hi!
a lot has happened, and i had written and REALLY long blog post about everything and all my thoughts about it with clever links and such, but i kinda ran out of steam. it might be too late for the really detailed recap, so i'll do a quicker one, with the highlights.
the biggest highlight is selling my mom's house, FINALLY.
after a bunch of stops and starts and it seeming like it might not happen, it finally happened, though up until we saw the money in our bank account, we were still hanging out in a 'we'll see' limbic zone. i know i was afraid to get my hopes up, after things falling apart with the sale the first time.
it's such a miracle that the house sold at all, in this economy, and makes me wonder why these buyers wanted the house so bad, but i'm certainly not complaining. just saying. it was really lucky for us. it was lucky for the buyers, too, since the house is gorgeous and obviously a good buy, being sold for considerably less than it is appraised for, but still. we were worried we'd have to sit on it forever.
with the house sold, we got to close the book on our involvement with allen. up to the last days it was looking like he might fuck the whole thing up, in his own special allen way, but it happened, anyway, thank goodness. it's nice to know there is no reason why i HAVE to answer the phone if he calls; nice to know all remaining ties between us, of unfinished business, are gone. i owe him nothing now, and have no reason to even believe i'll hear from him again. while there is considerable joy associated with that, and SO much relief, there's also some sadness. though he was a source of incredible discomfort and negativity in my life, he was also another connection to my mom. he was crazy and a total asshole, a weirdo and a giant problem, but he loved my mom just as much as i did, and he was the only other person who was as deeply affected by her death as me. i wish we'd been able to share that a bit more. it sucks that his insanity was like a solid wall between us, totally impossible to get through. he didn't seem very interested in connecting about it, anyway, but it would've been nice if we hadn't had so much negativity between us. for a lot of reasons, obviously.
with the house out of my name, and the mortgage paid off, we have a lot more money per month for other stuff. it also means shannon doesn't have to say 'yes' to every single job he's offered, because he can afford to not work for a bit, since we're not trying to digest two mortgage payments, two sets of property taxes. hello, fancy tropical vacation! i've been wanting a really big vacation pretty much since mom got sick, and have taken a bunch of smaller ones, staying with loved ones in LA and NY, but i really want a lying-around-with-drinks-in-coconuts vacation, that looks like a cerveza commercial. that's a possibility now, with the money from the sale of the house and the added money per month that we'll have. i can say truthfully, without a hint of self-effacing or bragging, that we fucking deserve one.
we each got new laptops! they're so sexy and little and light, it's awesome. obvs they're macs. i got the macbook and shannon got the macbook pro, since he's a bit more of a 'power user' than me. it's actually ridiculous how little of my computer i use, in general.
in other news, i've had the flu for a couple of weeks. fever and sore throat for two days in the beginning of last week, then fading to a gnarly cough and copious amounts of yuckiness in my sinuses. i'd like to get more graphic about them because it's a total medical freak show in there, but i'll save it. if you want to details, email me, i'm happy to supply more details. suffice it to say, it's not pretty.
i pulled it together for a saturday afternoon departure for los angeles with shannon. a couple of movies he worked on last year were nominated for awards from the sound editors organization (like the oscars for the sound business), a guy shannon works with was being given his lifetime achievement award, and lots of people from up here were heading down for the awards ceremony, so we decided to go to. in hindsight it was a really dumb idea, totally not worth the trouble, but we did it anyway. i still wasn't feeling the best, but i felt good enough, i thought, so we drove down. we got there about 45 minutes before the dinner started, so we rushed in and changed. shannon looked very dapper in his new suit jacket and shirt and tie, with jeans and some fancy man shoes. (we didn't have time to get his pants tailored and they looked a little silly, but the jeans looked awesome, and were actually more 'him' anyway.) i dressed up, too, looked totally fine, in a new dress and new fancy shoes. my voice had gotten really hoarse and croaky, so i had a rough night trying to chat with people. it was a struggle to make myself heard over the ambient noise, but i persevered. (like anne frank, over here.) neither of shannon's movies won, but it was still fun to see everyone all dressed up and chat with some of my favorites of shannon's co-workers. the meal was nyeh.
by the end of the awards show, my voice was pretty much blown and i was really tired, so i snuck out, without saying my goodbyes, which weighed on me, and headed up to the room to crawl into bed. i couldn't sleep because of the indecorous amounts of fluid in my sinuses, and the gods were cruel in their TV programming. (so unfair! i don't have a TV and only watch TV in hotels or at other people's house, so it's kind of a special occasion!) shannon stayed and hobnobbed for a long, long time, and didn't get back to the room until 1:30am or so, which was unfortunate for both of us, because we had to leave at 5am for the drive home because my friend's baby shower was at noon in marin. oof.
one of my skills is coping well on limited sleep, which is very useful. so, i told myself that i wasn't going to SLEEP, i was laying down for NAP. pretty impressive, huh? it worked like a charm! i woke up tired, but not groggy and miserable, though by mid-morning i was pooped. the drive was long and boring, as usual, though the rain has made the central valley really green, so it was less ugly than usual.
i got to the baby shower in time, despite some rain-related traffic on the way. my voice was pretty much completely gone, and i had a terrible sounding cough, so i checked in with the mama, to see if my wretched soundingness would be unwelcome, and after she checked with her mom, who's a nurse, she said it was fine. i'm really glad i went, too, because it was tremendously beautiful, in a way that i've never experienced with traditional baby showers.
first, a bunch of my best ladies were there, and we've all been friends for over ten years, and it was pretty amazing being there to celebrate the first one of us moving into motherhood. we don't get together a lot, aside from major occasions, and the last times i've seen all of them have been sad ones - my mom's funeral, ana's mom's funeral, some birthdays. it was nice to be in a not sad, not loud gathering with them, where we could really talk.
the shower itself was much more of a rite of passage ceremony, marking zoe's transition from the maiden phase of her life, into motherhood. her mom was there, running things, as were a whole circle of ladies of all different ages, celebrating the transition. there were lots of tears and lots of laughter. in my head, that kind of thing sounds uncomfortable and embarrassing, but it was perfect and lovely and warm and beautiful and i was very thankful to be included. made me a bit baby yearny, but not insanely so. just a little jealous, managably so.
it also made me miss my mom a lot, and wish she was alive still to throw me a magical, goddess-y baby shower. just another of the myriad things i wish she was here to do, but it was painful being in such a motherhood-centric space and gathering, knowing my mom is dead and i don't have that anymore. i've been a little raw about mom again, with selling the house and saying adieu to allen. it's the closing of another chapter of mom's life, and there aren't really anymore of those, that i can think of. yeah, allen was a huge problem for us, and the entire situation with him is still such a throbbing OUCH in my head and heart, but he was mom's partner and was a part of her and a connection to her life. with each chapter closed, it's almost like she didn't live. not really, but a bit. there are less and less reminders, as the physical artifacts of her life are dispersed, and the people spread out. being at the house was so good-bad, and inheriting it was like everything else that was left over, where the reminder was both extremely painful and also comforting. so, losing that was great, because i have one less irritant, but still.
as i'm struggling to recover from the flu, my wisdom teeth have begun to really bother me. lame timing, body. not cool. so, full of snot and coughing, i met with an oral surgeon today, to get them taken out. just the toppers. i guess i don't have bottom ones. (because i have absorbed them, and their accompanying wisdom already, probably. that's what got me through mom's death.) so, removal next week. i've never had nitrous oxide, and i get to take valium, too. so, that's something. i'm really sick of coughing and having to sleep with my mouth open so i can breath through my mouth. i'll be thankful when this all dries up.
i signed up for a workshop next month. i'll talk more about that later, though. it's a long story.
Showing posts with label bad luck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad luck. Show all posts
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Friday, July 25, 2008
mykhail.
so tired, guys.
so, so tired.
i've had to watch mykhail a lot this week and it's pretty much destroyed my sleep schedule. because stef works at 6am, when i watch him at her house i have to get up at 5am, to get to her house by 5:30am. then, i go to sleep in her bed until the kid wakes up, around 9ish.
but i am always nervous about oversleeping, so i don't usually sleep well before the 5am wake up. i don't sleep soundly. and then, once i am at her house, i don't sleep soundly. partly because i have already woken up and driven for a while, so i pretty much awake, and partly because i am listening for the kid. so, on those days, i just don't have much sleep. thank god for nap time. mykhail had never slept over at our house, so we tried it out last night. we'll keep him for a few days, to give stef a break. the timing stinks, but oh well, right?
last night was not good.
shannon's dad is visiting, so he's in the spare room. we tried putting mykhail in there to sleep, but he woke up crying so we had to bring him out, into the living room.
he seemed fine, so we went to bed. i slept for, say, an hour, and then mykhail woke up again, crying.
shannon went out to check on him, but i never got back to sleep.
i spent the entire night just lying there, staring at the ceiling.
about once an hour, mykhail would wake for a second and make a crying noise, then go back to sleep.
around 4:30ish, i finally fell asleep.
at 5:30am, he (mykhail, not shannon) woke up crying, and got out of bed and started walking around the house. we grabbed him and brought him into bed with us. he fell asleep, but lying on me, so that if i moved, he would wake up and whimper. i just lay there, staring at the ceiling.
eventually, i extricated myself and snuck out into the living room. i would have loved to just hang in the living room all night, since i wasn't sleeping, but mykhail was in here. i didn't want to keep shannon awake, with my typing or a bright light from my reading. shannon and his dad are re-roofing our house, so he needs the sleep.
but guys, watching the kid is really tiring and i needed the sleep, too, and i didn't get it.
what if i don't like being a mom?
i mean, i know it's rocky in the beginning, and you're tired all the time and you're probably scared since you don't really know what you're doing, but you get the hang of it. i'm sure that, given enough time here, mykhail and shannon and i would get the hang of it, too.
but i am resentful of having to 'get the hang' of another really hard thing.
remember my mom's cancer?
remember allen?
remember money drama?
yeah, me, too, and i'm still pretty exhausted from all that.
i was looking forward (foolishly, perhaps) to a chance to just take care of shannon and me for a bit. i know there was no reason to believe that nothing dramatic was going to happen for a while, or that life would get easier. there was no guarantee of that, so me hoping for it was folly. but still, doesn't that seem like it would have been fair?
i know, i know. there's no such thing as fair.
still.
i'm just tired.
tired of stuff being so hard.
tired of having to handle stuff.
tired of not getting enough sleep and always having such a full plate.
a conversation that happened day before yesterday:
me: you're my special guy.
mykhail: no, auntie special guy.
me: auntie is your special guy?
mykhail: yeah.
that's cute.
so cute that it compensates for no sleep?
not quite.
but it's still really cute.
i think i'm doing a good job with him, but it's just hard. i've been googling 'temper tantrums' and reading about picky eaters. i'm asking strangers for advice. i want to make sure i'm not screwing him up. then again, i can't really remember anything or anyone from when i was 2, so probably very few small things will even make an impact on him at this point. i guess i just want to make sure i am using an overall good approach. firm when it matters, fun and easy-going and silly when it doesn't. since we're thinking of babies soon, it's hard not to think of this as an indication of how we'll do parenting our own kids, and the results are kinda mixed.
course, toddlers are pretty tough, and it would probably be a little easier if we were his parents, and knew him more intimately. i mean, we know him intimately and have spent plenty of time with him, but i bet it isn't the same.
i don't know, guys.
just really, really tired.
p.s. i wrote yesterday for the first time in months. not for long, because there was a kid emergency, but it was something!
so, so tired.
i've had to watch mykhail a lot this week and it's pretty much destroyed my sleep schedule. because stef works at 6am, when i watch him at her house i have to get up at 5am, to get to her house by 5:30am. then, i go to sleep in her bed until the kid wakes up, around 9ish.
but i am always nervous about oversleeping, so i don't usually sleep well before the 5am wake up. i don't sleep soundly. and then, once i am at her house, i don't sleep soundly. partly because i have already woken up and driven for a while, so i pretty much awake, and partly because i am listening for the kid. so, on those days, i just don't have much sleep. thank god for nap time. mykhail had never slept over at our house, so we tried it out last night. we'll keep him for a few days, to give stef a break. the timing stinks, but oh well, right?
last night was not good.
shannon's dad is visiting, so he's in the spare room. we tried putting mykhail in there to sleep, but he woke up crying so we had to bring him out, into the living room.
he seemed fine, so we went to bed. i slept for, say, an hour, and then mykhail woke up again, crying.
shannon went out to check on him, but i never got back to sleep.
i spent the entire night just lying there, staring at the ceiling.
about once an hour, mykhail would wake for a second and make a crying noise, then go back to sleep.
around 4:30ish, i finally fell asleep.
at 5:30am, he (mykhail, not shannon) woke up crying, and got out of bed and started walking around the house. we grabbed him and brought him into bed with us. he fell asleep, but lying on me, so that if i moved, he would wake up and whimper. i just lay there, staring at the ceiling.
eventually, i extricated myself and snuck out into the living room. i would have loved to just hang in the living room all night, since i wasn't sleeping, but mykhail was in here. i didn't want to keep shannon awake, with my typing or a bright light from my reading. shannon and his dad are re-roofing our house, so he needs the sleep.
but guys, watching the kid is really tiring and i needed the sleep, too, and i didn't get it.
what if i don't like being a mom?
i mean, i know it's rocky in the beginning, and you're tired all the time and you're probably scared since you don't really know what you're doing, but you get the hang of it. i'm sure that, given enough time here, mykhail and shannon and i would get the hang of it, too.
but i am resentful of having to 'get the hang' of another really hard thing.
remember my mom's cancer?
remember allen?
remember money drama?
yeah, me, too, and i'm still pretty exhausted from all that.
i was looking forward (foolishly, perhaps) to a chance to just take care of shannon and me for a bit. i know there was no reason to believe that nothing dramatic was going to happen for a while, or that life would get easier. there was no guarantee of that, so me hoping for it was folly. but still, doesn't that seem like it would have been fair?
i know, i know. there's no such thing as fair.
still.
i'm just tired.
tired of stuff being so hard.
tired of having to handle stuff.
tired of not getting enough sleep and always having such a full plate.
a conversation that happened day before yesterday:
me: you're my special guy.
mykhail: no, auntie special guy.
me: auntie is your special guy?
mykhail: yeah.
that's cute.
so cute that it compensates for no sleep?
not quite.
but it's still really cute.
i think i'm doing a good job with him, but it's just hard. i've been googling 'temper tantrums' and reading about picky eaters. i'm asking strangers for advice. i want to make sure i'm not screwing him up. then again, i can't really remember anything or anyone from when i was 2, so probably very few small things will even make an impact on him at this point. i guess i just want to make sure i am using an overall good approach. firm when it matters, fun and easy-going and silly when it doesn't. since we're thinking of babies soon, it's hard not to think of this as an indication of how we'll do parenting our own kids, and the results are kinda mixed.
course, toddlers are pretty tough, and it would probably be a little easier if we were his parents, and knew him more intimately. i mean, we know him intimately and have spent plenty of time with him, but i bet it isn't the same.
i don't know, guys.
just really, really tired.
p.s. i wrote yesterday for the first time in months. not for long, because there was a kid emergency, but it was something!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
the track.
i haven't been writing at all.
obvs. not here, but also not on my novel. since probably may.
i was feeling fine about it, like i was just shifting focus a bit to take care of my life, but now i'm feeling antsy about it. i started re-reading my novel up to the point it's at, to get myself reacclimated with my book and my writing and stuff and, while i haven't taken that to the next step of writing, i have been impressed with my book, which is nice, right? there are totally sections that make me cringe, but, overall, i think it's great.
i think about things to write about here all the time, but for some reason i haven't been translating that from the thought to action...
i have a meeting with my writing group in two weeks, at my teacher's house, so i HAVE to have something to share by then. not because i need to impress them, but because i really want to. so, i will.
me and shannon are remodeling the baker ct. money pit. our house is worth substantially less now than it was when we bought it, so we're clearly not going anywhere for quite a while. might as well get comfy, i guess. i have pictures posted on myspace (not that anyone seems especially interested, but that's okay), but i've been wanting to post them on shannon's homepage, so i'll work on that so you guys who are far away can see the progress. the biggest news right now is that we refinished the existing hardwood floors and had new hardwood put down in our bedroom. previously it was carpeted, which was fine, but also pretty ugly and i'm allergic to carpet (literally), so a friend of tab's installed some lovely red oak, which matches the stuff in the rest of the house. also, we repainted the new drywall. the bedroom is a blue red (not yellow red), the hallway is grey and the living room is green. the living room has been a (not-very-interesting) odyssey, in that we chose one color, tried it in some spots on the walls, decided it was wrong so chose another color, which we put all over the walls and which was also disgusting. so, third time's the charm, right? we ended with a green tea ice cream color that looks really, really good. shannon rented a sander from home depot and spent a couple of nights sanding the floors, and then i spent two days painting on layer-upon-layer of varathane, so the floors are looking a lot lighter and also lovely. i'll see if i can manage some before and after stuff.
i spent all day yesterday (seriously, all day) looking at dogs on the internet. shannon and i take turns really wanting another dog, and i guess it's my turn. there are some freaking CUTE dogs in the world. i'm really loving pit bulls right now, but shannon says 'nyeh.' how else will we protect the meth lab, though, am i right?
