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.

Dear Media Relations Person, Susan G. Komen Foundation -

I'm sure you're getting a metric ton of these e-mails and letters, and wading through them is both frustrating and overwhelming.  I know the feeling - I have probably the same amount of medical bills and test results and doctor's notes to wade through myself. Because I live with illness, I live with paperwork.  And because it's your job, so do you.  I doubt you were expecting all of this, however - all these critical, disappointed, stinging responses to your new policy of cutting funding for Planned Parenthood

Here's the thing - I am sure that you started at this job because you wanted to help people with cancer: can't think of any other earthly reason why else you'd be working for a Foundation (usually) known for it's dedication to eradicating, educating about, and researching into the causes of breast cancer.  I just did a little research into the Foundation, which I'd heard of, of course, but knew very little about - I'm sorry to hear of Ms. Komen's personal battle with breast cancer, and touched by the fact that her loss led to the the salvation of many other women: it's a great tribute to her, and for her sister to have created the Foundation in her name is truly inspiring. 

 I am sure, given those circumstances, and all that you all have done in the past 30 years to further the cause, that all of this negative attention is probably pretty disheartening, and I'm sorry for that.

But what's not inspiring is bigotry, ignorance or discrimination.  And what's also disheartening is your organization's new policy, which is both antithetical to your stated goals of "to eradicate breast cancer by advancing research, screening, care and education," but also short sighted and, frankly, appalling. 

I personally, (and every woman I have spoken to on the subject, as well as those who are leaving messages on your Facebook page and sending e-mails and writing blog posts) fail to see how defunding cancer screenings - and let's be clear, that is ALL you are defunding, cancer screenings and treatments (17% of Planned Parenthood's services) - for (mostly) lower-income women will help you to attain your "vision of a world without breast cancer."  That's not logical, it's not honest, and it sullies the good work you have done (or will continue to do). 

Politics, although very few seem to recognize this, has no place in medicine.  There is nothing 'pro-life' about cutting off the ONLY route many women/men will have to prevent, treat, or cure their breast cancer.  It is hypocritical of your Foundation to hide behind 'policy changes' and obscure new rules about 'organizations under investigation', when your own executives are the ones who are leading the charge for those investigations, and whose only motivation is their own political agenda. 

An organization such as yours, which claims to be "For the Cure", which has done so much in pursuit of that cure should not be discriminating against women who need your help.  For any reason.  You should be above the political maneuverings on a divisive issue, when it has absolutely nothing to do with what you are fighting for.

I'm not saying your executives should support Planned Parenthood if they are against some of the things that go on there, but your Foundation?  Whose only mission is to 'eradicate' this illness?  Should continue to support the people on the front lines - the women and men who need screening and treatment and care, the doctors and nurses who provide that care, the technicians and specialists who evaluate the needs of the patients - no matter where they are practicing.  This new policy, is egregious and should be corrected IMMEDIATELY. 

I mentioned my own illness in the beginning of this letter, and while it isn't breast cancer, without the help of local clinics, many funded through private foundations and organizations like your own, my life would be very different right now.  I would not - do not - have the resources to battle it on my own, and would have no way or receiving them without help.  I cannot condone or understand an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to such a noble goal - eliminating breast cancer, The End. - making such an ill-conceived and deadly decision.  Because make no mistake, for women like me, who depend on places like Planned Parenthood for their care, taking away those sort of places, is taking away our only chances of survival. 

I don't send my money or donate my time to organizations that think it's ok to discriminate against whole segments of the population, or who put politics before their own goals and the needs of the people they're supposed to be meeting.  That is what you are doing with this new decision.  I hope that you will reconsider your policy shift, and make this right.  Until that change is made, please know that you will not be getting my support, nor, I suspect, the support of many others.

Sincerely,

I've been writing letters

Some actually got sent (mostly advocacy ones), and some are just rolling around in my brain, and some I typed up just to get them to stop rolling around in my brain - with no plan of ever sending them.  But there might be a couple of letter posts in a row, here, just so you know.  To start us off, here are two that go together -

Dear Therapist Who Apparently Has No Compassion/Home Health Aide Who is Too Rough/Nurse Who is Rolling Your Eyes Right Now,

     I know my grandmother is stubborn - it's kind of a point of pride, in our family, that we are all 'strong willed,' but nobody as much as she.  I know that, at 94, it is sometimes hard for her to adapt to new situations as quickly as you all would like her to.   But I think it also would behoove you to remember that she's not stupid, that she did, somehow survive for these past 94 years, doing the best she could.  This is a woman who has lived through a lot - 2 World Wars, technically!  A major car accident! Being a nurse on the maternity ward when losing mothers and babies was seen as the cost of doing business!  She has raised nine children, one with Down's Syndrome, and helped raise at least one of her grandchildren.  She lost her mother when she was a child, her father almost 40 years ago, all of her 5 siblings, half of her children as adults, and her spouse.  She's a tough lady, is what I'm saying, and she's hurting.  Physically and emotionally. 

