The Blurb

I learned the my nephew is my nephew this Sunday because he is starring in a play and used a traditionally masculine name for himself and he/him pronouns in his blurb. It was an unexpected thing to see. (Honestly, I thought he was more likely on a non-binary track.)

Yesterday, I sent him a text letting him know that I saw it and that I want to do everything I can to make him feel safe. (I also preemptively apologized for my future mistakes, because 15 years of habit will not disappear overnight.)

Here's the thing that bothers me, though: During and after the play, my brother, his father, and my parents, who spend far more time with him that I do, all used his birth name and feminine pronouns. Did none of them know? Did none of the see the blurb?

*sigh*

Part of me envies my nephew. I didn't even know the word for my sexuality until I was nearly 30 and didn't understand that it was who I was for another 5+ years.

Part of me is scared for my nephew because we live in a rural area and people who are awful about things like this are more aggressive in these times.

On How to Help?

Dear S--,

I've been trying to write this for about a month, now.

I ran into your Grandpa at the grocery store and although it had been five months since you killed yourself, he looked shaken up. I suppose that the nice thing to do would have been to offer him some sort comfort? I should have acknowledged what happened and then told him how sorry I was about it, I suppose.

I couldn't though. Don't think I ever can.

So I asked him how his foundation work is going and we chatted a bit about my shitty job. I mentioned that I had recently visited family up your way and he said he was heading up in a week or so to see your family and your Aunt's family. His family. I still didn't have anything to say to him. And we left it at that.

It's not like I had nothing to say, but what I had to say wouldn't have been a comfort to him because knowing what you did... I can't say that you were wrong.

The last time I saw you was almost exactly four years ago. I was at your Aunt's house visiting briefly before I headed down to my family. It was your cousin's birthday party. You were the oldest one there, by several years, which isn't easy, but you were trying. Trying to be included. Trying to one of them. Trying to keep it up.

I've known you for a long time. Not quite since the day you were born, but pretty close. I remember meeting your father, back when your mother and him were lying to themselves about themselves. They were idiots. Then he was gone and you were with your mom and the stream of guys she kept promising you she'd marry until she didn't. How many time was it? Five? Six? Seven? No matter the exact number, it was too many.

And so I watched you. I wasn't really friends with your mom, but with your aunt and her husband. They were my friends. But your aunt was very careful to be around you as much as possible. I don't think she trusted your mom. So, when I visited we ended up at a lot of places your mom wanted to be with her friends to keep an eye on you, I think.

I think that because I can remember several occasions when I was the one watching you. You would walk off looking for rocks, you really loved rocks for a while there, and I'd see you go and your aunt would see you go (and your uncle may have seen you go, but before he had kids, I don't think he had ever thought about how easy it is to lose a kid). I'd look at your aunt and jerk my head in your direction. She'd give a weak smile or a stony look and nod. I'd get up and follow you. I'm sure she would have if I hadn't been there, but I was and since I wasn't really wanted anyway I wouldn't be noticed.

Mostly, I just followed you. You'd pick up rocks, look at them, compare them to each other, and put them in your pocket. When you found an acorn, you threw it as hard as you could and then look for another rock. Occasionally, you'd call me over and talk about your rocks. You'd talk like you were a scientist, even though you didn't have a clue what you were talking about. You sounded authoritative, though. I didn't say much. I just listened. I knew that you weren't listened too very much. Most of the time you were just talked at and told what to do. You needed to do some talking.

In time, your mom moved, with you, and I saw you less because, again, I wasn't really friends with her. I'd ask your aunt about you, though because I could see, even when you were little, that something was hurt and hurting. Something that wouldn't be easy to shake and I wanted you to be well.

I did see you on occasion, though. I'd visit your aunt on holidays and you'd be around, so I saw you get bigger. I saw that you always wore your hair long. Was that your idea? I think it was. The main reason I think so is because you always kept hair in front of your face. Trying to hide. Even when you laughed, it was from behind a curtain of hair.

At your cousin's birthday four years ago, your hair was the longest I'd ever seen it and it was always blocking your face. All day long. All day long.

I mentioned to your aunt that I though something was wrong. That you weren't happy. That it might have been deeper. She said she'd mention it to your mom. Your aunt was going through her own shit at that time as well as trying to raise her kids. I'm sure she mentioned it to your mother and was blown off.

Your mother always seemed to attribute your actions and attitude to something you were eating. The nitrates or nitrites or whatever else the liberal mommy blogs were saying at the time. Plus you probably weren't acting much different from usual. Was she dating at the time? I can't remember. It was only a year or so ago that she finally got married to one of the guys that she'd always say she married. Did you do things to try to drive these guys away, or did you want a dad?

Anyway, after you killed yourself, I didn't feel surprised. I felt more like it had been a long time coming. That's not fair and not nice, I know.

The problem is, though, that I've been near that point myself and ever since then I can't say the suicide is a bad decision. I can't. It doesn't feel like a bad decision in the moment, and it doesn't now, either. Even in these moments where I can hope for a future I can't say that suicide is not an option.

In the moments when I imagine talking to you before you kill yourself, I imagine telling you that it's an option. Not necessarily the best, but it's an option. I can't promise you that things would get better either. I could tell you that things change, though; that things would be different. I would tell you that people would miss you. Your aunt would. Your grandpa would... does.

Would any of that helped to stop you? I don't know. Would you have heard the honesty, though? I think so because at my lowest, even when I couldn't feel like anything but a burden on the world as a whole, I could recognize honesty.

Still thinking about this won't bring you back. It's unlikely that any of your family will know that I wrote this and I don't think it would bring them comfort. Probably just make them angry. And you'd still be gone.

