The West Wing is never wrong.

There's this episode of The West Wing (see below), where President Bartlet says to Josh Lyman "I want to be the guy. You want to be the guy the guy counts on," and I think it is the piece of fictional dialogue I have most related to in my entire life.

Because that's me: I want to be the guy (or girl, in this instance) that people count on.

And I think I am, to a pretty large extent.

But the thing about being that guy/girl, is that it's fucking hard. And lonely. Frustrating. Anxiety-producing. And, for me, at least, it's really really difficult to stay on the side of the line that equates with uber-dependability, without crossing into total, unselfishly-selfish martyrdom. (Because, honestly, is there anything that winds up being more selfish than a person who can't think about themselves in any situation and starts feeling taken advantage of by everyone in their life? Probably not.)

So, it's a difficult line to toe, and I definitely feel like I have fallen, head first, over it in my current situation, which has created this atmosphere where I find nearly everything my brother does upsetting, and I can't figure out if I'm overreacting or not. I feel like all of the sudden I'm realizing that everyone else has been right for the past year and a half; that he is definitely taking advantage of me, and that I'm enabling all sorts of inappropriate behavior on his part. That I've somehow wound up in this relationship with him where I can't be honest because I feel like he takes offense so easily, and the kids are the ones who wind up getting hurt.

For examples - he cancelled my nephew's birthday party the night before because his other aunt (my deceased sister-in-law's sister) overstepped and tried to change the times like it was her right. I get that she overstepped, but he completely overreacted, threw a tantrum and we all just had to go along with it, because they're his kids, and he is in charge of them. He overreacts about 95% of things - in a way that I find aggressive and overwhelming, because it reminds me so much of our dads, and their bad behavior, and I usually back down, because it's the kids who are in the middle. I wind up having to act as interpreter for him to everybody - "he meant to say" or "he's really hurt about" or "he's just tired tonight". So many fucking excuses that I heard as a kid and told myself I would never tell, and here I am slinging them like I'm reciting back my ABC's.

I know he's hurting, and I know he's grieving, but I also know that he's kind of an asshole, and, under any other circumstances, I would tell him so. I call him out when it's stuff with the kids - or at least try to, I'm ashamed to say how often I find myself retreating into the intimated girl I used to be when faced with slamming doors and stomping feet - but let everything else go with a "I am just to tired to fight this fight today" mentality. I just don't know why everything has to be a fight, why everything has to be so tense all the time. 

His sense of responsibility and mine are completely different: I have been putting those kids first - before  my own health, even - since they were born. Not full-time, until now, but definitely in a way that has been unhealthy for me, even. He thinks he has been doing the same thing, but, it's different.  He thinks working and feeding them and not exploding every time he's pissed off about something is something that should earn him kudos and cookies.  I think you're doing the bare minimum that is required of you as a father, and you just need to get on with it and act like a grown up.

There was a lot of talk, after she first passed, about letting him sink or swim on his own.  Just... going home and letting them all put the pieces back together as best they could. I knew then that that just could not happen, because he was as checked out as he could possibly be, while still being physically present. And those two kids needed more than a father-sized shape walking around, especially with the big gaping mother-sized hole they both will always have. An auntie who is trying her best-sized block isn't good enough: it's never going to be. But if it's what we've got to work with, then I can't take that away from them. I can't imagine leaving, of my own free will.  I can easily imagine him making me leave by being so much of an asshole that I can't deal with him anymore without losing my mind. (Because I lived with one of those already, and - as hard as I try not to draw comparisons, they are there to be drawn.)

He's not always an asshole. He can be sweet.  He plays catch with them sometimes, or surprises them by going out for breakfast. He lets me buy whatever the hell I think we need grocery shopping online, even if I have to order every other day. He doesn't care about paying for things, except when he does, and make a big deal out of those things.  He worries about me, when I'm extra/normal people on top of chronic sick, even if he doesn't actually do more so I can do less.  He has said the words "You don't need to contribute more than your presence to stay here - I don't expect more from you than what you do." But I also don't feel like he gets what I do, the extent of it or the import of it, at all. 

I guess I just feel really underappreciated right now, since he just took a night off the other night - just went out and didn't come home, and told me at like 3:30 that that's what he was doing, and didn't even tell the kids, and left me to deal with the fallout, and then got pissed the next morning when I told him there was fallout about it from the kids.  And then the kids were all fine when he was here, and he didn't have to deal with any of their anxiety at him not being home or their anger that they didn't know, or their terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days, and I did.  I took care of them, and I keep taking care of them, and I love it, because I love them, but.... it is so hard. And he just doesn't see.  He doesn't worry about Lil Girl's back, or NephTwo's broken heart, or MCAS or the stupid fish that hides in its filing cabinet, or why nobody can fill up the whole goddamn dishwasher instead of 9/10ths of it, or if that one's wearing the same dirty shirt she wore three days in a row, or if this one is coming home late and is all giggly, and now I have to google what the signs of pot use in teenagers are, even though I didn't smell it, but I have a stuffy nose, so let's just double check.

 He loves these kids as hard as he's ever loved anybody else, I KNOW it, I can SEE it. But he SUCKS at making them feel it. At showing it in any meaningful, past this one specific moment, kind of way. He worries about them too, but I know it's not the same way I do. I worry about them first, and I don't think he does, because he couldn't act the way he does if he was thinking of them. My grandmother always said fathers were like that, that mother's hearts were different, and fathers never really understood, but I hope that's a piece of generational sexism that doesn't prove true.  I mean, no: they are different.  But I don't think that means father's can't put their kids first.  I think he may even believe that's what he's doing. I just don't know how to get him to see that his behavior is as harmful as it is. To all of us.

And I really, really, don't want those kids to come up to me, 20 years from now and say: Why couldn't you just tell him he was being such a jerk, why did the house have to feel like that? Because it's what I sometimes want to say to my mum, still.  And I know these issues predate SisterNc's death, because their relationship was rocky and had a lot of the problems I'm banging my head against right now, but it's different, bc he's my brother, and they're not technically my kids, and I'm supposed to be helping.

That's the real problem - I'm supposed to be helping, and I just don't know how to do it right now, so I feel like shit. 

Probably I'll just start rewatching The West Wing.  That seems like a good idea.

