nothing pisses me off more than mundane annoyances (g2)

During this time, I was hoping the only stress I would be suffering would be gaining mastery of my new job now that I’m solo.

I never seem to get off that easily.

We’re still immersed in summer, which can only be summed up as funky, wet stank. So of course, our AC at home has been hit by lightning.

Then, as Spawn is starting school online, I have a neighbor who decided to play with a chainsaw and tear up some wires along the way.

Problem 1 is denied by the warranty company as an act of God, coverage denied. Fine, I have insurance but I need something in writing as to the problem so they can move forward.

The only thing they send me in writing is some bullshit that the AC wasn’t working before the contract in effect. Excuse me, what the fuck?

I don’t know about the rest of you, maybe it’s because I have no one to allocate some of the bullshit of life too…but I have gone beyond my limit of the incompetence, fraud, swindling, lying, cheating and all out fuckery that corporate America calls “customer service.”

What I’m saying is I want to burn this fucking company to the ground and the idiot handling my case with it.

Its now been almost a month of stank heat and suffering. I had to break down to buy a portable unit to make at least Spawn’s days less like hell. Their the ones suffering the most being at home all day.

Problem 2 is the internet. We didn’t know when we moved in we had a dickhead next door, didn’t notice his tiny penis, big truck, “trespassers will be shot” sign nor the fenced in German Shepard right next to the closest pole for both power and internet. It took four visits and a supervisor call to finally get one of those technical badasses who sees every problem as having a solution.

Now that Chainsaw Charlie is on the scene, we’re back to square one and already had one visit from technician ThumbUpHisAss who blew it off and said to call when the construction was done. What construction, you lazy fuck?

There are so many people out of work, why must dead weight hinder progress from those who can and will do? While those who won’t just waste time and space?

So being able to write means sitting in almost 90 degree room with no internet and no breeze. The storms are still going and I am so pissed I could really make a long list of people I’d love to hurt. I have zero empathy anymore and have lost my faith in karma.

When you’re the common man, the one who has never had the power of a retainer, or even a little bit of influence against large overbloated corporations who believe sending mass amounts of survey links asking to rate their customer service instead of actually providing any, what do you do?

In the grand scheme of things, I know my bitching is petty but at the same time, why does this little shit, this insignificant crap have to be blown to immense proportions just to get basic fucking common sense out these greedy sacks of shit? Provide the service you claim to do, that’s all!

With that in mind, I guess it’s really no wonder why no one can figure out how viruses work or why masks are essential or just even, wash your fucking hands?

We cannot even extend common decency and fairness when paid to.

parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth (g2)

I could be paraphrasing this one, but the title was actually a line from G-uno and BFF’s dad. I’ve never so fully understood it until having a kid myself. Granted, …

advice from the last place expected (g2)

You ever hear those jokes about the family gatherings and that one uncle whose always racist or vile as shit? The one who is a complete and utter fucking embarrassment …

sometimes you have to burrow (g2)

I have barely spoken to a soul in the last couple years. I find it troublesome when I get the feeling from a new person that they wish to spark …

so my asshole friend got me into fish (g2)

My former co-worker and friend brought a betta to work not long after I started. I thought the idea was stupid as fuck… why in god’s name would you bring …

oops, so i do it again… (g2)

I have been, for lack of a better word, so immersed into the bullshit of life that the last month has been the last real breath I’ve been able to …

lost my job, need to move, no clue wtf to do and scared shitless (g2)

Well… I feel rather dumb for complaining about things right now, but then again I kind of have to purge it. I have my health, which somehow managed to avoid the death flu and several stomach bugs, I have a great kid who will be going to an advanced art program this summer. My depression has not, so far, kicked into gear. However, I feel like I’m just strong enough to keep that below a crust… for now.

I even have a landlord who tried to give me his rent back when I told him I’d lost my job and said he’d support me getting moved if that is what I felt I needed to do.

End of March, not long after my fifth anniversary, I came into work expecting to have the same soul-sucking experience that is has been over 90% of the time I’ve been there. I’d been training a new manager on how to do everything I did (plotting for a smooth exit), most of which fell back to me as they were getting overwhelmed. They helped field some of the calls and emails coming in, but now we had two of us drowning rather than just me.

But I’ve been there the longest. And I work for a company that epitomizes every single article I’ve ever read about toxic environments. I get no information, no communication, but then am reprimanded when my responses to those outside are “too vague” and not “resolution-driven.” It’s really no wonder that the company itself has had to change names over the course of “twenty years” it likes to brag its been in business. By law, you have to shut down when you report a loss too many years in a row.

The VP… again, not my superior… but is the right-hand to one of the owners….calls me into a conference room around lunch. Everyone is gone and the only other person there is the HR manager.

The writing is on the wall.

“Huh, am I being let go?”

I’m being told yes, and they ask if they need to go over why. I say “I don’t see the point,” and go through the list of where to find anything they might need, forward my phone to the new manager, pack my things in a very small bag (all while being offered a large box several times and professing I don’t need it). I tell them its not like I’m going to disappear so if they can’t find something, just contact me.

It was so surreal.

I’ve never been fired.

I hate this place, but I busted my ass for over five years, and now… fired?

I get in my car and take one last look at the building I feel like I have wasted a chunk of my life on and realize… I NEVER have to come back here…

I realize I’m smiling about this idea.

I realize that I’m so stubborn and have been such a closet optimist that this shithole might actually get better that this might have been just what I needed to leave and make the changes I’ve wanted to make.

I don’t even unfriend the VP on facebook, though she does get moved to the restricted group.

I talk it over with Spawn and let them know what happened and we talk about moving… like… now.

Thirteen years of life to clean out, toss, donate, sell… and so so much. Every time I think we might have gotten through one room, I find yet another box, stash of papers etc.

I would even be grateful if that was the most stressful part.

I’m jobless.

Yes, they are paying me an additional month and told me to file for unemployment (which I’ve yet to see, so apparently I did something wrong). I socked away my tax refund rather than pay anything off or blow it and I have a 401k and a money market investment account I can pull from if I feel like buying a house… a modest house, but a house nonetheless.

I’m ok.

But I don’t feel ok.

I feel on the edge of freaking out.

Every time I’ve ever moved, I’ve usually had a friend or family to stay with until I got settled. And this time, I do have a cousin in the area, but neither of us are the type to share space unless we have to… holidays and that sort of thing. Three days is the expiration.

I’m sure the wife if dodging me when I’m up there for interviews so I don’t ask to move in with them for awhile. But the truth is, I’d live in my car and lie about it before I’d even ask.

It killed me to even tell them I was out of work. They are the pair with which I feel like I’m being graded whenever I’m around them and to ask for advice…. was an intensely hard thing for me to do. They know the area, they might have tips and places I would not think to look. And my cousin, did  have contacts at a couple of the staffing agencies, both of which has sadly done nothing for me.

I’m also prideful as hell. Every time I’ve been through something stressful: divorce, poverty,  a death of someone close to me, I shut out the world and maybe talk about it once I’ve resolved it.

But when you have a kid at stake, you have to put on that face of adulting as though you know what the fuck you’re doing when in truth, we’re all still those kids inside and figuring shit out only when we fuck it up. And when you have a kid at stake and their well-being, you get help wherever you think it might happen no matter how much of a prick your pride tells you to be instead.

I know… I know, logically, we will be fine. It’s been 3 weeks, I’ve submitted to over 90 openings, been in one 3 hour interview doing something I’ve never done before, but was eager over the prospect of learning something new, in spite of the long hours. They won’t decide until the 15th of next month, so I’d prefer not to wait. I’ve had a few other promising phone interviews, but its just not happening as fast as I would like it.

I’m really fucking good at what I do, and when I’m not, I’m very independent about figuring it out. I own my mistakes, I’m as honest as I can be within professional constraints. Hire me, dammit!

But then you also start house hunting, and they tell you to get pre-approved, but then they tell you you won’t qualify if you’re not employed… a friend advised just getting up there in the first cheap postage stamp I could rent, and then start looking and this way I would be available for interviews… which sounds great!… until I look at the daily cost. It’s HUGE and its like NO ONE wants to give you a deal for maybe a month. They are hell bent on locking you in for a year or more.

I want as much as possible to buy a real house.

Spawn wants a real house.

I want a real house.

This is where Spawn wants to finish school.

I don’t have much time before Spawn realizes that living with their parent is just not the way they want to do it forever. So before that period, I want them to have the house I’ve never been able to offer so they can decorate and do and make it, into everything they ever dreamed. I want that too.

But first, I want work… or I want both… or I want to not have to worry about both…I don’t know.

What if I’m just not enough for any of this? The last thing I want is my stress to become Spawn’s stress. I wish I knew what to do…

existential crisis (g2)

I believe all of us go through various stages of our lives where we look up and suddenly think, “I HATE my life right now.”

