube up the urethra, and…

Me: (putting my fingers in my ears) La, la, la, la, OUCH!

Mom: How come you don’t want to take him?

Me: Come on Mommy, I don’t want to go to the winkie doctor with Daddy and talk about his penis!

Mom: (replete with impish smirk) Oh really, whose penis DO you want to talk about?

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Procrastination

The past month has been interesting to me. I have done a lot of thinking. The main reason I have not been writing is that so many things come to mind to write. They get all jumbled up in my head, and every time I start to write, I just keep going off on all kinds of tangents because every word I write triggers another fleeting thought, or memory, or idea. Being a life long procrastinator, I just know that is my perfectionism kicking in, which I know is actually a form of extreme assholeness because what makes me so special. I mean I know I am special, but I am not so damn special that my every action and word, and thought needs to be above reproach, especially by a tightass such as myself.


I have a bad habit of not doing stuff I want to do, holding off on it until do something I should be doing. I have been "going to paint my room" since May. I just could not get motivated to do it. I am not sure why because I am quite the little multitasker. I want it done, and I am absolutely sure that I will feel better, more settled in this house, and more centered if I get a place to sleep all established for myself. Actually, when I moved into the house, I had not had much time to get the house in any way shape of form cleaned out. It took me forever to get my younger sister out, and to get the mortgage, and my landlord had already had found a new tenant, so I was fucked, and just had to get out, and move in here, and punt until I defenestrated. After I put my Mom in the nursing home, I ordered a hospital bed for her for when she came home. Ever helpful, my sister dragged Mom's bed into the living room to make room for the hospital bed in my Mom's room. My parents told people they did not sleep together because my Mom was a restless sleeper and my Dad's snoring got horrendous as he got older. This was the official story. Truth was my Mom was diabetic, and my Dad had been a prostate cancer survivor, so they slept separately in order to facilitate quick exit from bed and travel to the bathroom. Just in case you were wondering about the sleeping arrangements. I often teased them because there were many times when I dropped by when my sister wasn't home, and I would catch them together in my Mom's room allegedly watching television. Because my Dad kept all their financial records, and all the papers I would need after he died carefully labeled in his room, it was where I had gotten the most cleaning done by the time I moved in. I just pulled my Mom's old bed in there and had been sleeping there. For some reason, I had a really tough time clearing out the rest of the crap my Dad had in there. Some things about cleaning the house out are tough. I have to do what I can when I can.


Eventually, I moved my mattress into the living room for awhile, and began working on cleaning out the room. Then I moved it again into a different bedroom because I decided I am too fucking old to be sleeping on a mattress in my living room. As if sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a bedroom that I use for a closet is any better. Because of my convincing myself I had to do my bedroom before I did anything else, I have not done much of anything else constructive except develop elaborate ways to avoid being home. Finally, I got down to business. It took forever. It has been very damp here, so every layer of mud took an eternity to dry. I had to do some serious repairs to the walls, so that was quite a project. Then I scrubbed every surface, and primed it all. Also having to wait for it all the dry. Right now I am waiting for the paint to dry. I found I few flaws I missed before that I am going to sand out and repaint, and I did a shitty job on the outside corner, and one inside corner. I am a dork. My eyeglasses were getting all fogged up because they slipped, and bumped my dust mask, and I could not see, so I missed a couple spots. I feel like this is progress because I am pretty calm about it. In the past I would have been such a stickler about getting it perfect, I would be berating myself for my lack of flawlessness. Now, I am chilled out about it. I know how to fix it, the world will not come to an end, and it looks way better than it used to. My only main fuck up was that when I did the ceiling, I should have lapped down the walls a little. Unfortunately, some of the old nasty paint showed where the walls meet the ceiling, so I went back painted those areas with the wall paint, so now my edges are no longer perfect. I’ll live. The whole wall color thing really slowed me down anyway. When I did a test, I really hated it. A nice old dude at Home Depot named John helped me try to find a recipe that could make a color I liked better. See, when paint is tinted they use certain measures of certain dry dye colors to mix with the white paint to make a color, so I would have needed to find a new color that had at least as much of all the tints already in the paint. No such luck. John suggested I try lightening it with some white. Well, I am using a very light almost white yellow for my ceilings. I love it. I mixed the half-gallon I had left into the two gallons of wall paint. It turned the way too pinky looking mauve that was not what I wanted at all into a really nice deep lilac. So I can live with it until I marry a rich guy to hire somebody to paint it over for me because I ain’t doing this shit again. I am sure in the course of painting my next room, when I open up my next can of ceiling paint, I will go back into my bedroom and fix the mess I made on the edge of the ceiling. I am excited about sleeping in a real bed, and putting up my Monet prints, and pulling my furniture in there, and putting up curtains. I think I will feel much better and expect to be all set by the weekend, as long as Ikea has the bed I want in stock.


In addition to my temporary home improvement aversion I have also been disenchanted with the job search process. I am just not up for it at all. I am so sick of temp agencies contacting me about my resume on Monster. I want a real job. I am an accountant with over ten years of experience. I went back to school and got an official Accounting degree, while I was working full time, and taking care of two terminally ill parents no less. Now I am trying to get the public accounting time to get a CPA license. These freaking clowns at the staffing agencies keep calling me up with these "opportunities" that remind of that old joke. You know, about how my parents had to walk ten miles to school, uphill, both ways, and fight off bears with their notebooks. "We have reviewed your resume on Monster.com and feel we have an excellent position that will suit your skills and career aspirations. It is a part time third shift position with no benefits, at one third your salary level and only two hours drive from your home in an only mildly shady neighborhood." FUCK YOU! So, I am thinking I am going to try to get a job at Starbucks. At least they have insurance. I am just afraid they will sense my disdain for the petty and inane and fear I will not be able to be sufficiently obsequious to sexually frustrated soccer Moms and sexually retarded lotharios. I’m actually not bullshitting about this. I cannot take accountants as seriously as they take themselves. I have never had a stick that far up my ass, and trust me, for a significant portion of my existence I was a poster child for uptightness in all forms. I think of the Starbucks idea as a recovery job, which if you know any recovering anybodys you will know what I mean. It is basically a job to get you back in the swing of things, get you out in the world, and with not too much stress or responsibility. I need a little bit of recovery from my life. Back when I was going to the shrink she told me I have/had, whatever, PTSD. Basically I lived such a spectacular clusterfuck for so long, that I kinda wig out about idiot shit, at completely inopportune times, while simultaneously handling very daunting stuff like I am gonna win a prize. So except for the whole having no money thing being an unemployed loser doesn’t bother me, however, I yelled at my cats over the weekend because they hopped up and tried to play with the paint roller while I was rinsing it off. My poor furry babies looked at me as if to say "Mommy, please don’t make us into chicken chow mein." And the real reason I yelled was exhaustion and fear they would get sick and die from licking paint. I scared the living crap out of them, and it just made me feel even worse. I have no idea how I would manage if I had people babies. Man; imagine what kind of therapy MY kids would need.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Bless Me Father

Ooooops, just logged onto e-mail. I have a cut and paste error here. The whole thing is on my memory stick, which I forgot at a cafe last weekend, so I will repost the whole thing this weekend when I get it back.











For I Have Sinned.

God, as you know it has been nearly twenty four years since my last confession. You know this is because;

1) I am still performing the penance the priest gave me the last time I went.
2) You know I decided a long time ago that I do not need anybody to intercede with you when I want to reflect on my sins.
3) You know I am not sorry for most of the stuff the church thinks I should be.

So, at any rate these are my sins, they're worse than last time...

Last time, I told the priest, and he told you, that I hated someone. Now to your credit, you told Father Jerry to ask me why I hated this person. How is father Jerry by the way? He was very good with dealing with high school freshmen about to embark on the commitment of Confirmation to Catholocism. I have not seem or heard of him since he was shuffled off to whereever he got sent when he decided he wanted to be a husband more than he wanted to keep an arcane vow.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Resentment

At the end of July I was fired from my job. It was a welcome relief from a bad situation. I believed I had accepted a full time permanent position with medical benefits. The benefits never materialized. The hours were erratic, and often less than twenty per week. Further, I was treated to a constant barrage of abusive written and verbal reprimands regarding everything from my flagrant disregard for proper paper clip placement to my complete failure to properly complete sections of tax returns on which I had not worked. Yes, really. I had begun to try to find a part time job to supplement the income since I have the mortgage from hell. I felt I should stay as I thought I ought to shore up my resume with a little bit of longevity in a position. I know I am not a fuck up in any way shape or form, but life circumstances have made a mess of my work history. I feel like I have made a lot of professional missteps and I am just not really sure what I want to do with myself professionally anymore. The unemployment office here where I live is very supportive. They give all kinds of seminars, and advice, and there are all sorts of resources. I talked to them about my job history. They tell me not to worry about it at all, and by the way, no one in their right mind would have been comfortable with all the circumstances that have led to my freakish work related angst. I asked them if they have a seminar called "Weeding Out the Crazy" so that I can be sure not to get a job with a racist, or a misogynist, or a psycho overage skank bully, or a raving alcoholic, or a sleazoid pig, or a underhanded liar whose behavior is sanctioned by the work environment, or even worse the person who is in charge is guilty of one or all of these filthy sins. Truthfully, they did give me some good tips on questions to ask, and things to make note of during interviews. It has really given me a lot of confidence, but I still have not found anything that is a good fit for me.


