Idle workshop, devil's hands
I am almost convinced that God is punishing me for some wrongdoing. Why do I say this you ask? (OK, I pretend that you ask, I mean, heck, I pretend you care, tra la la) Well, here is my cross to bear -- I have had three odious songs stuck in my head for the entire day, on and off.
1. "Isn't it Ironic?" by Alanis Morissette, wherein she proves that she did not even look up "Ironic" in the dictionary. This maddening piece of drivel has tormented me all day and all night; intermittently anyway (thank God for small mercies).
2. "Start me up" by The Rolling Stones. I almost don't have to comment. I can't even find the words. Revile is not a strong enough word to even approximate what I feel regarding this song, and by extension, the stones over all. I can barely stand to listen to some of their slightly better songs, but this one is beneath the bottom of the barrel, it's more like the crap encrusted dirt underneath the barrel.
3. There was another tune of torment which I have mercilessly forgotten. I know it was some schmaltzy middle of the road A.O.R. love song. Bleech!
___________________________________________
In other news: what a train wreck of a week. My family was in rare form. Considering they are certifiably insane on a good day, this is saying something.
For those just joining us out there in TVland, a recap -- my Mother, a tortured soul with her own story (which will not be recounted at this time) is no longer of this earth, as of 1998. My Father is 74 years old and it would be kind to say the man is eccentric, unfortunately, due to lack of business savvy, yet an abundance of design genius, his work is revered by those in the know, but he is too poor to be deemed eccentric, and is just a consumate weirdo. Though, I have to say, he does rise above the garden variety whackjob. In insanity, he makes up in originality what he lacks in funds. I give the old man credit where credit is due.
Now, onto my brother - where does one begin? Hairtrigger temper, extreme O.C.D., controlling doesn't even begin to cover it, has the constitution of a finch on crack. Verbally and emotionally abusive to everyone who tries to love him, and even those who have given up on trying anymore. Don't get too close, he will peck your eyes out with his sharp merciless beak if you are not careful.
I am often dragged, kicking and screaming, in between these two overgrown boys and their pissing contest. Lucky me. As logic would dictate, this means I get pissed on quite a lot, despite my best attempts to stay under my little black umbrella, very quietly not bothering anyone. This week, I was their urinal.
Add to this cast of characters the fact that my 5 year old niece was in the hospital this week with dehydration, after a stomach virus that took too much of a toll on her. My 3 year old niece was hysterical seeing her sister getting hurt by the hospital staff attempting to insert a line for an IV nine times (completely unsuccessfully) and the 5 year old screaming bloody murder and crying too. Oy. Poor girls. Their mother is sick too. Their father is my brother the finch. Lucky them. Forget savings bonds or a college fund, I really need to start saving up for therapy gift certificates for their eighteenth birthdays.
Then...it gets better - my dad calls me and leaves chicken little type messages of urgency on my answering machine. When I finally see him in person as he begs me to do, nothing out of the ordinary is wrong with him. He has had yet another fight with my brother and wishes to bitch about to me. Fer crying out loud! Have you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf dad? Please, look it up. My shredding sanity thanks you in advance.
Then, as my luck would have it, being that I am the poster child for Murphy's law, I go to the local Target to pick up my perscription for 800 mg. Motrin, which I'm supposed to start taking three times a day for my pain, and whilst in the lobby perusing the circular on the wall display, who comes up to me but mon frere. My brother is there to get something the girls need. He proceeds to commence his rant about my dad (mind you I just got done being subjected to my dad's rant about him). [Yea, I know, I have a gift - for the absurd, improbable, and un-fucking-lucky, but still, a gift]. I tell my bro that my back is out, can we at least sit down in the Starbucks in Target so I can get off my feet. No, he assures me he will just be a minute more, and there I stand for over a half an hour, on my feet, leaning on the cart, because my back can't take anymore. Next time, I will say "Hey, if you want to talk to me, I'm going to the cafe to get a cup of coffee and sit down, you can talk till you're blue in the face as long as my ass is cradled lovingly in a psuedo-arty StarFucks chair".
Then, the next day, another lovely message from the pater familias waiting for me when I wake: "I've had a heart attack...I didn't go to the hospital or call the ambulance, I just sat here very quietly and prayed...I'm weak as a puppy...please call me as soon as possible when you get this message". Now, I'm all for the power of prayer folks, but not as a sole course of action when you may need to be somewhere that life-saving measures can be performed. Why did he not go to the hospital I asked? - "Oh, I didn't feel like sitting in the emergency room for five hours". Wow, the logic is astonishing. Why else didn't he go I inquired? - "I only have Medicare, I let my supplemental insurance lapse, and it would cost me thousands of dollars out of pocket". Why did you let your insurance lapse dad? No answer given.