I did that just before I got a divorce. I did the same when I hated the job and the town I lived in and just found out I was going to be a parent and moved a couple thousand miles back.

I had the same  when Spawn was a few years old and my career was… well, really fucking boring and leaving me strapped. It was mindless, repetitive, and just when I was done and updating my resume, I received a call from a former boss who wanted to lure to me their current company. Not only would I be using more of my brain, it held a significant pay raise.

It was great too, for a while. But one of my co-workers was as mercurial as they come and I was often walking on eggshells. The work itself was great and I was learning a ton, but the environment… not so much. However, a friendly buyout that turned hostile takeover nixed that job for all of us. The best time I had there was when the mercurial one jumped ship early on and the rest of us just didn’t give a shit anymore.

I landed this job right as I was ending that one. The work itself is a mostly mindless again, but the pay, on paper, is better. What I get to take home though, is significantly less than it was at my last job and although I know the benefits are a part of that, I didn’t think they were that big of a chunk.

We’re given no authority over our own position, but then they complain that no one takes initiative. Neither owner can keep their hands out of the cookie jar when things are good, and don’t hesitate to jump your shit when they aren’t. Hell, the CFO’s mom just died last week and one of the owners commented to her yesterday “What the hell is wrong with you, you look like your dog died?” She broke down so badly she had to go home.

Right now, things aren’t so great and its all to do with that fact that when we’re in our busy profitable season, the owners couldn’t buy new toys fast enough, despite my boss continually telling them we would need to sock away what we could for the lean season. They assume no one has their grand vision,  so any counsel is ignored.

This is also when I’m told my communication needs work. I’m the connection the outside world comes to when they want information and when things aren’t going so well, that communication increases by several fold. It means I have to come in and choose whether I’m going to do my job or just sit there and get back to people and I do balance both. But the bottom line is I’m never going to be able to make someone happy if I can’t give them what they were promised and that’s what they want me to do.

So I hate my job. I hate where I live. I hate that I hate both so much that I’m both restless and uninspired to do even the little things. I hate the debt I hold for a degree that has proven nothing but worthless and I feel that it will inhibit everything else I do for the rest of my life.

I want to move, I want to have a cafe, on the side of a cliff with a view to the ocean and I want it too fucking cold to see even a single surfer unless they are batshit insane.

But for not, I would settle for moving to the area where I hope my kid’s future school is and get a job that lets me take home the amount I was promised, or at least a significantly bigger portion than current.

I want to get just a little ahead instead of struggling so far behind.

I want to be inspired.

I want to be challenged mentally.

I feel like a corpse in motion.

i’m getting better… (g2)

I’m trying desperately to catch up with all the items I’ve missed, I have been simply incapable of sitting down for even ten minutes and reading anything. I don’t know why.

Antsy, irritable might all begin to describe me, but mostly I just wanted to cut off everything. I lost my phone, it went dead for days at a time. I worked like an automaton and treated people much the same. I came home with only thoughts of hunger, then exhaustion.

I moved one day to the next with checklists in my head, no love or desire for anything.

I would say that under normal circumstances this would be the period when I would slide into the abyss of depression for a bit, go back on the meds, work the steps that pull me back out of it. Like accepting every 8th invitation whether I want to or not, for example, which is the only reason I had any interaction with the Yankee outside of work, pleasant as the experience was to my surprise.

I suppose having a kid is kind of a motivator for me to push away the darkness more strongly than I might otherwise. Considering we only have one another, we talk daily, we discuss everything, it tends to keep me more grounded and tethered to something. I realize this doesn’t work for everyone and I’m certainly not belittling that in any way when family has no effect on your darkness when it comes to call, but my kid is very much my totem.

In moments when I would otherwise not be able to stop it from pulling me under, I have the half-pint who reminds me why I’m not done fighting today. Maybe tomorrow. Or, maybe the day after.

For my G-uno, I was the one who brought the dysfunctional in-laws into my marriage. I never knew what a family could be like until I met my ex’s family. I’m still very connected to them, just as I’m very disconnected from my own. It is extremely painful to not be loved and accepted within your own family and to know that in every subtext of how they speak to you.

To be able to walk away from that, know them to be the poisonous element and still have faith in your own self as being a good person and not seeing yourself through their eyes, takes a strength a person just shouldn’t have to bear with people supposedly under the title of “loved ones.” My made family, the family I built from my teens on, G-uno and BFG very much included, shaped a lot of who I am today, gave me the strength to fight against a very twisted guardian and their brood.

We feel compelled to try to make and fix things. You and I especially like to fix. Maybe it is a Gemini thing.

But I will never be able to fix the person my gran made me out to be to their family, a spoiled and greedy orphan never satisfied with anything received and working poor gran’s fingers to the bone demanding more. This spilled over to my aunt and uncles and poisoned the mind of my cousin and his wife. They will always have that haughty smugness when I spend time with them that I don’t measure up enough to have been “gran’s favorite”.

I already knew that. I spent a great amount of effort trying not to be, repeatedly kicking that fucking pedestal anytime I saw it coming closer. To be in gran’s good graces would mean I was like them. That was the last thing I ever wanted to be.

I had an epiphany recently. I knew I married another version of gran, so I could have the same bullshit fights with different outcomes and I had to do a lot of soul searching to overcome that. But it went further than that. My ex manipulated me to be geographically isolated. Gran, being the manipulation master they were, managed to do it emotionally, mentally. They made sure I had no one in my family who saw me as I was. No one to confide in. No one. Except them.

When this hit me, I kind of wanted to dig gran up and just beat the hell out of them. It hurt, but it was their own selfishness that motivated every diabolical thing they did. They destroyed their own family, caused so much internal fighting and baseless hate that those of us generations later just want nothing to do with any of them, or one another, save for a small few.

So when a person, such as yourself, who has had nothing but selfless goals calls a lost cause a lost cause, why would you feel this in any way your fault? To be able to fix them, you’d have to think like they do, and in turn understand them, and take a risk of turning into that yourself. I couldn’t risk that, I try to carve that ability out of myself much in the way you battle the Kraken.

There is a point when self-preservation has to kick in and you have to give it up and escape. You don’t call it a bad thing if you’re not able to fight a bear with brass knuckles, its a fucking bear. You’re thankful you survived.

I Lied Today (G-uno)

I hate the way hospitals smell. The energy that comes from everyone inside them permeates through every pore of my body. From the moment you enter your own personal space shrinks as the everyone else’s struggles to make room for theirs. I think it’s the intensity of all that emotion under one consolidated space. I think it’s what my own personal torture chamber would be like.

The elevator was way to small, and it smelt like stale air. It seem to be creeping towards the third floor almost as though it felt my dread. When the doors finally opened the strange nurse breathed a sigh of relief. We had managed to ride up three floors without even making eye contact. She almost trampled another nurse as she made her escape. Never realizing that her energy had been swallowed by mine.

I had prepared myself on the car ride over. There would be no sadness, no negativity, I would not make this beautiful 33 year old woman hold the weight of my sorrow with her cancer ridden body. She has carried far too much for far too long. My mother had warned me of how frail she has become. Her already slender Asian frame had been beaten down by both her disease, and her treatment. She has not been able to withstand food, or liquids for almost two weeks now. Blood flows from her abdomen like water from a slow streaming faucet.

Our mother’s are like sister’s. Alove built from the kind of friendship few others ever experience. We regard each other as chosen family, and even when there is nothing we can do for one another we stay together. We are like the support beam that keeps your home from collapsing. She smiles as I enter her room forging through her pain to make a fuss over the flowers I have for her. Her grace only makes me love her more. I hide my emotions for her as well I regard this visit as if it’s a temporary problem that simply requires some time.

This is strength beyond all boundaries, and respect without limits. We talked about our families. She is in agony, but never says that she is. Instead she says that she’s tired, and relays to me that she is getting the best care. Then in a brief moment of fear she tells me that she is dying. I know in this moment she is grasping for my strength. It was a moment I knew would come. It was my dread that filled the elevator, and permeated through the nurse causing her to run away when the doors opened.

So I took her tiny hand, looked deeply into her fearful eyes, and said” I work with the dying everyday. You know this, and you are not dying now.” I could feel her energy change immediately. Her body had swallowed mine. She smiled, and said “okay I will fight.” I smiled back staring deeply into her eyes. Then her mother entered the room, and saw her daughter smiling. I told her I was leaving, and that I would be back soon. Her mother reached for me, holding me as only a mother can hold you. The energy in that moment kept us all from collapsing.

so then schnookums got back in town (g2)

Schnookums got back in town from their dad’s. Apparently, only for the weekend though and then its off to grandma’s. I used to feel bad that Spawn didn’t have all this extended family to visit and become close to, but then I hear of shit like this and realize I’m glad I don’t have to share because fuck that noise. Had one or both of Spawn’s grandmothers been alive, I would probably barely see the child.

