Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Just Another Day in Paradise
Here's a sample of what I see during my work-week. In walks a family of tweakers. The older two are not much older than me, and they're jerking around and talking so fast it's like listening to a sped-up recording. The younger two, both young adults, are some relatives of these older two, and they're toting along a baby which they're letting one of the older tweakers hold and entertain. Beautiful child surrounded by crazy fuckers. This is hard to see.
This is also hard to see.
This crap is pretty damned common around these parts. Don't do it. You'll probably lose your family and surely all your real friends, your self-respect, some weight, and your teeth.
This is also hard to see.
This crap is pretty damned common around these parts. Don't do it. You'll probably lose your family and surely all your real friends, your self-respect, some weight, and your teeth.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
The Theme
"Backwater"
And when I wake up in the morning
To feel the daybreak on my face
There's a blood that's flowin'
Through the feeling, with a knife
To open up the sky's veins
Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that will never change
And when I shoulda been gone a long time
Laughs and says, I find ways
Just when we're sheltered under paper
The rockets come at us sideways
Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change
Hey, I'm blind
Good, fine
Roll the time
On whose dime
And when I wake up in the morning
To feel the daybreak on my face
There's a blood that's flowin'
Through the ceiling, with a knife
To open up the sky's veins
Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change
Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change
-Curtis Matthew Kirkwood
And when I wake up in the morning
To feel the daybreak on my face
There's a blood that's flowin'
Through the feeling, with a knife
To open up the sky's veins
Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that will never change
And when I shoulda been gone a long time
Laughs and says, I find ways
Just when we're sheltered under paper
The rockets come at us sideways
Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change
Hey, I'm blind
Good, fine
Roll the time
On whose dime
And when I wake up in the morning
To feel the daybreak on my face
There's a blood that's flowin'
Through the ceiling, with a knife
To open up the sky's veins
Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change
Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change
-Curtis Matthew Kirkwood
Monday, August 27, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
Torture is Not Merely Discomfort
NFather had a daughter from the first of his three marriages. Father and mother married when he was nearing 40 and she was but 19 years old. Up until I was about age 10, my father occasionally mentioned how he had a daughter that died many years ago. I heard this without it having a lot of meaning for me, simply because I never knew her. I never questioned why he would bring her up at the dinner table. (For the record, because of the sit-down meals we were subjected to almost every evening where no one talked except the father when it suited him, I still cannot stand the sound of chewing. HATE IT.) Anyhoo, on one summer day when my best friend happened to be spending the night that night, the mother received a phone call that I could tell left her stunned. I really didn't get it, but I knew something was going on. After the father got home in the evening from his construction job, he came bursting into my room where I was playing Barbies with my best friend and announced, "She's ALIVE! She's ALIVE! Your sister is ALIVE!!" Shit, I knew he wasn't talking about my sister-sister. I just knew exactly what he was talking about, in testament to his setting this situation up. I think I just said okay and looked at my friend and shrugged, and we went back to playing Barbies. I can't imagine what she must have really thought about the situation.
As mother told me later, when I was not her daughter but her closest walking diary, she confronted the father about this information. As in, "You told me your daughter and ex-wife died!" His response to her: "If you don't believe me, go to hell." WHAT?? WHATTHEFUCK!! That goddamned comeback doesn't even make sense. And what did the mother do? Pretend not to be upset about it to him. She came and dumped it on me.
In the weeks to come, the father made arrangements to meet with this child of his that he abandoned. Because he was too fucking cheap to rent a hotel to visit his daughter who he basically abandoned as a child, a daughter who he told that her mother told him was dead, we stayed in this sister's house. Remember, this is someone only my father had ever met, and that was when she was a baby, when he abandoned her mother and her because her mother wanted to divorce. It was awkward, truly, what with him expecting her to idolize him and believe every fucking word out of his mouth, and with her wanting this fairy-tale that I'm sure any child in her situation might well have dreamed about her whole life. As it turned out, my father had abandoned that baby girl to her alcoholic mother because his pride was hurt, and he couldn't be bothered to pay child support or even want to visit her during her then-almost-30-year life span. And he expected her to be grateful to him for his showing gratitude that she was alive.