Into every life some rain must fall, in my case, it's acid rain.
I want to move far away. Out of state. Out of range. Out of my cage.
I am so tired of all of the drama queening, grandstanding, vicious cycles they self-perpetuate, and most of all, the acute need they seem to have to drag me into their colossal messes every single time they make them, like children proud of their shit painting on a white wall, who call the family in to admire their masterpiece.
_____________________________________________
Some good news for the weary reader: I have lost 17 pounds. I am going to visit my boyfriend D. at the end of May-through the beginning of June. I will be with him for a week. Wonderful bliss, and a much needed escape from ma famille at just the right time.
Other good news: I've been fairly creative lately. Have worked on some art, finished a knitting project, and made some jewelry.
I have also been organizing and implementing new storage areas for all my stuff to maximize my space, and have things in places where they can be accessed more easily. The biggest thing I did in this regard was take all my books off a bookshelf that was tucked away too far into a corner to allow easy access to my books, and transfer them to a cool set of black wire linked cubes in my living room. Now they line a wall right next to my couch and I can see everything and take books off the shelf and reshelve them with ease. I now have at my fingertips a lot of my books on all kinds of mixed media art creation, and altered art forms. I also have many artists books/artists journals/mixed media art books to inspire me. I also have a cube for my DVD's, one for my magazines, with a pull out bin, and one cube for yarn, with a purple fabric drawer, so I can get to my good yarn readily. My B grade stash can stay elsewhere. I will just keep my current yarns and projects on hand in the living room.
I know this sounds strange, but all this really satisfies me. I am making a home for myself. I am teaching myself much needed lessons in getting my shit together, be it via interior design, or interior self-transformation. I'm breaking old patterns and bad habits. I am becoming someone else besides my Father's daughter, my Mother's martyr, and my Brother's punching bag. I am becoming exactly who I really am. And nothing and no one can stop me, or thwart my destiny, because I am determined to be the one who breaks the cycle, the black sheep that becomes a black stallion, the one who gets away, the one who rises above, the phoenix.
1. "Isn't it Ironic?" by Alanis Morissette, wherein she proves that she did not even look up "Ironic" in the dictionary. This maddening piece of drivel has tormented me all day and all night; intermittently anyway (thank God for small mercies).
2. "Start me up" by The Rolling Stones. I almost don't have to comment. I can't even find the words. Revile is not a strong enough word to even approximate what I feel regarding this song, and by extension, the stones over all. I can barely stand to listen to some of their slightly better songs, but this one is beneath the bottom of the barrel, it's more like the crap encrusted dirt underneath the barrel.
3. There was another tune of torment which I have mercilessly forgotten. I know it was some schmaltzy middle of the road A.O.R. love song. Bleech!
___________________________________________
In other news: what a train wreck of a week. My family was in rare form. Considering they are certifiably insane on a good day, this is saying something.
For those just joining us out there in TVland, a recap -- my Mother, a tortured soul with her own story (which will not be recounted at this time) is no longer of this earth, as of 1998. My Father is 74 years old and it would be kind to say the man is eccentric, unfortunately, due to lack of business savvy, yet an abundance of design genius, his work is revered by those in the know, but he is too poor to be deemed eccentric, and is just a consumate weirdo. Though, I have to say, he does rise above the garden variety whackjob. In insanity, he makes up in originality what he lacks in funds. I give the old man credit where credit is due.
Now, onto my brother - where does one begin? Hairtrigger temper, extreme O.C.D., controlling doesn't even begin to cover it, has the constitution of a finch on crack. Verbally and emotionally abusive to everyone who tries to love him, and even those who have given up on trying anymore. Don't get too close, he will peck your eyes out with his sharp merciless beak if you are not careful.
I am often dragged, kicking and screaming, in between these two overgrown boys and their pissing contest. Lucky me. As logic would dictate, this means I get pissed on quite a lot, despite my best attempts to stay under my little black umbrella, very quietly not bothering anyone. This week, I was their urinal.