Out of the Breach

I've been feeling okay for the last two weeks. Not great, but I don't have thoughts about killing myself several times an hour every day. Only a couple of times a day. And in between those time there were periods where I may have been grasping at normal; a finger on a ledge and maybe it's possible to get a second and third up until I can get a firm grip. I'm pretty sure it's due to the additional medication my new brain doctor gave to me about eight weeks ago.

Before today, the worst day was a week ago, the 23rd. I was a my brother's in Los Angeles with my parents. My brother and his wife threw a baby shower. Their son is expected in about six weeks. About thirty people were there. Thirty people. That I didn't know. My brain kept shorting out. I would be listening to someone and then I heard everything in the room all at once and couldn't focus. It was awful. After it happened a few time I went to a bedroom and just stayed there for a while. Eventually I could focus again and went back to the party, but I acted the same way as I did before I lost focus: I sat in a chair and didn't say a word to anyone.

This afternoon is a going away/early birthday party for one of my cousin's. He just graduated from high school in June and will be shouting "Semper Fi" in a week or so. But that's beside the point. Today was much harder than last week. Almost as soon as I walked through the door I had trouble focusing on a single conversation without the other babble leak into my ears. So, it was hard to begin with and then I made a mistake of getting involved in a discussion about the presidential election.

It started out fairly innocently. There was a question about the delegate rules and I knew the answer. There was more talk about rules and then some talk about the conventions. (I mentioned how much I liked parts of Ted Cruz's speech and wished that Bernie Sanders had been as brave in his speech.) And then the dreaded question was asked. Who am I voting for in the fall? I gave my true answer, which is I think I know, but I'm not happy with either candidate. My uncle (who said he can't seem to ever vote Democrat because they don't seem to represent white males anymore) asked if the one I'm leaning toward starts with an "H"? And I had to answer yes. My grandpa (who said he doesn't understand the people who simply vote the party line without any thought and is also married to my grandma who has only ever voted Republican, even down ticket, because she won't ever vote for someone who supports "hand-outs") asked why? So I had to talk about Trump not being presidential and that if he's gets angry at internet nobodies who make fun of him online, then how is he going to take criticism, legitimate and not, from world leaders. I don't think he'll handle it well. My grandma said that he's already worked with all of those people, which I assumed meant the world leaders. I said he hadn't, that he worked with people who want to make money off of him and then I ranted about all the people overseas who seem to hate the man, including employees at his resorts and the town-folk who live near the resorts, I then got into his lies about his fortune, his use of bankruptcies to hurt employees and investors to save himself (I acknowledged he used the law to do it legally), and his self-made man crap when he got a million dollars from his father to start his business. My grandma said that she's read about these criticisms, too, but that I have to read stories from the other side.

I was baffled. What other side when you're stating stuff that happened? Were these not things that happened? Were they not facts?

Then Grandma moved on to how people who are on Social Security earn too much money, more than she and my grandpa, and that they constantly whine about not having enough. This is where she always goes. She hates Social Security, for those that didn't pay into it, especially those who aren't of retirement age (even though that was kind of the point when the program was created). She hates food stamps. She hates that people who don't work/pay get medical and dental and vision insurance. I didn't get into it with her over this. We've gone through it before, but she told me what she has always said. She and my grandpa have never taken anything. They've never earned much money. They do what they can to help people through their church and that's the way everyone should be and blah, blah, blah. (In the past she didn't like it when I brought up the uncle who used food stamps to keep his daughters, her granddaughters, fed. So I didn't bring it up again.) She then started in on a story about how her parents would invite people to their farm for dinners and there were sometimes up to 60 people and they all got fed and ... I didn't understand what the point of the story was.

That's when I hit my limit. That's when I had to leave. More was said, but I did my best to turn my brain off and simply look like I was listening. I hope she doesn't think I understood or agreed with her.

Of course I waited the appropriate time before I left so it didn't look like she set me over the edge.

This is why I avoid politics when talking to people. Most everyone, I include myself in this statement, aren't flexible enough to want to hear differences in thought and even is they hear the difference they don't discuss, they go on attack arguing why the other side is wrong rather than arguing why they are right. And attacking is no way to discuss anything.

My Father's Mother

On 12/25/14, my grandmother died. My mother got the call as we were pulling up to my uncle's house for Christmas dinner.

I've been thinking for a week about how to say something about her and her place in the world, like I did for my grandpa earlier this year, but it's much harder to do this for her. With my grandpa, I could, and can (and somtimes do) talk about his idosincratic behavior and his contracictory nature for ever. Everything with him was right on the surface and very little was held back.

She was different. She was kind and cared for everyone, maybe even everything. (Not snails, so much, because they ate her plants.) That kindness the simple way she showed it was who she was.

Which isn't to say she was a simple woman. How could she be simple? She was my grandma.

She was born in the USA, the daughter of immigrants.

She and her best friend couldn't eat lunch at Woolworths because the lunch counter there wouldn't serve colored people. They had to walk downtown to the Jewish deli and did that every day.

She never learned how to swim. She had a bathing suit and would come into the water with us, but she'd never go in past her hips. She enjoyed just wading, she said. As a kid it always concerned me that she never learned and, when I asked, she said she wasn't going to learn. Now that I'm older I wonder if she was scared.

She loved playing games. Cards and board, mostly. She introduced the family to Spite and Malice and when she got going she'd let out a wheeee and when things weren't going so well she'd put hexes on the other players and circle her chair for luck.

She'd take my brothers and me to the mall and we'd all just browse. There was nothing we needed, but it was always fun just looking.

Everyone she met she treated as an old friend. She called everyone darlin' and meant it.

