My Fucking Father is such an asshole. I hate him. I really do. If he has no respect for my stuff, he has no respect for me.
And I hate myself for letting him do this to me. I had to be on the ball, at all times. And at the first moment of vulnerability he took advantage of me, and I should have known.
It was my magazines, and recycling. Thursdays are recycling days in my neighborhood, and ever since that fucking asshole altered my room in an effort to throw away my stuff, there's been this uneasy detente/game of dare where he tries to dispose and/or recycle my mags and I find them, take them off the curb and/or hide them in my room.
I'll admit that it ain't the most sensical thing. You should look at my room now: There are several bags of newspapers I still need to get to, some of them I still intend to read even though it's been, uh, half a decade since I put them aside to read "later." But I don't think it's bothering anybody, and it's my fucking decision.
And besides, my Entertainment Weeklys are a different story. I have, virtually, every issue since #10, the one featuring Bernadette Peters as Tammy Faye Bakker for a TV movie. They're a part of me, a mark of my history. And my goddamn father wants to throw them away.
It wasn't even my idea to buy them. I got EW all the way back in 1990 because he thought it'd give him a better chance of winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. Remember a long time ago when that sweepstakes was being advertised on TV, and there was an assumption that you can improve your chances of winning buy subscribing to magazines? He made me get them. I didn't want them because, even in my youth, I knew I didn't want more stuff around the house. But he insisted because he wanted money. EW was something that interested me, so to placate My Father, he bought me that subscription for me. I've subscribed to it ever since. And by the way, he didn't win.
So it's his fault I'm attached. And that's why I'm doing everything to preserve my poor little magazines. Apparently however, not enough.
Wednesday night I couldn't stay up because My Fucking Father had me gathering rocks in our front lawn (long story, I don't think I'll be regaling y'all with this one) and I passed out early. Slept through all the late-night talk shows, which means I'm awake when I usually turn in, around 5 o'clock.
As is my nature I avoid My Fucking Father, who's been waking up around 5 in the morning this time of year and, shockingly, sometimes even earlier. But I sneak out as soon as my parents leave for work.
I need to check outside, where our recycling bins are. There I saw something that looked like a wood crate. I go outside ... and there it was: A box containing my magazines, including a bunch of EW's. Goddamn you, Father, goddamn you.
Circumstances like what happened this morning tipped me off to what he started doing a few months ago: I passed out the previous evening, was wide awake when my parents left in the morning, went outside and saw my shit out there. The first case, thankfully, was just papers. He may have started weeks before, for all I know. But from that point on I finally understood what he was trying to do: Take pieces away from me.
So for the next few Thursdays I would wake up early just so I could go outside and see if he tried to throw my shit away. And most Thursdays, there would be a bag of my shit, so I would have to go outside and retrieve it. Hence, my room's full of my things again, thereby undermining what My Fucking Father tried to do when I was in St. Louis.
One Thursday I went outside and I saw nothing. Finally! I thought. He was done -- or, in my deluded mind, I beat him. He believed he was finished going "through" my things, but unbeknownst to him I still have it all, nyah-nyah! And I was relieved because that meant I didn't have to wake my tired ass up just to check if my stuff was going to be taken away.
I may have done it twice, although if I were honest with myself it was just that one time. I knew that there was a chance he could resume this "operation," but by the time the next Thursday rolled around, I just was too tired to care. He beat me down. I was so fatigued that I had to sleep through recycling Thursday morning. And so I didn't check the last two Thursdays. And that is how he fucking got me.
What I forgot is that after he got through my bags of papers, which were on the top floor, he began to excavate underneath the never-used pool table, which is in the basement. I threw some of my mags down there to after my parents yelled at me to clean up my room. Damn, I forgot that. Well, besides the fact that I should've continued to wake up early Thursday morning to save my things.
Damn you, you son-of-a-bitch. There is nothing wrong keeping my stuff around in places that don't affect anybody. And I hate myself for not keeping an eye on my things. Now there is a good chunk of my EW's that have been recycled for good. In fact, there's a part of me that should just give up because I "lost," because I was unable to save all of the issues of the magazine that I had. But then the other part of me reminds me that a) you can't just quit, b) not being able to be perfect doesn't mean you should let them all go, and the issues number almost a thousand, and c) you'll be letting Father win.
This situation can't be sustained. There's a good chance My Fucking Father will go through my room when I'm not there and see that I stashed all my shit. There are still places where my magazines are piling up, and he'll want to go through them. Worst of all, most of things are in my sister's room, and she'll be visiting in Christmas. It's a long ways away ... but not for me and my leisurely ass.
I have no choice but to get to work boxing up my EW's. Father at least says he'd put them in the attic if I wanted to keep them, but with the way he keeps throwing my mags away, even though I put them in those protective pouches, I have a feeling he won't want to do that. I might have to put them in storage. Either way, I unfortunately have to get crackin' at it because he'll be reaping my stuff. Again, what fucking difference does it make? In the meantime, I have early morning times every Thursday from now on.
I'm actually angrier about it now than I was this morning. I want to yell at My Fucking Father for what he's doing to me. But I know I can't. Why? I'll be cooped up with him as I take him to the airport tomorrow. Maybe I know I need to keep the peace. Or, I know I'm a pussy. Or, I know it won't do any good. Or, I have the good sense to not tell him what I know, to keep a weapon in my arsenal in case I need it for later.
Or, maybe I don't care as much as I think I do, or I think I should.
Or, maybe I'm growing up and learning that keeping magazines doesn't matter in the end.
Nah. I should stay angry. And plot. And seethe and scheme and hate.
What am I gonna do now?
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