Once again, mom and her brood of three flew in, chatted for a little while and deposited Schnookums into our care. I asked up front if it was ok if they ran a few errands with us. I was told that was fine, but to please limit them to only one soft drink as they felt the caffeine might worsen the seizures. I was conned into two the last time, so when we both looked over at Schnookums they just silently nodded in agreement like a villain who got off scot free.

It started off as a silent breakfast, apparently the hyper-interactive side had not been able to present itself in Schnookums for a while, so they were adjusting to be around us again. My mind and ears started wandering over to the geritol table beside us where they were discussing some trip with a friend by the name of Richard apparently.

Then I leaned over to Spawn where Schnookums could hear and whispered, “they’re talking about Dick.”

Both kids erupt into snorts.

Then we all kind of tuned into the geritol squad where they went on about having several good pictures of “Dick” and how they had copies made of those and passed them around.

Needless to say, we were in tears for a good twenty minutes or so.

Schnookums:”This is the best breakfast ever.”

And the floodgates of chatter opened once more.

Spawn and I played rock, paper, scissors to see if we would be going to the music store (I had needs) or the art store first (Spawn has been commissioned to paint a picture for a co-worker with a new house). I won and Schnookums got a lesson in local music stores and how awesome they could be. They picked a couple of cd’s themselves even, one of which was My Chemical Romance. I’m not a fan, mostly because I’ve only heard blurbs of a couple songs and it really didn’t pique my interest too much, but when Schnookums found it and got excited, I leaned over to see what it was and said “you know the lead singer writes comics, right?”

Schnookums:”Whoa, no way! Really?”

Schnookums and Spawn are currently writing a comic. In fact, Spawn is currently storyboarding Schnookums’ story. So this was like finding out your idol is your idol twice-over.

We went all over the store, Spawn almost physically dragging me out when they saw the stack of cd’s I’d accumulated. It has been too long since I’ve been and I have time to make up for. I even placed an order for items they didn’t have, something I tend to do more than I like to admit. Schnookums was having a great time, and I told them they need to show their mom this place when they got a chance.

I decided on a classic as the first song when we got in the car, a truly enriching cd to play. One both educational as well as entertaining, one that epitomized the youth of my era.

The first track? Smack My Bitch Up by the Prodigy, of course.

(BTW, probably NSFW, I’ve not seen the video, so be warned)

 

The art store always sucks me into an infinite vortex of possibilities. Schnookums asked if they could run to the bathroom. I gave a vague direction of where they were usually located and they were off. Spawn went to scout out canvases. I wandered a little, but found the two checking canvases in the back of the store. I asked Schnookums if they found the bathroom, only to be told they didn’t need to go anymore. I’m worried that a backed up bladder is going to somehow bring on a seizure or something only to be told:

Schnookums:”Actually, I just wanted to look around.”

me:”Why didn’t you just say so?”

Schnookums:”oh…ok!”

Apparently, this is how Schnookums gets away from mom and brood when they want some solo time.

Schnookums found out quick that in our dynamic, I’m the one who usually wanders off to who knows where, at one point Spawn demanding that I stay nearby.

me:”But I found furry skull pillows! I need these!”

Spawn:”No you don’t!”

me:”Then you can pay for your own crap.”

Spawn:”I would but I forgot my wallet”

me:”ugh!”

I was told to turn the Prodigy cd down on the way home and the kids once again played video games when we arrived. Schnookums created a character that was based loosely on our fatass cat named Munchkinsquishytush or similar. They ran it around at first and asked other players “tell me I’m cute.”

Before we were due to meet Schnookums, I had already tried to install a few games on my computer, ones they could play together, mostly online. Of course as soon as I went to run them, most wanted to do a five hour update or some bullshit, so that idea was blown out of the water before it had a chance. Those two never minded though.

Oh yeah, my belated birthday gift to myself was a gaming computer. It’s red and glows. Spawn is jealous. They can suck it.

Somewhere during their reverie, the heat and over exertion of the puny a/c’s in our shitty little house kept tripping the breaker. I don’t know what fucking electrical idiot decided to put over half the house on one circuit, but if I ever meet him, I’ll rip his dick off and make him eat it.

I’m only a little angry, I promise.

So of course, our computers are on that circuit, which means we can’t even get more than one AC to run and stay running, as soon as we flipped the 2nd, the breaker trips again… and again… and again. It’s a very muggy 102 outside at the time. We’re hating life.

Spawn and I did a little testing and find out there are about two or three outlets NOT on the one damn circuit but nowhere near our desk. So, another trip out to Lowe’s where I grossly overestimate the length needed and get the 100 yd one, “just in case.” But, it solved our problem and kept us cool and going.

While we were out, I asked if they were hungry (it’s been hours since breakfast by this time) to which I got a resounding “yes!”. Again, I introduce Schnookums to yet another local favorite, a burger joint that looks like a warehouse from the outside and only has one small sign in the back parking lot, behind a tree. You find it by word of mouth only.

And for the folks who have been following my diet quest, yes this was a high calorie day for me. The next was protein shakes and a bag of salad mix to even it out. By high, meaning I had a bacon spinach omelet and a piece of rye for breakfast, a cheese burger with no bread, with a side salad for dinner. No shakes, unsweetened tea and water. I was kind of pained from the amount actually, but so good.

Schnookums opted for a ghost chili burger. They lived to regret it. They ended up having to eat their burger with a knife and fork like i was doing once we scraped as much as the cheese off as we could.

I was glad this time Spawn was a bit past the brooding silent observation they had the first time I met Schnookums. I wasn’t sure if it was irritation we were getting along or just that initial hesitation that Spawn can get when a new element is in their territory. Spawn adores their BFF a lot for example, but only likes to be around them in limited doses. I can tell when they have had enough of even me as they will don earphones and find a corner to have quiet time.

Schnookums asked me to tell them when we got sick of them, but I never responded. They melded into our world pretty well so I really didn’t have my usual amount of exhausted overstimulation either. Maybe I’m getting a thick skin to it. Like last time, it was their mom who finally decided they were coming to get them.

Schnookums has a chromebook that has been inoperable for a while, so I had a rescue thumbdrive ready this time. I also put a bug in mom’s ear that a gaming machine could be had for less than a laptop from the right spot. Then showed them the right spot. Apparently, mom was just as aggravated with the uncle who didn’t follow through as much as Schnookums was. Schnookums was promised usage of the laptop mom didn’t use, and Schnookums and Spawn arranged to try to play together later.

Thought Of The Day (G-uno)

“Nothing is secure but life,

TRANSITION, the energizing

spirit…People wish to be

settled; only so far as they

are unsettled is there any

hope for them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

my employer: fat people are fat because they eat crap all day and sit on their ass (g2)

So the quest in gastric bypass came to an abrupt halt, at least for now. My doc was on board with idea and just said, “get with your insurance and find out what we need to do.”

My insurance said “Ha hahahah, Nope! Have a nice day!”

Not giving up, but I don’t exactly have 20k+ to spend.  My insurance is through work and apparently the only justification they feel people would want this kind of surgery is because they lay around eating cheeseburgers all day.

They offer a discount for Jenny Craig, though! ….What bullshit. I’ve never understood why in hell people pay money to learn a different numbering system than the one you can do for free. Is it for the oddly colored pedometers or the gimmicky foodstuffs?

It was depressing. I wanted off the roller coaster, and this seemed the best way to make sure I would get off and stay off.

When I was diagnosed, I had an A1C of 8.5 and a sugar level of 235. It freaked me out. My normal blood sugar, since a child, usually lingered around 80. I had dizzy spells a lot because it would suddenly drop. Since the diagnoses, it was 7.3 in January and I’m still waiting for the latest now. I’m headed in the right direction, but it is sooooo sloooooooow.

So while I’m having the tete a tete with my insurance and/or considering supplemental insurance of some sort (or hey, a new job), I had the thought of… what if I ate what a post-op patient would eat, or something similar? I log my progress, and if things still aren’t where they should be, that would at least put some due diligence down on paper and through blood tests. If it actually kind of short-circuited my system into finally behaving normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with that either.

I hate the counting again, I hated it from the start, it took up so much of my time. But from what I can tell, I read up on one study that essentially put diabetes patients on a 800 calorie diet of 3 nutritional shakes (meh) at 600 calories and 200 calories of vegetables for 8 weeks and for many, it knocked out the diabetes.

Sure, its boring but who cares. It’s certainly easier to count than homemade recipes were and this is a start.