Reluctantly, I signed up for unemployment, but I am worried about money, very worried. I do not have much cash anymore at all. I am angry because I spent a lot of money bailing my siblings and nieces and nephews out of various difficulties. Not a lot of money at one time, but it adds up. Also, I have very prudently made repairs to this house. But fixing a fixer upper is a cash-sucking endeavor. My sister has been out of work for almost two years. She did have a couple very brief stints in a couple positions. She really is gifted in her field, but she is not good at supervising. She cares too much about people liking her, and like a lot of people who are good at what they do, it is hard to shift to teaching and supervising others doing it from doing it yourself. So, she has faltered along, spending the money she got for her half of the house when I bought it, and collecting unemployment until it ran out. I feel angry with her for her failure to take care of herself. I feel angry with her for her clear expectation that I will swoop in and fix it, which I have been very good at avoiding for the most part. She has several health issues, many of which could be eliminated if she endeavored to do so, and others that can be well managed if she took medications as prescribed. But she is not responsible. I have tried very hard not to solve her problems, but to instead suggest what I might do in a similar situation. My friends advise me to stop worrying; they remind me I am not culpable for my sister’s circumstances, her choices, or the consequences of her choices. I know this, but it is not fun to watch her crash and burn. I gave her lots of advice such as contact your doctor to get free samples for the medications you need. Get a part time job. Clean out your couch cushions. Everything. Finally, she has gotten to the point where her health issues are so serious that she cannot work. So I told her to apply for help. I told her if she did not get some drugs soon, I would need some. She has applied for disability, disability insurance, food stamps, etc. etc. She has been approved for most of this stuff and will begin receiving benefits shortly. So she does not have to worry about health insurance, food, rent, or anything else. All she has to do is continue to not function and she has it made in the shade. This is not an option for me because in spite of the fact that my family has tried mightily, I am not mentally ill, though I am sure if I were I would take my fucking pills. I have no excuse for wanting or needing help except that I am a human being and I am scared.


I resent this, heartily. I have always worked very hard to take care of myself, and I am mystified by people who do not even consider the idea that they need to get their shit together and make their way through life. I am sick of it always being poor you; I am worried about you, etc. When our parents died several people told me they were worried about her, and wanted to know what I was going to do to take care of her, and so on. Why the fuck doesn’t anybody ever worry about me, and feel obligated to take care of me? Why doesn’t anybody pay my bills, and buy my food, and bail me out of my mistakes? Why doesn’t anybody ever just call me up, and ask me how I am, and how they can help me? Why do I give a fuck about any of this? Right now I am angry with myself. My funds are seriously depleted and I am terrified of how I will pay my mortgage, and feed my cats, and gas my car. Yet, my sister did not in any way try to plan, or manage her money, or do anything to get her own ass in gear, and she ended up with no food. So I took her grocery shopping. I would do the same for anyone, but I was aggravated with her. While I do not think people should eat things that make them ill, I do think you should be a little mindful of the fact that if you want all name brand stuff, you need to get your ass a fucking job and buy it yourself. I do not buy myself the label brand of butter, or cereal, or milk, or much of anything. Minnie just wandered up and down the aisles, throwing items in the cart with no regard to economy, practicality, or reasonableness. That annoyed the shit out of me. Finally, I told her; "you know, I don’t have a job either." I am terrified that she is going to ask me to come live here. I have no idea how I will survive telling her no. But I know I will definitely not survive telling her yes. I would never make such a nuisance of myself, or impose on people like she does. It is very painful and difficult to me to love and care about someone who does not seem to even consider how burdensome they are to me. I am trying to look out for number one without feeling like number two, but I really just wish I had somebody to look out for me.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Shameless Product Endorsement

Through the process of being a home owner of a fixer upper that also was my childhood home, where things were not so good for a lot of my childhood, I have learned a lot. I have always been a neat freak, but I have had to learn some heavy duty cleaning type stuff. I have become an expert at dumpster rental. I have learned about clearing brush. I own and know how to use probably as many tools as Norm Abram at this point. I hate painting trim. Contractors drive me nuts. I will probably drop dead from shock if I ever get a contractor who shows up on time, does what they are hired to do, in the time they said it would take, does not break any of my stuff, cleans up after themselves, and does not come up with any other stuff that "needs" to get done.


My roof looks great, it is working very well at protecting my house, but my roofer pissed me off. It was some of the longest three days of my life dealing with him and his crew. I should have fired him before he even started, but I was desperate to get the roof done immediately, and I just could not wait to hire someone else. I had seen his finished work, and it was good. He showed up, unannounced, half in the bag, a few days before he was supposed to start, dumped a bunch of equipment in my yard, on top of tarps and equipment I had in my yard, and put a generator in my rickety ass garage. I did not want anyone in my rickety ass garage or fucking up my ladder, tarps, and other tools. While they were here, I was unable to get in my house because they felt the need to simultaneously accumulate their debris on the front and back porches. They also decided to unplug the motor home, which needed to stay plugged in to keep the mechanicals in it from deteriorating and unplug a freezer full of food as well. My favorite part was that he and his crew kept parking on the grass, when I told them not to do so. The capper was when he told me I could not tell him he could not park on the grass because technically the first fifteen feet in can be annexed be the city through eminent domain so it is not mine anyway. This is wrong in that the land potentially subject to eminent domain for the purpose of widening in the road is not anywhere near fifteen feet in my town, and also, IT IS MY FUCKING YARD! The day I came home and found they had unplugged the motor home, which is quite a feat, instead of using the extension cord, and outlets I told them they could use, was the last straw. I was visibly livid. He asked me what he could do, I told him he could finish the roof and get the fuck out of my yard. I handled that well, huh?


My electricians were great, they did everything I asked, including some stuff they did not have to do, like pull all the old TV and CB antennas down for me while they were up the ladder hooking up the new service. They always showed up when they said the would, cleaned up after themselves, and even told the plumber to stop being a pain in my ass. So that worked out very well. Unfortunately, they are high end and very busy, so I had to find another electrician to come and do the little stuff I need help with as those things pop up. They are good too, but I keep finding little wire carcasses all over the place after they are here.


The plumber, what a freaking prima donna. After this experience I decided I am going to marry a plumber because mine was always on vacation in exotic locations, had all kinds of high tech equipment and trucks, a huge house, as did his ex-wife, and he worked about 72 minutes per day three days a week. Suhweet. Sounds like lotsa fun to be Mrs. Plumber. Being plumber’s customer not so fun. Plumber is a slob, plumber makes a fucking mess everywhere, and "will clean it all up when he is done." Yeah, fuck you, so I can either clean up after you or put up with piles of debris in my yard, my basement, my hallway, and my living room until you decide to get around to finishing. Also, so not cool that I caught him putting his tools on my couch. Dipshit!


The plumber is also the contractor thanks to whom I came up with the joke that when a contractor tells me a job will take two weeks, I need to be sure it is two weeks in a row. I hired him in early June, he started mid July, and when he had not yet shown up for the finish work he was scheduled to do the third week of August, I just had the electrician do it. He eventually called me to tell me he had been trying to get in touch with me. So not true, I have caller ID. I explained I figured he quit since he did not show up as scheduled, or call. So he told me ok, he will be right over to pick up his final payment. I printed out a spreadsheet of what I hired him to do, what I had paid him thus far, and docked him for all the shit the electrician did as well as all the shit he and his crew broke. I will be honest, the plumbing is great, the bathroom looks amazing, and it was the best money I ever spent.


When it came to the tile, they thought I was nuts, and gave me a lot of static. They finally shut up when I told them; "well, if it sucks, good for you, I write you another check to fix it, and you can say I told you so. Otherwise, all you have to do is tell me I am right." I think they were more enticed by the possibility of an "I told you so" than by the possibility of another check. They did what I said, and it came out amazing. It looks great, and they, as well as all the other contractors said "you were right." I did have them redo the grout because it was cracking and not filled well in some areas the first time. Rookie error, I did not know all the stuff to double check. Eventually, it seemed to me that the grout around the edge of the tub was crumbling. So, I made one of the grave tactical errors I have made since I became a homeowner. I half assedly caulked over it. So, of course, I ended up with caulk encased mold, which aggravated me no end, particularly since it was my own damn fault. I tried several things. Cleanser, liquid cleanser, bleach, shampoo, dish soap, laundry soap, old toothbrush, baking soda... At last, I found salvation. Tilex Mold and Mildew Remover. Buy It, Use It, Live It. It got rid of the mold. The edge of the tub is once again shiny and pristine. When the weather gets cold, I will pull out all the caulk and grout and regrout and reseal the edge of the tub, but until then, I am blasting the crud back to the Stone Age with the Tilex.

Shameless Product Endorsement

Through the process of being a home owner of a fixer upper that also was my childhood home, where things were not so good for a lot of my childhood, I have learned a lot. I have always been a neat freak, but I have had to learn some heavy duty cleaning type stuff. I have become an expert at dumpster rental. I have learned about clearing brush. I own and know how to use probably as many tools as Norm Abram at this point. I hate painting trim. Contractors drive me nuts. I will probably drop dead from shock if I ever get a contractor who shows up on time, does what they are hired to do, in the time they said it would take, does not break any of my stuff, cleans up after themselves, and does not come up with any other stuff that "needs" to get done.