Many years have passed since this happened. As it turns out, older sister is a total fucking mess who bragged to me when I was a kid that her husband was a member of the Klan, and who has exhibited her own extremely narcissistic and childish behavior in the brief contact I've ever had with her. I have no desire to know her better than I already know her, and I never want a relationship with her. I attempted that once. I did my time with the father. Never gonna fucking happen.
Is she a hot mess because her father was such a douche-bag asshole? That might be part of it. But lots of us have alot of shit going on in our heads, and we didn't end up like her, either. Life is a mind-fuck for anyone who has a narcissist in their life, and I'll bet her life was hell.
I work in a courthouse, and when the county recorder came to me and told me the older sister was seeking a copy of the father's death record shortly after his death (which my real sister and I tried to notify her about at the time, which notification she finally responded to via e-mail with some bullshit story that her husband had rocky mountain spotted fever and she just wasn't able to get back to us), which I would have gladly given her if she had been willing to ask like a normal person, and that my sister was telling her on the phone that I had kept her away from our father and not told her about his death (not knowing that the recorder knows me or that I work in that courthouse). Really, call the county fucking recorder and work that into a long and breathless tale of needing a fucking death certificate, when, you know, asking for one would do just as well.
As mother told me later, when I was not her daughter but her closest walking diary, she confronted the father about this information. As in, "You told me your daughter and ex-wife died!" His response to her: "If you don't believe me, go to hell." WHAT?? WHATTHEFUCK!! That goddamned comeback doesn't even make sense. And what did the mother do? Pretend not to be upset about it to him. She came and dumped it on me.
In the weeks to come, the father made arrangements to meet with this child of his that he abandoned. Because he was too fucking cheap to rent a hotel to visit his daughter who he basically abandoned as a child, a daughter who he told that her mother told him was dead, we stayed in this sister's house. Remember, this is someone only my father had ever met, and that was when she was a baby, when he abandoned her mother and her because her mother wanted to divorce. It was awkward, truly, what with him expecting her to idolize him and believe every fucking word out of his mouth, and with her wanting this fairy-tale that I'm sure any child in her situation might well have dreamed about her whole life. As it turned out, my father had abandoned that baby girl to her alcoholic mother because his pride was hurt, and he couldn't be bothered to pay child support or even want to visit her during her then-almost-30-year life span. And he expected her to be grateful to him for his showing gratitude that she was alive.
Many years have passed since this happened. As it turns out, older sister is a total fucking mess who bragged to me when I was a kid that her husband was a member of the Klan, and who has exhibited her own extremely narcissistic and childish behavior in the brief contact I've ever had with her. I have no desire to know her better than I already know her, and I never want a relationship with her. I attempted that once. I did my time with the father. Never gonna fucking happen.
Is she a hot mess because her father was such a douche-bag asshole? That might be part of it. But lots of us have alot of shit going on in our heads, and we didn't end up like her, either. Life is a mind-fuck for anyone who has a narcissist in their life, and I'll bet her life was hell.
I work in a courthouse, and when the county recorder came to me and told me the older sister was seeking a copy of the father's death record shortly after his death (which my real sister and I tried to notify her about at the time, which notification she finally responded to via e-mail with some bullshit story that her husband had rocky mountain spotted fever and she just wasn't able to get back to us), which I would have gladly given her if she had been willing to ask like a normal person, and that my sister was telling her on the phone that I had kept her away from our father and not told her about his death (not knowing that the recorder knows me or that I work in that courthouse). Really, call the county fucking recorder and work that into a long and breathless tale of needing a fucking death certificate, when, you know, asking for one would do just as well.