The only thing causing me stress is coffee. I like cream and sugar in my coffee, not a lot of options there. So it sounds like I will have nix that too. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was 10, it will be hard as a junkie. It may be decaf, but its always coffee.

Of course, some in the study went back to old and bad habits, but the majority managed to eliminate the diabetes and its baggage, for good by forcing the body to burn fat deposits in the pancreas. The study was limited to those who’d only been diagnosed in four years or less, but I remember Grand a lot when I think of old dogs and some new tricks.

It’s drastic as hell, but I’m there. I’m at drastic. I’m all over drastic. Hell, this is the first time I’ve been able to get my brain to even completely engage in any sort of real action or thought process to tackling this bitch. I’ve been in a mental fog so long, its jarring how much I’ve probably missed just from not being able to mentally process things as well as I used to. Does diabetes do this too? I don’t remember that in the list.

I even mentioned it to a diabetic buddy of mine to get their thoughts and they were onboard to trying it with me. Social eating problem solved!

They actually had been logging their food, put more salads on the menu, added a lot more veg, cut out a lot of starch, took it to their doc and their A1C had gone up since their last visit. Their doc just flat out didn’t believe them and came short of calling them a liar when they tried to show them their log. They had gone from hopeful to heartbroken in seconds. They have no interest in surgery but are definitely at the desperate and drastic stage too.

If by any change some of you are struggling, or know someone struggling and looking for drastic, here’s some links. They are just a drop in the bucket of what I’ve read, but they seemed to be the two most pointed with information that isn’t so “over the head” of us laymen. I have a limit of how much medicalese I can understand and this was all pretty digestible (pun intended):

sjh20newcastle20diet20booklet2012

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/

What Couples Who Have Been In Long-Term Relationships Don’t Want You To Know (G-uno)

I had a much needed lunch today with Jane, and the girls. As most of you know g2, and I have chosen not to reveal our blog to our friends,and family in hopes of being able to post in the most truthful way possible. The idea was to host a blog where people could vent the things they could never say in their daily lives without some censoring, or awkward backlash. So today at lunch I was thinking that each woman at this table has at one time or another shared some deeply personal life details, and as raw as our secrets get I am sure they have all been censored in some way.

We all (humans) have our deepest secrets that no matter how much we trust someone, we don’t want others to know. Hell as I sat there I was thinking about our blog. In addition to being with my friends I had every intention of testing my theory of how much raw detail each of my girls would come up with if I asked them to name things that couples who have been in long-term relationships didn’t want others who have not been in one to know.

Ironically I also wondered if the details (although completely anonymous) that I share in my posts would be something they would be angry to know that I have shared? Would they be angry to know that I have this whole blog going on that they don’t know about either. Then I thought the same thoughts about my family. Then I realized they were all laughing at me as Jane snapped her fingers next to my head while saying “Earth to G-uno are you still with us?”

Doing my best not to be a complete liar I gave them the whole rundown on my censoring secrecy theory (minus the I’m gathering information to share in my next post details), and then I asked them each to tell me one completely uncensored thing they thought people who had, or are in long-term relationships didn’t want someone who hadn’t been in one to know because they felt they would not truly be able to grasp the concept. So for your reading pleasure here is the list my girls came up with:

1. There will be times, even period of times where you will hate your person.
2. There will be sexual droughts, and you will be okay with the break.
3. You, or your spouse may cheat, and you will agree to never tell anyone outside of each other.
4. You will share horribly mean spirited observations about other people in your lives, and sometimes bond over it.
5. You will openly hate one or more of their family members.
6. You will have sex in your friend’s home during some holiday or get together with out telling them.
7. Your person will hate one of your closest friends, and you will hide that from your friend.

There was a distinct discomfort after coming up with this list. I think it was because we could identify with all of the secrets we had come up with on our list. The really interesting thing was that we all knew that this secrecy exists, but even in our tight little circle we plead the 5th on certain topics on our list. ( Cough#!* 3,6,& 7) The one thing that everyone agreed with, was that I wasn’t allowed to pick anymore subject matters for our luncheons for a very long time! 😉

considering surgery (g2)

I’m not sure anymore how much detail I’ve gone into, I’m too lazy to go look at any prior posts of mine about health. I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, just like Grand. Unlike Grand though, I don’t hide twinkies and say I bought them “for the kids” or a 10 lb bag of oranges and eat them over a few days because I’m too lazy to cook for one.

I do however, have an intense love of chocolate and had (my meds make me crave meat now, go figure) a sweet tooth so fierce I’d make myself sick. I could never understand why, but my doc said that since I’d always ran a low sugar until now, I would of course crave it. I used to have a blood sugar of  about 74 shortly after eating. I know only because I had a type 1 boss who would stick you anytime you alluded to not feeling perfect.

I’m on a pill twice a day. I’m thankful I don’t have to use insulin, for now. I’m also glad I’m not having to stick myself, for now. My numbers have been getting better minisculely, not rapid enough for the instant gratification loving person than I am. I know that this is a process, but the process, to me should be faster than 10 lbs in three months.

Walking… hurts right now. But I do as much as I can. I would love to swim, but have no access to such in a reasonable time frame or distance. If I tried to do yoga, I’d fall and hurt myself. My body is not fully under my control right now.

I’ve always berated myself for being a food-addicted by-product of bad genes and a worse upbringing, but I don’t think that is the whole story.

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I distinctly remember crying over a plate of food because I couldn’t eat anymore and I thought I would be in trouble. Grand always fixed our plates for a 300 lb grown man and then demanded that we eat everything. My mom tossed the plate I was crying over in the trash and spent the next hour trying to de-program a short lifetime of conditioning.

I was suicidal by age seven, depression came on pretty hard when the hormones did in my preteens, and so did about 10 or so extra pounds. At that point, I didn’t have any major body issues, I figured my next growth spurt would probably iron it all out, as I was still a kid.

That is, of course, until I sent to my Aunt from Hell’s house for the summer. She promptly slapped me on the Atkin’s diet, droned on about “ketosis” and fed me shitty unsweetened yogurt and unripe blueberries. It would be twenty years before I would ever willingly taste another blueberry.

I had one friend I made that summer and was thrilled when they invited me over for a sleepover. Anything to get out of that bitch’s house. Their dad made homemade vanilla ice cream, a treat I’d never had in my life. I ate one small scoop, since I was trying to keep to the Fuhrer’s strict rules.

I was subsequently screamed at for an hour when they found out.

Years later, when same aunt was giving me advice about the “delicate psyche” of children before Spawn was born, I brought up this small page in our history. I also told her I used to find her terrifying.

her:”…………….I’m….. I’m so sorry”

me:”kind of fucking late to regret now, isn’t it?”

I think that was the only time I ever heard that woman apologise for anything. She is Grand’s twin in many ways.

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My twenties, I ended up with the marital fluff that comes from too much indifference and entirely too much meat and potato-based meals. When we split, I’d put on 30 or so lbs. I lost any taste for soft drinks and spent the first month or so gorging on as many raw vegetables as I could get my hands on. Not because I was dieting, but because I craved them. I didn’t count anything, didn’t weigh anything, I ate what I was in the mood for, including a 3 scoop variety bowl of ice cream with all the crap on it. I took up yoga, I loved it. I felt centered for the first time in my life.

I did weigh myself though. I had a mental number I wanted to reach and when I was within five pounds of it, I decided to take up a judo class. The first month, I instead gained five pounds but had dropped a pant size. It was my first epiphany in how little numbers mean.

The second was with a friend of mine who also had the desire to lean down, while we were at a pub crawl (I did mention I gave up nothing, right?). We were on bar three and moving to bar four. It was probably just a couple blocks to the next one and my friend and I were chatting and laughing and outpacing everyone. We passed two individuals who represented everything we were trying to achieve, size-wise. As we passed, we heard one complain about being exhausted and their feet hurting. The other responded in agreement. My friend and I looked at one another and I simply said “maybe we need to rethink our priorities…,” they simply responded “indeed.”

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When Spawn was known but in the works, I ended up taking care of Grand, a noncompliant diabetic. I never understood what Grand thought they were accomplishing by not checking their sugar and lying about what they ate. They lost their eyesight and their independance, and its by sheer miracle they didn’t lose an appendage or have to go on dialysis.

While they were under my care, they dropped about 9 sizes. I cleaned out all the garbage and started cooking my normal jive. Grand was a shopping junkie, so I took them grocery shopping about three times a week. It seems excessive but I refused to keep any mass quantities of fruit (their main addiction) and Grand always had to walk down every aisle each visit.

Let me repeat that…. they had to walk down every aisle each and every time. Even if nothing had changed, nothing moved, nothing.