Children Without a Parent

About three weeks ago my brother caught up with this here blog. He worried and fretted and then showed what I had written to his wife. His wife, the kind and sweet woman she is, told him to drive down and see me. Which he did.

However, he didn't tell me. I just got cryptic messages about breakfast and seeing him and I don't really know what. Of course I had a feeling that he was driving down from Oregon, but I hoped, so hoped, that he wasn't on his way. My brother, being my brother, didn't respond to me about, well, anything. His wife, unlike how she usually is, kept cryptic on me and experienced a partial me not being so nice. (This is where I try to tactfully tell the person who they are or what they're doing in child friendly language, but all the subtext comes out as me yelling at them to stop being a fucking asshole and tell me what I want to know, in a very passive-aggressive way. I did, sort of, apologize for acting this way.)

Eventually, I got confirmation from my brother that he was in California and he wanted to take me out to dinner. Nothing about why he had driven nearly 700 miles, but I could guess. I knew what I had been writing and how it would look to someone who hadn't been following daily, but rather read everything in one chunk. Of course, I spent the whole day feeling sick to my stomach because I had made my brother leave his family out of concern for me, which is something I never wanted to happen.

It also made me rethink this whole blogging thing. In part, especially over the last year, this has been a record of just how sick my brain has been. Reading it, you can see the few highs and horrible lows. And I think that's a good thing. Maybe not for me or my family, but there's this sickening cycle of thought on the web that may help other to understand what it's like to be a severely depressed person. A person on meds that worked and then stopped working and the mental and physical pain that's one can go through trying to get back to okay.

That evening we met and we talked. I felt like I was driving the conversation more than him. There are two reasons for this: 1. I'm very good and sneaking conversations onto other topics that are comfortable for everyone. 2. I kept pushing back toward the blog and depression because I wanted to reassure my brother that nothing was going to happen, for the foreseeable future.

It was a weird dinner and a weird after dinner, too.

He left for Oregon so his wife could get back to work. I went back to the house and thought about deleting everything I'd written on the internets, or at least this blog.

Also, while he was in California, he stopped and talked with each of our parents. Our dad, for the first time ever, had a flash of understanding about the sheer insanity this depression thing is made of. I'm not sure what he and our mom spoke about, but she reminded me that I can talk to her and my dad about anything. ("Hi. What'd you do today?" "I stared at the brick corner of the building for a few minutes trying to figure out how fast I'd need to swing my head so I can smash the bricks through my skull and deep into my brain while picturing that exact scenario in my head." "Uhhh...")

A couple of nights later, my dad wrote me a pretty long e-mail, at like two in the morning, which I feel guilty about. In it was all sorts of advice on how to counteract bad things with good. (He's a fixer.) He reminded me that he has felt depressed in his life so he does know what it's like and not to dismiss his advice. I wrote him an equally long e-mail and very carefully laid out what my depression is like; what depression is like when you can find no person, no action, no thing, no emotion to blame it on; how this depression is just being mentally exhausted all the time and knowing, simply knowing, that there is only one way to stop being exhausted and that one way is socially unforgivable. I think he understands what I've been going through better. The other night he was willing to engage me with questions about depression and that's a big step for us.

As for the blog, I don't know. I didn't like the idea of deleting it. It charts the course of my life very well, especially the last year when I decided no one was reading so what the hell. I'm surprised I'm writing this. I still feel very uncomfortable and I'm censoring myself more than I was because it was my fault my nieces didn't have their dad for three days. And that's just one problem that I know I caused.

My Father's Father

He kept a rubber band around his wallet for as long as I can remember. He said the rubber band made it hard for criminals to steal the wallet and helped keep everything in the wallet. I figured he used the rubber band to keep the wallet together, since he never seemed to buy a new one.

When he learned that you liked to eat something that he really liked to eat he would always have it for you. When you told him that you didn't like a food that he really liked he got very upset.

He never lounged in his pajamas and always came to breakfast dressed for the day.

Once he threatened to hit me, and I feared he would, because my cousins (girls) and I were being too loud late at night.

He spent part of World War II in a labor camp for being a conscientious objector. He had no trouble fighting or using weapons, but he was opposed to war. Most of the other men there with him were simply afraid to fight and one day he simply walked away from the camp. He sent a letter to the FBI letting them know where he would be, but nothing was ever done about it.

While working as a college professor he was the faculty person in charge of the fraternity that had the people who would never be accepted by the other fraternities. Mostly it was made up of black men and Jewish men. When he took the students to get a haircut at a local barber, the barber refused. He told the barber that if the students weren't served at this barber he would charter a bus to the next city to get the haircuts and he would make sure to bring a couple of reporters along with him. Everyone who wanted a haircut that day got a haircut.

He believed in the teachings of BF Skinner, that behavior can be trained into people given reinforcement or punishment. This led to him doing some awful things to some of his children, including using electric shocks because how can you reinforce good behavior if the behavior happens while unconscious.

There were televisions in almost every room of his house and two in the main room. He would have these two on all day long, one for news and one for sports unless there were two sporting events he wanted to watch. Sometimes he would even have the radio on for a third game.

He loved his wife with all his heart, but he took her for granted and didn't really show his appreciation for her.

When he cooked a roast or turkey, before slicing for serving, he would take half the meat and put it in the freezer to make sure he had all the leftovers he wanted. And even dinner ran short the extra wouldn't be pulled out.

He taught us how to make a blue cheese spread that is fantastic and, at the very least, gets made every Christmas for gifts for family and dipping before, during, and after the meal.

On Friday, March 28th, he died leaving behind memories for those who knew him.

So Long

My father's parents are dying.