i finally bowed to pressure from the universe and started meditating. while i was doing my community service at spirit rock i found a handout with a reading list for people starting on the buddhist path, and i checked one of the books on the list out from the petaluma library. it's called 'a gradual awakening' and it is really, really wonderful. it's thin, maybe half an inch thick at most, and it's full of the most easy to swallow, perfectly articulated wisdom. i'm loving it. also, i am taking a meditation class in berkeley with LW. this week will only be the second session, but so far i'm appreciating it. i meditated by myself TWICE this week, which was quite a coup. in a world so full of pain and difficulty and disappointment (i know, and happiness and love and wonder, too), it is calming to cultivate peace in my life, and just general acceptance of reality.
lu's mom is having some health stuff, so please send her and her whole family some positive thoughts. it's been hard having them go through it, so soon after my mom. it's bringing up a lot of sadness for me. not that the sadness is hard to get to usually.
we're having allen problems again. we've given him august 1st as the date we want him out of the house and he's really resisting it. we may have to go through legal channels to get him physically removed from the property, but hopefully it won't come to that. shannon has taken over the responsibility for talking to allen. my dad heaved a huge sigh of relief when i made that decision. he's been bugging me to never talk to allen again for months, but i wasn't ready to get that i couldn't handle it. i kept feeling like it was my job or something, and i would be shirking if i had shannon handle it. and i didn't feel like having a lawyer be the go-between would be appropriate. and i always harbored hopes that i would find the magical formula for dealing with allen, so that i could tell him something and be sure he would really GET it and not freak out, but i was totally deluding myself. allen is a person who is mentally unstable and he can be counted upon to be crazy and expecting him to not be crazy is unfair to him, and expecting myself to be able to cut through the crazy is unfair to me. shannon doesn't get freaked out by him, so he's the perfect person to talk to allen. daddy said he feels like my fearful, open energy just feeds into allens crazy, angry energy, giving him permission to be a bully. i hadn't ever thought of that, but it seems like he's right.
i can't say enough how much i am looking forward to having my life free of allen. whether the house sells or not, i want him out of the house forever. the days of him being my responsibility are over. over. it fucking sucks that things have to end like this, with me so thoroughly DONE with him, but that's just the way it is. he has sucked every ounce of patience and understanding out of me, leaving a profound fatigue and also some serious revulsion. just for his selfishness. i know he's having a hard time with mom being gone. obviously, since he's drinking all the time and the house is looking crappy. but his sadness isn't any excuse for him to treat me like shit, nor is it a license to sponge of me and my husband for the rest of his life. i so wish things had been different. not that that's an especially fruitful line of thought to pursue, but i do. i really wish things had been different. imagine if he had stayed semi-normal and not been such a selfish wing nut. oh well. he did, so there you go.
tomorrow i'm watching le bebe, so i have to get up earlyearlyearly. i'm feeling so tired these days. it might be from the remodel stuff. it might be sadness. it kinda lingers and leeches the energy out of you. whatever it is, i'm tired and sad and really, really ready to be done with the house for a while. i need a break.
i rented a storage space for all mom's stuff from yumi, and i am going through that stuff. that's tiring, too. a lot of it is actually my stuff that i thought i could avoid for a few more years at mom's, but it's coming back to haunt me. toys, magazines, journals, notes from middle school...all of it is back, in addition to stuff from grandparents and great-grandparents.
not my most interesting or sparkly journal entry, but it's something.
obvs. not here, but also not on my novel. since probably may.
i was feeling fine about it, like i was just shifting focus a bit to take care of my life, but now i'm feeling antsy about it. i started re-reading my novel up to the point it's at, to get myself reacclimated with my book and my writing and stuff and, while i haven't taken that to the next step of writing, i have been impressed with my book, which is nice, right? there are totally sections that make me cringe, but, overall, i think it's great.
i think about things to write about here all the time, but for some reason i haven't been translating that from the thought to action...
i have a meeting with my writing group in two weeks, at my teacher's house, so i HAVE to have something to share by then. not because i need to impress them, but because i really want to. so, i will.
me and shannon are remodeling the baker ct. money pit. our house is worth substantially less now than it was when we bought it, so we're clearly not going anywhere for quite a while. might as well get comfy, i guess. i have pictures posted on myspace (not that anyone seems especially interested, but that's okay), but i've been wanting to post them on shannon's homepage, so i'll work on that so you guys who are far away can see the progress. the biggest news right now is that we refinished the existing hardwood floors and had new hardwood put down in our bedroom. previously it was carpeted, which was fine, but also pretty ugly and i'm allergic to carpet (literally), so a friend of tab's installed some lovely red oak, which matches the stuff in the rest of the house. also, we repainted the new drywall. the bedroom is a blue red (not yellow red), the hallway is grey and the living room is green. the living room has been a (not-very-interesting) odyssey, in that we chose one color, tried it in some spots on the walls, decided it was wrong so chose another color, which we put all over the walls and which was also disgusting. so, third time's the charm, right? we ended with a green tea ice cream color that looks really, really good. shannon rented a sander from home depot and spent a couple of nights sanding the floors, and then i spent two days painting on layer-upon-layer of varathane, so the floors are looking a lot lighter and also lovely. i'll see if i can manage some before and after stuff.
i spent all day yesterday (seriously, all day) looking at dogs on the internet. shannon and i take turns really wanting another dog, and i guess it's my turn. there are some freaking CUTE dogs in the world. i'm really loving pit bulls right now, but shannon says 'nyeh.' how else will we protect the meth lab, though, am i right?
i finally bowed to pressure from the universe and started meditating. while i was doing my community service at spirit rock i found a handout with a reading list for people starting on the buddhist path, and i checked one of the books on the list out from the petaluma library. it's called 'a gradual awakening' and it is really, really wonderful. it's thin, maybe half an inch thick at most, and it's full of the most easy to swallow, perfectly articulated wisdom. i'm loving it. also, i am taking a meditation class in berkeley with LW. this week will only be the second session, but so far i'm appreciating it. i meditated by myself TWICE this week, which was quite a coup. in a world so full of pain and difficulty and disappointment (i know, and happiness and love and wonder, too), it is calming to cultivate peace in my life, and just general acceptance of reality.
lu's mom is having some health stuff, so please send her and her whole family some positive thoughts. it's been hard having them go through it, so soon after my mom. it's bringing up a lot of sadness for me. not that the sadness is hard to get to usually.
we're having allen problems again. we've given him august 1st as the date we want him out of the house and he's really resisting it. we may have to go through legal channels to get him physically removed from the property, but hopefully it won't come to that. shannon has taken over the responsibility for talking to allen. my dad heaved a huge sigh of relief when i made that decision. he's been bugging me to never talk to allen again for months, but i wasn't ready to get that i couldn't handle it. i kept feeling like it was my job or something, and i would be shirking if i had shannon handle it. and i didn't feel like having a lawyer be the go-between would be appropriate. and i always harbored hopes that i would find the magical formula for dealing with allen, so that i could tell him something and be sure he would really GET it and not freak out, but i was totally deluding myself. allen is a person who is mentally unstable and he can be counted upon to be crazy and expecting him to not be crazy is unfair to him, and expecting myself to be able to cut through the crazy is unfair to me. shannon doesn't get freaked out by him, so he's the perfect person to talk to allen. daddy said he feels like my fearful, open energy just feeds into allens crazy, angry energy, giving him permission to be a bully. i hadn't ever thought of that, but it seems like he's right.
i can't say enough how much i am looking forward to having my life free of allen. whether the house sells or not, i want him out of the house forever. the days of him being my responsibility are over. over. it fucking sucks that things have to end like this, with me so thoroughly DONE with him, but that's just the way it is. he has sucked every ounce of patience and understanding out of me, leaving a profound fatigue and also some serious revulsion. just for his selfishness. i know he's having a hard time with mom being gone. obviously, since he's drinking all the time and the house is looking crappy. but his sadness isn't any excuse for him to treat me like shit, nor is it a license to sponge of me and my husband for the rest of his life. i so wish things had been different. not that that's an especially fruitful line of thought to pursue, but i do. i really wish things had been different. imagine if he had stayed semi-normal and not been such a selfish wing nut. oh well. he did, so there you go.
tomorrow i'm watching le bebe, so i have to get up earlyearlyearly. i'm feeling so tired these days. it might be from the remodel stuff. it might be sadness. it kinda lingers and leeches the energy out of you. whatever it is, i'm tired and sad and really, really ready to be done with the house for a while. i need a break.
i rented a storage space for all mom's stuff from yumi, and i am going through that stuff. that's tiring, too. a lot of it is actually my stuff that i thought i could avoid for a few more years at mom's, but it's coming back to haunt me. toys, magazines, journals, notes from middle school...all of it is back, in addition to stuff from grandparents and great-grandparents.
not my most interesting or sparkly journal entry, but it's something.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
bummer.
Author admits gang-life 'memoir' was all fiction - Los Angeles Times
this brings up some questions/thoughts.
-how did this seem like a good idea?
-why did her sister turn her in?
-boy, that's embarrassing!
-i'm sure she never thought anyone would find out, but i am surprised people do this still. i mean, after james frey and that indian girl and all the many, many times that people have been unmasked. there must be enough people who don't get unmasked, that it seems worth the risk. but still. this is a prime example of why i am not cut out for the criminal life - the idea of getting caught for a lie like this is enough to deter me. yeah, the majority of the world doesn't care at all, but your family and friends and publishers know.
this brings up some questions/thoughts.
-how did this seem like a good idea?
-why did her sister turn her in?
-boy, that's embarrassing!
-i'm sure she never thought anyone would find out, but i am surprised people do this still. i mean, after james frey and that indian girl and all the many, many times that people have been unmasked. there must be enough people who don't get unmasked, that it seems worth the risk. but still. this is a prime example of why i am not cut out for the criminal life - the idea of getting caught for a lie like this is enough to deter me. yeah, the majority of the world doesn't care at all, but your family and friends and publishers know.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
does there always have to be a title?
the grey weather suits my grey insides.
shannon is having a really hard time, and i am having a hard time with him having a hard time. i keep thinking i'm ready to take on more of other people's emotional stuff, but i keep finding out that my capacity is still terribly limited.
i just get so tired, from my own crap, that taking on anyone else's, in anything other than little bits, just sucks the air right out of me,
but i also feel like an asshole for constantly having to tell people that i am basically not interested in their problems because all i care about are my own. that doesn't make me feel very good, either.
i just don't usually know that i can't handle it until it's too much.
i'm already missing my mini-vacation with brett and gina.
it's funny how just going and hanging out at someone else's house makes such a big difference.
i realized at one point that i hadn't thought about my mom's death for a few days.
it's not like i wasn't thinking about mom, it was more like i wasn't feeling sad about her.
then i got a little freaked out about not thinking about it, or not feeling sad for a few days.
but i also really enjoyed the break.
and here i am, back in my life, surround by things i need to handle, that i am not really handling, feeling a little smothered by everything, so i am going to see a movie.
is this a good way to handle my problems?
who knows?
but it's what i'm doing and i am going to go with it.
shannon is having a really hard time, and i am having a hard time with him having a hard time. i keep thinking i'm ready to take on more of other people's emotional stuff, but i keep finding out that my capacity is still terribly limited.
i just get so tired, from my own crap, that taking on anyone else's, in anything other than little bits, just sucks the air right out of me,
but i also feel like an asshole for constantly having to tell people that i am basically not interested in their problems because all i care about are my own. that doesn't make me feel very good, either.
i just don't usually know that i can't handle it until it's too much.
i'm already missing my mini-vacation with brett and gina.
it's funny how just going and hanging out at someone else's house makes such a big difference.
i realized at one point that i hadn't thought about my mom's death for a few days.
it's not like i wasn't thinking about mom, it was more like i wasn't feeling sad about her.
then i got a little freaked out about not thinking about it, or not feeling sad for a few days.
but i also really enjoyed the break.
and here i am, back in my life, surround by things i need to handle, that i am not really handling, feeling a little smothered by everything, so i am going to see a movie.
is this a good way to handle my problems?
who knows?
but it's what i'm doing and i am going to go with it.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
not well.
okay, i'm going to be honest with myself and everyone else.
i'm not doing well.
i'm not taking care of the things that need taking care of (bills, unpacking, cleaning) and i am mostly just sitting around and staring off into space. some reading, too. i'd sleep more if i could, but i'm not very tired. i'm not eating well. my appetite is for shit so it means that when i do eat, there's more pressure to eat something good, since i might not eat again that day. but nothing sounds good, so i just eat what i can, which means i'm not eating enough fruits and veggies. i'm not talking about how i feel very much and i'm not asking for help. i don't know what i need help with, so i don't know what to ask for.
i feel like, because i'm not returning calls much, that i've made people think that i don't want to talk, or that i don't need to talk. which is sometimes true - sometimes i can't handle talking. i can almost never handle calling back, though.
i think about people all the time. i know we're all dealing with a lot right now, and i think about everyone's loads: lizzi searching for her path post-college; ana keeping her family together; poor mike crushed in a car accident; shannon bearing the brunt of our finances and struggling breathe as the mystery mold in our house tries to smother him; lu carving out a life for herself surrounded by new people and places; ellie's body betraying her; suzanne working so hard, but never making enough to relax; theo learning how to be single again, worrying about his mom... everyone, i am always thinking about you. even those of you whose burdens are too private to talk about here. or even if your burdens are just the normal burdens: getting dressed in clothes that don't make you feel stupid; working in a job you're not loving; trying to find meaning in your life; getting your bills paid; keeping it together, just being you. i know that just being you, with no added stuff, can be nearly unbearable sometimes.
but right now i am barely surviving.
i wish i was able to take an active role in everyone's problems, and help lift even a corner of the weight you all carry.
and i am ashamed to need more help from people, when i know how hard you're all working, just to make it happen, to do the best jobs you can at being you.
but i need more help.
i am so afraid of fucking this all up.
i worry that everyone is tired of me needing help.
i worry that i have totally blown my mom's memorial party and no one will show up.
i worry that i am going to waste the money mom left me and i won't be able to afford to keep the house and i'll have nothing to show for the money.
i am so worried that mom will be disappointed by the party.
i know, i know.
i have had this conversation with myself an unlimited number of times.
if there is a state of being beyond life as we know it, mom is probably a being of pure light, past disappointment and judgment. and even if she's retained some of her personality from this life, she feels nothing but love and compassion for me, because that's who she is.
and i know that if there's nothing after this life, then mom is totally gone and really, REALLY doesn't care about her party.
but *i* care.
i feel like there should be a national day of mourning for her. streets should be closed and they should be paced with mourners who are all feeling her loss as deeply as me. there should be elephants and balloons and speeches that last for days because people don't want to stop talking about her.
that's what she deserves.
and i feel like i'm a huge failure because all i can manage is the fucking fairfax community church and more people have told me they weren't coming than that they were and it's my fault because i didn't sent the invitation out until it was too late.
and i'm so, so mad.
please don't take this personally, but i am furious at anyone who had plans they aren't willing to break for my mom's party. what could be more important to anyone in the world than my mom's memorial? how can anything matter to anyone aside from this? nothing in my life will ever matter more than losing my mom. and it's lonely feeling like that's rare, like other things for other people might take precedence.
i find myself in a strange situation.
i blog about how i'm feeling because it's therapeutic for me, and sometimes i don't even know how i'm feeling unless i am talking/writing about it. so, in that sense, this is for me. it's personal.
but on the other hand, people i know (and don't know) read it - people who might be written about, or who might have their feelings hurt by me saying i'm mad at people for not coming to the party. i don't want to use my blog to soothe people's hurt feelings because i'm not really writing for them to read it and feel bad, or as a way to communicate something that i am not able to communicate in real life. i am writing it for myself, so i can get my emotions untangled inside myself. i don't actually need anything done about it. identifying the problem largely eliminates it. while i am sad, or confused, about people having other plans, i also really do understand. there are people dying at every second and i am able to keep breathing or reading or driving even as i know that, while for each person who dies there is probably someone who has been gutted by their loss. even people who i liked a lot, or cared for, or who were very important to people i care about, they might die and i'll go on with my day largely unaffected, aside from some thoughts of pity or sympathy for that person's loved ones. our brains are smart to ration out the pain, to keep it saved for special occasions. imagine the difficulty of living in a world where every death in the world was as immediate as the loss of a loved one. it would be impossible.
so, i understand. i really do. and, upper case me (which is a distinction my mom made, upper-case You - your best version of yourself, and lower-case you - the part that is in the middle of the muck sometimes) totally knows that this loss isn't as vast for some people as it is for me. in fact, it might be that i am truly alone in the scope of my feelings of loss, and that's not good or bad, it just is, maybe. i know that people need to take care of themselves, and sometimes taking care of themselves might mean not coming to my mom's party. i really do understand that, and i am not going to be making a list of people who didn't come, which i'll repeat to myself every night before i fall asleep, so that i can remember their sins and continue to punish them for it. it's really okay.
and, lower-case me thinks it sucks and is probably my fault, because i waited too long to tell people, or because people just don't care at all.
so this is all a conversation/struggle in my head, that doesn't have much to do with anyone but me.
i cried about a million times today. about everything and nothing, i just cried. i felt like i might break down at every single second of the day. every question that needed answering was almost too much. i seriously considered just sitting down in the health food store, on the floor, out of the way, and crying. i could barely laugh, barely smile, barely manage to uphold my end of the human-to-human interaction contract.
i just feel like i'm broken. you know, not irreparably, but i have maybe given up the task of being 'together.'