I played a game of trying to find the biggest grocery stores I could that still kept only within the food range. Wal-Mart was off-limits except for only special trips (moments I wouldn’t go postal spending days in a store). With Grand’s macular degeneration, they would obsessively grab shit and put it in their cart and I would pull it out of the other side and put it back. I tried to keep the splurge tab in the 10-15 range so the high could be obtained without the expenditure. Grand was a junkie when it came to shopping, folks. I would bribe anyone of you to do my shopping for me.

Grand:”I could have sworn I got more than this…”

Me:”hmmm, nope… you were a bit picky today.”

With Grand getting exercise on these trips, so I enforced the rule of only 2-3 pieces of fruit and each had to be a different color (probably the only thing they could see anyway) under the agreement we would come back when they ran out. When I refused to allow them the 10 lb bag of oranges, I got a call from one of her children about how I wasn’t feeding Grand. The 9 pant sizes and the elimination of two of their medications for sugar (there were four) seemed to support this. I did mention I was the evil black sheep of the family right? I fed Grand how I liked to eat, they had 3 squares and 2 snacks a day, and it worked.

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My thirties, the weight crawled on while taking care of Spawn. Getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night with absolutely no break, full-time work and a kid who would scream if they had to consume anything besides chicken nuggets and french fries all summed up to a good 80 or more lbs. I responded the way I had in the past but with prepackaged salads, cooking mass quantities of meals and shoving them in the freezer (the first time around I had more than me to cook for with friends, roommates and my mom around all the time).

I tried to involve Spawn in my yoga. It didn’t go well and I wasn’t able to focus on it like I had when I could do it by myself, so I scheduled it when they were asleep. The weight also wasn’t budging either, even reviving the old habits. But this was a decade later.

I started counting calories for the first time. I hated it. I was hungry all the time and it felt like a full time job. I tried several calculations and set an amount that would hit a 2 lb weight loss a week, and it still didn’t budge much. I would knock off another 100 calories until I started losing again, but I was so damn hungry.

I started walking every other day. I found out one of my blocks was about 2 miles around, the other almost 3, so I walked both each time. BFG bought me some walking sticks because we had read it could help with strength training and your posture so you could walk faster. I didn’t even care if I looked stupid. I read so much material on nutrition and weight and exercise that, just like parental advice, it began to contradict each other.

I managed to knock off about half the weight. I’d had to give up caffeine due to an ulcer, and my last vice was smoking. When my cholesterol came back elevated, that went too. I was ok about it when I gained 12 lbs from quitting. I thought it’d be more. But I still had 30+ lbs left to go and it refused to budge.

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Then I came home one day and my legs ached when I walked, my arms ached, I couldn’t get a full breathe, my brain ached. I was so mentally drained I felt like I’d been trying to do calculus without paper. I felt like I’d run a marathon and every bit of liquid I’d had in my body was focused completely around my legs like a pair of saline pants I couldn’t remove. I moved like Grand at 80, the 50 yards to the bed felt like Mount Saint Helen, so I crashed on the couch most of the time.

I  slept at least a dozen hours every time I could, more on the weekend. It was insanely difficult to get up in the morning. I was always stiff, always tired, always hurting. I had donned a gorilla costume the Halloween before and chased Spawn for hours while they knocked on door after door and now I had no chance in hell of standing at a stove for thirty minutes to cook anything. I couldn’t stand five minutes without whimpering.

My doc tried upping my anti-depressants, my cholesterol problem magically disappeared but my blood pressure was elevated, no that’s no longer a problem but your triglycerides are weird, nope, now its your thyroid. No wait…. DIABETES!

It stayed like that for almost six years now, and over 100 lbs this time. On a scale of 1 to 10, I was sitting at 11 in misery. Of course, over those 6 years I felt like cooking very little, drive-throughs often providing our only major meals. This pleased Spawn, but not me. Crap makes you feel like crap, but I wanted hot meals and had no desire to make anything. I could stare at a full fridge and could not come up with a single thing to make. I felt like I was dead.

I still pretty much feel dead, maybe a zombie walker? My last visit we talked while I was getting checked out for a sinus infection (before the nurse told me to bend over). Cooking at home is now outweighing how much we grab. “Grabbing” dinner involves salads and lean meals at least half the time when I can find places that serve good food. I’m beginning to feel like I am at 8, sometimes 7 on good days. I’d lost 10 lbs… but in 3 months. It only took 6 months for that 100+ lbs to slam itself on and at that point, I was sleeping more than I was doing anything else. I even slowly weaned myself off the anti-depressant to see if maybe I wasn’t having some weird reaction to them.

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So I’m at the point where I’m considering gastric bypass. I feel like I will continue to lose this battle with my own body unless I do something drastic. I have no intention of losing the war. I just need better artillery and the older I get, the harder this battle is getting.

I have read something about transfer addiction, and I used to think I had an addictive personality, but when I’ve set my mind to toss something out, I don’t go back. Chantix starts you out with 3 months, I quit in one, I kept another week of the pills to help with situations of temptation and donated the rest to a fellow smoker looking to quit. I’ve never looked back. I felt pretty smug sitting at an outdoor table with a pack of chain smokers with no desire to join them. I knew then I was done for good.

If I get my emotional brain to shut up, my logical brain tells me “remember that time you refused to drop the calculus class with the Russian professor you could never understand? It’s like that and it’s time to ask for help.”

Have you guys ever considered or done anything this drastic? I know I’m tired of just existing and now that Spawn is older, this is not at all the way I want them to remember me. I want to go on trips now, to experience now, to live NOW. Six years was too much already.

so the deviant absent parent has reared their drugged up head… (g2)

Spawn has just me.

I have no siblings, a cousin whom I only get along with for three day or less periods, an absent dad I flipped off once over thirty years ago, a dead mom, no living grandparents.

On the other end, there is a shitty biological donor with mental and drug-related problems, one dead sibling, an absent dad, absent half-siblings, a dead mom, no living grandparents.

Don’t get me wrong, if you dig past that, I have a couple aunts and some more cousins, but we don’t see each other much since we aren’t close. I’m the evil black sheep of the family and I’m to be kept away from the straights lest some of my bohemian lifestyle wear off on their offspring.

My BFG is like the only second parent to Spawn. They seem to be kindred souls in many ways, they both have an addiction to bacon and pasta that is unmatched and often, BFG’s presents to Spawn kick mine’s ass. They just “get” my kid.

Spawn’s other donor and I met in art class in high school actually. Then we parted for years because, life, and when I met them again, they were able to put on a reasonable facade of the person they used to be, but the cracks showed up pretty quickly and the whole thing ended.

When Spawn became exclusively mine, legally and otherwise, I figured that the questions about the other donor would be better if I made them up. We split a long time before either of us knew Spawn was a factor and its a miracle they came so healthy.

However, the other donor actually  asked if they could be a part of Spawn’s life. I told them the door was open but if they pulled any shit, I reserved the right to end it immediately.

At first, this was a weekly pick-up from daycare and they would go for a walk at a park or something until dinner. It dwindled over the course of a year or so and then it would be nothing.

Almost annually, usually around their birthday (they couldn’t be bothered to remember Spawn’s), they popped up for a little while, want to see Spawn, then disappear like a bad dream. Once they decided popping pills and driving were a good combination, Spawn was no longer allowed to be alone with them, much less in a car.

I tried very hard to work things in such a way that Spawn had a great memory of their other donor without becoming aware of just how messed up they were.  I would pick them up, schedule a “them” focused day and kind of linger in the background. Spawn had a great time, the other donor earned some points, and I didn’t have to deal with the shit for another year.

Example: Spawn wanted donor to watch them at karate class, I dropped them off, went down the road to run a load of laundry, to come back and find out donor has taken off across the street to a place that, not an hour before, they told me they used to buy drugs.

The last one was about five years ago or so when the other donor, who is currently ordered to pay a pittance in child support (seriously, $40/week is the order, I agreed to whatever would get me out of there fastest since they originally ordered $80) decided that in order to get out of this monetary infringement so they could pool their resources for better prescription drugs, they needed to get married. Apparently, they assumed that being married would automatically grant them half-custody and they would not longer have to pay child support.

So the other donor decided to disappear for a month and brought back a spouse from… god knows where. They lived like a recluse so none of us could figure out where they found this person. The donor has a house (paid for) and car (paid for) they inherited when their mom died, plus some actual monetary inheritance. I don’t know the last time they actually had a job, so I have no clue what the hell they thought they were doing. Usually I get a fat lump check whenever the court threatens to toss them in jail, since they’d already done so once.

The marriage didn’t last a month, despite the fact the spouse was apparently at least slightly crazy too. Friending me and Spawn on facebook and gushing about the “happy family” and “fast friends” they hope will be kind of made my stomach lurch. I ran interference before Spawn saw any of it often.