I can't think of anything else to say.

Make It Simple

I like to sing.

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that here or anywhere, really. I do, though. I really enjoy singing. I sing in the shower. I sing while I’m cooking. I sing while I put away dishes and groceries. I sing in the car. I sing at work. When there’s music I like singing along so I can get the key and tempo and (hopefully) words right. When there’s no music I do the best I can and tend to stick to songs that I know all, or most, of the words.

Singing always makes me feel a little better. When I have really bad days I don’t sing. I can’t sing. I want to, but my tongue, jaw, and lips won’t move.

Maybe this goes back to when I was a kid and suddenly one of my brothers would start singing and I and the other, if we were all there, would join in. Mostly we sang songs from Animaniacs or The Beatles. Stuff we knew. Our voices went together well. It was always fun for me. Also, it was something that people of the female persuasion would compliment me on because they were surprised that I could do it (like the guys and my ability to catch a football, every year for all of my required schooling). I wasn’t complimented on much as from my peers, especially the female ones, and it felt a weird kind of good.

Singing still feels good even when it’s just me.

Dear Gramma,

Thank you for the casserole dish.

On How To Be Brave

To the best of my knowledge, there are three place a one, such as myself, can work for this State, but not actually work in The State. Houston, Chicago, and New York are where these jobs are located.

Four or five months ago, I did a phone interview to work in Houston. A week after that I was offered a face-to-face interview for the position. I didn't take the interview. I was interested, but at the time I had done a couple of interviews for promotion that I thought went well, so I turned down the second interview. At the time I was right. The position I interviewed for was the same position I'm in now. I would have been doing more receptionist work rather than clerical or analyst work and there was no room for promotion at this job unless I wanted to go back to school and learn some skills that I don't want to have. (Although I know I could learn them and then use them fairly well.) There was no money for moving and there was no pay increase.

Four weeks ago a position came available in the New York office. Again, not a promotion. But in New York. The office is in Manhattan. No moving expenses, but the pay goes up at least $350. And it's in New York City, which is one of the most amazing places I have ever seen.

Yes, I hate living in cities. I hate the idea of large cities, but I wouldn't have to live in the city. There are buses and subways and trains and plenty of places in all directions where the population density is at a more reasonable level for my sanity. For a week after the job was posted online I looked up rents in the city and its Burroughs. I looked at Long Island and New Jersey. I looked upstate thinking that it would be wonderful to be able to say I lived in New Rochelle. I found places with potential. Places I think I could live.

But...

I hadn't sent the application. Sure, there were two weeks to get it out, but I hadn't sent it. Not because it's not a promotion. I've basically given up on that dream because there's no chance of a promotion for me where I am and the dozen or so interviews I've gone out on for a promotion have done nothing for me. I figure the best way for me to get a promotion is to get somewhere at my level and show them that I am so much more than just a file clerk or a receptionist. Out in New York I would have been at the same level with no real chance for promotion, but I'd be in New York City where so many things that I like are made or come from. Where there are more plays going on each week than I could afford to see in a year. Museums, publishing houses, food from around the world, music everywhere all the time if you look for it. Just the place for an aspiring hipster to be.

Three weeks ago, on Monday, I got out of my car and started to walk across the parking lot thinking about how I have to get the application out that afternoon and suddenly I knew that I wasn't going to send that application off, ever. I stopped and stood in the middle of the lot because even though I knew that I wasn't going to send the application in, I didn't know why. I had to figure out why. I stood there and thought about it.

I'd be living in a city, a gigantic city, where I didn't know, really know, a single person, 3000 miles away from those I do know. Now that wouldn't be a big deal because I've lived in cities where I don't know anyone and been okay, but it's always been in this state. Always close enough to people I know that if something went terribly wrong they'd be close enough that they could help.

The normal argument would be that I'd meet people and make friends. The problem is that, when it comes to me, it won't happen. I don't know how to make friends.

Okay, so logically I know how to make friends. You meet people who share your interest. You get to know each other and enjoy spending time together. Eventually you start hanging out talking about nothing, maybe sharing a meal or going to see a band at a bar or maybe looking at some art. You call or text or e-mail to set up one of these things and you go and you laugh and fun is had. Friends. My problem is I don't know how to go anywhere after the "meet people" stage.

Seriously, I don't know how to do or what to do anything after I meet people. I go to things where people share my interests and sometimes, rarely, I even talk with people I don't know. And then the talking stops. I don't know how to continue after there's a pause because I don't believe that the person I've been speaking with actually wants to speak with me. Crazy, I know, because we were just speaking and 95% of the time I'm not the person who initiates the conversation. Still, I have a hard time imagining. There's also the fear of becoming one of those people who become too much.

If you've ever been to a comic shop you know the kind of guy, and it's always been a guy to me, I'm going try to describe. It's the guy who knows you're interested in comics so you must be interested in the comics he's interested in and he will, if he can, corner you among the long boxes and tell you everything about what he likes and why the stuff your looking at is either brilliant or crap. If you're lucky enough to not get cornered he'll follow you around the shop. When you tell him that you don't like the Punisher because you don't think he's a hero the guy doesn't stop talking about the Punisher because the Punisher is who he wants to talk about. There are only two ways to shake the guy: one, pawn him off on someone else, someone else who was hopefully stupid enough to comment about the Punisher while the guy was blathering on. Or, two, pay for your comics and leave the store.