My roof looks great, it is working very well at protecting my house, but my roofer pissed me off. It was some of the longest three days of my life dealing with him and his crew. I should have fired him before he even started, but I was desperate to get the roof done immediately, and I just could not wait to hire someone else. I had seen his finished work, and it was good. He showed up, unannounced, half in the bag, a few days before he was supposed to start, dumped a bunch of equipment in my yard, on top of tarps and equipment I had in my yard, and put a generator in my rickety ass garage. I did not want anyone in my rickety ass garage or fucking up my ladder, tarps, and other tools. While they were here, I was unable to get in my house because they felt the need to simultaneously accumulate their debris on the front and back porches. They also decided to unplug the motor home, which needed to stay plugged in to keep the mechanicals in it from deteriorating and unplug a freezer full of food as well. My favorite part was that he and his crew kept parking on the grass, when I told them not to do so. The capper was when he told me I could not tell him he could not park on the grass because technically the first fifteen feet in can be annexed be the city through eminent domain so it is not mine anyway. This is wrong in that the land potentially subject to eminent domain for the purpose of widening in the road is not anywhere near fifteen feet in my town, and also, IT IS MY FUCKING YARD! The day I came home and found they had unplugged the motor home, which is quite a feat, instead of using the extension cord, and outlets I told them they could use, was the last straw. I was visibly livid. He asked me what he could do, I told him he could finish the roof and get the fuck out of my yard. I handled that well, huh?

My electricians were great, they did everything I asked, including some stuff they did not have to do, like pull all the old TV and CB antennas down for me while they were up the ladder hooking up the new service. They always showed up when they said the would, cleaned up after themselves, and even told the plumber to stop being a pain in my ass. So that worked out very well. Unfortunately, they are high end and very busy, so I had to find another electrician to come and do the little stuff I need help with as those things pop up. They are good too, but I keep finding little wire carcasses all over the place after they are here.

The plumber, what a freaking prima donna. After this experience I decided I am going to marry a plumber because mine was always on vacation in exotic locations, had all kinds of high tech equipment and trucks, a huge house, as did his ex-wife, and he worked approximately 72 minutes per day three days a week. Suhweet. Sounds like lotsa fun to be Mrs. Plumber. Being plumber’s customer not so fun. Plumber is a slob, plumber makes a fucking mess everywhere, and "will clean it all up when he is done." Yeah, fuck you, so I can either clean up after you or put up with piles of debris in my yard, my basement, my hallway, and my living room until you decide to get around to finishing. Also, so not cool that I caught him putting his tools on my couch. Dipshit!

The plumber is also the contractor thanks to whom I came up with the joke that when a contractor tells me a job will take two weeks, I need to be sure it is two weeks in a row. I hired him in early June, he started mid July, and when he had not yet shown up for the finish work he was scheduled to do the third week of August, I just had the electrician do it. He eventually called me to tell me he had been trying to get in touch with me. So not true, I have caller ID. I explained I figured he quit since he did not show up as scheduled, or call. So he told me ok, he will be right over to pick up his final payment. I printed out a spreadsheet of what I hired him to do, what I had paid him thus far, and docked him for all the shit the electrician did as well as all the shit he and his crew broke. I will be honest, the plumbing is great, the bathroom looks amazing, and it was the best money I ever spent.

When it came to the tile, they thought I was nuts, and gave me a lot of static. They finally shut up when I told them; "well, if it sucks, good for you, I write you another check to fix it, and you can say I told you so. Otherwise, all you have to do is tell me I am right." I think they were more enticed by the possibility of an "I told you so" than by the possibility of another check. They did what I said, and it came out amazing. It looks great, and they, as well as all the other contractors said "Lana, you were right." I did have them redo the grout because it was cracking and not filled well in some areas the first time. Eventually, it seemed to me that the grout around the edge of the tub was crumbling. Rookie error, I did not know all the stuff to double check. So, I made one of the grave tactical errors I have made since I became a homeowner. I half assedly caulked over it. So, of course, I ended up with caulk encased mold, which aggravated me no end, particularly since it was my own damn fault. I tried several things. Cleanser, liquid cleanser, bleach, shampoo, dish soap, laundry soap, old toothbrush, baking soda... At last, I found salvation. Tilex Mold and Mildew Remover. Buy It, Use It, Live It. It got rid of the mold. The edge of the tub is once again shiny and pristine. When the weather gets cold, I will pull out all the caulk and grout and regrout and reseal the edge of the tub, but until then, I am blasting the crud back to the Stone Age with the Tilex.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Santa Claus

I’ve been trying to figure out ways to help me cope in the clusterfuck that is life at work in America these days. There is all kinds of advice out there. All kind of information about how to breathe and how to stretch, and how to take "me" time at work. There is also the advice to bring small personal items to work to soothe yourself during the course of a workday. So I decided that some day when I actually get unpacked I am going to bring some pictures to work.

I have lots of photos, spanning generations of my family. I decided I want to bring one of my Mom and Dad, in it they are both actually younger than I am now. They are staring adoringly at each other, and have that little gleam in their eye that surely would have led to more siblings had my Mom not been spaded as I so eloquently put it. I also want to bring one of my cats, because I am sure it will be much easier for me to acquire 96 more and become the weird old lady with 98 cats if everyone knows I am a cat person. Finally, I decided I will bring a picture I have of me and Minnie on Santa’s lap.

I remember the day the picture was taken, but not precisely what year. Looking at the picture I am pretty sure it was the year that I was 6 and Minnie was two. I am thinking this was when it was because this was the summer that Minnie was sporting a partially self-inflicted mullet, and it is quite evident in the photo. It was in November, really on the heals of Halloween, and well before Thanksgiving, not to mention Christmas. I was sitting in our downstairs hallway petting our dog, whom my Mom referred to as the best babysitter we ever had. When I looked up and there was Santa! coming out of the dining room. Now, I will be honest with you, I was more nosy than amazed at the sight of him. The prior year nosiness had caused me to go on a covert search for my Mom’s perfume which I was not allowed to touch and had resulted in my being fully divested me of the notion of Santa, AND the Easter Bunny, AND the Tooth Fairy. So, basically, what I said was; "hey Daddy, how come you’re dressed up like Santa?"

Right then both my Mom and Dad and My Brother and Holly Hobby shushed me so that Minnie did not know it was Daddy. Then my Daddy took me in the dining room and told me why he was dressed up like Santa. See, my Dad was the stereotypical fat dude, often pressed into Santa duty. All happy and friendly, and profoundly gifted in dealing with children, particularly in the guise of Santa. Right up until the Christmas before he died, my Dad made many calls on every Christmas Eves to the children and grandchildren of friends and family, encouraging kids to go to bed early so he can keep his schedule and visit all the kids that night. Assuring them he and the reindeer adore the snacks the children had planned. So this year, some parents of a little boy who went to the same grammar school as me and Holly and My Brother, had asked my Dad to play Santa for their son.

He was in fourth grade, and he was very, very sick. He had cancer, and was going to die, and there was nothing to be done to help him get better. He was going to die soon, probably before Christmas. So, his Mommy and Daddy wanted to make a surprise for him. So my Dad agreed to do whatever he could to help them. That is why my Dad was dressed up like Santa in early November. My Dad actually owned a Santa suit, and a Santa sack. The boy’s Mommy and Daddy gave him presents to put in the sack. Before my Dad left, Minnie discovered him. She was so excited. She did not care if Santa had stuff for her. She did not know if was Daddy. She was just so excited. So my Dad told her he was visiting our town to double-check his list. He pulled me and Minnie onto his lap, and my Mom took our picture.

It is a really good picture, a Polaroid, that I had made into prints for me and Minnie the second Christmas after our parents died. My Dad is holding us both tightly, Minnie is in absolute hog heaven oblivious to the fact it is our Dad, and I am smirking smugly because I know it is him. My Dad is smiling, but his eyes are haunted and grateful. So, I figured this is a really good picture to bring to work with me. It always makes me smile. It reminds how absolutely beloved and wanted and cherished all of my parents children were to them, and it most importantly reminds me that work is inconsequential.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Bizarre

A day in my life...

My dermatologist has me use some stuff on my face at night to help deal with allergies. Somehow, as I slept I managed to get some in my right eye, I think. When I woke up, miraculously NOT at 4:20, my eye was stingy and I had the skin gunk all caked sexily in the corner of my eye. That’s how I get all my men, by the way. So I got up and took a shower, and put on my hypoallergenic moisturizer, and instilled my allergy eye drops. Realizing it was going to be a "bad allergy day" this was followed by mass consumption of both prescription and over the counter allergy remedies. Clarinex, is a gift from heaven, the pharmacist is your friend, and dosage guidelines are for wussies.

So all is well, I manage to bathe and dress myself, including contact lenses, without doing myself or anyone else any dire harm. The evil furries I live with apparently had a shedding ritual while I slept, as I got a face full of cat fur as I snuggled up to them on the couch to say goodbye for the day. I did this by kneeling down in front of the couch, of course, because those two ungrateful wretches were hogging the entire couch. I see other people with cats who curl up in cute little tiny balls. Not my kitties. Girly Kitty is fifteen months old now, and she and Mon Petit Amour are both bigger than the White Witch. Perhaps their personal trainers have advised them that they must completely stretch out in order to maintain the maximum ability to wreck my stuff when I am not home. Even though I am a cat Mommy, I am technically allergic to cats, and the nose full of fur was not a good addition to my already allergy critical day.