I watched the crazy sort of run its course, talked to a lawyer, found they didn’t have a leg to stand on, and just waited to let them run it to exhaustion. The only thing I had to say about it was to keep their crap away from me and Spawn. There would be no further visits for now.

This was the catalyst for them to release apparently a lot of pent up vile they have been holding onto against me. They couldn’t have their way, so I was the monster. I won’t get into it too much, it makes me rather ill, but when they decided in their drug-addled brain, to send my grade school kid this long facebook message about how I raped them and that was the only reason they existed,and I also apparently orchestrated the goings-on of the entire world with my genitals, being nothing more than a devious puppet-master.

I saved it. I blocked them, blocked their number, and sent everything to social services and family court, along with my only response. I told them if they thought they had a leg to stand on, they were welcome to take me to court, that they had no visitation rights, I had full custody and they had nothing, including the three bottles of prescriptions meds they ordered online, which I listed by name, by quantity and how many were left during the 10 days they had been in their possession before they had their stomach pumped (I was friends with their mom, and their mom’s best friend. The last time donor went to the ER for a stomach pump, the friend did some housecleaning and gave them to me as a backup plan).

That the true problem could be known quite clearly by simply pulling their medical records for the last twenty years and talking to the only person(s) who would still have anything to do with them, since they only did so in honor of their mother.

I told them if they ever wanted to see Spawn again they would have to submit to a mental exam and a rehab program, and only after an extended time of passing both, with court supervision.

It wasn’t long, a couple months, for the silence to end and I get a text from a number I don’t recognize with an apology.  I respond with “too late” and block that one too. So far, they have tried to reconnect only twice. A few days ago, marks the third. Spawn and I both got a friend request from yet another account they have created, since I blocked all the others. They are convinced I’m just going to forget and forgive just because they play nice for now.

I only know because Spawn asked if I wanted them to block it. Spawn remembers when I told them the donor was no longer to be around us, that they had gone too far but I wanted them to keep the few good memories they had so I would not be getting into the details of why, but to please trust me that I was doing it for good reason. Spawn cried of course, but eventually figured out over the years that I wouldn’t do something like that with half-assed feelings.

Donor gave Spawn a ball once, one they’d shoplifted. Other than that, the other donor spends their time inhaling copious amounts of prescriptions and alcohol,  spewing word salad and trying to pass it off as poetry and making shitty art. Even Spawn said “all there is on their facebook is badly taken photos and crappy poetry.”

The donor’s birthday is a little over a month away. I had always tried to acknowledge the big gift-giving occasions on behalf of Spawn.  Of course, that stopped years ago when I noticed that the reciprocation was never there. As usual, this is a test to see if they can eek back in.  I don’t know if selfish acknowledgement is the only motivation.

I’d like to think there is one tiny speck of humanity in there that realizes Spawn is their only living family left. Unfortunately, my very next thought is the only reason why any of this would matter to this particular piece societal garbage is for what exploiting Spawn would get them. They are a taker, they give nothing.

So my response was simple “pull something like this again and I will involve the police.”

Is it bad to wish they’d just die?

i know it’s thanksgiving, but i’d just like to leave early because i don’t like you. (g2)

Well, per usual I spent Thanksgiving with my cousin’s family. If you have been confused with my family dynamic…. well, join the club. Why should I be the only one? As far as my cousins and I have been able to discern from our earlier generations…

Great Great and Great-grandparents = Embodied heavenly creatures brought forth to make entire childhoods more epic and special than even the most tear-jerking of xmas films. At least per Grand and her kids to some extent.

Dead grandparent = At least somewhat beloved by all four children, especially my mother. Despised by spouse, based on how they were mentioned our entire lives. Only one cousin remembers this person and yes, fondly.

Grand = one of the single most psychotic creatures I have ever had the misfortune to meet, let alone be raised by. When spouse died within a month of their father dying, Grand snapped and seemed to spend their life devoted to the sole destruction of their own family. Their children remember them mostly as “typical” but not “involved.”

Grand and spouse’s four children = four of the most worthless fucking parents, and sometimes people, the world has ever had the disgrace to have on the planet. Not one, as a parent, has been worth a shit. Yes, including my mother. For their children, this ranged from present but withholds love and pride in exchange for preferential treatment (especially competing with their daughter-in-law), too busy picking out the next ex-Mrs. to be bothered being a parent, too busy partying and trying to find Mr. Right in all the Mr. Wrongs, to I’d rather raise the other kids I made instead of my first born but only if it doesn’t interfere with my drinking.

Cousins = the group in which I am in…. we have families, good ones and good friends. For the most part, we all have our heads on pretty solid in spite of at least half of our genetic makeup. However, we are all such different people that had we not shared genetics in even the most minor of way, we’d never speak.

I used to say I was visiting “my closest cousin” or “the cousin to whom I was closest.” I realized over the years that not only was this strictly relative in comparing my relationship with my other cousins, but completely untrue.

We are maybe the two people who might have had more than a passing conversation if we’d met in a waiting room or similar since we are techies. In my family, that’s close. We also have seven years difference in age. He’s the child of the eldest, I’m the child of the youngest. They had 12 years difference.

My cousin and his wife have an awesome kid who is eerily similar to Spawn, interests-wise, despite their six years difference in age. Sadly, they don’t talk to one another. They will both contentedly sit in the same room and play on their phone, computer or draw and not say a word for hours. This makes me sad, but I understand if it doesn’t happen naturally on its own, it will backfire.

My cousin and his wife do very well. They travel quite a bit, spoil their kid rotten and just generally get to do a lot together. I think it’s awesome. Comparatively, I probably make less than a fourth of what they do and we struggle quite a bit. I’m ok with that. The only time I’m not ok with that is when I feel like I’m getting graded for it. This only occurs when I’m visiting them. “Well, you know… you could do X if you just sock a little aside…” Um, no actually I can’t, that ends up lumped into groceries and we need those.

I also get graded on my parenting. Spawn has my level of stubborn when it comes to something they don’t want to do and for the longest time, this mostly focused on putting anything in their mouth that wasn’t pizza, chicken nuggets or french fries. I blame daycare, since they considered mashed potatoes and rice balanced side dishes when served together. Spawn is older now, has made and tasted a quickie version of kimchi even, but if they don’t like it, they’re still not eating it. I don’t have a problem with this.

My cousin’s wife is an awesome cook and I would use these as good reasons for Spawn to try something they “thought” they hated. Spawn would dig in their heels about it not being on that very short list in their head and instead of letting the parent handle it, both my cousin and his wife would gang up on my kid to make them try it. My knee jerk reaction was to do the opposite and let Spawn escape the onslaught.

They didn’t see they were doing anything wrong, but more than once I would have to point out, “I would never have to audacity to parent your kid, it’s not my place. So remember that when the urge strikes you to parent mine.”

The sad thing is this hasn’t happened with just them among my family. It really breaks down your own self worth when you are overstepped because someone thinks they can “handle” your kid better. Is it due to family persistently thinking you are forever 13? Or do they actually see you’re an adult but just think you’re that incompetent?

The whole reason I ever came to this area… I blame first on my mom’s death, the holidays, or those fucking Budweiser holiday commercials… not sure. I sure as hell wasn’t remembering my actual blood relatives when I came up with this idea.

I had a kid on the way and suddenly family took on a very intense meaning. My family was all over 3k miles away, Grand was getting on in years and none of their kids wanted to deal with them.

I would. I’d dealt with their crazy shit most of my life, another 10 years would be nothing to get them out of the solitude they were currently living in. It would give my kid exposure to at least one member of their own family. I was hell bent on making Grand’s twilight years an epic adventure as I learned what it meant to be a parent.

It wasn’t long before, due to Grand and her minions (the three surviving children) I was soundly ousted from that scenario. Grand was packed up and moved off into a house with a friend of the eldest and not long after…. an assisted living facility and then state-funded type you die in.

I’d managed to get some weight and blood sugar meds off Grand just long enough for the eldest to stuff them on a shelf where they put that and more back on. The degeneration was rapid… so so rapid. Within one year there was a walker… and a diaper.

Greed had always been a driving factor for Grand and her eldest was no different… eerily so. The best I could figure is they were under some assumption I had come back to take advantage of Grand and the… wealth? Grand has social security and a mortgage still, in their 80’s. They had lent 25k to the pathetic piece of shit of their youngest son. The same son who told me during that time period “Family decisions will be made by the family… not you.”

Those were our last words.

Example, I took Grand to the grocery store about 2-3 times a week. Grand was addicted to shopping and I noticed they would go up each and every aisle no matter how much they really needed to get. Did you know just doing that, Grand dropped a couple pant sizes in no time?