So, maybe you take your time going through today's exercises with her, or cut her some slack for not doing them when she had the stomach flu?  Maybe you take her word for it when she says that something feels different, not just assume it's just something she never noticed before. No: she won't always follow directions blindly, which might be easier for you, but wouldn't be for her.  It's pretty reasonable for her to ask questions about something she knows very little about, so maybe rolling your eyes isn't the best response.  Also?

Could you look up from your god damn schedule/paperwork/planned assignment for today just for a minute and recognize that what you want to do and what she needs are not always the same thing?  She's not inside your little laptop - she's sitting right in front of you, and she's scared (though she'd never tell you that) and she's pissed (which you might have gleaned) and she's frustrated (because '8 weeks should be long enough!') and she's hurting (because she fell down the stairs.  And broke her arm.  And had five screws put in.  And is ninety four frigging years old!)  

So let's try out that bedside manner you're supposed to have in there somewhere, and give empathy a shot for a little bit.  It won't hurt you, I promise.  And it'll make things a whole lot easier on her.  

Trying not to hate you right now,

NTE


Dear Every Other Person We Have Worked with in the Past 8 Weeks,

     I appreciate your patience and your kindness and your understanding with my grandmother.  I know she has not always been the best patient, but thank you for realizing that it is for valid reasons, and that she's doing the best she can, even when all that is is refusing to do what you want her to do.  She really is recovering incredibly well, and I know it is, in large part, due to your help.  She knows it too, and I think, has shown you all how grateful she is (even though she is also telling you how frustrating it is to need your help).  Many of you have commented on her spirit, and how gutsy she is: I agree.  Some of you have noticed when she is feeling a little low, and have tried to listen to what she needs - even if all that is is listening, or cutting her toenails, or remembering to wipe your feet before you come into her house when it's raining out, and I could not appreciate it more.  She's a special lady, my grandmother, and it's nice to know you all think so too.  

With my very sincere thanks,

NTE

Got caught up watching M*A*S*H* marathon: How awesome is M*A*S*H*?  When I was in high school, and being home tutored for most of my classes, M*A*S*H* was on about three different channels at different points during the day, and I made my way through what I assume was all eleven years worth of shows. (M*A*S*H* was only one of a few shows I could watch with Nana and not have to listen to her complain about how horrible the world was during every scene: A show about war, she had no complaints about the downfall of our society; Friends, on the other hand made her think the apocolypse was right around the corner. :shrug:)

Every so often though, I am flipping my way through, and TV Land will have one on that I either didn't catch back then, or have completely forgotten about.  But the one that sucked me in tonight was the one where the reporter comes and does a documentary on the whole crew, and how a M*A*S*H* unit runs, and is basically a highlight reel of the seasons up till that point.  And even though I know it is coming, when they show the clip of Radar reading the message that Colonel Blake has died?  I can't help but tear up.  Considering I didn't watch the show until 13 years after it had gone off the air, I had no idea what was coming, and so it was still unexpected for me, still shocking.  And I thought about what it must have been like, watching the show religiously, back when it first aired, and to have that happen.  It's not real, obviously, but that kick, that gasp, that's real.

When my father died, I had just turned twenty, and we hadn't really spoken - aside from terse politeness and arguments during which he berated me as unsympathetic and I struggled not to cry - for quite a few years.  He was a less-than-functional alcoholic, and I was his oldest daughter, the one who had to take care of all the things he forgot - like having a birthday party for my nine year old sister, or picking up the pieces when he had disappointed my brother yet again, or helping my grandmother figure out how to deal with Child's Services when his ex-girlfriend called and reported him just for spite - and I had, by that point had my fill of it.  He was irresponsible, and I, Ms. Uber Responsible, was just done playing along like everything was fine.  When the back porch door to my grandmother's house would creak open, I would automatically tense, look at the clock, and hope against hope that it was anybody but him.

It was the ultimate reversal: as a little girl, whose daddy was in the navy her entire life, I had spent years wishing that he would come home again.  But during that period, after he'd been kicked out of the Navy and moved back home to live with my grandparents, I spent an awful lot of time wishing he would stay away.