Add to this cast of characters the fact that my 5 year old niece was in the hospital this week with dehydration, after a stomach virus that took too much of a toll on her. My 3 year old niece was hysterical seeing her sister getting hurt by the hospital staff attempting to insert a line for an IV nine times (completely unsuccessfully) and the 5 year old screaming bloody murder and crying too. Oy. Poor girls. Their mother is sick too. Their father is my brother the finch. Lucky them. Forget savings bonds or a college fund, I really need to start saving up for therapy gift certificates for their eighteenth birthdays.
Then...it gets better - my dad calls me and leaves chicken little type messages of urgency on my answering machine. When I finally see him in person as he begs me to do, nothing out of the ordinary is wrong with him. He has had yet another fight with my brother and wishes to bitch about to me. Fer crying out loud! Have you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf dad? Please, look it up. My shredding sanity thanks you in advance.
Then, as my luck would have it, being that I am the poster child for Murphy's law, I go to the local Target to pick up my perscription for 800 mg. Motrin, which I'm supposed to start taking three times a day for my pain, and whilst in the lobby perusing the circular on the wall display, who comes up to me but mon frere. My brother is there to get something the girls need. He proceeds to commence his rant about my dad (mind you I just got done being subjected to my dad's rant about him). [Yea, I know, I have a gift - for the absurd, improbable, and un-fucking-lucky, but still, a gift]. I tell my bro that my back is out, can we at least sit down in the Starbucks in Target so I can get off my feet. No, he assures me he will just be a minute more, and there I stand for over a half an hour, on my feet, leaning on the cart, because my back can't take anymore. Next time, I will say "Hey, if you want to talk to me, I'm going to the cafe to get a cup of coffee and sit down, you can talk till you're blue in the face as long as my ass is cradled lovingly in a psuedo-arty StarFucks chair".
Then, the next day, another lovely message from the pater familias waiting for me when I wake: "I've had a heart attack...I didn't go to the hospital or call the ambulance, I just sat here very quietly and prayed...I'm weak as a puppy...please call me as soon as possible when you get this message". Now, I'm all for the power of prayer folks, but not as a sole course of action when you may need to be somewhere that life-saving measures can be performed. Why did he not go to the hospital I asked? - "Oh, I didn't feel like sitting in the emergency room for five hours". Wow, the logic is astonishing. Why else didn't he go I inquired? - "I only have Medicare, I let my supplemental insurance lapse, and it would cost me thousands of dollars out of pocket". Why did you let your insurance lapse dad? No answer given.
Into every life some rain must fall, in my case, it's acid rain.
I want to move far away. Out of state. Out of range. Out of my cage.
I am so tired of all of the drama queening, grandstanding, vicious cycles they self-perpetuate, and most of all, the acute need they seem to have to drag me into their colossal messes every single time they make them, like children proud of their shit painting on a white wall, who call the family in to admire their masterpiece.
_____________________________________________
Some good news for the weary reader: I have lost 17 pounds. I am going to visit my boyfriend D. at the end of May-through the beginning of June. I will be with him for a week. Wonderful bliss, and a much needed escape from ma famille at just the right time.
Other good news: I've been fairly creative lately. Have worked on some art, finished a knitting project, and made some jewelry.
I have also been organizing and implementing new storage areas for all my stuff to maximize my space, and have things in places where they can be accessed more easily. The biggest thing I did in this regard was take all my books off a bookshelf that was tucked away too far into a corner to allow easy access to my books, and transfer them to a cool set of black wire linked cubes in my living room. Now they line a wall right next to my couch and I can see everything and take books off the shelf and reshelve them with ease. I now have at my fingertips a lot of my books on all kinds of mixed media art creation, and altered art forms. I also have many artists books/artists journals/mixed media art books to inspire me. I also have a cube for my DVD's, one for my magazines, with a pull out bin, and one cube for yarn, with a purple fabric drawer, so I can get to my good yarn readily. My B grade stash can stay elsewhere. I will just keep my current yarns and projects on hand in the living room.
I know this sounds strange, but all this really satisfies me. I am making a home for myself. I am teaching myself much needed lessons in getting my shit together, be it via interior design, or interior self-transformation. I'm breaking old patterns and bad habits. I am becoming someone else besides my Father's daughter, my Mother's martyr, and my Brother's punching bag. I am becoming exactly who I really am. And nothing and no one can stop me, or thwart my destiny, because I am determined to be the one who breaks the cycle, the black sheep that becomes a black stallion, the one who gets away, the one who rises above, the phoenix.
posted by scribe at 5/04/2006
<< Home