According to spell check, I have invented three new words in this post*

Do you know how rare it is for me not to have something playing in my head?  The radio, Pandora, YouTube; TV in the background Charlie-Brown-teacher style? Not to mention Twitter, Google Reader (now Feedly, thank you very much), whatever random selection of lists my curiosity has caused me to Google, and now Tumblr?  In addition to the books on my bookshelf, floor, nightstand, and in my purse? Which doesn't even include the tapes of 9th grade history class failures that my memory dredges up, the earwig my mom was humming in the kitchen, the constant nagging of whatever social anxiety issue is rearing its ugliest head at the moment?

It's pretty damn rare, is what I'm getting at. 

I don't like to sit in the quiet because then I can hear all the things I spend so much time trying to mute; feel all the pain I've devoted a large portion of my brain cells into masking.  It's both a conscious thing - depending on what hurts and how badly it hurts, I have to adjust the interference, turn up the volume on one thing (a funny movie, perhaps, or a comforting re-read) in order to try to combat the intensity of the other thing (a 10+ pain day; a migraine that lasts more than a week; another birthday rolling around without much improvement to show for it) - and an unconscious thing: kind of like how, if you really concentrate on it you can control your breathing or swallowing, but if you don't it'll go on without you. 

It's one of the reasons I'm so bad at meditating - sitting, in the quiet, with nothing but me and my brain? And the pain? Seems like a game of Russian roulette to me.  Too much quiet and who knows what could explode, who knows if I'll find all the pieces/have all the spoons I'd need to glue it back together?  Too risky.

But here's the rub - I can't write well without some semblance of quiet.  I was one of those kids who did their homework without the distractions of music or TV (it wasn't allowed in the teacher's household I grew up in), and, when I got older and went to college and could decide for myself, I found it too distracting to try to write a good essay and watch Friends at the same time.  Not that I didn't write M A N Y college essays in front of the TV - my friends and I liked to say (if somewhat unoriginally) that we weren't earning our BS-es for nothing - I could crank out what most of my professors wanted (their own words echoed back at them/a summary of the book to prove I had read it) without much effort at all, and many a course was completed during the commercial breaks of Mad About You . 

But if I wanted to write?

Really write?  And have it be good? 

That's when I needed - and still need, apparently - a little bit of quiet head space. 

So you can see where Goal A (constantly be distracted, so as not to focus on chronic pain and/or current unhappy life situation) might come into conflict with Goal B (try to write some things that are not completely shitty). 

And the last couple of months - OK, since last summer really, when things started spiralling out of control with my grandmother and I realized that it was going to be a Summer of Suck and that I was going to have to be a freaking Grown-up and deal with Real Actual Problems even though I totally didn't want to - I've been leaning (tipping/falling over into/swimming/basking) into Goal A territory.

Since she died (and my family situation went completely, nuclearly, FUBAR in ways that have left gaping wounds that still haven't even scabbed over, let alone healed), which I can't believe was 9 months ago now, I've been sort of frozen there: emotionally numb (ish - not always) and physically hanging on by the skin of my teeth.

"You've lost weight" my doctors would say, with apparent glee: "That's great!"  Mmhmm: except - I can't eat.  I don't know how to anymore - I am disconnected from food and hunger and fullness and I don't know how to food.  Sounds good, they said.   "Let's add to that," my super-fun/fucked-up body said: "You're definitely in the early stages of diabetes (even though you've lost weight, your numbers are stable, and you barely can force yourself to eat real meals at regular intervals): Let's mess with that even more, give you some new meds and worries/complications about food, and see how you do!" (Hint: I have not done well.)  "Also" said my completely-ridiculous-at-this-point-body "I think you need to be allergic to some more shit, and I know you're trying to eat healthier now, so how about some random allergic reactions to... fruit?  vegetables?  Fruits and vegetables?  The pesticides on certain fruits and/or vegetables that you just didn't wash off cleanly enough?  EVERY MOTHER FUCKING FOOD YOU ENJOY?  How's that sound?" (Hint: Super fun.)

I still don't know what's causing the reactions, although I've just had another round of allergy tests.  When I did them 8 years ago I was literally told not to drink the tap water, because "you are allergic to what's in it."  What the hell is in tap water that I am allergic to? I don't know anymore (who remembers at this point?) but I still drink bottled, so it can't be that flaring up. (She says, as her body laughs with glee.  As if I hadn't learned by now that this shit is not going to make any sense.)

Anyways, aside from the food, there's been other things - health things and family things, and personal things, and feeling sorry for myself things that I could literally rant on and on about for thousands of words - but why spoil all those other whiny posts?  (I will try not to write too many whiny posts.)

The crux of it is, I feel like maybe, I'm thawing out on Goal A a little bit, and am actively hoping that that will help me pursue Goal B. Because I wrote 52,376 words last November, but that story isn't going to finish writing itself.  Because I miss having a place where things are quiet.  Because no matter how many times and how many different ways I have to keep writing this post - the one where I apologize for not being around as much as I'd like and recommit to carving out the words that belong here - you guys always show up, and I couldn't appreciate it more.

I don't have a ton of readers. I would estimate that a more reasonable term for the number of people whose eyeballs will scan across this post would be "smidgen".  But that's ok with me.  Because you're my smidgen, and you're always here when I need you.

So thanks for showing up, Smidges.  I'll do my best (as always - which we know is sometimes better than others) to keep showing up too.

*But spell check is a liar because "unoriginally" and "nuclearly", while horrible adverbs, must be real words.  I will claim Smidges though. 

Unthinkable, really, what's been happening here.

Right now the local reporters are droning on as Air Force 1 lands at Logan, in preparation for today's memorial service. The news has not stopped since Monday, although I've done my best to drown it out: having Lil Girl over during her school vacation is a good distraction, and a good excuse to keep the tv off, but you still hear things: Rumors of arrests creep in when I check Facebook while she's playing Barbies in the other room; sirens go flying by in flocks, screaming that something is happening, but I don't want to know what; Dad calls from the airport with news of yet another lockdown due to suspicious packages. 

Every local channel has it's own somber music, it's own strained, sad-faced, semi-stoked reporters, it's own repetitive non-informative crawl, blasting basically the same news since Monday at 2:50.  They've all talked almost non-stop now for three days, showing the same, once shocking footage of blasts one and two, the helpers rushing in, the clouds of debris billowing out. We've heard - live - from every doctor about every non-specific patient and their horrific surgeries, their instant amputations, their 'luck' in that the on-site medical tent was so close, so that their injuries could be tended to so quickly. Reporters shout their non-sensical questions at these doctors at press conferences designed to comfort? us, I suppose, but that just end up making me feel more intrusive, more nauseous as I think about all these patients - all these people - have ahead of them now. 