i'm not doing well.
i'm not taking care of the things that need taking care of (bills, unpacking, cleaning) and i am mostly just sitting around and staring off into space. some reading, too. i'd sleep more if i could, but i'm not very tired. i'm not eating well. my appetite is for shit so it means that when i do eat, there's more pressure to eat something good, since i might not eat again that day. but nothing sounds good, so i just eat what i can, which means i'm not eating enough fruits and veggies. i'm not talking about how i feel very much and i'm not asking for help. i don't know what i need help with, so i don't know what to ask for.
i feel like, because i'm not returning calls much, that i've made people think that i don't want to talk, or that i don't need to talk. which is sometimes true - sometimes i can't handle talking. i can almost never handle calling back, though.
i think about people all the time. i know we're all dealing with a lot right now, and i think about everyone's loads: lizzi searching for her path post-college; ana keeping her family together; poor mike crushed in a car accident; shannon bearing the brunt of our finances and struggling breathe as the mystery mold in our house tries to smother him; lu carving out a life for herself surrounded by new people and places; ellie's body betraying her; suzanne working so hard, but never making enough to relax; theo learning how to be single again, worrying about his mom... everyone, i am always thinking about you. even those of you whose burdens are too private to talk about here. or even if your burdens are just the normal burdens: getting dressed in clothes that don't make you feel stupid; working in a job you're not loving; trying to find meaning in your life; getting your bills paid; keeping it together, just being you. i know that just being you, with no added stuff, can be nearly unbearable sometimes.
but right now i am barely surviving.
i wish i was able to take an active role in everyone's problems, and help lift even a corner of the weight you all carry.
and i am ashamed to need more help from people, when i know how hard you're all working, just to make it happen, to do the best jobs you can at being you.
but i need more help.
i am so afraid of fucking this all up.
i worry that everyone is tired of me needing help.
i worry that i have totally blown my mom's memorial party and no one will show up.
i worry that i am going to waste the money mom left me and i won't be able to afford to keep the house and i'll have nothing to show for the money.
i am so worried that mom will be disappointed by the party.
i know, i know.
i have had this conversation with myself an unlimited number of times.
if there is a state of being beyond life as we know it, mom is probably a being of pure light, past disappointment and judgment. and even if she's retained some of her personality from this life, she feels nothing but love and compassion for me, because that's who she is.
and i know that if there's nothing after this life, then mom is totally gone and really, REALLY doesn't care about her party.
but *i* care.
i feel like there should be a national day of mourning for her. streets should be closed and they should be paced with mourners who are all feeling her loss as deeply as me. there should be elephants and balloons and speeches that last for days because people don't want to stop talking about her.
that's what she deserves.
and i feel like i'm a huge failure because all i can manage is the fucking fairfax community church and more people have told me they weren't coming than that they were and it's my fault because i didn't sent the invitation out until it was too late.
and i'm so, so mad.
please don't take this personally, but i am furious at anyone who had plans they aren't willing to break for my mom's party. what could be more important to anyone in the world than my mom's memorial? how can anything matter to anyone aside from this? nothing in my life will ever matter more than losing my mom. and it's lonely feeling like that's rare, like other things for other people might take precedence.
i find myself in a strange situation.
i blog about how i'm feeling because it's therapeutic for me, and sometimes i don't even know how i'm feeling unless i am talking/writing about it. so, in that sense, this is for me. it's personal.
but on the other hand, people i know (and don't know) read it - people who might be written about, or who might have their feelings hurt by me saying i'm mad at people for not coming to the party. i don't want to use my blog to soothe people's hurt feelings because i'm not really writing for them to read it and feel bad, or as a way to communicate something that i am not able to communicate in real life. i am writing it for myself, so i can get my emotions untangled inside myself. i don't actually need anything done about it. identifying the problem largely eliminates it. while i am sad, or confused, about people having other plans, i also really do understand. there are people dying at every second and i am able to keep breathing or reading or driving even as i know that, while for each person who dies there is probably someone who has been gutted by their loss. even people who i liked a lot, or cared for, or who were very important to people i care about, they might die and i'll go on with my day largely unaffected, aside from some thoughts of pity or sympathy for that person's loved ones. our brains are smart to ration out the pain, to keep it saved for special occasions. imagine the difficulty of living in a world where every death in the world was as immediate as the loss of a loved one. it would be impossible.
so, i understand. i really do. and, upper case me (which is a distinction my mom made, upper-case You - your best version of yourself, and lower-case you - the part that is in the middle of the muck sometimes) totally knows that this loss isn't as vast for some people as it is for me. in fact, it might be that i am truly alone in the scope of my feelings of loss, and that's not good or bad, it just is, maybe. i know that people need to take care of themselves, and sometimes taking care of themselves might mean not coming to my mom's party. i really do understand that, and i am not going to be making a list of people who didn't come, which i'll repeat to myself every night before i fall asleep, so that i can remember their sins and continue to punish them for it. it's really okay.
and, lower-case me thinks it sucks and is probably my fault, because i waited too long to tell people, or because people just don't care at all.
so this is all a conversation/struggle in my head, that doesn't have much to do with anyone but me.
i cried about a million times today. about everything and nothing, i just cried. i felt like i might break down at every single second of the day. every question that needed answering was almost too much. i seriously considered just sitting down in the health food store, on the floor, out of the way, and crying. i could barely laugh, barely smile, barely manage to uphold my end of the human-to-human interaction contract.
i just feel like i'm broken. you know, not irreparably, but i have maybe given up the task of being 'together.'
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
the day after.
man, yesterday was so lame.
one good thing happened - or, didn't happen.
mom didn't die on my birthday.
the day before yesterday, i wished at 11:11 that mom wouldn't die on my birthday, and my wish came true.
i was thankful for that.
otherwise, the day was almost totally crappy.
even when things are terrible, me and lu and tab are able to have fun with each other.
snot streaming out of our noses, scared from the tussle with allen, we're able to laugh at the 'holy crap, that just happened'-ness of the situation.
that's very, very valuable.
my dad came up yesterday and stayed the night in a hotel in town.
my uncle is staying for the rest of the week.
daddy came in today and did an amazing feat of counseling prowess, mediating a conversation between allen, me, lu and tab.
allen got a little bit snappy with my dad at a certain point, after saying something particularly irksome and allen-ish, and i freaked a little bit and had to utilize our newly agreed upon 'time out' system. i went into the driveway and screamed a little bit, bitched to my aunt ginny, and then came in.
i am unable to enter into a new period of openness and supportive lovingness with allen, having been burnt too many times. every blow up we've had, every time he's been an unforgivable asshole, i've tried to put my past resentment behind me and move forward fresh, letting go of the previous negativity. obviously that's hard to do completely, but i have been really good about being conscious even of the way i think about allen, holding the space for us to connect and for him to be the highest version of himself.
and every time i have gotten kicked in the crotch for my trouble.
i had to admit in the talk that i was having a very hard time letting go of what happened yesterday, and wasn't feeling very hopeful about us progressing past civility.
that's a change for me, because i have always harbored dreams of me and allen forging a really special bond. it sounds silly when i put it out there like that, but it's true. it's always been very hard for me to accept that me and my mom's life-mate/partner don't really like each other very much. i got to a point where i admitted that it was unlikely, and that i didn't really need to like him that much. i was old enough by that point for it to not be such a big deal. but i never really let go of the dream.
he and i have had some rocky times since december, but have been doing pretty well since i moved up here almost full time, so this new blow up was a grievous wound to my faith.
i've never been in a situation like this. it's given me a peek into what it might be like to be in an abusive relationship.
i love him for the care he's giving my mom. i love him for how happy he made her, and for helping her realize her dream up here in The Valley.
i pity him for his loneliness, and his total out-of-stepness with the rest of the world. he's one of the most socially stunted people i've ever come across. he has almost no friends. my mom was the only person who understood him and loved him for who he is (which is a very complex bundle) and he's losing her. his future is entirely dependent on my generosity, as i am the legal owner of the house and could be an asshole and kick him out at any moment, if i so desired. (which i have been disinclined to do, out of respect for my mom's wishes, but which i have been dangerously toying with in my head during this period of unrest. oh, how sweet to be free of him forever...) he can barely hear, and has compensated for his poor hearing with what he believes to be heightened perceptive abilities, but which is actually heightened paranoia, rendering him borderline delusional. if he's talking to me, and i roll my eyes, because i have an eyelash in there, or, wriggle my nose, because i have a boogie, it is not out of the realm of possibility that he will decide that i am making fun of him, or trying to 'fuck with his head.' it will not usually occur to him that i have a purely legitimate, not even vaguely sinister motive. that is the idea that he will have, and he will run with it.
it makes communicating with him unimaginably tricky. who the fuck knows how he hears stuff or perceives it? how can i avoid misinterpretation when he is looking for reasons to believe that i am out to get him?
tough.
so then, we add in a very healthy amount of fear and resentment into the spicy goulash of emotions i have. he is so unpredictable, and so prone to unexpectedly violent outbursts, that it makes me afraid to even talk to him sometimes. i ask him a benign question, and am met with this unforeseen firestorm of hate, suspicion, judgment, etc. he barely apologizes, he says terrible things when he's angry, and he defends himself about it after the fact by acting really blase about the whole thing. like, 'oh, did i tell you to get fucked in the hospital, the day after your mom had had brain surgery? oh. well, i was just upset.' as if everything that's said in the heat of the moment melts away in the mind of the hearer once the speaker's emotion has passed. i had to explain to him that when he calls me a 'fucking bitch' when he's mad, that doesn't go away for me. that, even when he's being nice, or i am not mad at him, i can't help but remember that he called me that. it doesn't go away just because he said it in the heat of the moment and didn't really mean it.
duh. if you don't mean it, don't say it. why is that hard?
so, i find myself really afraid of him. me and lu and tab were sitting on the front porch, talking, in the afternoon after the fight, and i heard his stomping footsteps into the kitchen, and felt my stomach clench, from fear. i initially wasn't going to tell anyone about me and him grappling, because i didn't want them to go crazy and try to kill him. i find myself making excuses for his atrocious behavior (oh, he's like a little kid. he can't help it. or he doesn't mean it. he just gets crazy when he's mad.)
i got really freaked out by those responses, feeling like he was my abusive husband. i walk on eggshells, afraid of upsetting him, trying to 'manage' him, and just give him chance after chance to treat me like crap.
finally, my resentment over having to deal with his crap while my mom is dying. when i would like to be focusing on my emotions over my mom's imminent death, i am having to handle allen with kid gloves. we spent all yesterday, and most of today, dealing with him being a whack-job. what that fuck? we're not here to make sure allen is coping okay. it's allen's fault that allen hasn't got a support system. i am not sending my support system home to make him feel more comfortable. i am not going to give him permission to crap all over me and my friends, because he's lonely and doesn't have anyone to talk to about his feelings. maybe if he was less of a jerk, we'd be more likely to reach out and talk to him about how he's doing. as it is, i'm terrified of asking how he's feeling and having my skin flayed off my face for, like, putting the washcloths back in the wrong place.
so, that time is over.
i'm not saying 'fuck him forever,' but i'm also not trying to do anything except the bare minimum of getting along.
how many times do i have to burn my hand before i just accept, that pot is too hot to hold. whether it's burning me on purpose or not, my shit is crispy now and i am done reaching for it.
so, we'll have mediators to help some.
daddy, uncle keith and mom's friend, cassandra, are going to be go-betweens, to talk to if things get tense.
we only need to maintain our civility in this manner until mom passes, which the nurses say will be days. i'll deal with my relationship with him, post-mom's death, when we get there.
so, overall, a VERY uncomfortable birthday.
at least i had my ladies and my dad here. at least mom didn't die.
yesterday, i told her that it was my birthday. she widened her eyes, putting her mouth into an 'o' shape. i told her how, at the hour, 29 years before, she and i had only just met. we barely knew each other.
she doesn't respond to everything that you say, but when she does, it's really special.
i'm really tired, from the trauma yesterday and the talking today. i'm exhausted. i slept a lot las night, but i felt anxious all night. i woke up this morning because i felt so nervous, probably partly about mom's well-being (i keep waiting to hear allen shouting for me, and having to run in because mom is dead) and partly about allen.
i am tired of worrying about him.
i am ready to go back to worrying about myself.
or, rather, not worrying at all. just taking care of myself.
one good thing happened - or, didn't happen.
mom didn't die on my birthday.
the day before yesterday, i wished at 11:11 that mom wouldn't die on my birthday, and my wish came true.
i was thankful for that.
otherwise, the day was almost totally crappy.
even when things are terrible, me and lu and tab are able to have fun with each other.
snot streaming out of our noses, scared from the tussle with allen, we're able to laugh at the 'holy crap, that just happened'-ness of the situation.
that's very, very valuable.
my dad came up yesterday and stayed the night in a hotel in town.
my uncle is staying for the rest of the week.
daddy came in today and did an amazing feat of counseling prowess, mediating a conversation between allen, me, lu and tab.
allen got a little bit snappy with my dad at a certain point, after saying something particularly irksome and allen-ish, and i freaked a little bit and had to utilize our newly agreed upon 'time out' system. i went into the driveway and screamed a little bit, bitched to my aunt ginny, and then came in.
i am unable to enter into a new period of openness and supportive lovingness with allen, having been burnt too many times. every blow up we've had, every time he's been an unforgivable asshole, i've tried to put my past resentment behind me and move forward fresh, letting go of the previous negativity. obviously that's hard to do completely, but i have been really good about being conscious even of the way i think about allen, holding the space for us to connect and for him to be the highest version of himself.
and every time i have gotten kicked in the crotch for my trouble.
i had to admit in the talk that i was having a very hard time letting go of what happened yesterday, and wasn't feeling very hopeful about us progressing past civility.
that's a change for me, because i have always harbored dreams of me and allen forging a really special bond. it sounds silly when i put it out there like that, but it's true. it's always been very hard for me to accept that me and my mom's life-mate/partner don't really like each other very much. i got to a point where i admitted that it was unlikely, and that i didn't really need to like him that much. i was old enough by that point for it to not be such a big deal. but i never really let go of the dream.
he and i have had some rocky times since december, but have been doing pretty well since i moved up here almost full time, so this new blow up was a grievous wound to my faith.
i've never been in a situation like this. it's given me a peek into what it might be like to be in an abusive relationship.
i love him for the care he's giving my mom. i love him for how happy he made her, and for helping her realize her dream up here in The Valley.
i pity him for his loneliness, and his total out-of-stepness with the rest of the world. he's one of the most socially stunted people i've ever come across. he has almost no friends. my mom was the only person who understood him and loved him for who he is (which is a very complex bundle) and he's losing her. his future is entirely dependent on my generosity, as i am the legal owner of the house and could be an asshole and kick him out at any moment, if i so desired. (which i have been disinclined to do, out of respect for my mom's wishes, but which i have been dangerously toying with in my head during this period of unrest. oh, how sweet to be free of him forever...) he can barely hear, and has compensated for his poor hearing with what he believes to be heightened perceptive abilities, but which is actually heightened paranoia, rendering him borderline delusional. if he's talking to me, and i roll my eyes, because i have an eyelash in there, or, wriggle my nose, because i have a boogie, it is not out of the realm of possibility that he will decide that i am making fun of him, or trying to 'fuck with his head.' it will not usually occur to him that i have a purely legitimate, not even vaguely sinister motive. that is the idea that he will have, and he will run with it.
it makes communicating with him unimaginably tricky. who the fuck knows how he hears stuff or perceives it? how can i avoid misinterpretation when he is looking for reasons to believe that i am out to get him?
tough.
so then, we add in a very healthy amount of fear and resentment into the spicy goulash of emotions i have. he is so unpredictable, and so prone to unexpectedly violent outbursts, that it makes me afraid to even talk to him sometimes. i ask him a benign question, and am met with this unforeseen firestorm of hate, suspicion, judgment, etc. he barely apologizes, he says terrible things when he's angry, and he defends himself about it after the fact by acting really blase about the whole thing. like, 'oh, did i tell you to get fucked in the hospital, the day after your mom had had brain surgery? oh. well, i was just upset.' as if everything that's said in the heat of the moment melts away in the mind of the hearer once the speaker's emotion has passed. i had to explain to him that when he calls me a 'fucking bitch' when he's mad, that doesn't go away for me. that, even when he's being nice, or i am not mad at him, i can't help but remember that he called me that. it doesn't go away just because he said it in the heat of the moment and didn't really mean it.
duh. if you don't mean it, don't say it. why is that hard?
so, i find myself really afraid of him. me and lu and tab were sitting on the front porch, talking, in the afternoon after the fight, and i heard his stomping footsteps into the kitchen, and felt my stomach clench, from fear. i initially wasn't going to tell anyone about me and him grappling, because i didn't want them to go crazy and try to kill him. i find myself making excuses for his atrocious behavior (oh, he's like a little kid. he can't help it. or he doesn't mean it. he just gets crazy when he's mad.)
i got really freaked out by those responses, feeling like he was my abusive husband. i walk on eggshells, afraid of upsetting him, trying to 'manage' him, and just give him chance after chance to treat me like crap.
finally, my resentment over having to deal with his crap while my mom is dying. when i would like to be focusing on my emotions over my mom's imminent death, i am having to handle allen with kid gloves. we spent all yesterday, and most of today, dealing with him being a whack-job. what that fuck? we're not here to make sure allen is coping okay. it's allen's fault that allen hasn't got a support system. i am not sending my support system home to make him feel more comfortable. i am not going to give him permission to crap all over me and my friends, because he's lonely and doesn't have anyone to talk to about his feelings. maybe if he was less of a jerk, we'd be more likely to reach out and talk to him about how he's doing. as it is, i'm terrified of asking how he's feeling and having my skin flayed off my face for, like, putting the washcloths back in the wrong place.
so, that time is over.
i'm not saying 'fuck him forever,' but i'm also not trying to do anything except the bare minimum of getting along.
how many times do i have to burn my hand before i just accept, that pot is too hot to hold. whether it's burning me on purpose or not, my shit is crispy now and i am done reaching for it.
so, we'll have mediators to help some.
daddy, uncle keith and mom's friend, cassandra, are going to be go-betweens, to talk to if things get tense.
we only need to maintain our civility in this manner until mom passes, which the nurses say will be days. i'll deal with my relationship with him, post-mom's death, when we get there.
so, overall, a VERY uncomfortable birthday.
at least i had my ladies and my dad here. at least mom didn't die.
yesterday, i told her that it was my birthday. she widened her eyes, putting her mouth into an 'o' shape. i told her how, at the hour, 29 years before, she and i had only just met. we barely knew each other.
she doesn't respond to everything that you say, but when she does, it's really special.
i'm really tired, from the trauma yesterday and the talking today. i'm exhausted. i slept a lot las night, but i felt anxious all night. i woke up this morning because i felt so nervous, probably partly about mom's well-being (i keep waiting to hear allen shouting for me, and having to run in because mom is dead) and partly about allen.
i am tired of worrying about him.
i am ready to go back to worrying about myself.
or, rather, not worrying at all. just taking care of myself.