But today, watching M*A*S*H* and remembering that tiny gasp I had when Henry Blake's plane crashed over the Sea of Japan, I was also tackling a chore I'd been putting off for a while - going through the Mass Cards, regular cards, and funeral book that I somehow gained custody of after my father died - and I remembered the much bigger kick, the full body freeze that I felt when my mom told me he had died.

And I remember thinking that it couldn't be true, that I was somehow misunderstanding her, and looking at my brother's face, and the horror and fear that was so clear in his face, and thinking: "I should be feeling like him."  But I was frozen, at first - I'm not sure I can explain how stuck I really seemed to be - it was like people around me were talking and acting in a way I thought was appropriate to the situation, and I was a step back, physically doing the things I knew I should be doing  - heading straight over to my sister and grandmother, holding them while they cried; comforting people at the wake; not breaking down when his mentally disabled brother couldn't understand why he wouldn't get up out of the casket - but I wasn't in my body while I was doing those things.  I did them because that's what you do: wakes and funerals and phone calls and thank you notes - I took the steps one after the other, and did the best I could.

But here I am, twelve years later, having carried all of this stuff - the flower cards and 'guest book' (they should really call it something other than that), the crucifix he held and the ginormous bible they gave us along with his ashes - to the new house, packed away in a box in the basement, forgotten.  Except we're trying to clean the basement, and there was this white paper bag, full of things I didn't want to face, and didn't know what to do with.

Here are all the lists I had to make post-wake, in order to organize the thank you notes, which I had taken charge of (Please, god, give me something to be in charge of!): who knew these people, which great-uncle's church group had sent this card, did anybody have an address for Mr & Mrs So & So?  (My father's death came in the middle of clump of family deaths - one each summer for three years - so I had learned a lot about funeral etiquette at my grandfather's funeral the year before: how you're supposed to put your address on the envelope of the Mass Card, so that grieving people don't have to track you down to say thank you. But my friends, my brother's friends, my sister's friends - they were all young... some as young as nine, and (luckily) inexperienced in the ways of funerals, and so there was some extra legwork to be done.)  

Here are the 45 or so perpetual Spiritual Bouquets, for a guy who was over the Catholic Church and what he called all its hypocrisy.  Here are the smaller cards from the flower bouquets - one from my brother sister and I, one from his mom, one from his brothers and sisters.  And the memory of a card which is missing - that of his volatile ex-girlfriend.

{ I can't seem to find a post in which I talk about how crazy fucked up my father's wake was, but it's long so I'm not going to get it all in here tonight (Maybe tomorrow's post, if I can get it to make sense to anybody who wasn't there).  Suffice it to say, she was not welcomed at the wake, and her flowers were disposed of.  }

But there's all these things and I don't know what you're supposed to do with them: Do I have to hold on to them forever, because it seems disrespectful to just toss them in the recycling?  Should I ask my brother and sister if they want them, even though neither of them are practicing religious anymore either?  I don't know who left me with all of these stupid grown up things to have to think about.

In the end, I weeded through them, keeping some of the ones I figured would be most important (although I still might get rid of those as well: I know who was there for me then, I don't need these cards to prove it), and putting the rest, with a thankful heart, in the bin.  (Even though it felt a little sacrilegious, even to this extremely Ex-Catholic.)  I'll give my brother and sister a heads up that I have some, if they want them, and I'll get rid of the rest, no sense dragging it along if it just feels like baggage.

And I'm surprised by how much baggage there still seems to be.

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?"*

It's finally snowing here in Massachusetts - three quarters of the way through January, and the shovels have only been out once (a freak storm the last weekend in October): if that's not some evidence that the climate is screwy, I don't know what is.  I've mentioned before that I find the snow both calming and serene - an unpopular opinion around here, which undoubtedly stems from the fact that I don't do any of the shoveling, or really have to interact with its actual coldness and freeze at all, but I'd much rather it snowed in the winter than rained.  Winter rain is the most depressing weather: too gray and sad, all of the wet and none of the fluff of snow.  It m akes me shiver just to think of it. Spring rains feel necessary, as if we need a good hosing down before moving into the next, and summer rains are almost always exciting: refreshing after the heat, filled with thunder and lightening, moving quick and powerful like.  Rain in the fall is like the clean up crew again - scrubbing clean the trees, stripping things bare and a reminder that the year is coming to an end.  But winter rain serves no purpose - 'it's not cold enough to snow', it tells you,' but it might as well be. You feel how wet this is?  It's all for nothing.'  Snow is just cozy in a way winter rain will never be - even its isolation is beautiful.

No, if there has to be precipitation in the winter, it ought to be snow - something you can watch coming down and remember all the times they cancelled school and you got to watch game shows all day long, or all the snowmen you tried to make that never made it past your shin but you were still proud of them anyways. 