Grand had an almost desperate need to shove stuff in their cart. Macular degeneration helped a lot during this time period as Grand would focus on one side, while I pulled things out of the cart from the other and put it back. I always made sure there was at least something there to buy for their fix, but it had to stay under 10 bucks total.

With us grocery shopping so often, the food was fresher. Grand loved fruit and I only allowed 3 servings at most per trip, and all had to be different colors. Grand got pissed at me when I wouldn’t let them buy a 10lb bag of oranges (did I mention Grand was diabetic?). I got calls later that I was accused of not feeding Grand.

Whenever I did something that Grand didn’t like, they would start some shit with their kids in order to bully me, I guess? I would take the infant Spawn to visit their other and only living grandmother. Grand told anyone who would listen I was running around with various people, the allusion was that was sleeping around.

I remember one night I had just gotten back to Grand’s about midnight, Spawn conked out in my arms and Grand was rocking away, arms folded, look of disgust mounted on their face. I asked what was wrong. I was told that someone had called Grand to say I’d been out with some member of the opposite sex.

I’d heard shit like this my entire life. I would tell Grand where I was going and give a number, I would come back accused of all sorts of atrocities. This was before caller id, so I had no reason to believe it was wasn’t true. I just could never figure out who the hell looked like me enough or if their friends were just blind and stupid. I didn’t know how to not be defensive growing up, and always felt guilty for nothing.

I quietly walked over to the caller id when Grand refused to tell me who called… there’d been no calls in 27 hours. I asked Grand why they had spent my entire life sitting in that fucking chair coming up with bullshit lies to sling at me for no other reason than their own twisted amusement.

Then I sat down just opposite Grand, got close and said…”If I want to fuck half a dozen people of both genders in front of my infant kid, I’m almost thirty and you cannot do a damn thing to stop it as that is none of your fucking business. Are we understood?”

Grand was pissed, but a small nod told me what I needed. I rose and as I headed to bed I just said “You know, even if that were some sort of weekend hobby I decided to adopt, I still don’t think it would ever make me as shitty a parent as you.”

As time wore on, Grand tried various bullshit in order to regain “control.” With Grand, that’s all it was really about. I wasn’t letting Grand do what they wanted, or control me, so I needed to be disciplined and put in my place.

Thing is, I was the grandchild. Hearing enough various awful things I was apparently doing to Grand was enough to make her surviving children, at least two of them, wonder what the deal was.

The original plan was that Grand and I would me moving in together but there was no way I was moving back to Grand’s house. So in the midst of all of this, on the weekend I was to be moving into the new place (we got Grand up there in advance), I showed up with van full of stuff and find some friend of Grand’s eldest is already living there. I call my cousin to ask what is going on. They have no idea.

I get back in my van, and I head back to Grand’s old house. In three days, I’ve moved to my own place in the next city and I haven’t given anyone the address. I cut off all contact Grand’s kids in the area.

I get calls from Grand begging me to come get them. My paranoid mind is telling me the eldest is recording all of Grand’s conversations, but my logical mind is telling me not even they are that crazy.

They are that crazy.

The eldest proudly declares this when describing a conversation where Grand called their youngest to check on me and then called me to tell me to call the police if they showed up. Seriously.

I tell Grand that they were the catalyst for 99% of this. It sucks that their kids are as stupid and mean as they are, but they should be proud they’d done so well turning them into exactly what they wanted. That being jobless, homeless with an infant was the last situation I wanted to be in and be surrounded by that goon squad. That I didn’t want a damn thing from any of them and I sure as hell wasn’t telling them where I was.

This is also shortly after hearing about how Grand had enlisted the help of their eldest son to take me away from my mom almost 30 years ago. The one time I remember coming near Grand Jr aka the eldest is to pick up the rest of my things that actually did make it up (there’s still more), Spawn is staying with a friend of mine for the day as I will not have them around my kid in case anyone gets any wild ideas for a do-over.

Fast forward to this past holiday. This eldest child of Grand’s I’m civil to out of respect for my cousin. This is the only family he has to invite aside from me and he loves his parent. I get all that. I loved Grand even though I didn’t like them. Unfortunately, the eldest is hellbent on trying to delve right into the past slew of shit I’ve managed to dodge the past ten years.

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care anymore. Grand had a shitty final ten years and that is on Grand and their kids. I did my best and like all of my life I have never felt a part of this family. I was the unwanted runt Grand brought home, put on a pedestal and proceeded to sink every dime into buying truckloads of unnecessary shit for, making it obvious to every other member of the family who the favored child was, most especially among other grandchildren. Doesn’t help any bonding with your family peers, I can tell you that. I grew up feeling like there was always going to be a sizable bill at the end. That I was expected to make a large income that would enable Grand to have a life they intended to become accustomed.

What a disappointment I must have been.

This eldest went on about how that friend was only staying there until I got there. This stunned me. They asked why I didn’t ask. I told them I did ask, I asked Grand, I asked my cousin when they weren’t available and they were all as clueless as I was.

I was accused of being insanely picky about everything I wanted down to the minor details. I told them that was ridiculous. Sure, I had a lot of things I liked, everybody does, but I wasn’t allowed to be involved in any of the decision-making enough to be accused of being picky. That the entire time any of this was going on, I saw one realtor, who showed us a bunch of overpriced insane shit and next thing I know there just is a place, it’s purchased and their friend is living in it. What I thought didn’t matter and no one asked.

To some degree, it kind of felt like an act and in some other, it seemed like the eldest kind of figured out where they fucked up. I’m sure, if they are like Grand, this will be rewritten in their mind in about a week, much like the “insane demands” I apparently made about… spigots, tiles? I remember a conversation once about things I thought were cool in kitchens. This is the only reference material I can recall on this and it had nothing to do with any places we’d seen. I want a completely stainless steel kitchen with sealed cabinets, a pressure washer and a drain in the floor… because I’m fucking lazy and that sounds awesome. I also want a more awesome chest and thicker hair.

My cousin’s wife… I’m not sure if she was trying to be comforting, but it really just pissed me off more. They were saying that not having someone as venomous as Grand around Spawn is something I should be thankful for. That I should be grateful to the their kids for all of it since it meant I was free of it.

But I’m not. They fucking meddled and pushed me to the side and instead of discussing anything with me, they just meddled more and dealt with Grand like baggage. There is no way NOW of knowing how any of it would have turned out. Grand might still be here, as cantankerous and shitty as ever, but on less meds and less weight and busy… I just wanted them busy and active and not sitting in that stupid rocker all day brooding over who they would fuck with next. Sure, it would have been trying for both me and Spawn, but maybe not as much as it was at the start had we all been allies versus enemies. We were just NEVER given that chance.

All of this BS aside, it shit on so many relationships with my family as well, I have nothing but bad feelings from all of that. If I’d known that then what would have occurred, before coming back to this area, I would have never come and probably headed further west and away from them.

THAT I could have been truly thankful for.

Thanksgiving Hangover (G-uno)

After all the shopping, cleaning, and cooking are done,

 we found ourselves entwined in togetherness.

Gathered at the table,

with our bellies full from all the carefully prepared dishes. 

Laughter filled the room as we recalled

all the moments that had filled our hearts with joy.

Some of the memories were bittersweet,

and some were now just precious memories

of Thanksgivings that have long since passed.

This is by far my favorite part,

where we make sure to bring along with us,

all those with whom we’ve had to part.

Once we have honored all who have gone,

I look around the room to see

all the wonderful ones who still belong.

 

 

ever had someone tell you more about yourself than you realized? (g2)

I guess having someone make an observation about you that confuses you might actually be very common. Self-awareness isn’t exactly common. Considering I spend quite a large amount of time trying to assess my mental standing on an ongoing basis, I tend to be a little more surprised than normal, especially when I seem to be way off.

I’ve been struggling lately with the desire to blog being beaten down by the desire to bitch. Not that I have a big issue with bitching, but I like it to be riddled with enough humor that is kind of muddled down to an “awww, ain’t it cute” level. I don’t like when all I want to do is rage and I don’t feel it’s constructive to share that. I hate it when I cannot convince my own mind to let go of the anger, I hate it even more if I drag someone else into it with me.

Now if I was having a turf war with my posse that’d be one thing, but this is mostly me latching onto unnecessary crap that goes against my philosophy of “indifference is the best revenge.” Lately, and for many months, what has been consuming me has been a large volume of petty little shit, stuff that usually doesn’t bother me.

My computer died. Some of the hardware I ordered was bad. I procrastinated on sending it back and apparently, even though it was not on, it decided to have a mini-fireworks display of a short out of the blue, effectively frying the bad parts further as well as possibly taking out some of the good. Now I cannot send it back.