I don't really live in Boston - but I've lived in Boston adjacent cities my entire life: Cambridge, Somerville, Revere... basically moving around the Hub counter-clockwise since I was born. It's a beautiful city, with neighborhoods full of cobblestone streets and side-walks that the wheelchair user in me hates and the history buff in me admires; where a truck will double-park in the middle of a North End street to make deliveries, not caring that it completely shuts down the traffic, since there is only one lane possible in the narrow, non-sensical street; where I've never even made it to half the cultural offerings the city offers, but it's comforting just knowing that I could. It's not technically my home, but I claim it as mine - it's more than just knowing where the closest 5 Dunkin Donuts are, or that we don't really ever call it the 'subway', but that's part of it.

 Boston isn't just a city, it's an attitude.  Massholes are proud of being Massholes - we're a cynical, sarcastic lot, sure, but - as you've probably seen this week - tenderhearted too - Wicked isn't just our favorite adjective, it's how we self-identify.  We think our sports teams are the best - even if we don't care about sports at all.  We know our traffic is the worst - and laugh when other people complain about theirs.  We know our hospitals rock - I think of all the doctors I see on a regular (weekly/monthly/all the damn time) basis, and all the hospitals I've been in that were just on the news this week.  And how I know those emergency rooms, and the nurses who patrol the halls there, and how I hope they are doing alright. -  And we know that being a center of learning - with a college on ever corner and a university everywhere you turn, brings optimism and hope and energy and enthusiasm into our cold, snowy hearts - even if it also brings pedestrians who think they are immune to getting hit by cars.  It's a place that digs its roots into you, is all I can say.

I feel almost everything right now; so close to an edge that just appeared, and all of us are tiptoeing around it, trying to avoid falling in, because we won't know how to climb out.

I hold my breath watching live tv now - I guess I've been doing it for months, but I really just noticed how bad it is this week, with everything being live all the time.  I have a distinct need for what's on to be over all ready, to know that it's ended with everyone safe and sound, to know I'm not going to be a witness to history again, today.  Because I don't think I have it in me to witness much more. 

And I'm so far removed from these things - luckily, none in my family has been harmed - although my brother was hoofing back to his car from the Sox game and heard the explosions on Monday, sent me bewildered texts as he got into his car and drove out as all the emergency vehicles swarmed in -; I'm certainly pretty safe from any terrorists here in my bed, I would think: But just the idea of One. More. Thing. Going. Wrong.  Of Texas, and now shootouts & 'controlled explosions' on city streets; of a minor fender bender in front of my house (again) and the power going out, just when the city tells everybody to stay in in order to stay safe. 

I know my armor is so thin in places that the slightest poke may cause me to deflate, implode, explode - I don't even know what.  So I huddle, and I hide from the news (as much as possible, which is, in all actuality, very little), and I hope that there's nothing else, just for right now, just for this minute.

I want to hug everyone: people I know, people I've never met, everybody on the news who's as close to tears as I am and yet manages to tell their story.  I want to build a fort, a cave, a bunker and have it swallow up all the people I love, so that I can know they are safe and close, and within reach at all times. Only my mom's insistence that it was not an option kept me from posting our couch on the #bostonhelpers website for somebody who needed it the other night - and that was just because we were supposed to have the kids and would be full up, no-room-at-our-inn. 

In one of the ever-replaying scenes of the first bomb exploding that they keep playing on Channel 4, you can see, in front of the huge puff of smoke and dirt and debris that rises up in the aftermath of the bomb, a balloon caught up in the gust of it all.  It gets swept along the edges of the cloud, higher and higher, over and over again.   On Monday, if I could have, I would've rolled my way to Copley Square, to the Finish Line I've never seen in person before (nor had any interest in finding), and searched for the hand that had held that balloon's string.

 It was all I could think of, once I saw it. Just that yellowish clump of balloons, floating up and up, again and again, following the blast.  And knowing that somewhere below, in the chaos of fences and flags and blood and fear, there had been a child who'd been cheerfully tugging that balloon along behind him/her. 

And now we know some names - of the three who didn't make it and the nearly 200 that were injured, but made it - and we know that they have long roads ahead of them, those that came through.  Those that helped, those that saw, those that ran, those that heard: there's a lot that's different, all of the sudden, and that's pretty damn scary.

The flurry of text messages and emails and twitter feeds and facebook refreshing that happened immediately after the news broke, just so I could know as many of my people were as safe as they could be - and now today (because this post has taken me days to write) all over again, with whole cities on lockdown, and gunshots and suspects being killed and others being tracked and interviews of kids who, once upon a time, went to the same charter school with the one who's still running, but they don't know anything about the 'man' he is now, or how this could have happened.  So back to all the social networks to make sure everyone is "safe" and hoping that soon 'safe' will be a word that means something again.

It's not a new world, really: it's just a new city.  A new place for an old terror, and this time, it's my place.  Our place.  The idea that my doctor's appointment on Monday might be cancelled because they're rescheduling things due to today's city-wide lockdown?  What is that, even?  Who makes sense of that? I think about taking my niece on her first trip to the Swan Boats this summer, which is something I promised to do, even though I get sea sick  looking at pictures of boats, and the idea that being out in the Common might not be safe?  Does not compute.

It doesn't make sense, it's not going to make sense, and even when this is over, it won't be over.  We know it.  And we'll live with that.  But I sure wish it was still Sunday, when my only thought about the marathon was that it would preempt all the shows the next day.  I'm not sure this post makes as much sense as I would like it to, but I need to say something, if only to get it all out of my head. 

I hope you are all safe, where you are, and that you stay that way. 

Today's tidbits of wisdom

Might just give you an idea how well I am dealing with all the family drama around here, and the fact that a person who's supposed to be a grown-up thinks it's OK to be selfish, OK to ignore the consequences of his actions, and lives behind a great wall of denial. 

First up, some advice that I'm finding so difficult to put into practice, but that's not keeping me from trying, from Danielle La Porte,

"Want to improve your communication skills?
Then communicate.
Our most common communication blunder is not that we’re insensitive, or forceful, or misdirected. It’s that we fail to communicate at all. 

We swallow. We hedge. We delay. We punish with silence. We freeze with fear. We open our mind to assumptions but keep our mouths shut. We lock down. We just don’t say anything.

Most often, even weak or wobbly communication is far better than shutting down completely. Sincerity and courage go a lot further than “polished” communication skills any day.

Have the conversation. Say how you feel. Ask the question. Bring it up. Stumble with good intentions. Fly with an open heart. Communicate.”