It's funny because last winter it snowed so much they started talking about holding school on Saturdays, kids had missed so much time.  And this year, so far, there's not been more than three or four inches at a time, and most of that has blown or melted away on its own.  Even today, although it's been snowing for a couple of hours now, the grass is still poking through in some spots, the inch or so that we've got seems thin, just enough to muffle things a bit, not even a full blanket.  It's supposed to go for most of the day, though, so there's hope for a more complete covering. 

Either way, I'm planning on spending the day with some hot chocolate, the radio, some blankets and something good to read.  I hope your Saturday is filled with things that you enjoy, as well.  

*J. B. Priestley

In the ball pit

I do this thing where I start thinking - really thinking - about something that's important: Have you noticed this about yourself?  Is there a reason why you have to run your mouth like that/act so awkward around new people/ be unbelievably cranky for no good reason?  And as soon as the truth about the thing starts rushing at me - as soon as I'm starting to get to the meat of the issue, or when it starts to sort of click in my head that this is not a unique occurrence, that I sometimes act like this and maybe it is a pattern... well, when the truth starts rushing at me, I start rushing away.  Is there anybody who needs tending or talking to, or playing with?  Isn't there a show on right now that I can escape into, be mindless with?  Isn't there a book I could read that would take me anywhere but here, facing the truth?  It's such an uncomfortable feeling, this realizing things about yourself, and I would do just about anything to avoid it, I think. 

When it does come, and I have seen the whole, frustrating, ill fitting truth about myself, it sticks in my brain: a large scaly burr just big enough and irritating enough to block out anything else.  I have no other qualities except  this uncomfortable truth - I am no longer a good person, a caring sister, a hard worker - I am only an inveterate gossip, a gigantic fraud, a loathsome individual who feels lonely until she's with people and then wants nothing more than to be left alone.  Even though I know that this is not true - that all the good things I am or do are not obliterated by some newfound/newly understood flaw in my character - it is how it feels, and sometimes how it feels is how it is. 

I have recently come to quite a few uncomfortable realizations about myself, and trying to integrate those things - a certain pettiness here, a confounding inability stick to the straight facts there - into my vision of who I am is proving more difficult than I'd have guessed. I have always known that I wasn't perfect ~ contrary to what others may think, I am well aware that my goody-two shoes image is just something other people see me as - I have never seen myself as such, and wouldn't really care to.  But these inconsistencies in my character - the difference between who I want myself to be and who I really am, these are things I want to fix, to change.  And that means recognizing them first, figuring out how deep they run and (maybe) where they come from, and how to stop doing them.  It's a lot of heavy mental lifting, and, for a person who has limited reserves of any kind of energy - physical, mental, emotional - it certainly seems Sisyphean. 

So I keep looking for low energy escapes - can I ever get my Google Reader below a thousand again?  Is Reddit being entertaining or insulting today?  Is there any way I can get my uncle to have a conversation with people so that they don't think he's an ogre? Let me organize every photo you've ever taken in your whole life! - and then condemning myself for needing these escape routes.  It feels like I'm stumbling around kicking at little pebbles, all the while trying to avoid all the heavy boulders I know I have to move if I want to move forward, but just can't even look at yet. 

It feels that way about everything - about all the work I have to do to manage my illnesses (and the question of when I decided that just 'managing' is enough for me), about all the things in my own behavior that I'd like to change; about all the topics in my family that need addressing, and all the ways we find of not addressing them; about not making time for friends and then wondering why they aren't making time for me; about the world as a whole and all the things spinning out of control in it.  It just feels like there's too many important things that should get looked at, poked at, lifted up and examined, fixed, and I don't want to touch a single one of them. 

A perfect example in the physical world is that my space is still not undecorated from Christmas - oh, the actual decorations are down, but the furniture is still all in the wrong places for every day living.  Thus making it more difficult to do things like get towels, because we moved the cart that holds the towels behind the chair, so you have to climb over the chair to get ready to take a shower.  It's little ridiculous things like that, but also huge life changing things like deciding to call the PT again, and see where that takes me, or actually changing my diet enough to prevent this diabetes thing from happening - and I just don't want to face any of it at all. 