I try really hard to not be this guy because I know that he's in me. I can feel it every time someone at work talks about a TV show or movie that I like. I can go on and on about the story and the directorial choices and the writing and the acting because I like this stuff and I want to have a conversation about these things. Example: The Hunger Games movie came out and one of the women in my office saw it and liked it and we started to have a very surface-y conversation about it, but then I said despite all the violence I liked how the director would pull the camera away from the actual blood-and-guts moments leaving it to the audience to imagine how horrific the act is. There was a huge pause because this woman doesn't think of movies in the same way I do (just like I don't think of horses in the same way she does) and our conversation was essentially dead. I could have gone on. I wanted to go on. I didn't go on, though, because I don't want to be that kind of guy. He's in there. I know that because he's come out on occasion, fortunately it's mostly been with family and they just either put up with it or get into a conversation with me. I fear turning off potential kindred spirits by doing it, though.

To get back to the point, I wouldn't have anyone in New York. I wouldn't meet anyone in New York. Five years of not making any friends in North Bay proved that. And the vast majority of the time I'm fine with it. Being 3000 miles away from anyone I could depend on in a crisis, even if they have three hour drive, wouldn't work. I'm not going to change. I don't really want to change. I'm afraid that I can't change.

When I realized that, I could walk again. That afternoon I posted to Facebook: "I can state this with certainty: I am a coward." because being brave isn't doing the things other people are afraid to do, but pushing through your fear and trying to do the things you're afraid to do.

Three Down... Seven To Go

Two-ish weeks before Thanksgiving, my grandpa was sent to the hospital and had a toe amputated. It was massively infected. A few days later they decided that it was too infected and took another toe and some bone and splayed the foot open to hook it up to a wound vac. After picking up my brother, sister-in-law, and niece from the train station the Sunday before the holiday we stopped by and visited, that's the day they first hooked him up to the vac.

Eventually, the vac did it's job and cleaned the infection from his toe, but as it pumped, other stuff happened.

My grandma was left alone. She's starting to lose her marbles, to put it indelicately. She doesn't remember people. She doesn't remember much of anything. She doesn't feed herself because she doesn't. She may think she ate so she insists that she isn't hungry. So, people started having to stay with her. Mostly my asshole uncle who's been unemployed for the last fifteen years and fleecing his parents for rent money. (He was a contractor and said he couldn't find a job during the housing boom. He's a fucktard.) He manipulates people with half-truths and full lies. I've never trusted him my whole life. In the first two weeks he stayed with my grandma he conned her out of more that $4000.

My parents have been working to keep he from pulling his shit and keeping his lies away from my grandma. The problem is that they work while he doesn't. He's there and they're not. They can't be. When they get to him on the weekends she's more confused and angry than she should be. She's gotten better in the last two weeks because my parents have been out of school and been with her. They've spent most of the last week with her. They went down Tuesday and got back today only for my dad to go back down this evening.

The asshole's going to be with her tomorrow night through Wednesday. My mother has taken six or eight weeks off. Leave of absences. She'll be spending most of that with my grandmother.

Back to before Christmas:

While my grandpa was in a rehab place with his foot hooked up to a vacuum, my other grandma, not his wife, went in for hip surgery. It went great, but she was at the surgery center for three days, during which time her husband was having stomach aches so severe he wasn't eating food or drinking beer, and he's a guy who usually has four beers in a day. Oh, and he had blood in his stool. Oh, and he had chest pains. This all came out after my grandma got home, about a week after her surgery. My uncles basically abducted him and forced him to the VA in Palo Alto where the doctor found a blip, as my uncle called it, in his colon and the doctor diagnosed his pain, on a scale of 1 to 10, as a 7.5 to 8. They gave his some anti-acid meds to calm his tummy and he's eating again and apparently he's not bleeding when he craps anymore. He hasn't been back to the doctor to have a camera jammed down his throat to check for ulcers and he hasn't had a camera crammed up his ass to snip the polyp. Hopefully soon.

My other grandpa, meanwhile, had his foot cleaned of infection so to finally, after a month, seal his foot they had to take another toe. He only has the first two now. All though this ordeal he's wanted to get home. Every time someone has seen him in the hospital or spoken to him on the phone he says he wants to come home. He's never had strong legs. He's always sat most of the day. He fell out of his chair -- cutting open his head and breaking his nose -- because walking from the rehab thing to his room wore him out so he fell asleep. The walk is maybe 150 feet. The guy can't piss standing up anymore; he could barely do it while he had all his toes. He can't pull his pants up. And he wants to go home.

He claims that he can take care of himself and my grandma like he was before. Back then he had my aunt coming over every Saturday, though. She'd take them shopping. She'd clean. She'd bath my grandma. She did as much as she could on that one day to set them up for the whole week to come. My parents visited them about every third Sunday. My aunt has taking this horrible situation with the toes and decided that once my grandpa gets home she's going to cut them off. No visits. Not even a phone call. My dad keeps saying that my grandpa can't go home. The thing is my grandpa's mind is totally sound. My dad isn't willing to cancel his appointments with students. My mom has taken time away from work to be there when my grandpa gets home. She's mostly there to make sure that when he falls she can call someone and, hopefully, then convince him that he can't do everything alone anymore.

He'll need someone to help him with my grandma. He'll need someone to help him help himself. That means they probably won't be living in their 3 bedroom ranch home and into a tiny 2 bedroom really expensive apartment in a nursing home.

Happy New Year.

Of Work and House

The second week of October I started a new job, sort of. I have the same title. The same pay. The same lack of respect. I'm not scheduling nurses anymore, though. I'm scheduling inmates for dental appointments. Inmates can't come to me and bitch about why they're scheduled when. They can't make bizarre demands. (No, I can't just schedule you for four days this week. You have to check with your supervisor.)