 When you grew up in a house like mine, where your opinion was neither asked for nor appreciated by certain people, and where intimidation is still a daily occurrence, that is a lot easier said than done.  However, trying to turn myself into an actual adult, who takes responsibility for her own actions and expects others to do the same, I've realized that I can't do it by keeping my mouth shut (however much that is my comfort zone).  I'm not too pleased with this realization, people, but I'm doing my best to work through my discomfort and other people's pissy attitudes. 


 Which brings us to some vital truth from Melissa McEwan, of Shakesville: 

No one who has ever said "life is too short" to me has ever meant, "What can I do to make amends for having hurt you and restore trust between us as quickly as possible?"

They have always and only ever meant, "Your boundaries are stupid, and I am super impatient with your attempts to make me respect them, so here is some emotional manipulation to try to coerce you into letting me continue to treat you like shit without consequences."

What I'm saying is: I really hate the expression "life is too short."”

Next, a lesson from John Green:

“The good times and the bad times both will pass. It will pass. It will get easier. But the fact that it will get easier does not mean that it doesn’t hurt now. And when people try to minimize your pain they are doing you a disservice. And when you try to minimize your own pain you’re doing yourself a disservice. Don’t do that. The truth is that it hurts because it’s real. It hurts because it mattered. And that’s an important thing to acknowledge to yourself. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t end, that it won’t get better. Because it will.” 

Gonna work on not doing myself any more disservices, and I hope you do the same.  See you tomorrow, peoples.  

Hi Again

I know it's been a couple of weeks ~ I'll claim the first two do to just complete exhaustion, and the last two because things are pretty fucked up here, and I'd hoped to come back and be able to say "Thank you so much for your kind thoughts" and then move on to happier things.  But I don't seem to have any happier things, right now.  Which is not just to say that I'm f'ed up (although I am): there's a whole bunch of family shit that's gone down that's beyond messed up, and somewhere between my grief and the situation and everybody else's grief and confusion and all of our individual issues, it feels like my family is basically coming apart at the seams.  Not that those stitches were all that tight two months ago, but they just sort of burst the week of my grandmother's funeral, and I'm at a complete loss as to how to pull them back together again. 

I don't even know where I am or what I'm doing,  at this point, besides making it through the next fucking minute without falling apart.  And I'm not always doing a bang up job on that, to be honest.  I'm back at our house, but it's not home - it really never was, only maybe I was better at pretending before I watched my grandmother die and realized that I need to do more than mark my time here.  I can't seem to talk to anybody without causing a secondhand fight, can't seem to get anybody to listen to me at all, can't seem to connect with the people who've offered to help, even when I want to (and I don't always want to: it seems like too much explaining, mostly).  I feel like exploding just about every minute of every day, or, I feel completely absent and numb - it's one or the other, seems like.  

My dad threw my sister and brother-in-law out of the house, the night before my grandmother's funeral.  Nobody told me what the hell was going on, because, I don't know they thought I would be too upset to notice that people weren't talking to each other?  I don't know.  So I got the lowlights third and fourth hand, then when I tried to talk to people, it was a disaster and didn't make anything any clearer for them or for me. 

My mom left my dad, then came back, but only because she didn't have anywhere else to go, and then, later, because she wouldn't leave my sister and brother-in-law in the house with just him.  This was all in the days immediately after we had just buried my grandmother, so I will admit that I did not have all cylinders going.  I mostly wanted (still want) to curl up in a ball and ignore everything, because it takes so much energy, and I am plum out. 

My dad says the stress of being targeted at work (and, yes, he is being targeted at work) made him snap and... a whole load of bullshit that basically means it's not his fault, but maybe yes, he might admit that he was wrong and 'an asshole' (What he won't cop to, is that this happens All The Damn Time, and nobody feels safe around him/trusts him anymore because he's a bully).  My sister & brother-in-law immediately started looking for a new place, because, hell: who wants to live like that?  They've been thrown out twice in the matter of a year for Doing. Nothing. Wrong.  And let's be clear - they didn't do shit, he just took it out on them.  I told my mother while I was still at Grandmother's house, that I didn't want to be here either... that I would be looking for a new place as soon as I could. {Of course, that was because I forgot that I couldn't place emotional well-being above money, health and other issues without there being major sacrifices of money and health and other things, but I'm still determined to do it}  My mother told him she was leaving too, although it would be better for everybody if HE just left.  He refused/refuses to leave.

So today my sister and brother-in-law are signing a lease for their new place, at the worst possible time for them bc my sister is trying to wean off her meds so that they can get pregnant, and she could really use some backup (which is just when you should be forced to move away from people who can back you up).  She's hurt and mad at my mom for her response to this whole ball of bullshit, which I can't seem to talk to either of them about, because their both freezing me out when it comes to that.  She might even be mad at me, and since she's the one who reads this blog I'm only going to say that I hope she's not, because I feel like I'm on her side, but if she is, I hope she'll tell me so I can try to fix it.

My dad and I had a whole discussion about how mad I am at him the other day, and how it's his fault that SisterJ & B-I-L are moving and that I'm looking for a place, and that Mom is probably looking for a place too, and when my mom asked him what he got out of it he told her that he "has a big heart but doesn't use it."  Which was said once, in the midst of a three hour discussion about how badly he is screwing things up and all the things he is ruining by his behavior, and how hard it's going to be once he realizes how badly he's damaged people he's supposed to care about and how I'm too old for this shit and I'm just not sticking around anymore to watch him bully people (or to be bullied) and how he's being completely selfish, but that's what we all expect him to be at this point, so that we don't even talk to him about our shit anymore and a huge rant about how he's a total hypocrite and totally ignores the people in our family and expects us to be there for him and how he never fucking listens ... anyways.  What he took out of all of that was me saying he had a big heart, which just proves my point about him never listening, and that I really need to get the hell out of here.

Mom and I have talked - or sort of talked - about what she's going to do: she says she's going and she's done, and all of that.  But I don't know: she still seems undecided to me, and I don't know how much of that is the fact that she's changing her meds, and she's still grieving for my grandmother, too, and she seems to be leaning waaay closer to the numb side of things than I am.  Of course, complicating all of that is the fact that she's my PCA, and she does a lot more for me than the hours the state provides for her, which is pretty simple when you're living in the same house, but a hell of a lot more complicated once I find somewhere else to live.

