Aug 14, 2005 22:19
Things are odd. Seems it's not a good month for me.
I know people post stuff like this and then get a wave of "I'm so sorry" posts from friends...but that is not what I'm after. My own "thoughts and prayers" on these things are a bit skewed and I don't think anyone else needs to be bothered by them. But I am posting this here because I have to vent, and a vent to myself alone never makes me feel any better. I'm disabling comments though, I get embarrassed by the condolences posts.
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My dad is in the hospital with a minor heart attack. No surprise to any of us. He is fat, eats multiple dinners a night, smokes all day, does nothing but watch TV after he gets off work. After his first heart attack 8 years ago, he went a an actual diet, but only maintained it for 6 months. Then he said to me, "I can't live happily like this." So hey, if he wants to die, he'll die, and no one will feel like they didn't try to help him, because he wants to live on his own terms. If he doesn't want to see my kids, then what am I going to do about it.
So yeah, he's doing "ok" at the moment, they're going to do an angioplasty or maybe a bypass, they're not sure yet...scary but I'm not scared, you know? I feel a sense of calm about it, that everything will happen as it should. Thinking about it gives me pause but I haven't felt anywhere near tears. I love my dad, we all do, but we're all reacting in the same almost detached way, thinking "this is what he wants." I wonder how mom is really doing. She cried a bit on the phone but I think that's a combination of things.
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My brother is an idiot. Yes, the attractive guy in the Air Force uniform. He's 24, got his whole life ahead of him, rising in the ranks about as fast as humanly possible, enjoying life in Alaska. He's a fucking idiot and I can't believe how he could possibly have done this.
By tomorrow night he'll be married. He got involved with a....ready for the list?...a divorced woman. Who has a 5 year old kid. Who's not Jewish. And he got her pregnant.
She has no bloody health insurance and can barely pay her bills. My brother is in love with her and says she's the one. He's said it before to me about other women, with just as much conviction. But hey, he thinks she's the one, she seems to agree, they apparently were super-serious when the news broke...so why not get legally married so she can have medical coverage for the pregancy, and have a nice wedding later?
Sigh.
I really don't give a shit if she's Jewish or divorced or whatever....it's just a matter of rushing into things for the wrong reasons. I'm mostly concerned that he's not taking marriage seriously enough. I know that most of the world isn't nearly as cautious as we are, since we waited AGES to get married, but still. He was always the risk taker and he was always the one who got in trouble because of it. When I asked him if they'd used protection, he said "well, we weren't cautious enough every single time." That idiot actually didn't use protection??? For God's sake...
The Jewish thing is a huge problem to my parents. One can say that it's all in their heads or whatever but I do think that my brother knows the consequences of his actions. They have discussed things with my parents and so far things are tenuously ok...as long as they have a Jewish wedding eventually, and consider converting her. I know these kinds of "compromises" are more just ways for my parents to feel better about things in stupidly superficial ways, but whatever works is fine by me. My father was threatening to pull the "he's dead to me" bit.
I keep trying to be happy for him and live up to what I said to him. "No matter how you find the love of your life, it's still the love of your life, and that's what's important, and that's a joyous thing," I told him. "There isn't enough love in this world." Yeah, sounds great, but FUCK, this throws a huge monkey wrench into the family. Already, I know I shouldn't mention him at family gatherings. I don't think my grandmother or anyone else in the extended family has been told yet.
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Work has been hell and I can feel my rebellious side popping out. They are taking away our internet and we've been chastised for talking. Now we're all playing solitaire, and we know that'll be the next to go. I'm reading more but I know that'll get busted down on as well - it's in the rulebook that we can't read on desk. When I'm off desk I have a data entry task I absolutely loathe...10key numbers for hours on end. It's also pointless busy work, but it's more than anyone else has. We all hoard our crappy tasks like prisoners attacking rats for nourishment.
Meanwhile, they cut the hours of the part-timers and warned us we wouldn't be getting any extra hours...but then they call me and ask if I can do extra time at tech services. No one else is trusted with a job involving scanning and photoshop, so I'm going to get 4 extra hours a week. I said to my boss, "look, I don't want to upset anyone, I'll take off hours at the branch to even it out." "Don't worry about it," she said, "no one will know."
It's only been 2.5 months. We have another 12 months ahead of us, if everything goes on schedule. I don't know if I can take a year of this hell. Perhaps with the school year starting I'll feel better, since I'll actually accomplish something with my mornings.
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Other bad stuff happened to me lately, but seriously, enough. Not all the news is bad. Our Paris trip is coming up in only 10 weeks (yes I'm counting) and we're very excited. Romantic nights in Paris!!! We're almost done with our Shag framing project - Frontierland is the last bugger. The night at the cemetary screening was awesome, it was great hanging out. We visited LA friends and had a blast, and found out a couple of them actually live out here. We're going to see Greg's family this weekend for anniversary celebrations - there are three to celebrate, including a belated for us.
But yeah, kind of hard to think everything's fine with family and work being so stressful. So if I'm a little distant with anyone, I may be thinking about something of this nature.