The problem (and I always have a problem since I, apparently don't know how to be happy) is that I don't use my brain much. Scheduling the nurses, I was constantly solving minor and, too often, major problems. I was always creating alternate plans. When I presented a supervisor of the director of nursing with an idea I had to think though what I was saying to try to convince them that I was right. My job now is just me inputting information into the computer, scheduling guys to see my doctor, and double checking what I just did. It's boring and thoughtless.

It is less stressful, though.

Of course, I'm not really happy and I'm stuck in a small room that has no windows with a lady who's tired of all the bullshit she's had to put up with for the last four year but tries to put a positive spin on things and a lady who just hates her job and her life and is willing to share loudly and in detail. Our boss sticks her nose into everything, and she's nice and all, but she doesn't really know what she's talking about because she doesn't do the work on a daily basis. Sure, she had the basic training and looks at the program every day, but since she doesn't do the work she doesn't know or understand all the details. (I don't either, since I've only been there for four weeks, but I'm learning quickly because I spend most of my eight hour days doing the work.) I ran into this problem when I worked entering data up in North Bay. I don't expect the boss to know I the details of the work I'm doing, but I like it a lot better when the boss trusts his or her subordinates.

Oh, and to top all this off I'm still fucking living with my parents. In a room where the shelf space is taken up with other peoples' crap. And it's been over a year. [sarcasm]Joy![/sarcasm]

Why am I still living with my parents if I don't like it? Well, it all started about eleven-or-twelve-or-thirteen months ago when I decided that I hated the job I was in and had to get out ASAP. That's when my plan fell apart. My original plan was to stay with my parent no longer than the new year. But when I started looking for a new job I thought it logical to not get stuck with a lease when it was possible I'd be working somewhere an hour or more away. (I don't like to drive thirty minutes, why would I drive an hour?) I figured that I'd throw out applications, get a few interviews, and be moved along no later than June. Come June, no fucking interviews. I was still sending out applications, though, to jobs that would be a promotion and jobs at my current level, so by October, for sure!

During the summer I had one interview. It was hundreds of miles to the South and near-ish to the coast. It was a long interview. A good interview. I knew when I left, though, that I wasn't going to get it. They knew that I wanted to promote and this was a job at my current classification level in a city hundreds of miles from my family and the friends they assumed I had. In the end I didn't get it.

A month later, I interviewed, at my current level, for a secretary position for an AW where I work. About six weeks after that, I interviewed for another position at my current level where I work. Eventually, after another week I get offered the first position, I was their second choice, but would rather have the second one I interviewed for. I talked it over with some people and decided the second one was a better choice for me and made sure I was still in the running before declining the first. (I hope this is clear.) When I was finally, officially, offered the second position, I started pulling listings and looking for a clean, well lighted place of my own.

Then, the week before I started, I was asked to an interview up in Cowcity for a promotion. (Last week, which was 3 weeks after the interview, the guy said they still hadn't decided. I'm afraid that he's just a coward and won't tell me that I'm forever trapped where I am.) With the chance of a promotion to a city 100ish miles away, as the car drives, I really shouldn't be thinking of getting myself trapped into a lease. Two weeks after that interview I interviewed up at a prison in Far North Coast. Also for a promotion. (I didn't get that job, but they said that I was would be really good at doing it and should apply for the position again, somewhere else. Of course, there are only 35 positions like that in the whole fucking state and too many of them are in places that I ain't gonna move to.) This week I went and took a test in Cowcity for a different classification. It would be a little less money, but it would get in away from lay-offs and into a place where they do good work and I could show that I work hard and well and they should FUCKING promote me to a higher level.

Hence, I'm stuck in a room where there's a 10-year old computer my pop still uses to load his iPod with. (He won't sync it with his newer computer for some dumb-ass paranoid reason.) A room that has two giant, probably broken, speaker sitting on a half file cabinet. A room with piles of empty boxes because you just never know. A room where I have books and movies in boxes on the floor because the shelves are all taken up. A room that I am continuously told is "my room," but I can't use most of it.

And yet I haven't looked at any kind of place to move, locally, because there's some bullshit optimism in me that keeps telling me that I'll be out of here soon and on to somewhere different, maybe even better.

And so I wallow in myself and I don't do anything. I'm just so very tired, you know? Tired of trying. Tired of hoping. Tired of working. Tired of thinking. Tired. And not in that funny Madeline Kahn way, either.

I've always been yucky!

I made sure to have dinner well and on the way to being completed by the time The Mother got back from work tonight: chicken was salted and sitting; rice and water was ready and waiting; and the macaroni (noodle? pasta?) salad was in the fridge so flavors could mingle. Today was her first day of school with students. It was rough.

Going to work every day to a job you hate, or are just tired of, or burnt out on is tough. I know because I do that, but the longest I've ever been away from my work was 16 days and it was painful to go back to my job. I don't want to imagine how hard it is for someone to go back after sixty days.

So, I was a good son and made dinner. I also cleaned up dinner. I also choose what we watched while eating dinner, but that was purely selfish. (Apollo from the new Battlestar Galactica co-starred in it.) I didn't mind doing it and I'm always willing to help make dinner, lunch, whatever (I like to cook), I hate being the decider for everyone. I hate it so much. I know it won't be expected of me, but I live in irrational fear.

Oh, "great" and "powerful" "mystical" forces of the "universe," help me to settle my job bullshit once and for all so I'm comfortable enough that I can sign a year long lease. I would appreciate it.