Benadryl, you can mix that with Sudafed and Clarinex, right?

Off I go to the Public Library to get my money’s worth on my taxes by using the free UNFILTERED wifi. I do not want the children and various and sundry other nosey people there to read my writing, or see how much time I waste on D-Listed. I always like to find a private table against the wall, not a carrel, or a shared area in the middle. All my regular spots were taken. So, I am wandering about, looking for a good place to compute with a reasonable expectation of privacy and access to an electrical outlet. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the coupon exchange area. Ah, the only thing I love more than coupons are coupons I don’t have to cut out. Score! So I am mindlessly looking for shampoo and cat litter coupons when a little old man wanders up to the table. He proceeds to chat my ear off as we shuffle through the coupons. Normally I do not mind little old men, or ladies, or anybody else, chatting with me when I am obviously out in public and available to be spoken with. However, this was a freak show.

During the course of shuffling through the coupons, he informed me how he used to be crippled by arthritis when he was younger. Then he began taking 30 vitamins a day, and now he is fine, and he is in better health now that he is 80, then when he was 30. I am a nerd, so I told him I was there to use my computer, and was looking for a plug, and happened upon the coupon joy. He told me I am very pretty, and if I don’t have a husband, I can come over his house and use my computer there. He then told me he is a widower. His wife died five years ago, and he was lonely, and nobody will come home with him. I expressed the requisite non-committal condolences to strangers who have just divulged that someone presumably precious to them has passed away. He then went on to tell me that it was awful because one of the neighbor ladies lured her away and beat her death. The neighbors think he did it, and he told the cops about the neighbor lady, but nobody believes him. Right about now I am wondering what else he is on besides vitamins. Seriously, if this guy were not an 80-year-old dude I could easily have kicked the shit out of, I would have run. Why do these people always find me? I need to learn to be more aloof, or at least look like I carry a gun or something.

So then I give up on the coupon situation, no cat litter relief to be found. I wander around again looking for outlets to plug in my laptop. I finally found an unused one in a little furniture grouping. There is already a guy there sitting on one of the couches. No biggie, this is a public place after all. So, I start to take my stuff out of my laptop case, and get plugged in to the outlet, and pull out my headphones. The guy who was already there invites me to sit next to him to share the table. I say; "no, I’ll just curl up here on the couch, just like at home." He tells me there are some open desks on the center of the library. I tell him I do not like to sit there in the middle. I like to sit against the wall so nobody can read what I am writing, or doing on my computer. He says; "ooh, are you looking at porn?" I tell him; "no, I just hate nosey people." So, eventually he goes away, or so I think. He comes back after I have moved my stuff on to the table, and then proceeds to keep trying to look at my laptop screen. He would have been sorely disappointed to see I was merely working on my resume and job hunting if he had been able to get a good peek. I just have no idea why weird people attach themselves to me. Maybe there just are no normal people, and I am not able to come to grips with that reality yet. Perhaps, I am flypaper for freaks, as I have long suspected. Perhaps, I am their queen, and have not yet come to grips with my own glaringly obvious eccentricities.

At the end of this surreal day I have bunkered down at home to reconcile my checkbook in my office. I am sitting there watching trashy TV. Where do they find these people? Who dresses these dorks? The lingo used to describe "seduction routines" sounds like a cross between a Star Trek convention and a Dungeons and Dragons symposium. So I am sitting there minding my own business, entering my receipts to Money, wondering how Mystery ever gets laid, when, all of a sudden, the ceiling fan makes a horrible racket, drops a couple feet, and spins around like a ball on a tether. Luckily, whatever caused this also broke the fan, and it goes off. After I assure myself I have neither pissed nor shit myself, other surefire ways by which I get my men by the way, I slither along the wall to turn off the switch for the fan.

Once I hit the wall switch for the fan, I happily ventured to the basement to shut off the breaker in my brand new breaker box. I try the switch labeled office, to no avail. After some experimentation, I manage to get the TV in the office to go silent. I had left it on very loudly so I could be sure when I had shut off the electricity to the office without running up and down the basement stairs every time I flicked a switch. Then I go upstairs and grab a pair of scissors to cut the only remaining wire that is holding the ceiling fan to the ceiling. I decide it may be best to leave the breaker for the office off. However, I discover some problems in the rest of the house. At first, I think there may be a breaker thrown that I did not notice, or perhaps when the ceiling fan careened about it caused other electrical items to short out.

After significant experimentation, much changing of unbroken bulbs, and intense swearing regarding the cost of replacement of apparently non-functioning air conditioners, televisions, and a computer, I discovered another quirk of my old house. When I had the electrical service updated, I had told the electricians my Dad had always told us the house had lot of strange configurations of the mechanicals, but was well constructed. All the contractors agreed, and when the new service went in, we transferred the labeling from the fuses to the breakers, knowing we had no freaking idea all each circuit entailed. Thanks to the ceiling fan calamity, I found out that all the outlets in one half of my living room, and all the outlets in three of the bedrooms on the main floor of my house are on the same circuit. I also found out all the ceiling lighting in these same rooms are not on the that same circuit but are on the same circuit together. What that means is not only do I not have to replace most of my small and mid size appliances, but also that I am one lucky ducky. I started to cry when I realized I had stood on a metal chair in my bare feet and cut a live wire with a pair of sewing scissors. Never a dull moment at the Money Pit I call home.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Disillusionment

Sometimes I am just so disappointed.

I want to believe as a rule that human beings recognize occasions and rise to them.

Today makes me sad because we have the anniversary of an occasion to which we all rose, like 9/11, like the bombing in Oklahoma, like the Indonesian Tsunami, like so many things that are thrown at our feet by a constant barrage of sound bytes, and news clips perpetuated constantly through all the forms of media that are literally at our finger tips. The thing is it seems that we often subscribe to interest in these tragedies until the next one comes along. It is like our humanitarianism has a short attention span. Like we have no follow up, no accountability to each other, no depth of interest in anything beyond ourselves.

On a smaller scale, it seems like we are not really involved with or aware of the inner workings of the lives of those we hold near and dear. No matter how long you know someone or how "close" you are, or how much time you spend together, it seems no one can really know anyone. Because we all view the world through the prism of our own experiences, we view everything, including each other, uniquely. It seems like the more I hope to find "like minded individuals" the more isolated I feel. It seems to me often that my world view is so utterly warped from the alleged norm that I feel like I do not have anybody to talk to, not even the people who love me.

I have a lot of expectations of other people, but nothing less than the expectations I have of myself in relation to other people. I expect when I directly tell people who purport to care for me about something they do, or do not do, that is hurtful to me, that they will stop or start doing it posthaste. It really pisses me off when the people who I feel like are my support system are the ones about whom I need to be supported. So, I am disgruntled, with no hope of becoming gruntled soon. Some things, no matter how trivial, are important to me, and I am mad that my peeps dropped the ball.

Meanwhile, back to the aftermath of Katrina, people in Mississippi and Louisiana still are homeless, penniless, and hopeless. That is pretty fucked up here in the richest country in the world, with the best infrastructure in the world, and the best military in the world, dontcha think? Do what you can, even if all you can do is pray, do it. Do something, anything; buy an extra can of food for your local homeless shelter, clean out your closet, volunteer somewhere. Just do it. Take responsibility for your fellow humans and stick to your commitment damn it.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Everybody Poops

This morning once again, I am up at O’dark thirty. I cannot find the elusive Unisom anywhere. I think maybe it is one of those drugs the pharmacy holds now, you know like the Sudafed. Perhaps there is some sort of street drug one can fabricate using the Unisom as well. As I sat on the edge of my bathtub shaving my legs, yes shaving my legs, let it not be said that I do not use my time wisely, I realized something. It occurred to me that I woke up today at 4:20 AM, as I have every day for weeks, no matter when I fell asleep. Being a great believer not only in divine intervention, but that you also subconsciously know the solution to all your problems, I am thinking maybe I am supposed to become a pothead.

I have also observed many other things as I have enjoyed my most recent bout of insomnia. First of all, I realize that over the past few months I have really scaled back on my contributions to my cable company’s bottom line by canceling my $9,827,236 per month cable modem internet service, and progressively decreasing my channel selection down to the dreaded "family" package. It was just taking up too much of my time to surf through thousands of channels all day while simultaneously looking at porn and trying to bring up my church bulletin on the internet. Now I have plenty of time to do funky stuff like sleep, alas, I am not sleeping. While I realize that I now have only approximately 100 television channels, I am mystified as to why nearly all of them play the dreaded "paid programming" all night long. Perhaps everyone has been reduced to the depths of sorrow known as "family"cable and the cable company really needs to drum up revenue.

In my opinion, the Dual Cleanse guy really looks like the kind of person I would think would be into poop. Who dresses these infomercial people anyway? I must say though, I am a purist, I think the SoloFlex guy was way hotter than the AbRail guy. Having decided I no longer need to put the Dolan family through college, I of course do not have Showtime, and will not be watching one of my vintage era hotties, David Duchovny, in Californication. I sure do like going retro and watching those old X-Files episodes though. According to my unscientific television research the world is full of STD ridden, fat ass, acne prone, stupid young women with no shirt on lovin', classic rock fans. I am totally going to break down and buy that Singers and Songwriters series one night.