Monday, August 27, 2007
a very unmerry birthday to me.
today was not a merry day.
allen went insane and we got into a bizarro fight this morning, at 8am, during which i slapped him and he semi-tried to choke me.
whoa.
yeah.
we (me, lu, tab) called my dad and my uncle, and asked them to come over, to help bring some male authority energy.
for people who have been following my blog for a while, i think you might have heard about what a "character" allen is.
i was thinking today about what an amazing movie this will make, if i ever write a screenplay for it, because it's truly got everything in it, now, also a physical fight between me and a 250 lb bear-man.
so, allen is a challenging person.
i am not going to get into a list of reasons why he is basically a crown of thorns on my brow, but i can sum it up by stating he has poor communication skills, and explosive temper, and a life-long steady pot habit, which has left him deeply paranoid. my mom is the only person who has ever understood him, i think. i certainly don't.
we have gotten along thus far through me just being the 'bigger person' and letting it go when he gets angry and screams obscenities at me.
whatever, i tell myself. he's like a small child. he just says the first thing that comes to his mind. he doesn't mean it.
but today i just reached the end of my rope.
i went in to talk to him about how mom was doing, how her night was, and it somehow escalated to him calling me a fucking bitch and telling me to shut up, telling me that he doesn't know why i'm even here because he has to do everything, etc.
i responded in a totally unacceptable manner, contrary to my training and inclination, and slapped him.
he lunged at me and grabbed my throat.
lu and tab rushed in and pulled us apart. (tab said she felt like gandalf, throwing her arms around and pointing her finger authoritatively.)
the rest of the day was spent dealing with the aftermath of this.
i am done making excuses for him being a rage-aholic with no respect for other people's feelings. i have had enough tiptoe-ing around, for fear of setting him off unexpectedly.
today, i said 'no more.'
i admitted i was powerless to control his insanity, and i asked for help. (from my dad and uncle and the nurses.)
i got the help i needed, and hopefully things will be tolerable for the next little bit.
the nurses agree that mom has probably days left.
i have a lot of feelings about today's incident, but i am tired down to my bones from the sucking today, and i am going to bed.
hopefully tomorrow i'll have a fresher perspective. and, hopefully, i'll remember to write more about this, because it really brought up a lot.
allen went insane and we got into a bizarro fight this morning, at 8am, during which i slapped him and he semi-tried to choke me.
whoa.
yeah.
we (me, lu, tab) called my dad and my uncle, and asked them to come over, to help bring some male authority energy.
for people who have been following my blog for a while, i think you might have heard about what a "character" allen is.
i was thinking today about what an amazing movie this will make, if i ever write a screenplay for it, because it's truly got everything in it, now, also a physical fight between me and a 250 lb bear-man.
so, allen is a challenging person.
i am not going to get into a list of reasons why he is basically a crown of thorns on my brow, but i can sum it up by stating he has poor communication skills, and explosive temper, and a life-long steady pot habit, which has left him deeply paranoid. my mom is the only person who has ever understood him, i think. i certainly don't.
we have gotten along thus far through me just being the 'bigger person' and letting it go when he gets angry and screams obscenities at me.
whatever, i tell myself. he's like a small child. he just says the first thing that comes to his mind. he doesn't mean it.
but today i just reached the end of my rope.
i went in to talk to him about how mom was doing, how her night was, and it somehow escalated to him calling me a fucking bitch and telling me to shut up, telling me that he doesn't know why i'm even here because he has to do everything, etc.
i responded in a totally unacceptable manner, contrary to my training and inclination, and slapped him.
he lunged at me and grabbed my throat.
lu and tab rushed in and pulled us apart. (tab said she felt like gandalf, throwing her arms around and pointing her finger authoritatively.)
the rest of the day was spent dealing with the aftermath of this.
i am done making excuses for him being a rage-aholic with no respect for other people's feelings. i have had enough tiptoe-ing around, for fear of setting him off unexpectedly.
today, i said 'no more.'
i admitted i was powerless to control his insanity, and i asked for help. (from my dad and uncle and the nurses.)
i got the help i needed, and hopefully things will be tolerable for the next little bit.
the nurses agree that mom has probably days left.
i have a lot of feelings about today's incident, but i am tired down to my bones from the sucking today, and i am going to bed.
hopefully tomorrow i'll have a fresher perspective. and, hopefully, i'll remember to write more about this, because it really brought up a lot.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
dealing with it.
allen freaked out this morning.
i'm tired of handling other people's crazy emotions.
i'll keep doing it, because it needs to be done, but i am feeling tired of it right now.
he exploded over something super-minor (probably after stewing for an unknown length of time) and shouted some dumb, mean stuff at tab, hurting her feelings.
he and i are steady enough for me to just tell him that he doesn't get to kick anyone out of the house, and no one is leaving because we're a family and people don't get kicked out of families.
he's like a little kid - he just says whatever is in his head, with no thought about editing, or any kind of realization that the bizarre stuff he thinks up are just THOUGHTS.
man, life must be so confusing and exhausting when you live in a head where everything you think is totally real to you.
i guess i closed the chicken coop incorrectly last night, but to allen, that doesn't mean that i don't know how to put the chickens away correctly and might need a refresher, it means i am...i don't really know. playing mind games with him and don't give a shit about the house or him. so, based on that thought that he had, he then tells me that he's had enough of me, he's done with the mind games, and i should just stay away from him from now on, and get out.
it's lame that, on top of my mom dying and having to manage my own emotions about that, i also have to worry about him flying off the handle at any given moment, with no warning, based on logic i am not familiar with, and accusing me of weird stuff.
now the energy in the house is really uncomfortable.
s just got here, and he and i haven't really spent much time together since he's been back from his camping trip, 'cause the kid was here, so we're a little awkward.
t's giving mom a massage in the bedroom, so allen can't hide in there to avoid us, which pushes him out into the living room, where mike unknowingly stole allen's place-of-power on the sofa.
then allen changed clothes to do some yard work, which is retarded because it's 1000 degrees out. it's just now reaching the really HOT hot part of the day, and he wasted the cool part of the day being a sulky jerk.
he just pressured s and mike into helping him with yard work, and he's such a freaker-out-er that they didn't want to say 'no' for fear he'd snap.
in the background of all this is the realization that i am going have to start putting mom in her wheelchair to move her around the house because she's so wobbly and i am afraid she'll fall and i won't be able to get her up. allen said the other day that he feels like she's moving into the next phase, more sleeping and less eating, and i agree.
i'm just really tired, i think.
having lu, tab and mike up here recharged my batteries, but allen is threatening to run them back down in one day.
i have bills of mom's to pay, her power of attorney to get dealt with, my own bills to deal with, we're out of escrow on the house this week, which adds a whole nother wrinkle to things...
i'm just tired.
i'm tired of handling other people's crazy emotions.
i'll keep doing it, because it needs to be done, but i am feeling tired of it right now.
he exploded over something super-minor (probably after stewing for an unknown length of time) and shouted some dumb, mean stuff at tab, hurting her feelings.
he and i are steady enough for me to just tell him that he doesn't get to kick anyone out of the house, and no one is leaving because we're a family and people don't get kicked out of families.
he's like a little kid - he just says whatever is in his head, with no thought about editing, or any kind of realization that the bizarre stuff he thinks up are just THOUGHTS.
man, life must be so confusing and exhausting when you live in a head where everything you think is totally real to you.
i guess i closed the chicken coop incorrectly last night, but to allen, that doesn't mean that i don't know how to put the chickens away correctly and might need a refresher, it means i am...i don't really know. playing mind games with him and don't give a shit about the house or him. so, based on that thought that he had, he then tells me that he's had enough of me, he's done with the mind games, and i should just stay away from him from now on, and get out.
it's lame that, on top of my mom dying and having to manage my own emotions about that, i also have to worry about him flying off the handle at any given moment, with no warning, based on logic i am not familiar with, and accusing me of weird stuff.
now the energy in the house is really uncomfortable.
s just got here, and he and i haven't really spent much time together since he's been back from his camping trip, 'cause the kid was here, so we're a little awkward.
t's giving mom a massage in the bedroom, so allen can't hide in there to avoid us, which pushes him out into the living room, where mike unknowingly stole allen's place-of-power on the sofa.
then allen changed clothes to do some yard work, which is retarded because it's 1000 degrees out. it's just now reaching the really HOT hot part of the day, and he wasted the cool part of the day being a sulky jerk.
he just pressured s and mike into helping him with yard work, and he's such a freaker-out-er that they didn't want to say 'no' for fear he'd snap.
in the background of all this is the realization that i am going have to start putting mom in her wheelchair to move her around the house because she's so wobbly and i am afraid she'll fall and i won't be able to get her up. allen said the other day that he feels like she's moving into the next phase, more sleeping and less eating, and i agree.
i'm just really tired, i think.
having lu, tab and mike up here recharged my batteries, but allen is threatening to run them back down in one day.
i have bills of mom's to pay, her power of attorney to get dealt with, my own bills to deal with, we're out of escrow on the house this week, which adds a whole nother wrinkle to things...
i'm just tired.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
trying.
i'm spending the majority of my time in RV with my mom now.
last week it seemed like she was slipping away so fast, it would be a matter of weeks until she died, but she's leveled off. it feels weird being disappointed that she's not dying faster.
i think it's because, in a lot of ways, she's already gone to me, and having her here, being less and less her everyday, makes the loss more acute. while it's good to have time to complete, and not be left with things unsaid, it's also a fallacy that you can ever say EVERYTHING you wanted to say, and there's something easy about the sudden death. then you don't have to linger with the dying. it's just alive-to-dead. this period is so uncomfortable that i am having a hard time relaxing into being here, giving up the resistance, and i find myself anxious to get onto the next stage.
this whole dying thing is fucking terrible. well, terribly hard.
mom fell last evening.
one minute she was vegged out on the couch, the next minute she was staggering past me, at alarming speed, and falling. she feel right next to this concrete topped coffee table, with sharp edges. she could have cracked her head open like a fucking egg. she couldn't really explain what she was doing. something about the rolling stone magazine. it was very terrifying. (heh.)
her eyes are doing weird stuff - like, pointing in different directions. her vision is whacked and that's making her balance bad.
they delivered a wheelchair for us day before yesterday.
all this stuff - it's just happening, and it feels so unreal and unfair, but it's just the way it is.
lu and shannon both said yesterday, it's like i saved up all the tough times of my life to this point for right now. (it's true. i've had an almost embarrassingly easy, pain-free life to this point.) i've had little sprints of sadness, but this has been/is an endurance test of sadness and hardness.
i had a really hard day yesterday. i am jealous of my loved ones who can come visit, but then go back to other things. as i am spending my days with my slowly-dying mother, they are off riding bikes, kissing people, going to jobs, planning for the future. and all i have is this. i wish i had somewhere else i could go, leaving this behind for someone else to take care of. i do have allen/jerr-bear. he takes care of stuff when i am not here. but that's a huge weight to just thunk down on him. even for two people, this is a tremendous weight.
i had a hard day yesterday. mom's power of attorney paperwork was notarized incorrectly, by one of mom's good friends, and because of that the bank won't let me access any of mom's money. i threw a little tempter tantrum in the bank yesterday. again, i can't help but ask god/the universe/whatever - really? i get to deal with *this*, too?
lu and her mom came to visit, and that was perfection. they both have really nice, calming energy. lu's mom gave us some jorei, which i desperately needed. just sitting down, outside on the porch, hearing the bird and squirrel symphony, having someone focus positive, healing energy at me, was special. mom got some, too. lu and i went on an awesome walk, while her mom napped, and i cried some, and laughed some. again, while i am experiencing this, birds are hatching, blackberries are ripening, goats are doing goat things - the world isn't stopping or slowing for the imminent loss of my mother, though mine surely is.
here are somethings i did, just for me, this week. i am not great at taking time away, or doing things to make myself happy, but here are a few of them:
- i bought this jacket. for once, it looks way cuter on me that it does on the model.
-i bought some tennies at ross. they're light grey (my fave!) with sky blue swooshes. they cost $25. little t knows what she's about - ross is pretty amazing.
- i went on a lovely LONG walk with lu. well, long for me. i used to walk everywhere, no matter what the weather, but driving has put an end to that. i'd like to walk places more. i used to really like it. we saw a llama and ate blackberries.
-i took myself to see the bourne ultimatum. unsurprisingly, it was not amazing. some good fight scenes, but the whole movie is just a 2 hour chase scene, which gets old fast. i ate some stale popcorn and some gummi bears, and drank a bucket of root beer.
- i bought some new sheets and pillows for my bed in the yoga studio. i am trying to make it feel more homey. it's tough, since it's full of spiders and mice, but i'm trying. i am deeply thankful to have a place to retreat to at the end of the day, that's my space.
in other news, i got treed by a bobcat the other night. well, not treed. but almost eaten, i think. well, i'm not sure it was a bobcat. in theory it could have been a big angry raccoon, but i don't think so. i stayed up late doing laundry, and, at 2:30am, when my laundry was done, i headed out into the porch with my basket. i was stopped after a single step by a deep rumbling growl, and the sound of bushes moving around. i froze. i stamped my foot down on the deck, to try to scare it away, but it skittered closer to me, so the growling was now coming from directly underneath me, under the deck. okay, if it fits under the deck, it's not a bear. in its rage at me, over the stamping and the intruding in its nighttime prowling, it hissed at me, then went back to growling balefully. i had visions of it darting out at my leg when i stepped off the porch, and it taking me down like i was a gazelle. (i am perhaps flattering myself in imagining myself as a gazelle. perhaps more like a caribou. or a wildebeast.) i then imagined how allen would deal with that, with me being disemboweled by a puma/bobcat, and mom not able to stay by herself. that would be a lot of trouble for allen. also, i didn't relish the mauling scenario in general, so i slunk back into the house and slept on the sofa for a few hours, until it got light out. that bobcat kept up its growling for easily 45 minutes after the lights went out, and i was tucked away. apparently i was very threatening to it.
hey, what form do you think your patronus would take?
last week it seemed like she was slipping away so fast, it would be a matter of weeks until she died, but she's leveled off. it feels weird being disappointed that she's not dying faster.
i think it's because, in a lot of ways, she's already gone to me, and having her here, being less and less her everyday, makes the loss more acute. while it's good to have time to complete, and not be left with things unsaid, it's also a fallacy that you can ever say EVERYTHING you wanted to say, and there's something easy about the sudden death. then you don't have to linger with the dying. it's just alive-to-dead. this period is so uncomfortable that i am having a hard time relaxing into being here, giving up the resistance, and i find myself anxious to get onto the next stage.
this whole dying thing is fucking terrible. well, terribly hard.
mom fell last evening.
one minute she was vegged out on the couch, the next minute she was staggering past me, at alarming speed, and falling. she feel right next to this concrete topped coffee table, with sharp edges. she could have cracked her head open like a fucking egg. she couldn't really explain what she was doing. something about the rolling stone magazine. it was very terrifying. (heh.)
her eyes are doing weird stuff - like, pointing in different directions. her vision is whacked and that's making her balance bad.
they delivered a wheelchair for us day before yesterday.
all this stuff - it's just happening, and it feels so unreal and unfair, but it's just the way it is.
lu and shannon both said yesterday, it's like i saved up all the tough times of my life to this point for right now. (it's true. i've had an almost embarrassingly easy, pain-free life to this point.) i've had little sprints of sadness, but this has been/is an endurance test of sadness and hardness.
i had a really hard day yesterday. i am jealous of my loved ones who can come visit, but then go back to other things. as i am spending my days with my slowly-dying mother, they are off riding bikes, kissing people, going to jobs, planning for the future. and all i have is this. i wish i had somewhere else i could go, leaving this behind for someone else to take care of. i do have allen/jerr-bear. he takes care of stuff when i am not here. but that's a huge weight to just thunk down on him. even for two people, this is a tremendous weight.
i had a hard day yesterday. mom's power of attorney paperwork was notarized incorrectly, by one of mom's good friends, and because of that the bank won't let me access any of mom's money. i threw a little tempter tantrum in the bank yesterday. again, i can't help but ask god/the universe/whatever - really? i get to deal with *this*, too?
lu and her mom came to visit, and that was perfection. they both have really nice, calming energy. lu's mom gave us some jorei, which i desperately needed. just sitting down, outside on the porch, hearing the bird and squirrel symphony, having someone focus positive, healing energy at me, was special. mom got some, too. lu and i went on an awesome walk, while her mom napped, and i cried some, and laughed some. again, while i am experiencing this, birds are hatching, blackberries are ripening, goats are doing goat things - the world isn't stopping or slowing for the imminent loss of my mother, though mine surely is.
here are somethings i did, just for me, this week. i am not great at taking time away, or doing things to make myself happy, but here are a few of them:
- i bought this jacket. for once, it looks way cuter on me that it does on the model.