And here I write the necessary caveats that "we've all been sick since Christmas! - and I mean sick sick, like the flu that won't die sick" and "I've just spent two months caring for a wonderful lady, whose head is harder than the stairs she fell down!" and "blah blah blah Chronic Illness, you idiot!" but all of that  - while true and real and just so much - doesn't feel like enough of a reason to let everything else pass me by.  I never feel like I am juggling half of the balls I need to juggle, there's just me, standing with maybe the three or four largest, most fragile balls, throwing them up and catching them (sometimes by the skin of my teeth, but still, catching them), and all the while, the floor around me is littered with a million other smaller balls.... It's basically me, standing up to my waist in the ball pit of Chuck E Cheese, trying to catch all these biggest balls, but knowing I've let a thousand more go.   And not knowing which of those thousand was the next most important - the one that needed me now, and I won't get to it for another three weeks.

I don't know what to do about all that - how to climb out of the ball pit, or juggle better, or even begin identifying the colors of all the stupid things I'm standing in.  I know this feeling will pass, or fade, because it has in the past, but it never goes away... I'm always fumbling something, and I wish I knew how to stop. 

Flu

I suppose, after that title, I don't have to do a lot of explaining as to where I've been.  Without going into too much detail (you're welcome), I had a pretty rough week, and am still on the mend here, but finally feeling semi-human again.  Now I just need Mum to recover from her bug ~ which seems to include a hacking cough from which I was thankfully spared - and then I'll be able to take a real shower again, and up hopefully up that to actual human being.  Just exhausted, mostly, still.  That's going to linger for a bit, I know, which is frustrating. 

I will mention, however, that the flu bug most likely came courtesy of my grandmother's visiting nurse, who TOLD US, the day my grandmother and uncle both came down with it, that she probably brought it in with her the previous day, as "all her patients seemed to be getting it."  Hmm... Maybe - and this is just a thought - you should check your hygiene practices if you're going around spreading the flu to your (mostly elderly & infirm) patients?  I think you might be missing a step somewhere.  Now, if I could just get UJ to hand them all the Purell bottle when the walk in the door.  (Although 3 out of 4 of them always smell like it when they come in, and usually do it again as soon as they take off their coats.  But it's that fourth one that sneaks up on you, I guess.)  Both Grandmother and UJ had it, then I brought it home with me, and poor Mum picked it up last.  Everybody is doing much better, but I'm going to make Mum call the doc tomorrow about that cough (with her COPD, it can get complicated pretty fast). 

So flu.  Which leaves me with no interesting stories, no internet wanderings to report, no nothing.  But I figured I'd check in and tell y'all that, even though this winter has been unseasonably warm, it is still finding ways to kick my ass.  Now, let's have some good stuff happen, so I have things to talk about, shall we?

Am heading to my (overburdened and I know it has erased all the oldest thousands of posts) Google Reader next, to see how all of you are doing out there.  Hope none of it includes the word flu.

On the plus side, though, I did re-watch all of Firefly yesterday (I still haven't written the post about how traumatizing it was when I recently lent the DVDs to my sister and she gave them back because it was - gulp - 'boring and talky'  I may never recover enough to lend them out again); caught a marathon of Quantum Leap (no lie, I definitely had a crush on Dr. Sam Beckett when I was younger.  And yet I didn't think I was a geek?  I obviously did not understand the word); watched 34 episodes of Match Game 76! (I miss game shows: aside from Jeopardy, the ones on now aren't worth watching, and that makes me sad); and cleaned out about 50% of my DVR - so I definitely accomplished something. 

In which I morph from Grumpy to Weepy, all in four short paragraphs!

For a large portion of the day, I felt so grumpy that I didn't think I should be allowed around other humans.  I almost typed "grumpy for no good reason", but then I thought about it, and it was more like "grumpy for a thousand good reasons, but none that I can do anything about right this second", which basically amounts to the exact same thing.  I came here, all prepared to write (yet another) endless rant about lord only knows what, but sometime in the last half hour, while sitting at the table with my family eating a very late dinner, the majority of those bad feelings shrunk down to manageable, and I think I'll save the rant for another day.  For tonight, I think I'll tell you how glad I am that I'm just sitting here, wandering around through the internet, while most of the people I love are accounted for. 

It seems, at least to me, that my life - and the lives of the people I am closest to - has become a series of blundering our way through one emergency to another, from one crisis to the next, ricocheting from one hectic gathering to the last, often leaving very little time for essentials of life, such as breathing or eating.  Every day has taken on an urgency that didn't used to be there, and at the same time, leaves me with such a useless, futile feeling: It's as if I'm running as hard as I can, and getting nowhere, not understanding that there's a treadmill beneath my feet as opposed to a street.