I am going to go back to bed, Angel is on. Before I go; America, please keep your legs and mouths, and other various orifices closed for Christ’s sake! I am sick of the herpasyphilaids treatment commercials you sluts.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Elusive Sheep

For awhile now, I have been profoundly tired and unable to sleep. I fall asleep for a short while, just enough to take the edge off the sheer exhaustion. Then I cannot sleep anymore. I am too old for this shit. I want to sleep at night, all night, like normal people. Over the weekend I saw some of my close friends and got along loving lecture about not worrying about other people, and who gives a shit if you hate work, we still love ya.

But I am still tired. Right now I feel like the money to make the rest of the repairs to my house is unattainable, and I will be stuck living in this decrepit dump forever. Sometimes I wish I had been shallow and gotten married, then I could at least hove some alimony coming in. But my parents always said; if you marry for money you earn every penny.

I am simultaneously worried about my sisters, and sick of them being such colossal fuck-ups. I have given them all the advice I have to give. I am not a bank and this is not a hotel. They are what I call penguins, ya know, they just stand there making a lot of noise and flapping their wings and going nowhere. Somehow I have to figure out a way not to give a shit.

Being tired is hard for me. It amplifies the worst of my personality, and squelches the best. I want to smack the shit out of people most of the time. They all drive too slow, talk to slow, talk to loud, breathe, and otherwise hinder my progress through life. It sucks. I lay in bed at night and ask God to please help me fucking sleep so I can think. Me and God are tight, he knows I have a potty mouth, but I mean well.

I have tried a few things; tonight I am trying Unisom. If it does not work I am going to have to break down and go to the doctor and get some real drugs. I might slap a few people who need it first though.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Geezer Pervs


Seriously, what is the deal with pervy old farts? Do I have "talk dirty to me you salacious old fuck" tattooed on my forehead or what?

I have long history, some of which my friends misguidedly find funny, with dirty old men bothering me. It has not changed any as I have aged; the pervs have just gotten older.

One of my most creepy experiences was when I went to see Silence of the Lambs with some friends. I’m sitting in the very crowded movie theatre, minding my own business, trying not to be too much of a wimp, as I am not a scary movie person. An older man, like grandpa age, comes and sits next to me, and I think nothing of it until I realize he has thrown his coat over both our laps, is trying to "touch" me, and get my hand into his lap. I aggressively crossed my legs, threw his coat on the floor, elbowed him in the ribs, and stage whispered to my friend "this creepy old dude is trying to touch me!" My friend's husband laughed, I wanted to punch him too. Several people around us were horrified, and the old dude picked up his coat, and high tailed it up the aisle and out of there at a surprising rate of speed for such a geriatric case.

My apartment where I lived the whole time after I left home was really cute, and I liked it there. Across the driveway lived a little old man and a little old lady. They seemed nice enough. The lady used to make me laugh telling me stories about her kids and grand kids. We were friendly with each other; it was a friendly neighborhood in general. One time the lady got excited to answer the door when her grandchildren came to visit, she hurried too fast, slid on the welcome mat, and shattered her elbow on the door frame. She was in the hospital and rehab for quite some time. While she was away, I, and several other neighbors, helped the little old man with stuff he never had to do before, like work the stove, and washing machine. A couple years later, the little old man had a very serious car accident. He did not brake in time as he approached an intersection where the light had just turned red. He had to be cut out of his car by the firemen. This was between Christmas and New Year’s one year.

He was upset because they had just bought the car that fall, and they cut off the coat he had gotten for Christmas. What really pissed him off, was lying on the ground in his "undershorts" in the snow while they stabilized him to go to the hospital. Anyway, all along the little old man would tell me I was pretty, or sexy, or looked nice, or my boyfriend was lucky, or tell my boyfriend he was lucky, etcetera, blah, blah, blah. I thought nothing of it, as I am pretty, and my boyfriend was lucky. The two biggest flirts in the free world raised me, so I thought nothing of considering such compliments as merely passingly friendly, and wholeheartedly innocuous. One night, in the midst of my parents’ illnesses, I made myself some cappellini with butter and fresh grated Romano cheese. Real food from a pot, not a box, alone, at a table, with no one to take care of, and nothing to do but chew. As I sat there at my kitchen table, in front of my beautiful thirty two divided light picture window, I noticed a flash of light and looked up to see my neighbor across the driveway in his kitchen, all the lights blazing, buck naked, masturbating like he was getting paid for it, and staring dead at me. I spit out the food I had in my mouth, closed the blinds, which I did not open again until they moved a year later, and checked all the locks on the doors and windows. I called the police. They said I could have him arrested. I felt sorry for him. I thought he must have lost a few too many marbles or something, so I did not have him arrested. Then I later found out he had been making a habit of doing similar things for years. Too bad the neighbors never mentioned THAT at the block watch meetings, huh?

So, recently, I am sitting on the beach thinking maybe I will go to Vegas because it is probably cooler there. In the midst of the freakish heat wave, I like many people am taking every opportunity for hydrating. I am enjoying a nice watermelon flavored shaved ice, and thumbing through a stack of magazines I drag around in my car. I swear I am minding my own business when I little old dude, soon to be revealed as a big fat pervo, comes and sits at the picnic table with me. He starts talking about the weather, blah, blah, blah. I am politely uh huhing as I read my old Vanity Fairs, and my parents’ AARP magazine that is still coming. They have a really good crossword puzzle, by the way. As I am flipping through a magazine, the geezer dude notices something that catches his eye. He goes; "ooh naked people," "I like naked people pictures." I showed him; nope it is not naked people, just a make-up ad. He then goes on and on about naked people. I tell him that I would think people should not talk about naked people in front of kids, of which a whole gaggle was sitting all around us. He STILL did not shut up, until I pointed out you can get arrested for exposing kids to such conversation.

Seriously, what the fuck!?

Friday, August 17, 2007

My New Camera Phone Works Too!

Life is good.

I can indeed sit on the beach with my computer, a nice cool overpriced coffee based drink at my side, and watch the waves, and sailboats, and people, and the coming weather on the horizon over the top of my laptop screen while I write.





Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Access Denied

Crapsaplenty! Man, I was all set to embark on my new and improved frugal life of taking mooching to new heights, when I went to Starbucks today. Apparently, the Internet access is freely available, not free. What kinda freaking scam is that? Geez, you’d think for $50.00 a cup for the coffee, there would be some perks. Ha, ha, perks, get it? Hee, hee, hee.

So apparently, I am going to be spending a lot of time at the library. This sucks because I cannot slurp back overpriced caffeine laden beverages there. Also, people who mumble to themselves and laugh out loud like I do tend to be asked to adjourn to the homeless shelter across the street. So I will have to be uncharacteristically quiet. I also hate the bathrooms there. They are pretty low rent. And they have this vague smell, like they got too wet, and never dried out, plus, the aforementioned mumbling laughers like to bathe in there. Finally, all the chairs hurt my butt. Seriously, would it be so tough to get some ergonomic seating? What the fuck are they doing with the exorbitant taxes I pay in this town anyway?

Since I am complaining about how the town spends my tax dollars, I want to take a moment to say we seriously need an upgrade with the firemen and policemen. They all look like freaking Barney Fife. We need some hotties in these uniforms. It is not like we have any real crime or carnage. Would it kill them to get some camera ready personnel in the civil services of the city, huh, would it? Also, I am 5’4" and I find it very difficult to have any faith in a man who I can take in a fight, gun or no. I thought there was some kind of height requirement. Talk about lowering standards. Lower, get it, huh, huh.

I know a couple other places where I can use free Internet. I am bummed because all the wifi I could access from the comfort and privacy of my couch is secured, so I need to be creative. Tomorrow, I am going to go to the beach, and see if maybe some of the rich bastards who live there have an unsecured network I can use surreptitiously. Either way it will make me look busy as I chat up the hard bodies who wind surf at dawn before slogging off to Wall Street. I love summer.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

~Wired~

After much dissatisfaction with my cable modem, and being chained to my desk in my house, I have dumped the cable company and taken a step into the current millennium.

I bought a laptop, and with the help of some very nice computer geek little boys at the computer store, and every place I have tried using it, I have figured out how to use it, and get on line with it. I am paranoid about logging on to my bank and stuff. I understand what filtered and unfiltered mean, but I am still not sure exactly what secured and unsecured mean. I have been told secured means I need a password to access the wifi network, but I am afraid it means everybody can see my porn, hypothetically speaking

I am excited to be mobile with my computing. While I allege not to actually like people I do enjoy being around them, if nothing else, than to observe them in their natural habitat to reinforce my sense of smug superiority. As I am now simultaneously looking for a new job, and trying to write more, this is a good thing for me. It will get me out of the house and get the stink off me. So, I hope to be sharing my ramblings with the great eternal Internet more often now that I have figured out how to do it.

Speaking of the Internet, I have gotten some pretty strange hits from key word searches. I had no idea so many people had issues with tighty whiteys, shitty birthdays, and fucked up co-workers, and even more screwy relatives. I hope you enjoy my warped worldview, and that you grow to love the compound-complex sentences rife with alliteration, or at least have fun reading.