Which doesn't even mention that moving changes everything for me, financially - I have to notify the SSI people, and Mass Health (my insurance) and the PCA program, and everybody does a whole new evaluation and yippee: more energy I don't have.  Plus, I can't afford any place to actually live on what my SSI is currently, so I have to apply for housing stipends, which means that the already complicated task of finding accessible housing (and granted, I can use non-100%accessible bathrooms, which puts me a step above other househunters with disabilities) all that much more complicated, because now I have to look for accessible housing that takes waivers/stipends from the government.  It's so much fun so far!

But here's the thing, as every fucking thing seems to crumble around me (which you could tell only by the fact that I've cursed like five times in this post, when I usually don't ever), I learned a lot about myself this summer, being with Grandmother during those five months.  I learned that I can handle a lot more shit than I thought I could, even if I have to breakdown in tears when nobody is looking.  And even if I shouldn't have to handle any of this, because it's all ridiculous and I don't want to have to deal with it, because it's hard: even though it's ridiculous and hard and stressful and I Don't Want To, I'm going to be able to do it.   I'm going to drag myself and my family through it, and eventually we'll all come out the other side, having met the challenge.

Being a grown-up sure does suck, you guys.  

I would be a horrible circus performer (although I am quite flexible)

I didn't realize that my being here would change so many things: I mean, when I first wormed my way into an invitation to stay on the couch, I obviously didn't realize that nearly five months later I'd still be here, unshowered and mid-flare, keeping constant watch on a woman so close to death.  I signed up for that, for the most part, because I had to: nobody seems to get that, really, that I feel compelled to be here, not just because I am capable of it (and, honestly, physically? I'm not capable, I'm just faking it the best I can), but because it's where I need to be.  I suppose I could have made a different choice, but every other option just felt worse than this one, so here I remain, camped out on a couch with a (probably permanent) me-shaped dent in it, edging the furniture over until it gives me just the right view of her on her sickbed. 

While I could not have predicted the ways that being here has altered my relationship with Grandmother - both negatively (particularly through her attacks during her dementia rants or just witnessing little character flaws that she'd previously kept hidden from me) and positively (there have been moments of extreme joy for both of us) - I'm more surprised by how being here has effected my relationships with the rest of my family, the rest of the world.

Example: I've got an aunt who lives less than an hour away, and who I generally have a good opinion of.  But her lack of visits (once every three weeks, maybe) and phone calls (I know Uncle Jack is a bear on the phone, but suck it up), especially since her mother's latest downturn in health bother me. What could be more important than this?  What enables you to go sit at a racetrack all day on your day off, as opposed to sitting by your mother's side?  Granted, Grandmother would probably have no clue who you are, and granted you have a right to your life outside of the fact that your mother is dying, but ... it still bothers me, and I know it's put space between us.

I try not to let it hurt me that people haven't come to see her, but sometimes I resent it a whole damn lot.  Cousins who send me messages about how much they care, but don't show up on the doorstep with a screwdriver and a willing hand when it's needed.  I'm conflicted about it because it seems wrong and hurtful and false, but also because.... I totally get it.

I keep hearing "I don't want to see her like that" or "I don't think I could handle it if she looked at me and didn't remember me", and I understand that desire so much.  I guess I'm jealous that they feel like they have the option to not come, whereas I feel like there's no choices to be made - she needs me, so I am here, even though it is one of the hardest things I will ever do.  To have her look at me, with that blank stare, or worse her evil stare, when she's pissed off about something, is an experience I would love to have opted out of; it's something I wish I could forget, and something which, no matter how many times I remind myself that it's not her but the dementia that's driving it, I know has put smudges on our relationship.  Deep, dark smudges I would give anything to erase. 

So I understand the sentiment, and I understand not being able to face what's going on here - but I'm still disappointed that so few people have turned up, that so many of us are able to just send their warm wishes, but not put any actual effort into it.  I'm jealous that they can do that, I'm confused at how they do that, and I am surprisingly more than a little hurt by how many of them can do it.  I think that's part of it: that I used to be so firmly a part of the "us" of cousins, and now I feel like there's this line, a "me" and a "them", because I've done this and been here, and none of them can truly understand.  They write their e-mails about how strong she is, and how much she's been through, but they don't know the half of it.  They say how they hope the end comes quickly and how she doesn't suffer, and I stuff the words back into my mouth: 'She's already suffering, she's been suffering for months, maybe years, and none of you have noticed!'

 It's not fair of me to think those things: I know that they are all doing what they can, and that they all do really love her: it's just that right now - living through the worry of each and every breath, each consistently lower pulse reading and oxygen level,  each english muffin I put in front of her that she doesn't eat, each 4 hour battle to get her to use the Depends because she's not strong enough to get out of bed - right now, everything they say seems like a platitude, a cliche, as disconnected from her and me and our actual situation as if they were talking about how many sheep there were at this year's state fair.

It's just another barrier between me and the people I love, and it somehow grew while I wasn't looking.

Which is another thing: I've been nearly myopically focused on our situation here.  I think that's understandable: death trumps pretty much everything.  But there's a lot of other things going on - a lot of other things - and I'm barely on the periphery of stuff that I normally would wade right into.  People are worried about losing their jobs, having their first panic attack, looking for new places to live, buying cars, getting fired, losing weight, gaining weight, dealing with depression, having birthdays, trying to embrace happiness after hardship, going back to school, moving across the country, ending longterm relationships, starting new relationships.  Two of my sisters have changed life directions and are actively trying to conceive - or are moving down the path towards having children. 

Two of my younger sisters.  Are trying to have babies right now.  Which is so exciting and awesome and terrifying, and also like an arrow straight into my chest.  Because there's that baby thing again, which I have been actively avoiding (with little luck) and just do not have the mental energy to deal with right now, but there it is, everywhere I look.  College Roommate/Best Friend had her third baby yesterday, after a difficult pregnancy.  One of the (young stupid intern) doctors who saw her in the Emergency Room wrote the words 'advanced maternal age' on her chart.  We are the same age, and while I know that 33 is not technically considered advanced maternal age, I know it's also not considered to be a time when you've got plenty of fertile years ahead of you.  So there are all my own issues with TTC, and then there's all of their issues with TTC (which are varied and complicated, as they seemingly always are) and how best to support them (because I do want to support them) through their own insecurities and doubts and troubles.  And how to do that effectively with the 5% of my brain that isn't focused on Grandmother and her medication schedules, stuck here in my little corner of the living room couch, while at the same time not letting the fact that I am not actively TTC be a gaping wound that grows between us.