-i bought some tennies at ross. they're light grey (my fave!) with sky blue swooshes. they cost $25. little t knows what she's about - ross is pretty amazing.
- i went on a lovely LONG walk with lu. well, long for me. i used to walk everywhere, no matter what the weather, but driving has put an end to that. i'd like to walk places more. i used to really like it. we saw a llama and ate blackberries.
-i took myself to see the bourne ultimatum. unsurprisingly, it was not amazing. some good fight scenes, but the whole movie is just a 2 hour chase scene, which gets old fast. i ate some stale popcorn and some gummi bears, and drank a bucket of root beer.
- i bought some new sheets and pillows for my bed in the yoga studio. i am trying to make it feel more homey. it's tough, since it's full of spiders and mice, but i'm trying. i am deeply thankful to have a place to retreat to at the end of the day, that's my space.
in other news, i got treed by a bobcat the other night. well, not treed. but almost eaten, i think. well, i'm not sure it was a bobcat. in theory it could have been a big angry raccoon, but i don't think so. i stayed up late doing laundry, and, at 2:30am, when my laundry was done, i headed out into the porch with my basket. i was stopped after a single step by a deep rumbling growl, and the sound of bushes moving around. i froze. i stamped my foot down on the deck, to try to scare it away, but it skittered closer to me, so the growling was now coming from directly underneath me, under the deck. okay, if it fits under the deck, it's not a bear. in its rage at me, over the stamping and the intruding in its nighttime prowling, it hissed at me, then went back to growling balefully. i had visions of it darting out at my leg when i stepped off the porch, and it taking me down like i was a gazelle. (i am perhaps flattering myself in imagining myself as a gazelle. perhaps more like a caribou. or a wildebeast.) i then imagined how allen would deal with that, with me being disemboweled by a puma/bobcat, and mom not able to stay by herself. that would be a lot of trouble for allen. also, i didn't relish the mauling scenario in general, so i slunk back into the house and slept on the sofa for a few hours, until it got light out. that bobcat kept up its growling for easily 45 minutes after the lights went out, and i was tucked away. apparently i was very threatening to it.
hey, what form do you think your patronus would take?
Thursday, July 26, 2007
today.
i'm heading up to my mom's house today.
i'm spending the day up there, but i'll be heading back tonight.
i have to gather a bunch of paperwork while i'm there.
bills, receipts, deed to the house...
i'm nervous about going up, because the last time was so hard, and because i'm not in the most robust mental state.
i fell asleep last night asking the universe to make my visit today as easy as possible.
even though me and the universe are still a little bit on the outs, i hope it'll do me a favor, for old time's sake. perhaps as a small gesture of remorse for the bullshit it's dished out this year?
anyway, babysitting was a little forced vacation (if working on a chaingang could be seen as a vacation from...say...working in a coal mine), but now i'm back to the good old coal mine!
i'm spending the day up there, but i'll be heading back tonight.
i have to gather a bunch of paperwork while i'm there.
bills, receipts, deed to the house...
i'm nervous about going up, because the last time was so hard, and because i'm not in the most robust mental state.
i fell asleep last night asking the universe to make my visit today as easy as possible.
even though me and the universe are still a little bit on the outs, i hope it'll do me a favor, for old time's sake. perhaps as a small gesture of remorse for the bullshit it's dished out this year?
anyway, babysitting was a little forced vacation (if working on a chaingang could be seen as a vacation from...say...working in a coal mine), but now i'm back to the good old coal mine!
Monday, July 23, 2007
very bad.
i got a voicemail from mom's b/f, jerr-bear.
he doesn't ever call for good reasons.
heart audibly pounding in my chest, i called them back.
mom answered with a chipper, "good morning!"
i had to tell her it wasn't morning, it was 9:30pm.
she was affably befuddled.
i asked to talk to jerr-bear.
he told me that the situation is becoming too much for him to handle. mom didn't get out of bed all day, thinks it's morning, hasn't eaten.
also, he is running out of money and needs more.
(mom owes him $20k for work he did fixing up the house they sold and for fixing up the new house. she's been giving it to him in chunks.)
he feels like all he needs is $5K for the rest of the year, which is amazing to me. very few people in america could estimate their cost of living for 6 months at $5K.
it's his money, so obviously i'll get it to him.
he is really upset about not getting more furniture refinishing jobs this year. he made a lot of money (for him) last year doing his work working, but this year he hasn't gotten more than a couple teeny nibbles on the line. because he's him, he drifts into wondering if "someone" is rerouting his calls to a competitor, to "mess" with him. i think he realizes that that's not likely, but not always.
i was momentarily tempted to suggest he get a real job, in the real world, but the temptation passed. he is basically mom's primary caretaker at this point, and the last thing we need is him gone for hours and hours and hours at a time.
i hate that so much of this is falling on him. he must miss her so much. no one really understands him, and everyone thinks he's varying degrees of delusional, exasperating, rude, annoying, weird...but mom thinks he's precious, hilarious, gentle, kind. she sees the real him. i wonder if he even knows those parts exist without her. i can't imagine having no one to talk to about this. i miss mom with every breath i take, and wish i could call her to tell her how hard this is and have her tell me that it's okay, and i have a blessedly huge circle of support around me. i just can't imagine how alone he must feel.
so, now i have to figure out what to do.
does she need some sort of nurse, or a nursing home? the american brain tumor association (whose website i've never explored and am now wishing i had) suggests adult day care centers, which sounds so fucking demeaning. my mom might die of embarrassment if she ever comes out of this.
i have waited too long to get this stuff dealt with, and i am feeling ashamed.
you guys, i'm so mad at her.
i yelled at her on the phone and she's fucking brain damaged.
i have no idea what i'm doing and i'm terrified.
i don't feel like i can handle this.
and i have to.
i have no fucking choice.
so tomorrow i call the nurses at ucsf, who support mom's neuro-oncologist, and ask they what the fuck i'm supposed to do.
is she even inside there anymore?
i had given her and allen assignments when i left on friday.
mom was supposed to do two things to contribute to the house. any little thing was fine, but it had to be two things. allen has been waiting on her hand and foot and he's burnt and needs some help. she felt like that was do-able.
allen's assignment was to get her outside once a day, to move around.
he said tonight that the assignments are a joke and she won't do it. she wouldn't get out of bed all day.
so, tonight i modified her assignment.
her new assignment is to get out of bed everyday by 10am (i would have liked to do 8am, but i am a lenient and loving daughter who understands baby-steps.) and to put on normal clothes. no more laying around in bed all day in her pajamas.
she doesn't need to go anywhere or do anything, but she needs to get out of bed and get dressed.
who the fuck am i kidding?
i have no idea if that's even going to help.
for all i know, this is textbook behavior and i am being a fucking asshole by making her do stuff she doesn't want to do.
but i feel like that's the thing, is her not wanting to.
where's the cut off line that separates self-indulgence from self-care?
mom had a pre-cancer tendency to be pretty damn self-indulgent, so it's hard to get that this is all her brain being messed up. i think part of it is depression over her cancer, which she hasn't ever addressed, and she's self-medicating through sleep.
or maybe she's exhausted because of her chemo and radiation...
she never had any serious side effects from either, so i am just at a loss. is this just very late side effects?
i'm so far out of my depth on this.
other issues that are still rattling around:
1) our lawyer informed me that mom's will was never finished, which was news to me. that's horrifying.
2) what if mom is a vegetable-type from now on? how will we deal with her house? it's a wretched time to try selling.
3) is it possible that we'll end up spending all of mom's money on care for her after all?
4) will allen stay?
5) how much of this can i handle, really? could i handle 3 nights a week up there or would that gut me? but it might need to happen, maybe.
he doesn't ever call for good reasons.
heart audibly pounding in my chest, i called them back.
mom answered with a chipper, "good morning!"
i had to tell her it wasn't morning, it was 9:30pm.
she was affably befuddled.
i asked to talk to jerr-bear.
he told me that the situation is becoming too much for him to handle. mom didn't get out of bed all day, thinks it's morning, hasn't eaten.
also, he is running out of money and needs more.
(mom owes him $20k for work he did fixing up the house they sold and for fixing up the new house. she's been giving it to him in chunks.)
he feels like all he needs is $5K for the rest of the year, which is amazing to me. very few people in america could estimate their cost of living for 6 months at $5K.
it's his money, so obviously i'll get it to him.
he is really upset about not getting more furniture refinishing jobs this year. he made a lot of money (for him) last year doing his work working, but this year he hasn't gotten more than a couple teeny nibbles on the line. because he's him, he drifts into wondering if "someone" is rerouting his calls to a competitor, to "mess" with him. i think he realizes that that's not likely, but not always.
i was momentarily tempted to suggest he get a real job, in the real world, but the temptation passed. he is basically mom's primary caretaker at this point, and the last thing we need is him gone for hours and hours and hours at a time.
i hate that so much of this is falling on him. he must miss her so much. no one really understands him, and everyone thinks he's varying degrees of delusional, exasperating, rude, annoying, weird...but mom thinks he's precious, hilarious, gentle, kind. she sees the real him. i wonder if he even knows those parts exist without her. i can't imagine having no one to talk to about this. i miss mom with every breath i take, and wish i could call her to tell her how hard this is and have her tell me that it's okay, and i have a blessedly huge circle of support around me. i just can't imagine how alone he must feel.
so, now i have to figure out what to do.
does she need some sort of nurse, or a nursing home? the american brain tumor association (whose website i've never explored and am now wishing i had) suggests adult day care centers, which sounds so fucking demeaning. my mom might die of embarrassment if she ever comes out of this.
i have waited too long to get this stuff dealt with, and i am feeling ashamed.
you guys, i'm so mad at her.
i yelled at her on the phone and she's fucking brain damaged.
i have no idea what i'm doing and i'm terrified.
i don't feel like i can handle this.
and i have to.
i have no fucking choice.
so tomorrow i call the nurses at ucsf, who support mom's neuro-oncologist, and ask they what the fuck i'm supposed to do.
is she even inside there anymore?
i had given her and allen assignments when i left on friday.
mom was supposed to do two things to contribute to the house. any little thing was fine, but it had to be two things. allen has been waiting on her hand and foot and he's burnt and needs some help. she felt like that was do-able.
allen's assignment was to get her outside once a day, to move around.
he said tonight that the assignments are a joke and she won't do it. she wouldn't get out of bed all day.
so, tonight i modified her assignment.
her new assignment is to get out of bed everyday by 10am (i would have liked to do 8am, but i am a lenient and loving daughter who understands baby-steps.) and to put on normal clothes. no more laying around in bed all day in her pajamas.
she doesn't need to go anywhere or do anything, but she needs to get out of bed and get dressed.
who the fuck am i kidding?
i have no idea if that's even going to help.
for all i know, this is textbook behavior and i am being a fucking asshole by making her do stuff she doesn't want to do.
but i feel like that's the thing, is her not wanting to.
where's the cut off line that separates self-indulgence from self-care?
mom had a pre-cancer tendency to be pretty damn self-indulgent, so it's hard to get that this is all her brain being messed up. i think part of it is depression over her cancer, which she hasn't ever addressed, and she's self-medicating through sleep.
or maybe she's exhausted because of her chemo and radiation...
she never had any serious side effects from either, so i am just at a loss. is this just very late side effects?
i'm so far out of my depth on this.
other issues that are still rattling around:
1) our lawyer informed me that mom's will was never finished, which was news to me. that's horrifying.
2) what if mom is a vegetable-type from now on? how will we deal with her house? it's a wretched time to try selling.
3) is it possible that we'll end up spending all of mom's money on care for her after all?
4) will allen stay?
5) how much of this can i handle, really? could i handle 3 nights a week up there or would that gut me? but it might need to happen, maybe.
Friday, July 20, 2007
harry freaking potter!!!
holy quidditch, you guys!!
it's gonna be here in, like, 1.5 hrs!
people in england ALREADY KNOW THE SECRET ENDING!!
i am freaking out.
oh, also, can we talk about how much this sucks?
i pre-ordered, 'cuz duh, like i always do, but this time they had a delux edition available, with a special cover and special art, for roughly $1,000,000, so i totally bought that one because it's the LAST book in the series.
and then i got a call from my local independent book seller that my DELUX, $1,000,000 version wasn't coming until....wait for it....wait for it....TUESDAY.
sha-ZAM.
totally bammer.
i am basically going to be a one woman media black-out zone until next friday or something.
it's like i am a fan of a popular show, whose season finale i missed, and i have to avoid anyone ruining the surprises for me.
except instead of some dumb show that sucks, it's an entire book series that was awesome.
still, i'm brimming with excitement, trepidation, anticipation, etc.
VERY EXCITED.
don't tell me what happens.
it's going to be amazing, though, probably.
also, this weekend at my mom's was fucking difficult, but i am not in the mood to go into it. suffice it to say, it was tuff, and i was sad and mad and tired and embarassed and frustrated, all at the same time.
and, eventually, i left feeling marginally more positive than i thought i would.
i have to keep the hope alive, perhaps in spite of medical evidence to the contrary, that the mom i love and miss might be hiding beneath this old lady-smelling, pajamas-all-the-time- wearing, forgetting what she's saying mid-sentence, visitor from another planet/century whose home i am staying at as my part-time job.
i connected with jerr-bear in a really great, positive way today, and that felt good.
all the errands i tried to run with her ended in annoyance, none ended in success except getting my poor filthy car washed. (seriously, if my car was a person, she'd have been a normal classy lady, dressed in a business suit made of bird poop, pee, mud and...um...sunscreen. (lotsa greasy sunscreen fingerprints on my little lady.)
she's clean as a whistle now, though. ukiah pricing is brilliantly affordable. $17 for the carwash i usually pay $30 for in san rafael. i guess it pays to get my carwashing done in the poorest county in california.
tomorrow, we babysit the little tater tot, starting at 8:15am. anyone want to hang out with maybe the cutest baby ever borned?
it's gonna be here in, like, 1.5 hrs!
people in england ALREADY KNOW THE SECRET ENDING!!
i am freaking out.
oh, also, can we talk about how much this sucks?
i pre-ordered, 'cuz duh, like i always do, but this time they had a delux edition available, with a special cover and special art, for roughly $1,000,000, so i totally bought that one because it's the LAST book in the series.
and then i got a call from my local independent book seller that my DELUX, $1,000,000 version wasn't coming until....wait for it....wait for it....TUESDAY.
sha-ZAM.
totally bammer.
i am basically going to be a one woman media black-out zone until next friday or something.
it's like i am a fan of a popular show, whose season finale i missed, and i have to avoid anyone ruining the surprises for me.
except instead of some dumb show that sucks, it's an entire book series that was awesome.
still, i'm brimming with excitement, trepidation, anticipation, etc.
VERY EXCITED.
don't tell me what happens.
it's going to be amazing, though, probably.
also, this weekend at my mom's was fucking difficult, but i am not in the mood to go into it. suffice it to say, it was tuff, and i was sad and mad and tired and embarassed and frustrated, all at the same time.
and, eventually, i left feeling marginally more positive than i thought i would.
i have to keep the hope alive, perhaps in spite of medical evidence to the contrary, that the mom i love and miss might be hiding beneath this old lady-smelling, pajamas-all-the-time- wearing, forgetting what she's saying mid-sentence, visitor from another planet/century whose home i am staying at as my part-time job.
i connected with jerr-bear in a really great, positive way today, and that felt good.
all the errands i tried to run with her ended in annoyance, none ended in success except getting my poor filthy car washed. (seriously, if my car was a person, she'd have been a normal classy lady, dressed in a business suit made of bird poop, pee, mud and...um...sunscreen. (lotsa greasy sunscreen fingerprints on my little lady.)
she's clean as a whistle now, though. ukiah pricing is brilliantly affordable. $17 for the carwash i usually pay $30 for in san rafael. i guess it pays to get my carwashing done in the poorest county in california.
tomorrow, we babysit the little tater tot, starting at 8:15am. anyone want to hang out with maybe the cutest baby ever borned?
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
death by boredom.
Current mood: bouncy
working at restoration hardware sucks. i can't even stand 5 hours here.
working at restoration hardware sucks. i can't even stand 5 hours here.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
ohmygod.