Also, to swing this post in a startlingly different direction, I'm trying to plan a trip to Oregon. At this moment I think a flight up there and a car rental for a weekish and extra stuffs would cost me about $1000. But I'd get to spend some time with those who moved to the hipster place and then head out to see sister-in-law and brother and their baby at there new place. And I could drag brother and niece, since SIL would probably be in school, to the cheese factory and the plane exhibit and generally goof around. I also want to visit other brother and other sister-in-law and use their proximity to go to the Paley Festival. Which to choose? Could I do both? Unfortunately, any plans have to be based around the job bullshit, so like February or March, if I'm lucky.

I've never been lucky, though.

I don't think Facebook is a good fit.

So, Facebook. Yeah.

Since I rejoined a few months ago I have had over twenty "friend" requests from people. I have neither confirmed nor denied any of the requests. They just sit there, waiting for a decision. I need to decide exactly what kind of a dickhead I am. Am I the kind of dickhead who just denies the "friending" of everyone who I don't want as a "friend" (which includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, people from high school, alternates Facebook accounts of people, people who know people I know, cousins, old teachers, etc.) or do I "friend" everyone then block the updates from those I don't really know or care about, in a personal sense.

One person who I haven't added wrote me to ask if it's okay that he wanted to be my "friend" on Facebook because I sort of reacted poorly when he wanted to "friend" me on MySpace. I told him the truth, that for now my only "friends" on Facebook are my brothers, their significant others, and my mother.

Another person wrote, "Burn [ticknart] Burn..." after I didn't "friend" him. I wrote back, "Please, explain Facebook etiquette to me." He responded, "It's no big deal. I was just curious to see how you were doing. If you are using FB only for close friends, family, or any other group of people of which I am not a part, I'll understand perfectly. After all, I have most of the 'friends' on my list blocked."

Which leads to the second kind of dickhead, the one who blocks their "friends." I get the idea behind it. Who cares if someone whacked a bush and found a giant cherry? I don't, but even if I block people, they can still see everything that I put up there, if they want. And that disturbs me.

Do you suppose Facebook would allow levels for "friends" so you can control the content you allow people to see? I doubt it, but I'd be more likely to just "friend" everyone if I could.

Another thing about Facebook that disturbs me is how you lose control over your privacy.

I am now tagged in two photos. One shows me in profile, I think, and the other is my knee. I didn't ask to be tagged in these. The person who posted them put my name in. I suppose I could ask for the tags to be removed, but odds are good that someone else would see at least one of them and tag me again.

I think it's stupid, but it's a choice when my aunt decided to get on her phone everywhere and update where she was at every moment during my brother's wedding. She chose to give up that bit of privacy. When you're tagged by people in a photo, you have no choice.

That makes me uncomfortable.

Blood From a Rock

In my continuing effort to prove how narcissistic and selfish I am:

My favorite thing about my vacation is that I have now fulfilled the quota of weddings that I am required to attend. Both of my brothers are married. I have no sisters. There are only cousins and (quite probably) an uncle left for weddings and while the outside guilt may come pouring in if I don't attend any of those, especially if they're local, I won't feel guilty. If the heartbreak happens and either of my brothers feels the need to get remarried in the future, I do not think I have to attend. I was there the first time, the second will depend on how well I've converted into a hermit.

Some may be wondering (And I feel confident writing that because for an unknown reason I have 36 "followers" according to my Blogger dashboard. I only recognize like four of the names and expect that most of the rest are just advertisers who expect me to "follow" them (HA!), but that leaves a few of you out there who hahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifve not been reading this here blog for even a healthy portion of its seven year eight month and eightish day existence.), what about my wedding. Well, I still don't plan to ever have a wedding. I do not ever expect to meet someone and fall in love or a comfort zone with and then get married. I am not looking and if something like that comes along I'm sure I'll miss it. If I don't miss it, the fine. There are lots of possibilities. Just know that I am not keeping an open mind when it comes to myself and romance.

My great uncle asked my mom if the next of her boy's weddings could be closer to home so he wouldn't have to drive so far. (He's oldish.) When I heard that I wanted to go and reassure him that there wouldn't be another one, so he didn't have to worry. I didn't, though, I'm tired of explaining things like that to people who know me.

I keep getting it from this one woman at work. She said that she can't believe that I'm not taken. I asked why it's a surprise. She said that I'm so nice, some nice girl should have snagged me by now. I said that I've never really looked for anything like that. She suggested that she has some women I could meet, like her niece or cousin or something. Inside I was horrified because, as a one who judges others and expects to be judged in return, she a bit too much crazy Christan and too white trashy and this women she thinks would be good for me lives with her. Thanks, no. She asked me why not and I told that that even though I'm not the kind of person who plays around, I like just being with myself I don't need or want someone else to think about and worry about. Although that was only part of the answer, she seemed satisfied with it, but she still thinks that someone should snag me soon. With I sigh I was happy to leave that conversation.

I write all of that to tell this:

The brother who got married almost two years ago and his wife came down from Oregon and, of course, my niece was with them. She's just about eight months old and the brother and Sister in Law are really good about sharing her and she likes to be held. Now, I'm not the sort of person who asks to hold a baby. I do enjoy holding them, but I'm never going to ask. I will offer to hold the child if the parent seems to need a hand and I will gladly accept the child if offered, but I will not directly ask to hold it and I will never, ever, just snag it from someone's arms. I think out of everyone at the house for the week and a half I held the baby the least because of the way I am.

Part of it, I think is because I haven't really imagined myself ever as a father since early in high school. (Huh, that's half my life ago.) I am not a childfree person. I just don't expect to have kids. I have issues and I know I have issues and at this moment, and for half my life, I haven't wanted my problems to hurt a kid in any way.

There was a moment during the vacation, though...