Moving all the time - at least mentally - and making no progress.  Even the areas where I can see progress being made, it feels like so little, too little to ultimately matter.  I am that prototypical lone sailor, trying to bail out my boat with a teaspoon, only some days, it seems more like a thimble.  So it's a rare treat when I can stop running for a little while, put down the teaspoon/thimble, and just be.
And even a half hour of just being.  Of just letting a good book take me far away, or sitting with my family at dinner listening to them bitch, or here, in the dark talking to you fine people, is invaluable.  (Literally had to just google invaluable to make sure it meant what I wanted it to mean.  It does: you guys are priceless, google says I say so.)   Back to the bailing, would appreciate larger spoons. 

Oh goodness (AKA here are some parenthesis that I think you'd find interesting)

So ~ how was your December?  Eventful, I'm sure.  Mine, as well. 

In lots of good ways (holidays, Grandmother getting discharged from rehab, lots of sleepovers, etc, etc) and lots of not so good ways (pretty much that exact same list, plus all of the illness-y issues myself and others were kind enough to contribute) as well.

I took a bit of an unscheduled break there, for a little bit, but only because... well I didn't have any brain cells, energy atoms, or unattended moments to spare.  (Did you know that your inbox will stop receiving e-mails after a certain number?  Or that Google Readers could - not literally - overflow?  Or that the entirety of the world wide web would continue without you?  Now you do!)  Not because I didn't have posts I planned to write (and composed on during my daily drives out to/back from the rehab), or because I needed a break after NaBloPoMo (quite the opposite, actually: I was pretty psyched to keep going), but just because there was none of me leftover to sit and type with, at least not at an appropriate time, anyways (as in, when I was near the computer).  So, unscheduled blog break, it is.

Yesterday was our first full day without any extra people (people I love dearly, but now it is so! quiet!) in the house since Christmas, and I spent it at Grandmothers, trying to make sure she had what she needed (a little dose of "sanity", and a sponge bath care of Mum) and chatting about relatives I never knew, some apparent candidates for sainthood and others surely roasting in the fires of (imaginary) hell.  I am still trying to decide if it would be better if I packed up & moved in over there for a little bit, but it's an impossibly difficult decision for a million (totally overwhelming to only me) reasons, and I'm just doing the best I can to be in both places (often at once) for now... that might have to change soon, I don't know.  And today I was back over there to monitor her PT while my uncle drove SisterK to the airport to head back to Iowa, plus my mom had to have a liver biopsy (as follow up to her stint in the hospital), and then I came home just in time to be scolded by no less than 4 people (for completely ridiculous/arbitrary/WTF-ish reasons), and it's been a wonderful sort of day.

In other words, things are SNAFU( Situation Normal, All Fucked Up) here in NTE-land.

BUT: I am going to start eeking out some writing time, because I'm doing that 'my brain is a ticking time bomb' thing again, and that's not good for anybody.  (ANYBODY)  In the meantime, Happy New Year, everybody... have we decided yet if we're hoping for the Global Thermonuclear Zombiepocalypse this year, or not?  Cuz I'm still kind of on the fence. (Ok, not really.  But I might be, if I have to watch any more Republican debates/caucus/still in existence crap.) 

Just... no

Doing some of my christmas shopping online this year (as most years), I've come across some things that are definitely NOT on my giving/receiving lists.  I thought I'd share a few of them with all of you, in case you wanted to punish someone on your list: 

Beer Belly  - a pouch you can fill with liquid, wear strapped to your stomach, and drink out of with a tube.  This sounds reasonable to people?  (Oh, and in case that's just not girly enough for you, there's also the Wine Rack, which is basically a sports bra you can drink from.)

You say you're not a big drinker, but still, somehow want to show that you have no manners?  Try these Bear Claw Forks, so you can just rip right into your food.

You could buy this Hand Grenade Soap for any of your lovely friends, so long as you're not flying anywhere over the holidays.

Now see, this Magazine Cover Pillow Case isn't such a bad idea, at its core.  But the ad for it - in all its sexist glory - pissed me off so much that even if I loved them, I wouldn't buy it. 

That's just the beginning of the ridiculousness I've seen so far... If I find others worth commenting on, I'll be sure to pass them on. 

Checking in

Guess I needed a little breather there, huh?  Actually, it's just been more of the same: rehab with Grandmother most every day, driving back and forth (worrying about making mom drive me out there every day, when she's supposed to be taking it easier herself), trying to get Christmas stuff done in the in-between times... same old/same old.  Grandmother is improving by (smallish) leaps and bounds: her bruising has gone down remarkably, her arm is healing bit by bit, and she's itching to go home (albeit to the first floor) in time for Christmas.  We'll know more after her review meeting with the staff on Tuesday.   Christmas is progressing as well... I'm not as close to finished as I would like to be with my shopping, but I'm getting there.  Tomorrow is Santa at the mall day (I'm pretty sure No Longer Youngest Nephew is just about over that, which makes me saaad, but I'm going to enjoy it full out, if it's his last one), and I might try to peek at something while I'm there (although that usually doesn't work out so well).  And that's about all I have to say today, but I will try not to be be so scarce now that I've got some words back. 