Current mood: annoyed
this is the email correspondence that has taken place within the last several days between me and my astronomy group, and, specifically, that crazy woman. there had been nothing but drama. please read it and comment. am i being a big jerk and not even realizing it? or, just comment on what a fucking nut she is.
hey helen!
here's the draft. i emailed david to see if he could answer some
planetary questions for me, and i still need to name it.
did the guy at your work get the drawings done? i want to make sure
that it gets done, and if i need to do it, i need some time.
thanks!
xoxok
"The creature, XXXXX, is the only known organism to live on the environmentally hostile planet of Venus. Through evolutionary ingenuity, a life-form has evolved that is perfectly suited to Venus and its rigors.
XXXXX has a long, rippling, ribbon-like body structure to facilitate movement in the lower atmosphere of the planet. Viewed from above, below or straight on, the is almost invisible, having almost no thickness to speak of. Only when viewed from the side can it be somewhat easily observed. From the side, one can observe the remarkable adaptations that are all in place, like it’s downward-facing gill-like breathing slits. With small recessed eyes and a large mouth filled with a baleen-like filtration form, the is not an attractive or cute creature by our standards. To protect itself from the high sulfuric acid content of the atmosphere, the has evolved a rubbery, leather-like skin, like a cross between rhinoceros and an eel, and a pronounced overhanging brow-protector, that acts as a “visor”, to direct the sulfuric acid rain it encounters over its face and down. Its lack of width also helps to protect it from that rain. The lives in the lower atmosphere of the planet, above the scorching temperatures of the surface, but below the upper cloud cover that rockets around the planet at a sped faster than the planet itself rotates.
XXXXX survives through a newly discovered process, called chemosynthesis. Similar in theory to the process used by the tiny organisms that inhabit deep sea vents, and, for now identically-named, the XXXXX is able to metabolize inorganic elements to create carbohydrates, and thus fuel itself. Also like many deep sea fishes, the tiny XXXXX has evolved specifically to survive the intense atmospheric pressure of Venus. With an air pressure of 90 atmospheres, the XXXXX survives in an atmosphere similar to that of deep sea fishes, aside from the acid and intense heat!
As the only organism on the planet, the has XXXXX no predators and are presumed to be solitary creatures. Very few specimens have been observed, and those mostly from afar, in grainy video sent from space crafts, however it has been proposed that the uses hermaphroditic reproduction. It impregnates itself and, after an unknown gestation period, gives birth to a live litter of hundreds of miniscule XXXXX. Because of the harshness of the environment and the lack of shelter, the vast majority of the baby XXXXXs perish before reaching maturity, but due to their reproductive abilities, which don’t require them to ever meet another creature like them their entire life cycle, the few that survive can live out their short lives in relative peace and freedom."
-kira
**************
This is from Helen, the crazy chick.
Kira,
Here is the text as well as the sketch of the creature. I haven't had a chance to integrate the photos and sketches into the body of the report yet. It takes a while to scale that stuff. I'll probably get that done tomorrow or Friday and will email it. I have a photo of the Venera 11 spacecraft with a couple of scientists examining it. I also made photos of a piece of glass that I have that looks like a windscreen. I put some fabric glue in a few places with some bits of thread to look like the splats. Turned out pretty good.
I also made a crude model out of vellum and red making tape eyes that we can attach to the poster board. The only problem is that it is very difficult to do a transparent model that looks good. Can we make it a color? That way I won't have to worry about the scotch tape and stuff.
Report text so far......
"Theoretical Life Forms presented by Kira Fisher, astrobiologist
Although life has not been observed directly, scientists have speculated that life forms are living within the thick atmosphere on Venus. This theory is based on previously unreleased evidence from the failed Russian probe, Venera 11, which also sent back data that reportedly prove the existence of lightning within the Venusian
atmosphere.
Earlier this month, the Russian scientists put on display a windscreen taken from the probe that had several centimeter-sized splats, very much like what a car windshield looks like after driving along I-5 through the central Valley in California during peak growing season.
The splats appear to show a long, ribbon-like creature with a near transparent outer shell, a long whip-like body, retractible eyestalks, and a primitive mouth and digestive system. The remaining undamaged pieces of the dead creatures were combined to form what the scientists believe a fully formed adult animal looks like. The Estonian biologists working with the Russian experts have released a description of an organism that spends its entire life cycle in the thick atmosphere. They speculate that it originally developed on the surface of the planet when water was abundant. As the greenhouse gasses accumulated and the trapped heat boiled off the available water
supply, the creature, dubbed Sulfoacidolobus venerisi, adapted. It did this by becoming smaller, thinner and less dependent on water for its survival. It developed a leathery coating that resembles chitin, a substance that is able to withstand a highly acid environment, similar to Earth's deep ocean inhabitants that live near thermal vents.
As the planet's surface continued to heat up through the runaway greenhouse effect, s. venerisi began to float up into the densifying atmosphere. It developed an ability for chemosynthesis, a process that manufactures carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water, using chemical nutrients as the energy source, rather than sunlight. It is
speculated that it metabolizes inorganic compounds in the atmosphere by oxidizing (removing electrons) from trace amounts of sulfur"
-helen
*************************
this is from me to her.
what is that the text of?
that isn't what i wrote, and the animal that you wrote about isn't really what i described. this makes me angry, helen. i am not prone to letting other people do my work for me, and i really don't like you doing my entire section for me. i have done my
own research, come to my own conclusions, developed my own ideas, and to have you send me back something that barely resembles with i have put a lot of time into makes me upset. i am not a stupid person and i don't need you to polish my ideas up, they're shiny enough.
i understand that you want to help, but this is my section and i'd like it if i wrote it. the text i sent you is my initial draft. it isn't a suggestion, it's what i wrote, and it isn't very far from what i intend to present to the class. i am not stoked about you changing it. the drawing that your co-worker did isn't what i envisioned and it isn't really what i described. i am not an ex-imagineer for disney, but i think that i will just draw my own creature. please thank your co-worker for me.
i don't say this to be rude, but i want to make sure that i am clear.
i appreciate all the work that you're putting into the project, because none of us could do this without you, but i would really like it if you let me do my own section, with minimal editorial input. i haven't edited the drafts you sent us, because i don't feel like it's my job or right, to change your section, and i'd really like it if you
could do the same with my section. i have already met with alice about what is required and i feel confident about the direction i am headed in.
again, i am not at all intending to be rude, or to show any lack of appreciation for the work you're doing, but i don't want to be represented in a group paper by work that i didn't do and that doesn't represent what i want. i also don't want to have to memorize someone else's ideas and talk about them in the presentation, because i like
my own ideas. i don't love the windshield idea and i don't want to get into the evolution or creation of the creature from the beginning of time, mostly because alice said that there was no need to go that far into it. please leave my section to the things that i wrote. if you think you'll have a problem getting a final version of the paper updated after friday, please email it to me and i'll do the final draft of the whole shebang and bring it. i understand that you're limited to work time on this, but i also hope you understand that up until two weeks ago, i was under the impression that i was doing culture, so i did all my research on that, and had to start from
scratch on the creature.
not to beat a dead horse, but i really don't want this to be construed as me being nasty to you, because that is not at all my intention. in writing things can come off as harsher, or even just different, than intended, you know? thanks for your creativity, but i'd just like my section to reflect my work.
thanks,
kira
**********************
this is from another girl in our group, in response to the email that the crazy lady sent to everyone but me.
Everybody,
I do not feel comfortable commenting on what to do about the creature because frankly, unless you need my help, this sounds like it is between Helen and Kira.
However, let's keep in touch about what we need for Sunday.
Aimie
Helen Hebert wrote:
david, aimie and elsie,
I just got this rant back from Kira. I took what she sent yesterday and started with the text of the creature section. I also took her description and interpreted it into a visual form from what she wrote. I do not think I did a bad job here and have put a great deal of time in on the written portion of the assignment.
What would the rest of you like to do at this point? I'm at a loss and given how close it is to the time when this gets turned in, I will not have much more time to devote to this. I have attached the sketch and Kira's original document. I think the creature comes pretty close.
-helen
******************
this is from me to everyone in the group.
hi everyone!
sorry about this confusion. me and helen will figure it all out.
xoxokira
**************
this is from me, to the crazy lady, in response to the crazy email she sent to everyone else.
helen,
i am a little confused why you sent that email to everyone else, and never replied to the email that i sent you.
what exactly are you needing input on from the rest of the group?
i think i was really clear about my communication, specifically that i really appreciate your help and all the work you've put into the project. i just would like the text that i wrote to be what is used in the project. i feel like that's a fair request.
i really didn't want to hurt your feelings, but it seems like i might have, though i would have appreciated it if you'd talked to me about it, rather than involving everyone *but* me.
does this request seem unfair or unclear to you? i'd like to be in communication with you about this, because i really didn't want there to be any weirdness between us, but now i feel confused, being forwarded an email exchange that was clearly not intended for me.
i'd like a response, helen. i have no beef with you, and i don't want there to be tension, to make us uncomfortable, or to make the rest ofthe group uncomfortable, though i think it might be too late for that.
thanks, kira
**************
this is obviously from the crazy woman.
Apparently there is no purpose to my meeting with you on Sunday. See you Monday in class
-helen
******************
this is from me to everyone in the group.
wow.
okay, well, i still plan on meeting everyone at aroma, to go over everything. i will have my images chosen then, though not on the transparencies. i think i am the one who is drawing the creature now, and that might not be done yet, either, but i'll bring smaller sketches to show everyone. did we agree on five images each, on
transparencies? that's what i am going with, so, unless anyone has any objections, how about we all do that, for our respective sections?
helen, does one of us need to print out the big version of that cool landmark-naming table that you found? i'll bring poster board, but i wasn't planning on printing that thingie out. should one of us, or are you going to do that?
so, we're doing three poster boards, one with my creature stuff on it, one with that table thing on it, and one with miscellaneous pictures of venus on it. would someone else be willing to bring some big color pictures of a few views of venus? i am thinking one of the pictures of the rocky surface taken on the shuttle landings, a couple different ones from space, and.... something else?
xoxok
****************
this is from that same other chick in the group, again, in response to another crazy email sent by the crazy woman to everyone but me.
Okay, I am really confused about how this suddenly escalated into Helen leaving the group. I understand that there were some creative differences regarding the creature, however, what about the project as a whole? I will appreciate any thoughts from the group.
Aimie
Helen Hebert wrote:
I'm sorry Dave, but I will be doing only my section from now on. I intend to bring my own visuals to class and have expanded the naming section of my own report to include a number of features on Venus to fill my 2 minutes. I will be turning in the paper as my own work product and have removed all other names.
After Kira's vituperative email and her childish and unprofessional attitude, I have decided to withdraw from the group and intend to send a email today to our instructor stating my reasons for doing so. I also plan to email Alice my version of the report that I have worked so hard on and will turn that in as my own project. Since Kira stated that she had spoken to Alice about it, I feel it is my only remaining option. Go back and reread the forwarded email. I believe she offered to do the final version of the report. Just be sure that she does not plagiarize mine. It will probably get you marked down, as the report will be turned in today as mine.
I don't know what effect this will have on the presentation, but my guess is that it will be very little since I was not doing one of the vital sections that was included in the original instruction, those being the physical aspects of the planet, probes and a theoretical creature.
If Kira had actually provided her work in a timely fashion and if we had more time to work out the differences, there would have been a different outcome. If she had looked at what she provided by the stated deadline, perhaps she could have realized that she was not clear in her description. For one thing, the link that was provided did not
at all resemble her own words. I decided to go with her typed words describing a 'long, skinny, whip-like body....almost transparent...long ribbon-like shape...small eyes facing outward'. Her response to that effort was condescending, untruthful, narcissistic, and temperamental.
For future reference, you may find the following link regarding working in groups useful. It is too bad that we were given the group project at such a late date. I had a feeling that this would happen when Kira demanded to see everyone's work before she would release any of her own. My suspicion is that it was simply a cover-up for not having done the assignment.
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/teams/student/responsibility.html..unproductive
Helen
On May 12, 2005, at 10:20 PM, David Benson wrote:
> Helen,
>
> So if we don't meet Sunday I was just wondering what we are doing
> about the visuals
> do I need to make some sort of poster with physical information on it
> or do we have enough visuals already.
>
> - Dave
***************
this is from me to everyone else.
i am a little bit in shock.
obviously my interpretation of what happened is different from helen's. i am not used to this sort of interaction, so i am at a loss to explain how things escalated to this point.
from my perspective, i sent helen an email asking if the text in the report could be the text that i sent her. i was very careful to repeat several times that i really appreciated all the work she was putting into the project and thanked her, but i asked if the section on the creature could stick to the things that i had written. i referenced a conversation that i had with alice about how in-depth my creature profile needed to be. i was concerned about my limited knowledge about biology, so i checked in with alice about her expectations. she said that keeping it to the basics was totally fine, i.e. what it eats, what it looks like and why, where it lives, the very basics.
in the email that i sent to helen, i told her that if time was a problem, she could email me the draft of the paper and i could add my stuff in myself.
i don't know anything about anything else.
i feel like i have done everything in my power to keep this from getting messy. i sent an email to helen asking that we communicate about this privately and apologized if i had hurt her feelings or offended her.
i have received no response, except what she has sent to you guys and that aimie has sent to me.
i dunno, guys. i haven't done anything that, in my opinion, warrants this kind of response. i would be more than happy to forward on the email i sent helen. maybe you guys feel that it was out of line? i am not the sort of person who just says mean, hurtful, careless, angry things, so i find it hard to accept the responsibility for this fiasco.
i certainly sent an email to helen, but it wasn't one i feel i was crossing any moral or ethical lines by sending...
helen, i am sorry that you feel that way. i haven't ever had a problem like this with anyone i have ever met, but if i have behaved poorlyand i am unaware of it, i am sincerely sorry.
rest of the group, what the fuck are we going to do?
-kira
***************************
um..... what the fuck is going on? am *i* the one who is crazy? i feel like it's her, but this drama is SUCH a bummer and i am really pissed that she is taking it out on everyone in the group now. vituperative?!
people, read this, and tell me if i am missing something, please.
this is the email correspondence that has taken place within the last several days between me and my astronomy group, and, specifically, that crazy woman. there had been nothing but drama. please read it and comment. am i being a big jerk and not even realizing it? or, just comment on what a fucking nut she is.
hey helen!
here's the draft. i emailed david to see if he could answer some
planetary questions for me, and i still need to name it.
did the guy at your work get the drawings done? i want to make sure
that it gets done, and if i need to do it, i need some time.
thanks!
xoxok
"The creature, XXXXX, is the only known organism to live on the environmentally hostile planet of Venus. Through evolutionary ingenuity, a life-form has evolved that is perfectly suited to Venus and its rigors.
XXXXX has a long, rippling, ribbon-like body structure to facilitate movement in the lower atmosphere of the planet. Viewed from above, below or straight on, the is almost invisible, having almost no thickness to speak of. Only when viewed from the side can it be somewhat easily observed. From the side, one can observe the remarkable adaptations that are all in place, like it’s downward-facing gill-like breathing slits. With small recessed eyes and a large mouth filled with a baleen-like filtration form, the is not an attractive or cute creature by our standards. To protect itself from the high sulfuric acid content of the atmosphere, the has evolved a rubbery, leather-like skin, like a cross between rhinoceros and an eel, and a pronounced overhanging brow-protector, that acts as a “visor”, to direct the sulfuric acid rain it encounters over its face and down. Its lack of width also helps to protect it from that rain. The lives in the lower atmosphere of the planet, above the scorching temperatures of the surface, but below the upper cloud cover that rockets around the planet at a sped faster than the planet itself rotates.
XXXXX survives through a newly discovered process, called chemosynthesis. Similar in theory to the process used by the tiny organisms that inhabit deep sea vents, and, for now identically-named, the XXXXX is able to metabolize inorganic elements to create carbohydrates, and thus fuel itself. Also like many deep sea fishes, the tiny XXXXX has evolved specifically to survive the intense atmospheric pressure of Venus. With an air pressure of 90 atmospheres, the XXXXX survives in an atmosphere similar to that of deep sea fishes, aside from the acid and intense heat!
As the only organism on the planet, the has XXXXX no predators and are presumed to be solitary creatures. Very few specimens have been observed, and those mostly from afar, in grainy video sent from space crafts, however it has been proposed that the uses hermaphroditic reproduction. It impregnates itself and, after an unknown gestation period, gives birth to a live litter of hundreds of miniscule XXXXX. Because of the harshness of the environment and the lack of shelter, the vast majority of the baby XXXXXs perish before reaching maturity, but due to their reproductive abilities, which don’t require them to ever meet another creature like them their entire life cycle, the few that survive can live out their short lives in relative peace and freedom."
-kira
**************
This is from Helen, the crazy chick.
Kira,
Here is the text as well as the sketch of the creature. I haven't had a chance to integrate the photos and sketches into the body of the report yet. It takes a while to scale that stuff. I'll probably get that done tomorrow or Friday and will email it. I have a photo of the Venera 11 spacecraft with a couple of scientists examining it. I also made photos of a piece of glass that I have that looks like a windscreen. I put some fabric glue in a few places with some bits of thread to look like the splats. Turned out pretty good.
I also made a crude model out of vellum and red making tape eyes that we can attach to the poster board. The only problem is that it is very difficult to do a transparent model that looks good. Can we make it a color? That way I won't have to worry about the scotch tape and stuff.
Report text so far......