The niece was handed off to me. She didn't squirm. She just rolled over into my shoulder, put one arm around my neck, and snuggled in. Everything in me seemed to stop working. If I had a heart it would have melted. And for those few seconds she snuggled, I thought that maybe having a kid wouldn't be such a bad thing.

The thought didn't last though, but it's a nice memory

Have you heard the good news?

My cousin graduated from high school on the 2nd of June. I was the only one in my immediate family to go and sit and be bored and congratulate the kid and his parents and blah, blah, blah.

After the ceremony, I went to the house of my uncle and aunt for cake and chips and conversation and such. Eventually the subject of my youngest brother's wedding came up (it was last Saturday, for those with a score card) which the mutated into my uncle asking me about the program my brother is in.

Since I don't think I've written it down here before: my brother just completed his first year of medical school. Two or so years ago he earned his Master's degree in public health, which allowed him to travel to a few places in the world and see how crappy things are in other places. And although he wouldn't phrase it this way, he decided to become part of the solution. Hence, med school leading to tens of thousand in debt and a way for him to help educate people and solve some basic problems that too much of the world suffers from and too many people die from, like diarrhea.

So, my uncle and I talk about this for a bit and he asks me if I've ever considered doing something like what my brother is doing. I admit that yes, I've thought about it. He asks why I don't go in that direction. He says he knows I'm smart enough to do it if I want to and he thinks it'd be a good job. I agree with him that I could probably do it, but I won't. He asks why. I tell him that, in large part, it's because I'd have to deal with people around my space or in my face all day long and I don't really care for people. He looks around at the gathering thing and asks what I think this is. This, he says, has people. I give him a lopsided grin thing and nod, hoping that it show that I am uncomfortable being there. That I'm not there for my, but more for them. I think he gets it because he switches gears and asks me about writing. He says that he remembers me doing a thing with a blog and asks why I don't do writing. That's something I can do and don't have to deal with people, he says. I agree with him, but... He cuts me off with a but what. Just do it, he says. And I try to go into my explanation about how work leaves me mentally and emotionally exhausted so that when I'm done with the work day all my brain is good for is nothing he doesn't listen. He thinks I'm making excuses. Maybe I am. I've just been so worn out from work that I don't know anymore if it's actually work or if it's just me finding ways to be stuck. I don't admit it to him, though, because soon his wife jumps in about how it's important to have hobbies and I let the subject get changed. Of course that conversation has been with me for almost three weeks now.

Yesterday, there was news from work. Apparently my asshole boss has been let go. If I believed in a lord, I'd probably be thanking that being. My hope is that the person who is temporarily taking the asshole's place does not micromanage like he did. I hope she takes the time to listen and think before making a judgement. I hope she stands up for the nurses. I hope she does a good job and whoever they end up replacing the asshole with full time does a good job, too.

There is a problem with this, for me though, and it has to do with all the family around here who only hear my complaints about the man and not the actual work that I do. When my parents told me the news, they expected me to be ecstatic. They thought I'd be jumping around and suddenly be looking forward to going to work on Monday. What they failed to think about was the he only made an already wearying/worrying and hard job worse, the job is still going to be wearying and worrying and hard. I hopefully won't have someone peering over my shoulder making the job harder, but it's not going to get better, for me. If I was the kind of person who could just leave all the work bullshit at work, I would be fine, but I'm not. I've been gone from work for a week and a half and have had work related dreams almost every night. Why? Because my job is never done. No part of my job is actually complete until the shift has started then I can't worry about the current shift, but I still have to worry about the next shift and the next day and the next week and the next month. I see holes in the schedule that extend for weeks and months and I'm not allowed to do anything about them because of the limited number of people or the fucking contract or the possibility of someone being removed for training or so many hundreds of other variables. Oh, and now we're coming up on fire season and our prison trains crews to go out and help fight the fires and with them goes nurses which cuts into my fucking schedule and eliminates a body. Of course we don't hire seasonal employees to help if there are fires because, you know, that costs extra money even though it would fucking make sense and ensure that the quality of care at the actual facility stayed high. This prison is not near large cities. I doesn't have a large pool of registry nurses to pull from when we're short. Almost all of them have to drive in from more than an hour away when they do come in...

See, this is why I have the dreams. I should be able to get the hell over the damned place and not fucking worry, but I do. And I try to figure out how to make the shitty situation look a little better with some polish, but polished shit is still fucking shit.

Okay, I'm working myself up. I'm going to stop. I'm going to head upstairs and have some food. I'm going to go and watch Super 8 this afternoon and enjoy myself. I'm going to finish re-reading The Phantom Tollbooth and marvel at its brilliance.

I'll probably return tomorrow.

Be well.

So...

I am an uncle:

Her name is Sophie.

The world welcomes her.

Lack of Feeling

That's my parent's house from Google Street View.

I don't know how I feel about it.

35000ish

And another month comes to an end.

Spent USA Thanksgiving at my parents' but ate food at uncle and aunt's house. She served food from Wednesday night to Sunday night. A different type of food each night. I missed ham night, due to pain, but the other three nights I went to were yummy. (Although, the mashed potatoes were disappointing and I learned that if your going to use a hand mixer to mash, put the potatoes into a bowl first, otherwise you leave huge chunks in the pot.)

I brought my Rock Band games and pho-instruments. The Beatles version was quite a success. (As if I expected anything less.) A request was made to bring it back for Christmas, and I will, but I'm also bringing my Wii to force my pa to play. He's such a pooper at trying new-fangled gadgets even if everyone says they're fun and he can hear the joy in their voices as they sing.

Nothin' else to report, that I can think of.

Hope all was well this last month and things will be well into the next.

I can't think of anything so write.

So, I'm posting a picture my brother took, after he staged it, of course.

Click for biggers!