Life is going on all around me - everywhere but in this house, in this time, in this space that I can't leave - and I don't know how to participate in any of it.  Everything else seems unreal to me, everything beyond this door, everything outside the range of the Darth Vadar sounds coming out of her oxygen machine seems as if it's happening to somebody else, like I'm watching it on television, maybe.  And it's interesting, and it's something I want to be involved with, but my brain just can't seem to make the leap from Here (and all that implies) to There (and all that implies).

There's a big gulf between me and the rest of the world - the part of the world that isn't changing their grandmother's diaper (and sheets - why don't those goddamn Depends do what they're supposed to do more than 1/4 of the time?) at three in the morning, or watching an old woman's chest to make sure it's still rising and falling - and I don't know how to bridge it.  Phone calls and text messages seem like communiques from far off lands - someone shows me a picture of a fancy new car, someone else just says hello, there's a Facebook message from a far-away cousin, a phone call from someone I didn't even know had my number - I want to grab onto those things as if they were life preservers, use them to help keep me afloat when I feel like there's so much here that it will drag me under.  And I can't decide if this is the Real World, or that is (even though I know they both are): I just know that they don't seem to exist within the same atmosphere, in the same time zones, on the same planet.

This disconnection is even harder when I do get a break, when I'm sitting face to face with someone, and there's all these awkward pauses, all these spaces and cracks in our conversation that there never used to be.  I feel like I am rusty at speaking to people, even those I talk to everyday: It's as if my conversational skills have deserted me in favor of the ability to withstand the tears of a ninety-five year old woman when you tell her she can no longer walk - and there's no ease to any of my relationships right now, no settled in feeling of comfort and compatablitly, even with those that I am the closest. 

Example: Mum will come over to help - most days she comes over to help - and make a misstep in her delivery - do something that pisses off Uncle Jack (which isn't hard) or say something to Grandmother that confuses her and sets off the panic train (which also isn't hard) and instead of relieved, I wind up feeling exhausted to be dealing with that, that now I not only have to deal with the repercussions of her visit, but also have to somehow not hurt her feelings while I'm repairing the damage she did by trying to help.  It's often awkward and uncomfortable (mostly because Uncle Jack is a stubborn ass sometimes and he's so set in his ways that even people doing nice things - like bringing over a boatload of food for us to eat - can make him angry) and I find myself having to hold back how upset I am by it in order to smooth it over on both sides, wishing the whole time that I didn't have to play referree to supposed grown-ups, that it would be nice if, once in a while, I could get some actual HELP, that was just help - no strings, no messes to clean up afterwards, no complications - just simple help. 

Most of the times I can't get up the energy to feel anything besides terrified that I am going to do something wrong here, that the last memory Grandmother will have is of a frustrated woman struggling not to yell at her to 'just pee already, goddamn it!' instead of a peaceful, loving face.  And I want that for her - for her to go knowing that We All love her so much, knowing that she has so many people praying* for her and thinking of her - and I'm horrified that I might not be able to provide it. 

*That's a whole 'nother area where my conflicted feelings are doing battle: she's very religious so we've had a bunch of priests come by, and she's had the last rites more than once, but I also think if the hospice people tell me that "all we can do now is pray" one more time I might punch them in the throat. 

When I do get beyond that feeling, I feel guilty for wishing this were over, guilty for seeing each peak and valley as just another obstacle for us to overcome -It's especially hard to know that when she does have a 'good day' or make a small improvement, instead of rejoicing for her that she's able to eat a half a turkey sandwich, there's a part of me that wishes it wasn't happening, because it's only prolonging something that is already so difficult for all of us.

I feel guilty for that, for wishing that there would just be an end to things, knowing what that means in reality.

I feel guilty for being here, when I'm needed elsewhere.  For missing out on the summer adventures the kids and I had planned,  for all the hand holding I haven't been around to provide, the two a.m. phone calls I couldn't answer.  I know the world doesn't revolve around me - that me not being at the house for sleepovers, for example, wasn't the end of the world or a crisis for the kids - but that's a two sided-coin: I'm glad that my absence didn't wreck everything for everybody, but at the same time I'm hurt by how (seemingly) easily I was removed.  Because it feels like I'm the only one who's upset by my missing out on other things - everybody else just goes about their days and sometimes remembers that, in the ordinary scheme of things, I'd probably be involved in this particular activity too, but it doesn't do more than blip on their radar before they're off for other things.

And how selfish of me is it to admit that that hurts?  That not being needed or missed in those other situations is hurting me as much as the fact that I'm missing them in the first place?  I obviously want it all at the same time - people who love and miss me, but make do when I'm not there; being needed and valued for what I feel I contribute, but being able to not contribute those things for a while and still be loved and valued. 

Basically, my brain is a big toxic mess right now, and I've got it all as far down as I can get it - so that it's simmering somewhere in the background for now, because I have only enough energy (and barely that) to make it through each day here, and the rest of that shit is going to have to wait its turn.  And there's a very large part of me that is anxious about what will happen when I'm done focusing on the immediate crisis - how I'm going to pick up all those simmering, boiling pieces of myself and glue them back together into something that resembles a human being - but for now, all I can focus on is converting Mgs to Mls (which is stupid: doctors should write the Rx in the dosage of those little droppers and not expect me to do math every time I've got to give her meds in the middle of the night) or if the sheets are too tight around her feet and could be causing bedsores.  I know that the end of that type of worry is fast approaching, and I see the train full of other worries barrelling down the track towards me (and know that it will be loaded with all of the things I'm talking about here PLUS a huge drowning dollop of grief once she passes), but I can't even pretend to deal with it yet.


 I'm just going to sit here and breathe, and hope that I'm doing what I can, and that any of the balls I'm not actively juggling will not be too damaged when I get around to picking them up.

I'm sick of myself

I know I've been rather quiet of late, but I'm going through one of those periods of having SO MUCH to say, but none of it seems worth remarking upon.  I'm living too much in my own head, which is a constant failure of mine, you might note.  It's funny because I feel like I have so much to say, but perhaps I have already said it all, or someone else has - clearer, more convincingly, more precisely. I spend a lot of time reading things, marking things, copying things, pinning things, caught between thinking "Thank god, other people feel this way too!" and "See: Someone else has said it already, so keep your own ramblings to yourself." I am feeling both unworthy and completely worldly - as if I am learning new things every single minute of every single day, but they were things that everyone else has already known, and I am just the last to catch on.