TTFN, I’m off to be Tiggerific offline for the rest of the day.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Recommendations


I've been doing a whole fat lot of none of the stuff I should be doing for awhile. I have not gotten a whole hell of a lot done on my house. I need to find a second job, or a really intensely alluring new full time one that is good enough to pull me away from the job I have now. I need to stop being such a stuck up bitch and just let some poor schmuck get to know me already dammit. I really need to clean my car and have a tag sale.

Instead I have been reading and going to the movies, and watching TV. Some movies I have seen recently that I really enjoyed were Oceans 13, which was really inside and cliquey, but I loved it. It made me laugh. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Knocked Up. It was a very sweet movie. I watch Law & Order in every incarnation like I am getting paid for it, and seriously have doubts about the human race for things like Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, and Charm School, all of which I cannot watch all the way through. I love Hells’ Kitchen, but not sure why, Gordon Ramsay seems to be a nightmare to work for, not sure how much of a prize it is to win. I also really love what I seriously politically incorrectly call the midget show, about the Roloff family. They have nice kids. And I of course watch Court TV. Not sure who is more of a freak, Phil Spector or Nancy Grace.

Borders is my vice. I go there at LEAST once a week. They have two for the price of three books. I read all the best sellers on the freebie tip while I suck back Javaculas. I plan my fantasy vacations in the travel section. I am going to try to take myself to wine country later this year, and I am getting a passport so I can become the gypsy I believe myself to be. I also like to check out the hotties in the History and technical sections. Hey if they are in a bookstore they can probably read, literacy is hot. I also listen to music, and sing, and mutter loving social things like "damn kids" when there is no place to sit or they are taking in stage whispers about their drama laden little lives.

I have bought many books including Pretty Little Mistakes. It is a nice idea, but I found it trite, and juvenile. What I loved, against my will were three books by Emily Giffin. These are books I would generally not pick up, but the title of Baby Proof caught my eye. I loved it. It was not an idiotic bodice ripper at all. What I enjoyed is that these were books with fully developed female characters who were flawed, and sometimes ugly human beings. I am glad I picked them up, and will eagerly try the next book she comes out with. Of course, Mickorific as I am, I love Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis, and picked up Teacher Man when I saw it in the two for three pile. I also snagged a book that truly intrigued me called Spook. Today I cheated and read the beginning and the end of Deathly Hollows, and actually bought, God is Not Great.

Right now I have to get back to reading all my back issues of Vanity Fair. Graydon Carter says all the evil crap I think about our Idiot in Chief.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Free At Last

It’s over!

As of today at 4 PM, I am officially out of the Executrix business.

AMEN!!!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Today Kinda Sucked

Today kinda sucked. I had an upsetting experience at work today. We took the Mutt Doggy to the Canine Oncologist. When I stopped to gas up my car, some doofy looking middle aged runty dorks in a Subaru laughed at me. I was trying to straighten out my shorts that I had somehow managed to not only get all twisted up and capped off with a self inflicted wedgie. Little crap like that kills me when I am upset already. You know your life really sucks when middle aged runty Subaru driving dorks are laughing at you.

But, when I woke up today, Girly Kitty was lying next to my head. Like she was just waiting for me, and then Mon Petit Amour came running in for some furry lovies too. There is a lot to be said for the good it does for your soul to have furry people in your life. So far we do not know how things are going to go for the Mutt Doggy. She is definitely not herself, and seems to be uncomfortable. Her eyes look like she is in pain. We did some tests today, and will do more on Monday, and then we will know if surgery will give a reasonable opportunity for her to get better.

Just a reminder, my family has a warped and twisted sense of humor. When we first found out the Mutt Doggy was sick, I told my sister, "we can do this, if we can do two sick parents at once, we sure can do two sick dogs at once." I am very sad about the dogs not doing well. More sad then I would have imagined. The White Witch is doing ok, but her vision and hearing are very poor and she is for lack of a better description pretty darn rickety. I have made it known that they both must drop dead by Halloween, or wait to next Spring to croak. I hate digging in the snow. I’m pooped, and am ready to give up on today. Nighty night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Blah, Blah, Blah

Well, it has been over a month since I sat down to write. I have a bad habit. I try to bargain with myself. I put off what I would really like to be doing in order to do what I think I should be doing. I am working at changing this.

So I don’t write, or repolish my nails, or go hang out at the beach, or "waste time" going through my e-mail and phone messages and keep in touch with people who love me because I think I should be further along with renovating this house.

I’ve had many things I’ve wanted to write about, including my Dad. I’ve known for awhile exactly what I wanted to write about for Father’s Day, but I just could not do it. I will write it soon.

Things have been coming at me from every angle lately, and I just feel like I should be handling them more deftly. Like a lot of people who have come through a lot of discord, I have little patience with myself in the face of lesser difficulties.

In spite of not having even come close to getting this house done, and not really being able to afford it, I ran away from home. I decided one day a couple weeks ago to book a hotel, and rent a car and buy a plane ticket and go see Holly Hobby and Psycho and their kids. Minnie the Mooch took care of Mon Petit Amour and Girly Kitty while I was gone. I am so glad I went. I really needed to visit with them. All the things I feel upset about in regard to my sisters have not gone away, but it was important to me to be reminded of all the things that don’t upset, and truly comfort me.

On a whim, I decided to put a personal ad on a web site. I attracted quite a few freaks, and not the kind of freaks I want to attract. There was one who really interested me, but I was too shy to call him. I just think it is not a ladylike thing to do. Then again I did not give him my number because he could be an articulate axe murderer after all. So, I’m still single, and probably will be forever at this rate.

I also settled a lawsuit I had to pursue as the Executrix of my Mom’s estate, and anticipate going out of the Executrix business for good any day now. We have had a lot of issues with the health of my parent’s dogs. Both the White Witch and the Mutt Doggy are seriously ill, and they don’t have Medicare and Blue Cross for geezer dogs. Most likely we will have to euthanize them both in the coming months, but, for now, they are comfortable and happy. I have been surprised how upset I feel about this.

Also surprising is how I feel about Holly Hobby and her husband recently deciding to get divorced, which they are doing remarkably amicably. All I am really worried about is that my sister is financially safe. They are not at all financially stable. I tell her that it is a big deal, but when push comes to shove, marriage is a binding legal agreement, and ending it should be looked at as a business decision as well. It is important for her to establish credit, protect her retirement, and come to an agreement how to handle existing debts and the miniscule equity in their house. We all know it is a good idea for them to get divorced. They do not hate each other, but they have no business being married to each other. A little unmarried marriage counselor advice; you have to communicate with your spouse. A marriage is like a garden. You have to tend it. If you don’t it gets overrun with pests and weeds, and all the beautiful things wither, and the ugly things thrive.

Finally, I have had a lot on my mind about work. If I am asked, I always say this job sucks much less than any other job I have had in a long time. I still have some frustrations. It is a very small office, and while all the people are pleasant enough, I don’t have anybody my own age to play with. I really thought when I took the job that I would have health insurance as of May first, and that I would be working part time, approximately 30 hours a week when it was not tax season. Well, my boss is dragging his heels about the insurance, and I am usually getting 14, sometimes 25 or so hours a week. I flat out cannot pay even my mortgage on 14 hours a week. I am paid fairly by the hour; it is just not enough hours. So now I need to get a second job, or quit this one, and I am not eager to pursue either choice. And I am having a lot of doubts and frustrations about changing career trajectory in the summer of 2005 on the cusp of turning 36. Humility is not my strong suit, and it is tough starting over.

So, I am going to try to start writing everyday again, and try to get my shit together or at least more cleverly arrange it.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

I'm Amused


It has just occurred to me how funny it is that there is such a thing as the Penthouse fantasy forum, but no such thing as a reality forum.

Perhaps if men spent less time honing their writing skills and more honing their social skills, they would be too busy to fantasize.

Just a thought...

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Not So Super Market


I, for one, greatly welcomed the advent of self-service checkouts in supermarkets. While I vividly remember being a hormonally motivated 16 your old myself, it was often annoying, to say the least, to wait for the bagger and the checker to tear themselves away from each other long enough to ring up and pack my stuff. With a couple exceptions, it has really speeded up my egress from the grocery procurement showroom. Further, I prefer to suffer my irrational anxiety regarding those card reader machines alone. I never get the card in correctly, and all the beeping makes me feel like a failure.

Many moons ago, before I discovered the joys of the debit card, I always used to pay with a check and write the draft for a larger amount so I could get change back. During one inauspicious trip to "Go & Buy" I did my usual, and waited for the young lady responsible for helping check writing hellions such as myself. She informed that she had no change to give me, and would be right back. I said, "oh never mind, just void it, and I will go through a regular line." She insisted she would be right back with change. Fifteen minutes later, I had grown incredibly lonely, my boyfriend’s ice cream was melting and his date was being to seethe. I just wanted this nightmare to end so I could go home and watch Die Hard for the billionth time with Mr. Chunky Monkey. So I dumped all my stuff out of the bags, left my register slip on the "self check" cashier’s stand to be voided, and went to a line with a cashier.