"Theoretical Life Forms presented by Kira Fisher, astrobiologist
Although life has not been observed directly, scientists have speculated that life forms are living within the thick atmosphere on Venus. This theory is based on previously unreleased evidence from the failed Russian probe, Venera 11, which also sent back data that reportedly prove the existence of lightning within the Venusian
atmosphere.
Earlier this month, the Russian scientists put on display a windscreen taken from the probe that had several centimeter-sized splats, very much like what a car windshield looks like after driving along I-5 through the central Valley in California during peak growing season.
The splats appear to show a long, ribbon-like creature with a near transparent outer shell, a long whip-like body, retractible eyestalks, and a primitive mouth and digestive system. The remaining undamaged pieces of the dead creatures were combined to form what the scientists believe a fully formed adult animal looks like. The Estonian biologists working with the Russian experts have released a description of an organism that spends its entire life cycle in the thick atmosphere. They speculate that it originally developed on the surface of the planet when water was abundant. As the greenhouse gasses accumulated and the trapped heat boiled off the available water
supply, the creature, dubbed Sulfoacidolobus venerisi, adapted. It did this by becoming smaller, thinner and less dependent on water for its survival. It developed a leathery coating that resembles chitin, a substance that is able to withstand a highly acid environment, similar to Earth's deep ocean inhabitants that live near thermal vents.
As the planet's surface continued to heat up through the runaway greenhouse effect, s. venerisi began to float up into the densifying atmosphere. It developed an ability for chemosynthesis, a process that manufactures carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water, using chemical nutrients as the energy source, rather than sunlight. It is
speculated that it metabolizes inorganic compounds in the atmosphere by oxidizing (removing electrons) from trace amounts of sulfur"
-helen
*************************
this is from me to her.
what is that the text of?
that isn't what i wrote, and the animal that you wrote about isn't really what i described. this makes me angry, helen. i am not prone to letting other people do my work for me, and i really don't like you doing my entire section for me. i have done my
own research, come to my own conclusions, developed my own ideas, and to have you send me back something that barely resembles with i have put a lot of time into makes me upset. i am not a stupid person and i don't need you to polish my ideas up, they're shiny enough.
i understand that you want to help, but this is my section and i'd like it if i wrote it. the text i sent you is my initial draft. it isn't a suggestion, it's what i wrote, and it isn't very far from what i intend to present to the class. i am not stoked about you changing it. the drawing that your co-worker did isn't what i envisioned and it isn't really what i described. i am not an ex-imagineer for disney, but i think that i will just draw my own creature. please thank your co-worker for me.
i don't say this to be rude, but i want to make sure that i am clear.
i appreciate all the work that you're putting into the project, because none of us could do this without you, but i would really like it if you let me do my own section, with minimal editorial input. i haven't edited the drafts you sent us, because i don't feel like it's my job or right, to change your section, and i'd really like it if you
could do the same with my section. i have already met with alice about what is required and i feel confident about the direction i am headed in.
again, i am not at all intending to be rude, or to show any lack of appreciation for the work you're doing, but i don't want to be represented in a group paper by work that i didn't do and that doesn't represent what i want. i also don't want to have to memorize someone else's ideas and talk about them in the presentation, because i like
my own ideas. i don't love the windshield idea and i don't want to get into the evolution or creation of the creature from the beginning of time, mostly because alice said that there was no need to go that far into it. please leave my section to the things that i wrote. if you think you'll have a problem getting a final version of the paper updated after friday, please email it to me and i'll do the final draft of the whole shebang and bring it. i understand that you're limited to work time on this, but i also hope you understand that up until two weeks ago, i was under the impression that i was doing culture, so i did all my research on that, and had to start from
scratch on the creature.
not to beat a dead horse, but i really don't want this to be construed as me being nasty to you, because that is not at all my intention. in writing things can come off as harsher, or even just different, than intended, you know? thanks for your creativity, but i'd just like my section to reflect my work.
thanks,
kira
**********************
this is from another girl in our group, in response to the email that the crazy lady sent to everyone but me.
Everybody,
I do not feel comfortable commenting on what to do about the creature because frankly, unless you need my help, this sounds like it is between Helen and Kira.
However, let's keep in touch about what we need for Sunday.
Aimie
Helen Hebert wrote:
david, aimie and elsie,
I just got this rant back from Kira. I took what she sent yesterday and started with the text of the creature section. I also took her description and interpreted it into a visual form from what she wrote. I do not think I did a bad job here and have put a great deal of time in on the written portion of the assignment.
What would the rest of you like to do at this point? I'm at a loss and given how close it is to the time when this gets turned in, I will not have much more time to devote to this. I have attached the sketch and Kira's original document. I think the creature comes pretty close.
-helen
******************
this is from me to everyone in the group.
hi everyone!
sorry about this confusion. me and helen will figure it all out.
xoxokira
**************
this is from me, to the crazy lady, in response to the crazy email she sent to everyone else.
helen,
i am a little confused why you sent that email to everyone else, and never replied to the email that i sent you.
what exactly are you needing input on from the rest of the group?
i think i was really clear about my communication, specifically that i really appreciate your help and all the work you've put into the project. i just would like the text that i wrote to be what is used in the project. i feel like that's a fair request.
i really didn't want to hurt your feelings, but it seems like i might have, though i would have appreciated it if you'd talked to me about it, rather than involving everyone *but* me.
does this request seem unfair or unclear to you? i'd like to be in communication with you about this, because i really didn't want there to be any weirdness between us, but now i feel confused, being forwarded an email exchange that was clearly not intended for me.
i'd like a response, helen. i have no beef with you, and i don't want there to be tension, to make us uncomfortable, or to make the rest ofthe group uncomfortable, though i think it might be too late for that.
thanks, kira
**************
this is obviously from the crazy woman.
Apparently there is no purpose to my meeting with you on Sunday. See you Monday in class
-helen
******************
this is from me to everyone in the group.
wow.
okay, well, i still plan on meeting everyone at aroma, to go over everything. i will have my images chosen then, though not on the transparencies. i think i am the one who is drawing the creature now, and that might not be done yet, either, but i'll bring smaller sketches to show everyone. did we agree on five images each, on
transparencies? that's what i am going with, so, unless anyone has any objections, how about we all do that, for our respective sections?
helen, does one of us need to print out the big version of that cool landmark-naming table that you found? i'll bring poster board, but i wasn't planning on printing that thingie out. should one of us, or are you going to do that?
so, we're doing three poster boards, one with my creature stuff on it, one with that table thing on it, and one with miscellaneous pictures of venus on it. would someone else be willing to bring some big color pictures of a few views of venus? i am thinking one of the pictures of the rocky surface taken on the shuttle landings, a couple different ones from space, and.... something else?
xoxok
****************
this is from that same other chick in the group, again, in response to another crazy email sent by the crazy woman to everyone but me.
Okay, I am really confused about how this suddenly escalated into Helen leaving the group. I understand that there were some creative differences regarding the creature, however, what about the project as a whole? I will appreciate any thoughts from the group.
Aimie
Helen Hebert wrote:
I'm sorry Dave, but I will be doing only my section from now on. I intend to bring my own visuals to class and have expanded the naming section of my own report to include a number of features on Venus to fill my 2 minutes. I will be turning in the paper as my own work product and have removed all other names.
After Kira's vituperative email and her childish and unprofessional attitude, I have decided to withdraw from the group and intend to send a email today to our instructor stating my reasons for doing so. I also plan to email Alice my version of the report that I have worked so hard on and will turn that in as my own project. Since Kira stated that she had spoken to Alice about it, I feel it is my only remaining option. Go back and reread the forwarded email. I believe she offered to do the final version of the report. Just be sure that she does not plagiarize mine. It will probably get you marked down, as the report will be turned in today as mine.
I don't know what effect this will have on the presentation, but my guess is that it will be very little since I was not doing one of the vital sections that was included in the original instruction, those being the physical aspects of the planet, probes and a theoretical creature.
If Kira had actually provided her work in a timely fashion and if we had more time to work out the differences, there would have been a different outcome. If she had looked at what she provided by the stated deadline, perhaps she could have realized that she was not clear in her description. For one thing, the link that was provided did not
at all resemble her own words. I decided to go with her typed words describing a 'long, skinny, whip-like body....almost transparent...long ribbon-like shape...small eyes facing outward'. Her response to that effort was condescending, untruthful, narcissistic, and temperamental.
For future reference, you may find the following link regarding working in groups useful. It is too bad that we were given the group project at such a late date. I had a feeling that this would happen when Kira demanded to see everyone's work before she would release any of her own. My suspicion is that it was simply a cover-up for not having done the assignment.
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/teams/student/responsibility.html..unproductive
Helen
On May 12, 2005, at 10:20 PM, David Benson wrote:
> Helen,
>
> So if we don't meet Sunday I was just wondering what we are doing
> about the visuals
> do I need to make some sort of poster with physical information on it
> or do we have enough visuals already.
>
> - Dave
***************
this is from me to everyone else.
i am a little bit in shock.
obviously my interpretation of what happened is different from helen's. i am not used to this sort of interaction, so i am at a loss to explain how things escalated to this point.
from my perspective, i sent helen an email asking if the text in the report could be the text that i sent her. i was very careful to repeat several times that i really appreciated all the work she was putting into the project and thanked her, but i asked if the section on the creature could stick to the things that i had written. i referenced a conversation that i had with alice about how in-depth my creature profile needed to be. i was concerned about my limited knowledge about biology, so i checked in with alice about her expectations. she said that keeping it to the basics was totally fine, i.e. what it eats, what it looks like and why, where it lives, the very basics.
in the email that i sent to helen, i told her that if time was a problem, she could email me the draft of the paper and i could add my stuff in myself.
i don't know anything about anything else.
i feel like i have done everything in my power to keep this from getting messy. i sent an email to helen asking that we communicate about this privately and apologized if i had hurt her feelings or offended her.
i have received no response, except what she has sent to you guys and that aimie has sent to me.
i dunno, guys. i haven't done anything that, in my opinion, warrants this kind of response. i would be more than happy to forward on the email i sent helen. maybe you guys feel that it was out of line? i am not the sort of person who just says mean, hurtful, careless, angry things, so i find it hard to accept the responsibility for this fiasco.
i certainly sent an email to helen, but it wasn't one i feel i was crossing any moral or ethical lines by sending...
helen, i am sorry that you feel that way. i haven't ever had a problem like this with anyone i have ever met, but if i have behaved poorlyand i am unaware of it, i am sincerely sorry.
rest of the group, what the fuck are we going to do?
-kira
***************************
um..... what the fuck is going on? am *i* the one who is crazy? i feel like it's her, but this drama is SUCH a bummer and i am really pissed that she is taking it out on everyone in the group now. vituperative?!
people, read this, and tell me if i am missing something, please.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
updater.
some things that are happening in my life:
1) i got my lip waxed yesterday and it still feels all weird and naked. shannon teased me that my baby fuzz would grow back thick and bushy like a walrus, but he isn't well-versed in the facts of girl-hood like myself. i made an appointment to get a bikini wax and my arm pits done. i've never had my pits done and it might kill me, but since i loathe the whole body hair removal dance, maybe this is a thorough way to deal with an area that is a total bummer to shave. i hate the tyranny of hairlessness anyway, damn it. women have hair in unsightly places. it's just a fact. but we're totally bullied and shamed into removing it, despite the financial, time and discomfort investments that are required. it's such crap. sorry we're not all hairless and smooth like androids, fellas. p.s. neither are you, and there are some areas that you guys tend to have hair on that we could usually do without, like ears or nose or necks.
2) my work drama continues, with P informing me 'confidentially' that she was going to fire K, despite the fact that K already put in her notice. so, i told K. i felt weird about it, because P considers me a friend, as much as she is capable of, but i can't sit by and let this crap happen. maybe i'll get fired, if K doesn't do a good job of keeping it cool, but hopefully not. and if i do, oh well. i'll deal.
3) my interest and investment in school is reaching all time lows. i have a big math test monday and i don't really care. i'll do some prep for it today, but i can get low Bs on the next two tests and still get an A in the class. i should start on my final project someday, though.
4) here are the things i am not working on, and have not been for quite some time, that i really ought to: applying for scholarships so i don't have to take out one zillion dollars in loans in order to attend ucla, assuming i get it; coalating and formatting the new student senate constutition, which i am hoping to have finished by the end of the semester; sending the letters out to the faculty advisors for clubs that are inactive, so we can take their money - also would like to get that done by the end of the semester; vaccuming and stuff around the house (having a siberian husky as a dog is amazingly labor intenstive, even if only viewed from a hair collecting perspective. that dog can freakin' shed, itellyouwhat.); preparing for the 1997 party, like sending out emails to old-skool homies from 'back in the day;' i'm not really working enough to save much money, and i need to be doing that, too, if i ever plan on moving.
5) i got a really cool temporary job, that starts next thursday and goes until the 13th of may, i think. i worked last sunday and monday at a fashion showroom by the concourse in the city. last weekend was the SF fashion market, when all the buyers from stores come to check out the new season's lines and order, so i worked in a showroom greeting buyers and stuff. it was pretty dumb, mostly being the go-fer, setting up lunch, carrying flats of bottled water and diet coke up 3 flights of stairs, but the sales rep lady whose showroom i was hired through asked me to work the LA markets with her, since i'm headed down there, which is cool, and she also asked me to fill in for her assistant while the assistant is on her honeymoon. she (the lady who hired me) reps some pretty big lines, so it's very exciting. that's one of the only ways to get into the snooty fashion bitch business, having a connection, so if i want to claw my way up the ladder using only my acrylic nails and my stilettos, now is my chance. (i don't have acrylic nails or stilettos yet, but i'm working on it, even though i think acrylic nails are totally foul. seriously, why do girls get them? they look hideous. aside from looking trashy, they are just not attractive. plus french manicures are crazy low-class looking, especially on toes. groders.)
6?) by the way, groders is a derivative of grody, which we all know is a derivative of gross. shannon's sister says groders sometimes and i really like it. i also shortened heinous to heiners (pronounced hay-ners, not like wieners with an h), which works well, also. i'm a fan of silly slang like that. this girl that i have a little girl crush on said 'totes' like short for totally, and i thought it was awesome. ***NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: THIS MYSTERIOUS GIRL EVENTUALLY BECAME MY BESTIE, LIESL.***
7) mike the jerk, from school, just called me, i assume to tutor him for out math test, but i have no interest in doing that. this is the first day that i haven't rushed out of the house to run errands, since i'm a new driver and stoked to be out and about, but i am way more interested today in sitting around in my jammies. it's a bit chilly today.
8) shannon sprained his ankle yesterday, scrambling around on wet, mossy rocks in a canyon on the yuba river. he's too incapacitated to walk his dog, but not to incapacitated to fix the bird feeder and collect brush and all the yard-related things he loves to do. hmmm. today, i gave him the ultimate gift. while packing to move, my mom found about 20 old vhs tapes of mine, most of which i had taped episodes of 'my so-called life' on. one is labelled 'kira's favorite music videos - DO NOT RECORD OVER!!!!', so i know it's going to be embarassing. i am expecting 'rock the cradle of love' and 'unskinny bop.' anyway, another tape is the end of the year show from my grade school, in 1987, making me 9. i think that was the year i played mary poppins, in the stage version of the musical by the same name. i gave it to shannon. i might die of embarassment, but he deserves to see it. after all, he let me look at his yearbooks. (p.s. they are the best things ever! the graduating classes of 1988 through 1990 in huntington, indiana were looking sharp. shannon is perhaps the least silly looking person in there, actually. he just had long hair and was a metal guy. the hair and clothes on the ladies is really something. it's like their heads exploded, and the brain matter glued their hair into crazy vertical formations. wow.)
9) i think that's it for now.
city peops, i'll be working in the city, starting this thursday, on tuesday, thursday and friday for a few weeks. i can come play after work, so let me know.
Currently reading :
The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose
By Umberto Eco
Release date: By 28 September, 1994
1) i got my lip waxed yesterday and it still feels all weird and naked. shannon teased me that my baby fuzz would grow back thick and bushy like a walrus, but he isn't well-versed in the facts of girl-hood like myself. i made an appointment to get a bikini wax and my arm pits done. i've never had my pits done and it might kill me, but since i loathe the whole body hair removal dance, maybe this is a thorough way to deal with an area that is a total bummer to shave. i hate the tyranny of hairlessness anyway, damn it. women have hair in unsightly places. it's just a fact. but we're totally bullied and shamed into removing it, despite the financial, time and discomfort investments that are required. it's such crap. sorry we're not all hairless and smooth like androids, fellas. p.s. neither are you, and there are some areas that you guys tend to have hair on that we could usually do without, like ears or nose or necks.
2) my work drama continues, with P informing me 'confidentially' that she was going to fire K, despite the fact that K already put in her notice. so, i told K. i felt weird about it, because P considers me a friend, as much as she is capable of, but i can't sit by and let this crap happen. maybe i'll get fired, if K doesn't do a good job of keeping it cool, but hopefully not. and if i do, oh well. i'll deal.
3) my interest and investment in school is reaching all time lows. i have a big math test monday and i don't really care. i'll do some prep for it today, but i can get low Bs on the next two tests and still get an A in the class. i should start on my final project someday, though.