 I am going through a period of change, that much is certain, and it's quite unnerving to look at yourself and not recognize the person you are becoming.  Some of the changes are positive, and purposeful and challenging - things I have been working so hard to address in myself, and am finally starting to see improvements in.  Others are things I had no real concept of - I didn't even begin to think they were lurking in the corners, waiting to greet me when I finally got around to them.  These are the most unwelcome, of course, the ones that spring up just when you think you've finally got something conquered... "But wait," it says, slithering out just as you're congratulating yourself on some great accomplishment, some true challenge that you have met with all your courage, "you've forgotten about me, and I am a much more formidable foe than the last fellow."  It seems there are no end of corners, no end of foes. 

And, again, at the same time, I find myself completely sick of how much I am thinking of myself - all of this questioning and second guessing, and erasing of mental tapes, and it begins to seem as if I do little else but sit and contemplate my own life, or read others accounts of how they contemplated their lives and strive to apply it to my own struggles.  Which, while a worthy goal, does not a good friend, sister, aunt, daughter, granddaughter make. 

So everyone else's worries pile in, or my worries about their worries, if I am being specific.  Or my worries that I am ignoring them, being selfish, not giving them the attention they deserve.  And somehow, in that muddle, I've come full circle again, and am thinking about my own faults and follies, instead of the people I was meant to be attending to. 

I don't know about you, but all this introspection is giving me a headache.  I'm going to do something for somebody else today: I don't care who, just so long as I'm not stuck in my own mental muddle for one more minute. 

Well, that was fun

So yesterday, my dad called the cops on my sister, her husband, my mother & I.

He called the cops, and told them we were "verbally assaulting him in his own home."

By which he meant, we were telling the fucking truth, in our own homes.

The cop pretty much shrugged his shoulders when he got there - we had done nothing actionable, and it was, in fact his behavior that was out of bounds: I know I never uttered a single curse, and neither did my sister.  My mom did, but that was just repeating what he'd said about her, so that doesn't really count.  And my brother in law, who is the (I can't emphasize this enough, honestly) most peaceful person ever (like, I've seen him mad may three times in the past 5 years, and even when he's mad, he's still pretty calm) had to go outside and stand in the cold to keep himself from ... I don't even know what.

I know what I wanted to do, which was rage and vomit and punch his face in and break the goddamn wine bottle into a million tiny little pieces and cry and curl up into a ball and pack all my shit immediately and move into the cardboard box that is my only other option and scream in his face and drag him to a psychiatrist and tie him into a chair & force him to watch every episode of Intervention ever.  (For the record, I did at least two of those things, but they weren't the fun ones.)

The cops told us "families fight" and told him "if you're an asshole when you drink" (Oh crap, I guess I did curse: I specifically told the cops that he was an asshole when he drinks, but it still doesn't count because I didn't curse at him), "then don't do that anymore."  He did not get the outcome he wanted, (which was them making us leave, I guess), and then kept saying how embarrassing it was that it had happened.

 It didn't just happen: You called the cops because we weren't backing down (again) about your ridiculous, abusive behavior.  You were the one who reacted like an ass because someone dared to question you about your drinking.  You were the one who went on the attack.  I wasn't embarrassed at all, to be honest.  A little let down that I couldn't say "Listen, if he opens his mouth again, I'm going to do something that is worth going to jail for" or "Honestly?  He told my mother to go fuck herself, my sister that she was a pill popping control freak, and me that I was a useless piece of shit: please, just take him with you."

I know I've talked about his drinking here before - about my issues with being lucky enough to be blessed with three alcoholic parents, in particular, so if you've been around, you know it's a problem.*  I probably don't talk about it as much as I should, because - no matter that I have no fault in it, and there's nothing I can do to stop it - it feels shameful, it feels like I should keep it quiet.  And, to be honest, it's a little embarrassing because I can't just move out and put myself in a better environment: I am dependent upon my family, financially. 

I also try not to say things that hurt people's feelings here, even though they don't read it. (And hopefully never will.)  But the truth is the truth, and I'm sick of pretending that this is not a life or death, you are ruining our family type of deal.

The fight last night was vicious.  He has this ability to take out the sharpest arrow in his arsenal, hone it to its finest point, and hit your most vulnerable spot dead center.  Tell my mom she's a drunk (although saying "you're a worse alcoholic than I am" probably doesn't make the point you were hoping for);  tell my sister that she "moved in and took over", because you know she's overly sensitive about having to live at home; tell me that I "contribute nothing but a bunch of dirty dishes", because you know it wounds me that I can't do things around the house to help out.  Make sure you dip all those arrows in as much vile poison as they can hold, before you send them.  That's his way.

And then, THEN, he rants and raves about how he has no place in this family, how he wants to be left the fuck alone, how there are no relationships left for him with us, and how that's all our fault.

It probably is my fault that I don't want to give you more ammunition to use against me.  Probably is my fault that I can't feel safe enough in my own home to come out to the kitchen if I know you're out there drinking.  Definitely is my fault that I've been locking myself in my room at night, because I don't want to be around you, because I know if I go out there I'm not going to be able to hold my tongue, and you're not going to be able to hold your temper, and we wind up right back where we are now: You got to yell and scream and curse and stab at people with your insults, and the rest of us get to wander around dazed and betrayed, stunned that we let ourselves get hurt again.  Yeah: that all seems like my fault.

It's definitely my mom's fault if she's "a cold, unfeeling bitch", because everybody wants to be close to someone who makes them feel like shit.  It's my sister's fault that she's not willing to "forget about what happened before", even though it was traumatizing to everyone (including you), and you made promises that you never kept.  It's definitely my brother-in-law's fault that he had to start shoving all his belongings in an empty laundry basket because god forbid someone should treat him or his wife with love, courtesy or respect, even though they do so much for you.

The thing is, I know, in his mind, that he's the victim in all this.   I know that because he stated it very clearly, over and over and over again last night: he was not going to be fucking apologizing for anything he said, if anything he was owed the apology from us.  Because we started it, we attacked him, and all he was doing was "cooking, drinking and minding his own fucking business."  Never mind that that business included doing the thing you promised us you wouldn't do: we don't have the "right" to hold you accountable for that.  Never mind that once someone did call you on your bullshit you started yelling, calling people names, threatening them, using your place as "the moneymaker" to try to bully us into shutting up, trying to throw us out of the house.   That's all acceptable behavior, right?

He didn't go to work today (he "didn't sleep well"), and now he's wandering around upstairs pouting, probably/I'm 99.99% sure.  That's too damn bad: I don't have any answers for you - you want a place in this family you better figure out a way to fix things, because I am D O N E trying to figure it out for you.  Yeah: I love you.  Yeah: I'll miss you if you have to go.  But you can't stay like this.  Or I can't... One of us is going to have to make some real fucking changes.  And, as far as I can tell, only one of us has done anything wrong.