How's your December going? 

Made it!

Here we are at the end of yet another NaBloPoMo, which makes my 5th November NabloPoMo and my 6th overall (I did a July a year or so ago), all of which I have completed.  Even though at least one of those Novembers included one of the most horrible holidays I've ever experienced, and more than a quarter of the posts tend to mention how I'm either a) feeling horrid or b)not able to think of anything good to say.  I said something, though, for each of those days, for all of those months.  I finished them, and that actually means a lot to me, because I'm so much more likely to see myself as someone who doesn't finish things - not always by choice, but usually by circumstance - and to know that I persevered with this, it definitely feels like something to be proud of.  Especially since Novembers seem to hate me, and this one has been doing its best to ground me into dust.  Still.  Here I am: not dust.  Having completed a goal, and feeling pretty damn good about it.   And to know that I'm here, six years into blogging, and I still (mostly) feel like I've got things to say, and people who show up to listen to them.  So: Thank all the gods and goddesses, including the FSM, that November is over, and let's bring on December and some good news, shall we? 

Nope, not writing today

At least not anything that requires brain cells cooperating with each other.  Am thoroughly (oh my goodness, if you could see how badly I spelled that before spell check fixed it, there would be no need to complete this sentence) exhausted, and not feeling creative at all.  Spent a pretty hard day at the hospital with Grandmother.  Hard only because her pain meds make her confused, and so there were some tough moments when she couldn't keep things straight or thought people who aren't alive any more were still going to come and visit her, but I can deal with that.  It's hard to see her in pain though, and to see how frustrated she is by the fact that she can't do what she wants to do.

 Her roommate has a bleed on her brain somewhere, and her behavior is often confused as well: at one point the OT had her up and walking around, and when she saw Grandmother's face (which, thanks to her blood thinners, is spectacularly bruised), she almost started crying and just kept saying "What happened to you?  What happened to your face?!?"  Grandmother kept asking me who she was, and telling her that she fell down the stairs, but it just got loud and started to spiral up into semi-chaotic cloud of craziness.    At that point, it took a lot for me not to start crying too, because between the two of them it was just randomly intense... they each played into the other's bewilderment, and I heaved a huge sigh of relief when the doctors came in to talk to the roommate (who seems like a perfectly lovely woman, btw) and her family. Her family seems so lost, I could see on her daughter's face the sense of "what the hell is going on? and why can't the doctors fix it?" and I felt so badly for them, wishing I could help.  And knowing exactly how hard it is to look into the face of someone who has loved you every minute of your entire life, and not know how to help them. 

I seem to be spending a lot of time doing that lately, and I am not appreciating it AT ALL.

Sometimes being a grown-up really sucks, you guys. 

On the plus side, we all apparently survived the end of days

In an apparent effort to ensure that a member of our family has to visit the hospital at least once every two weeks, my 94-year-old grandmother fell, face first, down the fifteen (thankfully carpeted) stairs in her home early yesterday morning.  My uncle heard her fall and rushed down the stairs, where she was gushing blood from a nasty gash on her forehead, struggling to sit up, and frantically asking him if she had gotten any blood on the new wallpaper.  (She had not, in case you, like she, care about that at all: I, in case you were wondering, do not.)

I spent most of the day today at the hospital with her, where I was shocked at her battered appearance, although, I don't know why, since she fell down a flight of stairs - she's mostly black and blue, with two huge cuts on her forehead, as well as numerous smaller cuts on her face.  Her main injury is a broken shoulder bone, which was immediately operated on, because it was putting pressure on (or cutting off ? My uncle is not so good at communicating medical stuff) an artery.  She has various pins and screws holding the arm in place, and the artery was repaired by a graft, but she's in pretty tough shape.  Between her head injury and the pain meds, she wasn't completely on target while we were there - the nurses kept asking us if she was usually more lucid, and I said that she never takes more than an aspirin and she banged her head up pretty badly, so I thought she was doing pretty well, even if she did say "Bahama" was the president, and that we were in a library that she was afraid would be closing soon.  (Also: it is December 28th, 2012 - hence this post's title.)

They're talking about weeks of recovery - hospital and rehab - and this is her second go 'round with all of that, so hopefully it will all go as smoothly as it did last time.  I'm just glad she's doing as well as she is... it was pretty terrifying to read my uncle's e-mail ( I mentioned, about the not being good at communication, right?), and then seeing her today was pretty rough as well.  But tomorrow will hopefully be a little bit better, and we'll get this healing show on the road. 