So Much the Same
I see lots of people every day and am managing normal and healthy relationships now that I see things more clearly than I used to, but sometimes life is so fucking lonely. I love to be alone most of the time, and I can't tell if this is just part of me or if I trained myself so well to dislike being around others because of being almost entirely in the presence of my parents during my formative years. Until I discovered blogging, I don't think I grasped how lonely I was. All of a sudden, I'm realizing how many of us have similar stories. The people who I'm friendly with really don't know my story because I don't want them to. I don't think they would believe the story in its entirety because it sounds crazy and it's fucked up. So I get to put on my human face and deal with the world and all the people in my world and hide this part of me. Christ, there's so many of us that do this and - ? Well, does everyone feel this lonely and just hide themselves?
This belongs to Shel Silverstein. His drawing is poignant in its simplicity and in tandem with his words.
This belongs to Shel Silverstein. His drawing is poignant in its simplicity and in tandem with his words.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Oh, Thank You, Barenaked Ladies
"Alcohol"
Alcohol, my permanent accessory
Alcohol, a party-time necessity
Alchool, alternative to feeling like yourself
O Alcohol, I still drink to your health
I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
Forget the caffe latte,
screw the raspberry iced tea
A Malibu and Coke for you, a G&T for me
Alcohol, Your songs resolve like
my life never will
When someone else is picking up the bill
I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
O Alcohol, would you please forgive me?
For while I cannot love myself
I'll use something else
I thought that Alcohol was just for those with
nothing else to do
I thought that drinking just to get drunk
was a waste of precious booze
But now I know that there's a time
and there's a place where I can choose
To walk the fine line between
self-control and self-abuse
I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
Would you please ignore that you
found me on the floor
Trying on your camisole?
O Alcohol, would you please forgive me?
For while I cannot love myself
I'll use something else
Would you please forgive me?
Would you please forgive me?
Alcohol, a party-time necessity
Alchool, alternative to feeling like yourself
O Alcohol, I still drink to your health
I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
Forget the caffe latte,
screw the raspberry iced tea
A Malibu and Coke for you, a G&T for me
Alcohol, Your songs resolve like
my life never will
When someone else is picking up the bill
I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
O Alcohol, would you please forgive me?
For while I cannot love myself
I'll use something else
I thought that Alcohol was just for those with
nothing else to do
I thought that drinking just to get drunk
was a waste of precious booze
But now I know that there's a time
and there's a place where I can choose
To walk the fine line between
self-control and self-abuse
I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
Would you please ignore that you
found me on the floor
Trying on your camisole?
O Alcohol, would you please forgive me?
For while I cannot love myself
I'll use something else
Would you please forgive me?
Would you please forgive me?
By Steven Page, Stephen Duffy
THIS POST IS NOT MEANT TO BE DEPRESSING OR SAD. Right now, I'm singing the praises of the numbing I can experience legally after I get off work in the evening. I don't think I've crossed the line to alcoholic, although I'm flirting pretty hard-core right now. For reasons I suspect, I've started scrubbing the shit out of everything and throwing out/giving away things I can't use (that don't belong to the husband) and enjoying the benefits of sipping/guzzling. About a year ago is when I was given the news that my father had a round-about expiration date, and this is how I got when he died. I keep thinking, "What the fuck? He made my life hell. He was a douchebag who told terrible lies to anyone who would listen. I can't possibly be MOURNING." But, yeah, I guess I am. This must be how I mourn someone who didn't deserve my tears.
There's only one thing Oprah Winfrey said that's stuck with me: Forgiveness is realizing the past can't be changed. (Something to that effect, anyhow.) If this is a true definition, that's why I can't forgive. I'm so fucking ANGRY. I will never, ever have a hope of my father realizing or understanding how I felt about all the emotional abuse he put us through. Through the mother's medical problems, she also can't remember a large chunk of time during my adolescence into young adulthood, back when she slept with anything that moved and refused to grow a pair and just leave the awful man she didn't love because she didn't have to support herself. Thusly, even if I were to give it the old college try, she can also fall back on the reason (maybe excuse) that she can't remember what I'm talking about. How the fuck did she get that easy out??? Even if there was something she did remember, she can fake out, because there's not a single goddamn thing I can call her on from that era when much of the damage between us was done. There's no amount of therapy that can remedy that.