And it sure as hell isn't me.

Sticking up for myself, my sister, my mother and my family?  Not wrong.
Calling your behavior abusive when it is?  Not wrong. (And not "verbal assault" either, asshole.)
Dumping your precious wine down the sink?  Probably a little bit wrong, but only because I lost my cool there: should've stayed calmer.  The dumping part I'm ok with, because Fuck That Shit.
Ignoring you now, even though I know you're just waiting for me to say something, anything, so you can either walk right in or stomp all over me again?  Not wrong.

Let me make this 300000% clear - to myself, and to the sister who needs to hear it, and just happens to read my blog - WE DID NOTHING WRONG.  It is not ok to say the things he said, no matter if we started the argument - we didn't say anything out of bounds to him, but he certainly did to us.  His bullying is NOT OUR FAULT.  THE END.

Of course, it feels like it could be our fault.  Her fault for saying something in the first place, she says; my fault for not just walking away and letting it drop, I think.  But that's just some textbook Over Developed Sense of Responsibility right there.  Over time, everything feels like our fault - when people are happy, when they're not, how they act because of their mood - all of that is not in our control, but it feels like it should be.

Example: Last night's big blow out (which follows our last really big blow out by only 6 months, with about 3 less major ones in between) came immediately following his vacation, last week.  That's 9 days of holding your breath, tiptoeing around, hiding yourself in your room (or at work, or in the cellar, or at someone else's house: Hell I even stayed later at the HOSPITAL so I wouldn't have to come home) so that you don't accidentally say something to set him off.  He, of course, doesn't see it like that, but the rest of us do.  If I'm going to keep a fight from happening I either have to a)pretend that I'm fine with the drinking and drunk him and all that comes along with that (overly affectionate fakeness, pushing food on you repeatedly, an inability to take no for an answer about anything) or b) not be in the same room with him.  I chose, for as much as I was able, option b.  For nine days.  My sister and her husband ate with him more, choosing lite option A and a huge dose of option B (cellar time ALL NIGHT LONG).  And my mom, well she usually can't get away with B, and even though she doesn't do a good job of pretending (i.e: we can all tell she's pissed off at him), he doesn't really notice, so that's the way our week went.

It was only after all that shit that my sister came home from work yesterday and called him on his drinking (A bit of an explanation first: following last ginormous traumatizing fight, he swore off drinking.  That lasted a week.  Since then he has told us that he won't drink at all.  Then he changed it to "I won't drink when I'm cooking" Then it was "I won't have more than 1 glass/2 glasses/3 glasses a night"  Last night he was at 2.5 glasses when she walked in).  And then spent the rest of the night crying, saying she shouldn't have started anything.

She didn't start it, and I want her to get that.  (Hi.  I know you get it, but you don't feel it.  That's ok, too, but just so you know: I know this wasn't your fault.)  He can lay the blame at our feet - hers for daring to say something, mine for not shutting my mouth when he wanted me to, my mom's for not sticking up for him "while I was being assaulted" - but we all know the truth about where it goes.  This is his fault, and that's all there is too it.

Another sister and I were talking recently, about babies. About how much we want them and don't have them, and are scared it may never happen for us.  (Which, let's not talk about that right now) And she said something about never letting her kids sleep over, out of fear of what his moods would be like, and it sort of killed me (because I love my niece and nephews so much and would hate not to be able to spend time with any of them), and at the same time I understood perfectly.  I want a baby more than anything, but I would never bring it into this house the way it is right now.  Never.

So don't give me all this shit about how you just can just "cook, and drink, and mind my own fucking business",  because it is my business.  Because I love you, and because I love them, and because, god damn it I'm trying really fucking hard to love myself.  And I can't love a person who lets other people walk all over them - or her family.  So, I know you're going to do as you please (who knows it better than me**), but it's not going to be crushing me anymore.  It's not going to be hurling abuse at the people I love anymore.  And if that means that I've lost two fathers to alcohol, I'm going to say that that really sucks.  And I'm going to be horribly sad.  But I'm not going to lose myself just so you can be a happy drunk.

 



*And I'd just like to say that my Mom, whose own issues with alcohol have been pretty intense and troubling, has been sober for almost four months now, and I couldn't be prouder of her.  Yes, it was a decision she made based on medical necessity, but I think every addict's decision to get sober is medically necessary, and she's working really hard on it, which is amazing. 

**My biological father slipped into his alcoholism sometime before I 9, and our relationship was rocky from that point on.  Eventually, 11 years ago this July, it took his life.

(PS - Spell check? If Unreedemed is a word, why isn't unredeeming?)

I spent the week feeling like I was in the middle of an ocean, floating and bobbing along, attempting to eat crackers and drink ginger ale without having them revisit me. That's what I get for trying new drugs. And now that that is starting to truly pass (hey: I ate real, non-cracker foods today... this is a plus! Except do you know what happens to your stomach when you try to put non-cracker foods in it after a week of crackers? It does not take kindly to the intrusion, I can tell you that!), I get to have huge emotional upheavals instead! Hooray!

Seriously. Sometimes I think moving to Australia* might be the wisest choice. I'm starting to think of aliases, see which ones fit me best. I don't want to talk about it again, right now, but suffice it to say that I have both cried and cursed more in the last 8 hours then I have in the last three years. Easily. If you are guessing that the drama is somehow sister related, you would be correct. You would also be correct if you guessed that there was no actual resolution (peaceable or otherwise) /conclusion achieved in the final analysis of the day. In fact, while I think some very important things were said, I'm not sure if any of the important things that needed to be accomplished were accomplished. But I tried. God almighty, I don't think I could have tried any harder, and that's all anybody can ask of me.

By "anybody", I of course mean 'anybody but me ', since I apparently am not satisfied with having done my best, but instead am upset that I wasn't able to achieve miracles and (our little) world peace while I was at it, but that's just because I am kind of a jerk to myself.

I am going to go and find something completely unredeeming to watch on television, or some cracktastic type of book to read, or a computer game that will devour my soul for a few hours. (Or perhaps all three of those things at the exact same time.) Anything to not be me for a little bit.


I'll check back in with you all soon, and hope your weekend is full of bright spots that don't include crackers or drama (unless crackers &/or drama are your idea of happiness, in which case, have at it!)


*Bonus points for all children's lit majors who managed to find the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad portion of today's post.