All went well, the checker and bagger appeared to be two heterosexual females who did not really like each other. They actually talked to me and did their jobs. Hot shit! Just as I finished collecting my change, so as to rent Die Hard, Miss I’ll Be Right Back appears. She insists I have stolen the items for which I just paid. I explain I left the slip for her to void, and that I have just paid for the items in full, which the two young ladies, and the people behind me in line, verify. Now what really fried my ass was the fact that Miss I’ll Be Right Back stood at the end of the check out lane in front to of my cart so I could not move. Very not cool. I told her she needed to get out of the way. After the terrified young ladies at the register called the manager, who never came, again, and the people in line all told the girl she was nuts, she still insisted I was going nowhere. Apparently she did not understand you can not hold people against their will, harass them, or otherwise impede their progress just because you are having a bad day at work. She would not move, until I gave her the death glare while simultaneously giving her the absolutely unmistakable instruction, in my most malevolent voice, MOVE. People, I’m a lover, not a fighter, but don’t fuck with me.

It occurred to me she was a very young person, and probably had no idea how bad she had just fucked up. She could not possibly have meant to hold me hostage or otherwise unwisely restrain me. She also could not possibly recognize how lucky she was that she was not at the moment having a shopping cart surgically removed from her ass. I went to the service desk and asked for a manager. One finally came. No wonder Miss I’ll Be Right Back took so long to come back with change, the lunatics were running the asylum. Mr. Absentee Management was very startled by our conversation. Not just that I did not want any coupons, or anything, or that I was not wanting to file a formal complaint, or call the police, but by what I said. I told him, "Thank you for finally responding to your page. I wanted to speak to you about an incident with one of your cashiers." I continued; "I do not want you to yell at her, nor do I want you to fire her. I want you to teach her how to do it right." I then explained I truly understand all the demands of the job, not to mention having no one to help you when you need it, by giving you the things you need to do your job. (Dig dig at the Absentee Manger who left all these little girls alone without supervision, direction, or the sanctuary or an authority figure.) Finally I pointed out that the young lady was very lucky I am not a crazy person. She could have been very badly hurt by a person who was less able to calmly deal with being restrained. The store needed to train its personnel not to jeopardize their personal safety for a few fucking groceries. I actually think he got it.

Ever since then I have had over all good experiences at the self check out. And I have actually had a lot of fun teaching numerous hotties how to maneuver the items so the temperamental scanners recognize them. One thing really gets on my last nerve though. I use the "Self Serve" line because I want to do it myself. I want to go as fast or as slow as I please. I do not want to discuss my payment method or my cash back amount with anyone. Most importantly, I do not want anybody touching MY stuff. I know where I am going with the stuff I buy, and I want to pack it in the way most efficient for me to mete it out. I know whose house I have to stop at first, not to mention, what I store together and where in my own house. And, last but not least, some people are gross. Don’t be sneezing on your hand, and rubbing your boogers, and then touching my fucking croissant. You dumb fuck, this is America! We have tissues! Back off! I am serving myself. If I want help, I will ask for it. And, by the way, where the fuck are you when I do want help? You’re up my ass smooshing my bread and asking me what I do with avocados. (Totally loved the guy behind me who nearly passed out trying not to laugh when I told you it was sex thing.) Please, when I am in the supermarket self serve line, leave me alone, and don’t touch my freaking stuff, dammit.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Spiritual Sucker Punch

As I’ve said previously, I have a lot of issues with religion in general, and mine in particular. Having been raised CATH-O-LIC, suffering issues is pretty much par for the course.

Nonetheless, I like to go to church, even though I do not go to communion, or say that I believe in "one holy Catholic and apostolic church" and often have a sinking feeling I am the only asshole actually really listening to the readings and gospel. Even if I consider them Judeo Christian mythology, I think the sentiments communicated are worth hearing.


I thought some of my issues had maybe to do with the parish. It was the parish I have gone to most of my life. I decided to leave, which was hard to do. Then I had to decide what to do next. I went to another one of the local parish churches with one of my friends on Palm Sunday, but had not been since. I did not feel right going for Easter, to a new place, and then felt backpedaling on my decision to change parishes.

Yesterday, I woke up, at a freakishly early hour for a Sunday, especially since I had my latest night in ages the night before, and got up, and scrubbed and dressed and went to church at the new parish. I had not consciously recalled it was Pentecost. In retrospect I feel it was a convergence of serendipity that I decided to get up and go to mass yesterday. I like the new to me church. It seems friendlier. I was really surprised by my feelings yesterday during the prayers of petition. Essentially, Prayers of Petition are when a reader, or sometimes the Deacon, or, like yesterday, the Priest, reads off stuff to pray for, and the people respond "Lord, hear our prayer" or a reasonable facsimile. So, its a lot of stuff about prayers for the community, and the world, and pray for our soldiers blah, blah, blah, every week. I am sure in every religious service, regardless of the denomination, prayers are offered for the military.

During petitions yesterday, the priest said, "Let us all pause to pray and reflect, and give thanks to those who are, and have served, in the military." "Lord, hear our prayer." "Let us especially pray for those in our parish who have given their lives for us." Ok, that is when many people, including me, stopped breathing. Then, the priest read the full name of every parishioner who has died in Iraq. Not many names, but also far too many. Every syllable was like a punch in the stomach. I could not breathe. I felt winded. I started to cry, soundless, unstoppable tears. All war is horrible, and dirty, and mean, and disgusting, and a lot of actual human annihilation takes place. It ain’t pretty, or neat, or cut and dried, ever. This war has done so much damage to us all. I just pray some workable way to extricate ourselves from this current debacle will come to light.

LORD, PLEASE, HEAR OUR PRAYER.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Today Sucks

Mostly, I love my Mom and Dad, and they died about three years ago, and that sucks, but I am a grown up, and shit happens and in the scheme of things, when it comes to the death of a loved one, the fact your parents will die is a pretty safe bet in life. Sometimes I remember things about them that infuriated me about them. Sometimes I remember things that I loved about them. When I catch myself making a gesture, or using an expression I picked up from them, I smile.

For the past few days I have been mad at my Mom. It did not occur to me until very late last night that I was just trying to convince myself that I did not miss her and Mother’s Day is no big deal. I am full of shit. I miss my Mom sometimes, so palpably and so terribly that I need to catch my breath. I have been exhausted today. Today I had planned to get up early, and go to church for 7AM mass, and then go to the cemetery. Well, I was up early, but it took me until almost 10 o’clock to actually manage to take a shower and dress myself, and go outside. At the cemetery I was aware that there were a lot of other people there in a similar state.

My Mom died the day after we buried my Dad. I was surprised my Dad died as soon as he did, and more surprised that my Mom survived so long. Dorky and insane as it sounds I believe that she decided it was finally ok to die after she buried my Dad. I, and several close people in my life, am absolutely convinced that my Dad "hung around," for lack of a better way to say it, and waited for her. We all believed we felt him there. After my Mom died, a lot of us believed our parents "stopped by" to visit us and check on us for awhile. Many of us had the exact same dream about my parents, laughing and smiling and happy and dancing. Until all this happened, I was sure people who "believed" such crap were at worst nut cases and at best deeply grieving people who had profound and vivid memories of loved ones. It is one of the sweetest things I believe about my parents, that even when they died, they stuck together.

I was upset and overwhelmed when my Dad died, due in large part to the fact that I had no idea how I was going to take care of my Mom without him to help me. I was terrified I would forget how to work the oxygen tank, or that I might actually kill one of my sisters without him to tell me to get over myself and them to get the fuck out of my way. When my Mom died, we decided to do things a little differently than when my Dad died because church freaking killed us, to watch the coffin go down the funeral home stairs and up and down the church stairs was vile. Church mass did nothing to comfort anyone. So, when my Mom died we had calling hours for people to come visit with her. Another thing, by the way, I thought was pretty fucked up until my parents died, now I get it.

After her wake, my Mom was cremated and we had a memorial service. It was nice. Lots of my Mom’s friends were able to come. I was so upset because I had not been able to write out something to say about my Mom. I had so much I wanted to say, and I could not organize my thoughts or breathe or think. I had made a list of things I wanted to talk about. I still have the list. I do not remember what I said at all. I remember crying, and feeling like I was going to pass out, and looking up at the people there, and noticing they looked like they thought I was going to pass out too. I have no idea what I said. My friends and my sister tell me it made sense and I was very well-spoken, but I think they are just being nice. And, really, what kind of asshole would tell you if you fucked up your Mother's eulogy? But I feel very guilty about it. My Mommy was very special and very smart, and all kinds of other wonderful things, and I just feel awful that I still cannot figure out how to communicate all that to anybody.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Mission Critical

I have a personal problem. I’m a picky bitch. No, that is not the problem, not for me anyway. See; I’m what I call a put up or shut up kinda person. I know what I like, I know what I want, and I do not generally settle for anything other than what I want.

There are a lot of things that I prefer. I am quite ding dang opinionated about what I want, and why I want it. I buy the local skim milk in the recycled paper cartons for lots of reasons. I only like skim milk, and screw you if you think it is disgusting blue water you uncultured fucks. It supports the local economy as well as actual people and cows I have met. It is good for the environment. The containers are better than plastic because they block light and therefor retain the nutritional benefits of the milk. I think Han Solo is way hotter than Luke Skywalker and will forever harbor a grudge against anyone who disagrees. I like paper AND plastic, and I do not feel this is in contradiction to my concerns about the environment, and will gladly tell any tree hugging hippie mother fucker to suck it if they try to convince me to give up this habit. As a rule I would rather stay home and watch reruns of shows I like than go on a date just because somebody asked me. I love the following programs. Law and Order in all its incarnations. The West Wing. X-Files. My new obsession Angel. By the way, I am so bummed, I watched some stuff I recorded in the thick of tax season, and Wesley dies in the end! Oh, my poor broken heart. Rest in peace Wesley, you genius studmuffin British prude. Any James Bond movie. Any Discovery channel documentary, especially about elephants, I love elephants. Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana are good guitar players and I will listen to their music until I die. Most of the alleged music that is coming out these days is over engineered, appeal to the lowest common dominator, more representative of marketing aptitude than musical talent, unmitigated crap.