4) here are the things i am not working on, and have not been for quite some time, that i really ought to: applying for scholarships so i don't have to take out one zillion dollars in loans in order to attend ucla, assuming i get it; coalating and formatting the new student senate constutition, which i am hoping to have finished by the end of the semester; sending the letters out to the faculty advisors for clubs that are inactive, so we can take their money - also would like to get that done by the end of the semester; vaccuming and stuff around the house (having a siberian husky as a dog is amazingly labor intenstive, even if only viewed from a hair collecting perspective. that dog can freakin' shed, itellyouwhat.); preparing for the 1997 party, like sending out emails to old-skool homies from 'back in the day;' i'm not really working enough to save much money, and i need to be doing that, too, if i ever plan on moving.
5) i got a really cool temporary job, that starts next thursday and goes until the 13th of may, i think. i worked last sunday and monday at a fashion showroom by the concourse in the city. last weekend was the SF fashion market, when all the buyers from stores come to check out the new season's lines and order, so i worked in a showroom greeting buyers and stuff. it was pretty dumb, mostly being the go-fer, setting up lunch, carrying flats of bottled water and diet coke up 3 flights of stairs, but the sales rep lady whose showroom i was hired through asked me to work the LA markets with her, since i'm headed down there, which is cool, and she also asked me to fill in for her assistant while the assistant is on her honeymoon. she (the lady who hired me) reps some pretty big lines, so it's very exciting. that's one of the only ways to get into the snooty fashion bitch business, having a connection, so if i want to claw my way up the ladder using only my acrylic nails and my stilettos, now is my chance. (i don't have acrylic nails or stilettos yet, but i'm working on it, even though i think acrylic nails are totally foul. seriously, why do girls get them? they look hideous. aside from looking trashy, they are just not attractive. plus french manicures are crazy low-class looking, especially on toes. groders.)
6?) by the way, groders is a derivative of grody, which we all know is a derivative of gross. shannon's sister says groders sometimes and i really like it. i also shortened heinous to heiners (pronounced hay-ners, not like wieners with an h), which works well, also. i'm a fan of silly slang like that. this girl that i have a little girl crush on said 'totes' like short for totally, and i thought it was awesome. ***NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: THIS MYSTERIOUS GIRL EVENTUALLY BECAME MY BESTIE, LIESL.***
7) mike the jerk, from school, just called me, i assume to tutor him for out math test, but i have no interest in doing that. this is the first day that i haven't rushed out of the house to run errands, since i'm a new driver and stoked to be out and about, but i am way more interested today in sitting around in my jammies. it's a bit chilly today.
8) shannon sprained his ankle yesterday, scrambling around on wet, mossy rocks in a canyon on the yuba river. he's too incapacitated to walk his dog, but not to incapacitated to fix the bird feeder and collect brush and all the yard-related things he loves to do. hmmm. today, i gave him the ultimate gift. while packing to move, my mom found about 20 old vhs tapes of mine, most of which i had taped episodes of 'my so-called life' on. one is labelled 'kira's favorite music videos - DO NOT RECORD OVER!!!!', so i know it's going to be embarassing. i am expecting 'rock the cradle of love' and 'unskinny bop.' anyway, another tape is the end of the year show from my grade school, in 1987, making me 9. i think that was the year i played mary poppins, in the stage version of the musical by the same name. i gave it to shannon. i might die of embarassment, but he deserves to see it. after all, he let me look at his yearbooks. (p.s. they are the best things ever! the graduating classes of 1988 through 1990 in huntington, indiana were looking sharp. shannon is perhaps the least silly looking person in there, actually. he just had long hair and was a metal guy. the hair and clothes on the ladies is really something. it's like their heads exploded, and the brain matter glued their hair into crazy vertical formations. wow.)
9) i think that's it for now.
city peops, i'll be working in the city, starting this thursday, on tuesday, thursday and friday for a few weeks. i can come play after work, so let me know.
Currently reading :
The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose
By Umberto Eco
Release date: By 28 September, 1994
Thursday, April 21, 2005
ow.
Current mood: grumpy
my head is really, really hurting. i think it's sinus pressure. i had gotten out of allergy issues so far this year, but i packed up my closet at my mom's house and the ancient dust there was my undoing.
i am such a fucking baby. i always feel like i'm going to die when i am in any sort of illness-related pain. injuries i can take like a champ, but give me a cold and i lose my shit.
but, seriously, it fucking hurts and i'm bummed.
also, shit is about to go totally ape-shit in 'the dark tower' and i am filled with dread, as well as snot. sweet.
Currently reading :
Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4)
By Stephen King
Release date: By 23 June, 2003
my head is really, really hurting. i think it's sinus pressure. i had gotten out of allergy issues so far this year, but i packed up my closet at my mom's house and the ancient dust there was my undoing.
i am such a fucking baby. i always feel like i'm going to die when i am in any sort of illness-related pain. injuries i can take like a champ, but give me a cold and i lose my shit.
but, seriously, it fucking hurts and i'm bummed.
also, shit is about to go totally ape-shit in 'the dark tower' and i am filled with dread, as well as snot. sweet.
Currently reading :
Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4)
By Stephen King
Release date: By 23 June, 2003
Monday, January 31, 2005
student government. why?
i think i just do it because i like to argue. it's really getting me nowhere. it's a microcosm of government in general, in the sense that it's totally dysfunctional and everywhere you look there is serious detail work that needs to be done to fix things. so, just like with government in general, where do you start? what do you do when everything is falling apart and every single thing needs your full attention?
no seriously, i'm asking, because i honestly can't figure it out. my method so far, working half-assedly on a million different things, hasn't been especially fruitful, so this semester i am going to attempt to focus on three main goals/projects, and let everything else slide. shit, i already applied for colleges, so it's not like anything this semester can help me get in, right? as long as i have one concrete thing to show for my hours of time, i'll feel fulfilled.
the academic senate (the teachers' decision-making body) are being a bunch of horse's asses and i want to kick them around the campus ten times each. it is totally contrary to my nature to be distrustful and it hurts me in my heart when people prove my worst suspicions correct. it's really discouraging.
______________________________________________________________
on a totally different note, today was so beautiful and sunny, and i just felt full of joy. i never realize how much i miss the sun until it comes back and i feel like a flower opening up or something. yet another reason why going to ucla would be sweet: sun all the time. i might miss the rain at some point, but not as much as i'll be stoked to wear flip-flops and skirts every day if i want. i accidentally stoked myself with a late starting class on mondays, so i don't have to be to school until noon, which is already turning out to be a blessing. being able to take my time this morning was heaven. taking a leisurely shower; changing clothes as many times as i needed to in order to be wearing clothes i felt comfortable in, without having to rush out in an outfit that wasn't working right; leaving a smidgen early and getting an iced chai; moseying to the bus stop listening to interpol (i know! i didn't listen to my book-on-cd!); even getting about 30 mins of loafing on a sunny bench before class... heaven. then my student senate made me full of rage and i wanted smash and it kinda killed my buzz.
regardless, today was heaven before student senate, and i hope it's sunny again tomorrow. i know it'll get cloudy and rainy again at least once before spring starts, but a smidgen more sunny weather before hand would be really appreciated.
oh well.
Current mood: busy
no seriously, i'm asking, because i honestly can't figure it out. my method so far, working half-assedly on a million different things, hasn't been especially fruitful, so this semester i am going to attempt to focus on three main goals/projects, and let everything else slide. shit, i already applied for colleges, so it's not like anything this semester can help me get in, right? as long as i have one concrete thing to show for my hours of time, i'll feel fulfilled.
the academic senate (the teachers' decision-making body) are being a bunch of horse's asses and i want to kick them around the campus ten times each. it is totally contrary to my nature to be distrustful and it hurts me in my heart when people prove my worst suspicions correct. it's really discouraging.
______________________________________________________________
on a totally different note, today was so beautiful and sunny, and i just felt full of joy. i never realize how much i miss the sun until it comes back and i feel like a flower opening up or something. yet another reason why going to ucla would be sweet: sun all the time. i might miss the rain at some point, but not as much as i'll be stoked to wear flip-flops and skirts every day if i want. i accidentally stoked myself with a late starting class on mondays, so i don't have to be to school until noon, which is already turning out to be a blessing. being able to take my time this morning was heaven. taking a leisurely shower; changing clothes as many times as i needed to in order to be wearing clothes i felt comfortable in, without having to rush out in an outfit that wasn't working right; leaving a smidgen early and getting an iced chai; moseying to the bus stop listening to interpol (i know! i didn't listen to my book-on-cd!); even getting about 30 mins of loafing on a sunny bench before class... heaven. then my student senate made me full of rage and i wanted smash and it kinda killed my buzz.
regardless, today was heaven before student senate, and i hope it's sunny again tomorrow. i know it'll get cloudy and rainy again at least once before spring starts, but a smidgen more sunny weather before hand would be really appreciated.
oh well.
Current mood: busy
Thursday, January 27, 2005
still.
i'm still really bummed about elliott smith. i know it's been a while and it should have settled in, but it hasn't, and i am still really sad and kinda pissed that he's dead.
Current mood: discontent
Currently listening : from a basement on the hill - By Elliott Smith
Current mood: discontent
Currently listening : from a basement on the hill - By Elliott Smith
Saturday, April 3, 2004
Ass-bad.
This month has been so fuckin' lame. What's up with everything being bad at the same time? There should be rules about how many things are allowed to explode all over you at one time. "Oh..school is shitty and you're feeling fat and funky? Okay. We'll make sure your friend situation and your physical space are mellow and tidy." Instead, everything falls apart at the same time. I cried 5 times yesterday. I am not opposed to getting my cry on, but c'mon now. That's just excessive. Enough, already.
It seems like things are really tough for a lot of people right now. I haven't talked to anyone who said, "Man, things have been really rad lately." Everyone I have bitched to about my ass-bad life right now has said, "Yeah, actually, me, too." It's nice to know I'm not alone, though it means people have less patience to listen to me bitch and moan, which is a shame. I like to complain from time to time.
A guy I went to middle school and high school with just died of an accidental drug overdose. Some mixing of the pills..morphine, valium, whatev'. Another guy I know from way back, though less intimately, found his dead body. How fucking traumatic. I'm mad at the dead guy. What a stupid way to die. How selfish, to be so consumed with your pursuit for pleasure or escape that you die, leaving your loved ones to deal with your carelessness. Whatever, I know I'm being totally insensitive and simplistic about it, and happy people do experiment with drugs to excess. As Zoe said yesterday, fine, I'll wear the Bitch Crown for now.
This death comes so close to my cousin's embarrassing, foolish accidental death, as well. I am still pissed at him, too. Drunk driving, at night, on a non-street-equipped dirtbike, no helmet, after a major rain storm, at 3 in the morning. It would have been a bonafide miracle if he HADN'T died.
They didn't even mention the way he died at the funeral, either. No one mentioned drunk driving once. I wanted to get up, go to the lectern in front of the church full of young people (mostly under 30) and mention the unmentionable...this could be you. This could've been anyone; could've been any one of hundreds of people that we all know and love. But this time it was my cousin. Is that risk really worth it? Yeah, so you might get to sleep in your bed, rather than on someone's floor or couch. Yeah, your toothbrush is at your house. So what? What if you die, instead of making it home? What if you're the one that everyone gathers for in the church, talking in hushed tones, smoking dejectedly outside in a worried crowd afterwards? (Technically, it couldn't be me, because I don't know how to drive, so I am not subject to this rant. Think of Jesus's words, about letting him who is without sin cast the first stone...I am without this specific sin, so I'll chuck away.)
My friend has had to nurse another old friend for the last 24 hours, helping him deal with his grief over the death of the afore-mentioned dead guy. My friend hasn't even been able to cry yet, because she's been so consumed with this other friend's emotions about the death.
I kicked that dead guy in the nuts in 8th grade. We went to the Marin County Fair together. I bought ecstacy from him multiple times, when he was a mini drug lord and I was doing those sorts of drugs.
He got his teeth done recently. He always had charmingly crooked teeth, but when he started making money selling real estate he decided to get them done. They were straight and perfect and the brightest possible human white. It looked like those teeth that Jim Carrey wore in The Mask. I gave him a hug and and admired his new grill. He got embarrassed and said he'd just gotten them bleached. I thought it was silly that he lied. Why bother? I am a small B cup, so I'd never be able to pull off a boob job without it being really obvious. The dead guy's teeth were the same way. They were noticeably crooked before, but not at all unpleasantly. I just thought it was so silly that he lied about it.
He was deaf and wore a hearing aid. He had a laugh that everyone loved to imitate. It sounded like a bird call. He went through the phase in the end of middle school and early high school where he said "Haiku" in the place of "Hi" or "what's up." "Haiku, Dude. Haiku." And he'd hold his hand up, to give you a high five. He was the sort of guy who always had the newest, craziest fancy cell phone. The unfortunate, prevalent bad taste of middle school notwithstanding, he was always nicely dressed.. Really funny. Life of the party. He dealt drugs for years and years.
We were not close friends these days. We hadn't been in a really, really long time. But I feel really sad about it, about his death. Sadder than I did about my cousin. I don't see my cousins all that often. They're in Martinez, I'm in Marin. We might as well be separated by an ocean and a continent. So, having the close acquaintance die seems more serious, because he was reliable and always around. My cousin has been almost a stranger to me for years, as has this other guy. Maybe that's why I feel so sad about them. I didn't know them, but I could have. I missed my chance to know them.
Andrew Lau, Shane Gehrau. Both of you would have preferred beers to tears, but I don't have any 40oz to tip to you, so the tears will have to do. I'm sorry I missed you both..
It seems like things are really tough for a lot of people right now. I haven't talked to anyone who said, "Man, things have been really rad lately." Everyone I have bitched to about my ass-bad life right now has said, "Yeah, actually, me, too." It's nice to know I'm not alone, though it means people have less patience to listen to me bitch and moan, which is a shame. I like to complain from time to time.
A guy I went to middle school and high school with just died of an accidental drug overdose. Some mixing of the pills..morphine, valium, whatev'. Another guy I know from way back, though less intimately, found his dead body. How fucking traumatic. I'm mad at the dead guy. What a stupid way to die. How selfish, to be so consumed with your pursuit for pleasure or escape that you die, leaving your loved ones to deal with your carelessness. Whatever, I know I'm being totally insensitive and simplistic about it, and happy people do experiment with drugs to excess. As Zoe said yesterday, fine, I'll wear the Bitch Crown for now.
This death comes so close to my cousin's embarrassing, foolish accidental death, as well. I am still pissed at him, too. Drunk driving, at night, on a non-street-equipped dirtbike, no helmet, after a major rain storm, at 3 in the morning. It would have been a bonafide miracle if he HADN'T died.
They didn't even mention the way he died at the funeral, either. No one mentioned drunk driving once. I wanted to get up, go to the lectern in front of the church full of young people (mostly under 30) and mention the unmentionable...this could be you. This could've been anyone; could've been any one of hundreds of people that we all know and love. But this time it was my cousin. Is that risk really worth it? Yeah, so you might get to sleep in your bed, rather than on someone's floor or couch. Yeah, your toothbrush is at your house. So what? What if you die, instead of making it home? What if you're the one that everyone gathers for in the church, talking in hushed tones, smoking dejectedly outside in a worried crowd afterwards? (Technically, it couldn't be me, because I don't know how to drive, so I am not subject to this rant. Think of Jesus's words, about letting him who is without sin cast the first stone...I am without this specific sin, so I'll chuck away.)
My friend has had to nurse another old friend for the last 24 hours, helping him deal with his grief over the death of the afore-mentioned dead guy. My friend hasn't even been able to cry yet, because she's been so consumed with this other friend's emotions about the death.
I kicked that dead guy in the nuts in 8th grade. We went to the Marin County Fair together. I bought ecstacy from him multiple times, when he was a mini drug lord and I was doing those sorts of drugs.
He got his teeth done recently. He always had charmingly crooked teeth, but when he started making money selling real estate he decided to get them done. They were straight and perfect and the brightest possible human white. It looked like those teeth that Jim Carrey wore in The Mask. I gave him a hug and and admired his new grill. He got embarrassed and said he'd just gotten them bleached. I thought it was silly that he lied. Why bother? I am a small B cup, so I'd never be able to pull off a boob job without it being really obvious. The dead guy's teeth were the same way. They were noticeably crooked before, but not at all unpleasantly. I just thought it was so silly that he lied about it.
He was deaf and wore a hearing aid. He had a laugh that everyone loved to imitate. It sounded like a bird call. He went through the phase in the end of middle school and early high school where he said "Haiku" in the place of "Hi" or "what's up." "Haiku, Dude. Haiku." And he'd hold his hand up, to give you a high five. He was the sort of guy who always had the newest, craziest fancy cell phone. The unfortunate, prevalent bad taste of middle school notwithstanding, he was always nicely dressed.. Really funny. Life of the party. He dealt drugs for years and years.
We were not close friends these days. We hadn't been in a really, really long time. But I feel really sad about it, about his death. Sadder than I did about my cousin. I don't see my cousins all that often. They're in Martinez, I'm in Marin. We might as well be separated by an ocean and a continent. So, having the close acquaintance die seems more serious, because he was reliable and always around. My cousin has been almost a stranger to me for years, as has this other guy. Maybe that's why I feel so sad about them. I didn't know them, but I could have. I missed my chance to know them.
Andrew Lau, Shane Gehrau. Both of you would have preferred beers to tears, but I don't have any 40oz to tip to you, so the tears will have to do. I'm sorry I missed you both..
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