I have discovered some bugs in the house and want to set it on fire and move. I know the winter is some of the influence as they migrate to warm areas and finding the occasional forgotten lunch nugget under a pile of old homework a’la Spawn isn’t helping. I miss living in the frozen desert of the west because it was too cold for this crap. Roaches can survive a nuclear war, but they cannot survive in the upper midwest of the US. Think on that.

I am hating the company I work for. Over a year of nonstop stress over stuff that I have to shoulder the blame for internally and externally in spite of my having nothing to do with it, my annual review being completely ignored all compiles to more than I am willing to take, especially considering my take home is less than my last job. With Spawn’s sights on a school in the upper part of the state in a few years (an expensive one), I’m thinking that will be a good direction. I also want to head out west soon after.

I’m also feeling choked by clutter and want to sell, trash or give away almost everything I own. I lived with the packrat that was Grand, so I short circuit when it gets too much.

Yesterday, I get a call from one of my fellow parent buds. They needed to pick up their car and needed a ride. Although I sincerely did not want to, I wanted to contemplate my next actions on my freshly revamped, cleaned and heavily modded installation of Skyrim that I plan on burying myself in when I could confiscate Spawn’s computer for a few hours.

I agreed to giving them a ride because… karma. Spawn had a ton of homework, so I suggested ditching the kids together so they can finish while we get the vehicle. My friend grabbed pizza for the kids and we go figure out what to eat that we know they’d hate. Seafood ended up being the answer.

We talk, we gripe, we trade advice, we vent, we laugh, we joke, we eat ourselves sick. I contemplate whether I still have the drinking skills to take out a massive margarita and still drive straight. I opt not. It’s dark, raining, it’s been over 10 years since I’ve had any copious amount of alcohol and I live in the state with the highest percentage of bad drivers already.

My buddy remarked that they were happy to see the edge was off me that day. I’m pretty sure I looked like a dog when it perks its ears and cocks its head to the side. My face went dead and I just asked “huh?” They said I seem to have less stress and mental weight on me that day than I have had in a long while. I was absolutely puzzled. Was I this good an actor? Was I secretly in a good mood and hadn’t noticed? Was I not still pissed about the same stuff that I’d been pissed about for months? Well, yeah I was still pissed about it.

Was there anything about today that was brighter, more special or good? Nah. I was being fed the same line of shit at work of “It’s ok, in about a month this will get SO much better and we’ll be back on track” that I’ve been hearing since I started there a few years ago. It’s a bad record I stopped acknowledging a long time ago.

To be honest, I don’t know. Perhaps in the back of my mind, I’m slowly embracing the indifference I have been longing for the past several months over the stupid stuff I can’t change and shouldn’t matter. Maybe deciding to look for a new job was enough to make me feel better. Maybe fantasizing about setting the house on fire is the positive imagery I was needing. Maybe I’m just excited that Santa is coming.

a 2nd computer went down, then we had a flood and shit… perhaps, literally (g2)

So, I’m a bit dizzy at the moment, and I feel like I might keel over every time I bend at the waist, so let’s all be thankful I don’t have to tie my shoes today. Unfortunately, the fair is in town, Spawn will be there and I’m to catch up with them and our respective friends after work.

I want to go home and sleep.

I used to love a constant state of activity. I sought it out. I could not stand any level of boredom.

I hate that shit now.

I want to go home, I want to nap, I want to put on something very soft and warm and I want to make weird noises on the couch while the cats try to alternate between trying to kill me in my sleep and finding my best accumulation of fat to sleep on.

A couple weeks back Spawn’s computer went down. We had a lot of flooding that weekend. The power was iffy, and after about the 6th time of flickering, the power went out for good that night. When it was restored the next morning, the computer would not come up. It was so bad that no tool made for repair was working. Even the installation disk just wanted to give up. The drive was fine, but nothing would touch the files. When work opened again (I did say flooding, right?), I took it to work and see if I could find anything to repair it.

I ran everything I could to repair it, but it looked like half the operating system files were just missing. I’ve never had a disk I couldn’t get to boot  Mercury is still in retrograde at this point (the time I opt out of any repair work) so I’m positive at this point I’m being unduly influenced by it, El Nino and the Blood Supermoon who are all working in cahoots with the Illuminati. Probably. Of course, I also lost the cover to the install disk, so I have no clue what my code is anymore. Most the tools I downloaded to find it, couldn’t.

The downtown and many low points of our city were completely buried under water, including a portion of the sewage plant. We had some coffins making escape attempts, bridges and roads collapsing, trees falling, debris, etc. Spawn and I were lucky, we were on a well, lived on a hill and ended up with a soggy driveway and a bad installation in the aftermath, that was it. All too many completely lost their homes and everything in it. Of the hundred or so co-workers I have, just two were affected. For situations like this, that’s not bad odds, even though it’s terribly shitty for the one experiencing it.

We had a few deaths, but the overwhelmingly rapid and adaptive response time that occurred during and immediately after the floods was enormous. Twitter and Facebook were blowing up with statuses of the conditions in the area, pictures of the wreckage, if people were trapped in particular locations, responses that help would be coming and when, words of encouragement.

When I was a kid, I got to see firsthand the aftermath of a hurricane and my little hometown had no power for weeks. Power was restored this time in days. Businesses that were half-swimming opened up in a week or three later. One Little Caesars opened as immediately as they could and was one of the only places for miles feeding people. A Shoney’s followed suit with a no-menu, breakfast bar only option and bottled water. Sure, it’s still a work in progress and not everything is back to normal. Even Spawn in on delays at school still to compensate for the navigational problems. Ironically, there are a ton of roads just around my area that are completely destroyed.

But it was nice to see the passive-aggressive bullshit put aside and an overwhelming amount of people just asking “What do you need? Where can I get it to you?” and making it happen. The surrounding states? They fucking rock like Elvis. Not even sport rivalry was slowing down the overwhelming amount of generosity and support I witnessed while people went without decent water for almost 2 weeks, but we didn’t lack. Where there was a need, there were plenty trying to fill it. I know it’s twisted, but I appreciate the simplicity of importances that are realized after a catastrophe. I just wish that simplicity lasted.

As for the computer, Spawn helped out at work, I backed as much as I could on my work machine, cut my losses and completely reinstalled the operating system (I found one tool that gave me the code). This time I made sure it was 64-bit. I even went ahead and upgraded Spawn to Windows 10 (making sure to turn off all the Big Brother options, of course. Fuck you, Microsoft, you creepy stalker!). Ironically, things that used to be problems before it crashed, were no longer an issue.

Spawn was just happy to have their machine back and spent the next weekend getting to know the newness. It made me long for mine as well, until I realized more hardware, a custom service rep and an RMA were involved and took a nap instead.

This past weekend a friend and former co-worker we haven’t seen since Spawn was half the size they are now came by in order for me to help them update their resume and catch up. You never really realize sometimes how much you miss someone until they are in your face making you acknowledge it. Spawn was a shock to them, but they managed to catch up like times never changed and we had a great time just talking.

The next day, I planned to go north and nab apples for our annual visit. It was a long drive, the weather was chilly and beautiful, we were there pretty much all day and it was tiring but nice. We enjoyed apple slushies, apple doughnuts, apple bread, apple butter, a half bushel of apples, and Spawn picked out a pumpkin they liked and my usual partner-in-crime and their two kids got about the same and a few more veggies. We had quite a load to haul back home and the kids didn’t last long before they just conked out. It meant the conversation could get more R-rated, which is rare when we hang.

I hate doing any sort of activity on Sundays, I think Sunday is such a jype anyway since it’s technically a weekend day but you still have to go to bed early. It sucks. Sunday should be Saturday, part II and Monday should be Sunday. We already hate it enough already, this would lessen the ire and instill World Peace.. let me know and I’ll tell you where you can send my Nobel.

As tired as I was when we got home, I wasn’t able to sleep, my voice is threatening to give out today and I was already barely holding some sort of funk at bay.

And today… the fair. The screams, ear-blistering music, seizure-inducing lights, the wafts of fried dough, vomit, sugar, piss, diaper, 30 year-old uncleaned ashtray and asphalt nostril-raping passersby with their constant orgy of aromas. The rotund herds of people, mouth agape, wondering where their next fried chocolate bar will come from while they wander right in your pathway like a pack of drunken toddlers on downers, incapable of keeping their focus on the direction in which they are sort of aiming. I’m still trying to figure out what the signal is that makes them wander right from the pages of the People of Wal-Mart and into this place where you can purchase a cup of french fries for $10, or cotton candy aka candyfloss for 15$ and $25 for the small and large bags respectively.

It’s at least not Disney World, but that’s a rant for another day.

I want to go home. I also want a gyro. Maybe an elephant ear, definitely some fries with some vinegar… do they do the fried onions anymore? ooooooh, friend mushrooms…!