Speaking of crap, as it were, I also like only one kind of toilet paper. It is the Kirkland brand embossed bath tissue sold at Costco warehouse stores. This is where my personal problem comes in. You see, I have three rolls left, and am no longer able to finagle a free business customer membership, and as much as I love the toilet paper, I refuse to pay for warehouse club membership just so I can have it. So I am picky and cheap. Or, as I prefer, discerning and prudent. Now I do have some options, I could suck up to any one of a number of friends to take me to Costco as their guest so I can procure the object of my desire. However, since I have thus far maintained I have no bodily functions, the potential ridicule is too much for me to bear. I could just go buy some other kind. But that is heresy. I cannot abandon my blessed favorite. I looked all my life for the toilet tissue of my dreams. It is of a texture that is comfortable. It does not scratch my delicate lady parts, nor does it disintegrate into useless lint half way through the job at hand. Further, it is excellent for many uses such as the blending of eye liner, the only make up I regularly wear, and the blotting of my allergy eye drops before I apply the liner. I use it to clean up Mon Petite Amour and Girly Kitty when they themselves have a potty problem. It is excellent for wiping off the sink after I get too happy with the splashing of water on my face. Not to mention being an excellent stand in for tissues when I am all stuffy and sick and run out of tissues in the middle of the night and do not want to go out in the DARK, ALONE, to go to the 24 hour store to get more tissues. I am at a loss, I do not know what to do, except seriously cut back my fluid intake, until I am able to find a solution to this problem.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Perspective

The world is a very different place in a lot of ways from when I was growing up. Some things are still the same too. For families like mine there are more resources to deal with the overwhelming problems. It is, to a certain extent, socially acceptable to ask for help now. And, there is a lot more help to get. It seems to me, particularly with the advent of the Internet as a daily presence in many people’s lives all over the world that our world has gotten simultaneously smaller and bigger. We able to learn how similar we are to people who are radically different. Sometimes a stranger on the Internet can provide better advice, greater comfort, or a more effective kick in the ass than people who have known and loved you all your life.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Silence is Acquiescence

I am really terrified of how things are going in the world, and feel very helpless and at a loss as to what I can possibly do to make a difference. Please pray for our country, and our world. Please do whatever else you can to make the world a better place, we need all the help we can get, both tangible and intangible.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Tax Amnesty

Well, I managed to survive tax season just fine. I wish I worked on comission. I would have loved to have 10% of all those refunds. I have also had a nice nap, and done some laundry, and all kinds of other great stuff. I logged into my e-mail for this blog today. Thank you to those who wrote to check on me. I am just dandy, I had to take a break from blogging to work like a dog for a few months. Tax season is tough, but it is great the rest of the year to have all the free time to go to the beach, and sleep late, and work on my money pit house, also, I really need to get a new man. They have some uses, I recall.

I upgraded, or updated, or whatever the hell, my blog. Now I have to figure out how to get it looking aesthetically how I desire. I feel like writing again, so it is what it is. I made the old posts live again, and hope to crank out something new pretty frequently for the time being.

I am looking forward to the resolution of some legal issues so I can blab about them on the internets, also I have had a lot going on in my life, and will try to assemble some cogent and cohesive stories about it all.

Meanwhile, I have found a new object of lust on the television. Why did no one tell me about this show Angel before? I have been watching it on TNT while I get ready for work. This stuff is perverse, and funny, and twisted, I like it, and I do not know why. Also, I love nerds and hotties, both of which this show has quite a bit of, I am a happy little couch potato today.

Happy Spring!

Monday, February 5, 2007

Revelations

The other night I could not sleep, I was up, and hyper, and my mind was racing. I was thinking a lot, about a lot. For some reason, I was thinking about an incident with my Dad a few months before he died. We had for a few years had issues with him driving. The prior summer, we had him tested, and he was given the green light to continue driving. Apparently, it was the professional opinion of the evaluators that he was just fucking with us, when he pretended to lose control of the car. He was instructed to cease and desist with the fucking with us, and sent on his merry way. However, after he started chemotherapy in the spring of 2004, he began experiencing incidents of syncope, which is a medical term for, "yup, you sure did pass out, but we don’t know exactly why the fuck ya did." Because this happened suddenly, with no warning, he was no longer allowed to drive, as the likelihood of consciousness is a requirement for driving. When my parents were so sick, and after they had died, I realized a lot of things about myself. This incident with my Dad made realize that until then, I was still afraid of my father, and that I was a lot stronger and braver then I ever imagined myself to be.

Both of my parents were understandably upset at not being able to go where they wanted when they wanted. It just was not possible for me to do all they wanted when they wanted. It was quite late in the evening, my Dad wanted to go out and get something to eat, but my Mom was in some distress, and I could not take him. While I was getting my Mom settled, my Dad snuck off in his pickup truck to get a sandwich. This upset me a lot, since he just had to wait until I could take him. While I understood he was seriously ill, and things did not look good, and he just sometimes wanted to just do something, I felt it was hideously thoughtless and arrogant of him to disregard the financial welfare of my mother as well of the lives and property of anyone he might hurt or kill if he passed out driving. So, I went to go get him. Before I went in the sandwich shop, I snuck up to the truck and took the keys. When I went inside, he yelled at me, and told me I was bossy, and to mind my own fucking business, he was getting a fucking sandwich, and that was that. Then he was going to drive himself to the beach, and hang out there and eat his sandwich, then he was going to go get some coffee, and come home when he damn well pleased, and if I did not like it I could go piss up a rope.

I explained that I understood he wanted to just go the hell outside and do something, but that in the event he had a terrible car accident and lived, he would be heart broken to have hurt anyone else he might hit or kill, or upset anyone else by damaging their property. He turned to the boy working at the sandwich shop, who looked utterly terrified, and continued to order his sandwich, and then told me to fuck off. Well, Mr. Sunshine did not count on my ninja car key stealing skills. I went home and got my sister, and told her she was coming with me to drive the pickup home. So we went back, and I left my sister and the keys outside and told her to start it, and go home. I then went inside and told my Dad I was going to drive him home when he was ready. At this point he realized his truck was moving, and started for the door. I told him it was my sister, and he was coming with me or he was walking. He grabbed his sandwich and drink, and started to walk. Ok, it was funny, a pissed off fat sick old dude with gout and lung cancer can’t really move too fast. So, I hopped in my car and pulled up beside him. He refused to acknowledge me, but I kept talking to him. Telling him I was going to follow him because Mommy would be really pissed if he keeled over and nobody was there to call 911.

When I said this, he came up to my side of the car, and I rolled down the window, just an inch. By the way, I really love to do this to police officers as well, but for different reasons. I was terrified. I was absolutely certain he was going to smash in the window, and punch me in the face. I would tell by how he looked at me that he knew this was what I was thinking. I could also tell he was surprised, and that he could tell I was not there to fuck around at the same time. I told him I understood that it sucked to be sick, and it sucked not to be able to go where you want when you want, but that it is not fair to go out in the world and drive when you know you’re a danger to yourself and others. He said; "I understand how you feel too. This is a lot to deal with, for me and Mom to be so sick. To deal with your sisters, to work, and go to school, and try to keep all these balls in the air. I don’t know how you do it, and I don’t know how we would ever manage without you." Then he walked around and got in the car. We went home, and I got him settled in with his snack, and collected the keys from my sister. Then I went to go see my Mom. I told her more about what was going on since my sister had been in there bumping her gums already. I told her I think my Dad finally understands we are not out to get him. I also told her I was not sure if my Dad had become less abusive in general, and had stopped hitting people because he had mellowed out or if he was just afraid we might just have had enough of his shit and might kick his ass back. My Mom said’ Both."

I feel sad about my Dad a lot. I talked to my Mom and to him too about it a lot. It seemed like my Dad never had a happy time. It seems like most people have some happy thing. They have a very lucrative career, or they are a nice and loving spouse, or parent, or child. Or they have rich and rewarding friendships, or they are good in school, or they have a happy childhood. Or a lot of fun in their twenties, or a rewarding retirement, or some kind of happy period in their lives. But my Dad never had a happy time. Some was not his fault. He did not make his parents drink and kick the shit out of him and each other. My Dad made a lot of mistakes, especially as a husband and a father. He had a lot of regrets in those areas, and I am sad he was not able to talk to his other kids like he was able to talk to me. I think it would have been good for us all if they had listened. It is hard for me now to see the things my siblings and I all deal with as a result of the decisions my parents made. They both did a lot of things that were just flat out wrong. There are some very ugly realities in our lives, and we all have some very ugly things we say and do. We have all made some very ugly choices. And most of all, my parents hated the part they played in all those ugly truths about their children.