I have this craving to move far away and start fresh, even though it would be alot of work. But how attractive is this: I'm not scared of hard work. I can scrub the fuck out of a toilet. I'm not scared too badly of being poor. I've been there before when I lived in a hovel that my neighbor bought from me just so he could tear it down and have a big purty yard. I could start again. Yeah. But the husband doesn't really want that, and I don't want to uproot my little kid and be far away from my big kid. So I'll just dream. And I'll probably drink some, too.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Learning to Fly
Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
Flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone, my senses reel
Fatal attraction that's holding me fast
Now, can't escape this irresistible grasp
Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted; just an earth-bound misfit, I
Ice is forming on the tips of my wings
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
No navigator to find my way home
Unladen, empty, and turned to stone
A soul in tension that's learning to fly
Condition: grounded - determined to try
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted; just an earth-bound misfit, I
Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air,
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night
There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation - a state of bliss
Can't keep my mind from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I
Written by Gilmour, Moore, Ezrin, Carin
Stretched to the point of no turning back
Flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone, my senses reel
Fatal attraction that's holding me fast
Now, can't escape this irresistible grasp
Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted; just an earth-bound misfit, I
Ice is forming on the tips of my wings
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
No navigator to find my way home
Unladen, empty, and turned to stone
A soul in tension that's learning to fly
Condition: grounded - determined to try
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted; just an earth-bound misfit, I
Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air,
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night
There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation - a state of bliss
Can't keep my mind from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I
Written by Gilmour, Moore, Ezrin, Carin
Thursday, August 9, 2012
How 'Bout No
Yeah, I haven't called my mother back, and I decided I will talk to my sister when I see her in a couple of weeks for a seminar. I went to bed the other night and prayed to something I might believe in to help me find answers to what the best thing to do is. Then I got it - the answer had to come from me. So when I got up the next morning, I erased the message without listening. Then, that evening, as my husband was listening to the rock station in the kitchen, and Crazy Train came on, I stiffened up and immediately felt like I was going to be sick. Then I realized, it's the fucking radio, it's not the ringtone. My reaction reaffirmed to me that I did the right thing.
I catch myself craving a drink more regularly again. I didn't drink much for the most part this year, mostly because I jumped off the high board at a Christmas party and had a hangover that caused me to believe I was going to die. But, damn, it seems to numb the anger for me. Or it numbs something that I'm not quite aware of yet. I know I've got to deal with this shit, and I guess I'm still scared that no contact is going to cause more problems than it will good. All I know is that I haven't once missed talking to the mother since the last time I spoke with her, and that's telling me something.
I catch myself craving a drink more regularly again. I didn't drink much for the most part this year, mostly because I jumped off the high board at a Christmas party and had a hangover that caused me to believe I was going to die. But, damn, it seems to numb the anger for me. Or it numbs something that I'm not quite aware of yet. I know I've got to deal with this shit, and I guess I'm still scared that no contact is going to cause more problems than it will good. All I know is that I haven't once missed talking to the mother since the last time I spoke with her, and that's telling me something.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
That Sick, Sinking Feeling
The mother just tried to call me yesterday, right at 5 p.m., an odd time for her to try to call. She left a voice mail. The minute my phone started playing Crazy Train, I realized it was her and my stomach dropped. I haven't listened to the voice mail, and I really want to just delete it, but I know I'll have to see her at my niece's christening in less than a month, and I wonder if I should listen just to get an idea of what I'm in for. Cuz I know, it'll be all about mother. She'll probably be bawling at the christening, make a big fucking scene, and make the whole thing less about my precious niece. Fuck. Fuck. I don't want to be the reason for the drama there. I love my sis & her family. I'm definitely going to the christening; this is really important to them. Maybe I call my sister & ask her what her opinion is on this? I know that my sister is familiar with mother's tactics and that mother has pulled them on her. But sis is alot more straightforward and stronger when it comes down to the bullshit. Fuck. What to do? How to handle?
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