After all, we have to be in fighting form for the apocalypse, right? 

PS - why do hospitals have to smell like that?  It is hideous. 

For getting up in the morning purposes

(especially if you are the sister who reads my blog: just for you!)

Nymphs are not what you think they are

Did you know a baby llama is called a cria?  Yeah, me either.  There were some other surprises too: just finished reading Chuckling Ducklings and Baby Animal Friends   to LilGirl for her bedtime story, and I was not aware of a lot of those names... Elvers (baby eels), leveret (baby hare), eyas (hawk).  A lot of new information for two very tired brains.  I have a feeling we'll be reading it again tomorrow, just for some clarity.  But the pictures are adorable, and it's pretty cute, overall.  She really loved it, and her big brother was paying attention when we were naming some he didn't know either, so that's a bonus.  It's great when facts are presented in a fun way, you know, so you can trick kids into learning. 

By the way, the title refers to one that wasn't in the book: did you know that a nymph is another name for a baby cockroach or grasshopper?  I'm going to go with grasshoppers, just because roaches should not have such evocatively beautiful names. 

I had a piece of one of these for breakfast, and I'm considering having another piece to take my last round of meds. Pie is totally a health food: FRUIT (or VEGETABLE, depending)! EGGS! SPICES! ~ Good for you! (If you have ever seen Bill Cosby: Himself, then you should have the song 'Dad is great, Give us the chocolate cake!' running through your head right about now, like I do.) Anyways, to repeat myself, YUM.

Hope yours was happy too!

Our Thanksgiving was peaceful, full of yummy food, and about as stress-free as I think I am capable of at this point, so that's pretty awesome.  We played Pictionary, which is always good for some laughs (or rants, depending on how the rest of the day is going):  Today, my brother-in-law (I am still not used to the fact that I now have TWO brothers-in-law) was drawing on his team, and he wasn't feeling great, and they were doing so poorly that he decided to just draw a picture of a sad face, with tears.  "This is me, not wanting to play this anymore," he said when the timer ran out.   I am still laughing about it five hours later.  Because he did look so woebegone, and I thought he was just going to lay down on the floor and take a nap, that's how tired he was.  (And, considering that at least a quarter of the other people in the house were sleeping already, I don't know why he didn't just find a soft spot and curl up, but I am not the boss of everybody.)  Besides, then we would've missed out on his beautiful drawing skills.  

I am not planning on doing any shopping tomorrow, at least not from anywhere except the possible comfort of my computer screen: If you are, more power to you.  I can't think of anything that I want badly enough to go out there with those people, but if you're after something special, I hope you find it easily (and safely!)  As for me, I'm hoping for some quality heating pad time, and am getting a jump start on that right this minute.  Just wanted to sneak in and wish y'all a Happy Thanksgiving, before it was over.

It is pie day.

Four hours, and four pies later, I am to sore to write much.  But the pies look really yummy.  Happy Pre-Turkey Day all! 

In which I tell you about a random website, and you waste time typing a hundred or more words

I'm sorry, what is this website about, again?  I get a kitten every time I get to a hundred words?  This sounds worthy of an investigation.  So I am typing right on through here, and am about a third of a way to a kitten already... what type of kitten is this anyways, Written? Kitten!?  I'm wondering if it's a real picture of a cat, or what? Or a little animated kitten like that stupid paperclip that used to pop up and ask if I needed any help from way back in MS Office, circa 1996? (Since I specifically remember that ridiculous thing showing up during a particularly taxing English paper Junior year.)  Question answered - it is a picture of a cat (or in my case, the back of a cat), from what I assume is some random site on the internets.  I am going to keep typing, however and get to the next hundred, just to double check that it results in a kitten picture every time.  Let's see... it just occurred to me that this would be a time where using the phrase "here kitty, kitty" would actually be appropriate, and, when you're typing, those occasions do not occur often,  (Just FYI - it was another picture of the same kitten, only this time I got to see its face.)  Also? you can adjust the word count that you want to reach (100, 200, 500, 1000), which might have come in handy back when I was typing up those ridiculous papers.  Although: Fair Warning, the site tells you copy and paste often, because it doesn't automatically save your work.  Which would be a major drawback for me, because I often forget to to save things until right after they crash, and I am left starting over again, but if you are smarter than me (Oooh: new kitten.  Also cute: It's got a little freckle on it's nose!), or more obsessed with kittens, then you might want to check it out.  The address is writtenkitten.net/#  Enjoy!