The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -6).  For this Week's Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey, I am giving the top spot, and the ultimate superlative of Positive Numbers, to the U. of M. women's basketball team after I treat them with the all-22, so to speak, perspective.  They just played one Game this screening Week, a 78-73 Win over at Illinois on Sunday that finished their regular season.  But that gave the Golden Gophers a 13-5 record in the Big Ten, a 22-7 record overall, and, most impressive to me, fourth place and thus a double bye (you can't get more than two) in the B1G Tournament, which will start (for them) tomorrow/Friday.

On top of that, Charlie Creme says that the U. is in line for a 4-Seed in the NCAA Tournament, and thus the right to host Games for the First and Second Rounds of the Big Dance.  Compared to her first two seasons as Head Coach here, Dawn Plitzuweit has finally engineered the big turnaround in the program she was hired to do.  I wish it came much sooner.  But from what I consider the squad's nadir, blowing a nine-Point lead late at home to Maryland around the holidays, they have been in the ascendancy with a bullet.  I couldn't imaging these Gophs fighting for hosting slot.  But here they are, with a fighting chance to do that and to reach the second weekend for the first time since 2005.

They will play either Ohio St. or Indiana in their first tournament matchup.  This is a conference tournament, where motivations for teams that are already in the tourney are suspicious.  Could the U. make a run toward the B1G title Game ... and maybe win it?

#0: Timberwolves (Last Week: -1).  I was at Tuesday's victory over The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies.  But it didn't look like they were going to emerge victorious.  Memphis started out hot, especially from deep.  But Minnesota finally took a lead they didn't relinquish with about 6 1/2 Minutes left in The Third Quarter.

As wobbly as they looked, that Win completed a 3-0 screening Week for the Wolves.  They've won four in a row.  They sit fourth in the West, tied in Games behind the conference leader (which are The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics) with The Bastard San Diego Rockets.  They're not looking polished as they win, but they're winning.  This Week will be a busy one.  They finish a three-Game homestand with Games against Toronto and Orlando, then they'll visit both Los Angeles clubs Tuesday (The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers) and Wednesday (The Bastard Buffalo Braves-cum-San Diego Clippers).

#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  I feel bad that this club had a really good Week, going 4-1, but I put them down here because of what the Gopher women's b-ball team and the T-Wolves.  The only blemish was Sunday's 8-3 Loss at U. S. Bank Stadium to Kansas, which gave the Jayhawks a split of the four-Game series vs. Minnesota.  The Gophers did sweep Wisconsin-Milwaukee in a two-showdown set, also at Oooooos-Bahnk Stadium, Tuesday and last/Wednesday night.  I don't know if this is the apex of their season.  I hope not; they deserve more shine than I'm giving them this competitive Week in local sports.

This weekend is the Cambria Classic, formerly sponsored by Dairy Queen.  Unlike in years past, the field is, well, a caliber below.  No BcS schools here besides Northwestern.  The others are Southern Illinois (the Salukis and the Wildcats are the two teams Minnesota will not play), UNLV, South Dakota St., and Nebraska-Omaha.  I will hopefully be there to see all three Games, and all six teams, play on Saturday.  After that, the Gophs have a mid-Week two-fer at the Vikings stadium versus Gonzaga.

#-2: United FC (Last Week: -3).  I want to delve into their tumultuous off-season, but not this Week, because I'm tired and I have to wake up for an early shift today/Thursday.  Till then, I'll note that the Loons outlasted FC Cincinnati, 1-0, on a below-freezing Saturday afternoon at Allianz Field.  It was Kelvin Yeboah cleaning up a rebound off a Free Kick.  Glad to see Yeboah contributing early in the season.  And hey, James Rodriguez should be playing soon, maybe as soon as this Saturday night, when MNUFC travel to Nashville.

#-3: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!).  It's hockey, so upsetting ranked teams will happen.  Nonetheless, considering the rough year the Gophers are having, there are still some signs of encouragement that the youngsters on the team are learning and growing.  They were at second-ranked Michigan last Thursday and Friday and got a split.  They beat the Wolverines by a 4-2 score last Thursday before they returned the favor with the exact same score Friday.  But beating an excellent team, and on the road?  Encouraging!

Final series of the regular season is tonight/Thursday night and tomorrow/Friday night, when they host second- or third-ranked (depends on which poll you look at) Michigan St.  All seven teams in the Big Ten Hockey Conference will play in the conference tournament, the Quarterfinals of which (and which the U. will play) is Wednesday.

#-4: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -4).  Beat UCLA by five at Williams Saturday afternoon, got throttle at Indiana by 30 -- egads -- Wednesday.  Eh, it's Niko Medved's first season here.  They wrap up the season home to Northwestern Saturday night.  The B1G tourney begins Tuesday, and unlike the B1G's women's tournament, all 18 teams will play in a six-round tournament.  Thankfully, Minnesota cannot be one of the four worst teams in the league and must play that Tuesday.  However, they will play Wednesday, hoping to reel off five victories in a row.  Man, conferences are too big now.

#-5: Wild (Last Week: -Infinity).  Their post-Olympics sprint begins with a 2-2 Week.  Ass-kickings at Colorado and home to Tampa Bay sandwich Losses at Utah and home to St. Louis, a Game that was tied till very late.

Because of this recent swoon, Minnesota sits in third in the Central, three Points behind The Bastard North Stars.  And it's not getting any easier: This Week they visit (Las) Vegas and said Bastard Quebec Nordiques, then come home to start a four-Game homestand with contests against The Bastard Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotes and Philadelphia.  Hopefully Quinn Hughes will stop his starfucking, else he'll be the next example of both TDS and, more importantly, ETTD.

#-6: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -7).  No, I don't give a fuck that the Gophers won their WCHA First Round series over St. Cloud St. over the weekend.  The Huskies took the Goofs to a third Game in their series.  They did that by battling the U. to a scoreless tie in regulation of Friday's Game 1, only for SCSU to pot one and steal the tilt in Overtime.  Sure, Minnesota roared back with a vengeance, taking Game 2, 4-1 and Game 3, 6-1.  But it shouldn't have taken them three goddamn Games to advance to the Frozen Faceoff, where they will square off against 2-Seed and second-ranked Ohio St. at St. Thomas' new arena in St. Paul.  I fear for the Goofs' fates.

#-7: Gopher softball (Last Week: -5).  Got blanked Thursday at for-profit diploma mill Grand Canyon, 6-0.  Then, in the Hillenbrand Invitational in Tucson, Ariz., they defeated Howard, 4-1 in eight Innings, before getting creamed by Arizona (11-2), Long Beach St. (7-0) and ... Howard again.  They now sit at 7-13 with a strength of schedule that won't dazzle anyone.  They have not demonstrated they will be an even decent team this season.

They begin conference play at Indiana for three over the weekend, then travel to the St. Louis area to play mid-Week one-offs at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville (Tuesday) and Lindenwood in St. Charles (Wednesday).

Addendum To: My Fucking Parents Are Fucking Psychos

What I truly hate about my parents, especially right now, is that they do things, and make me do things, with no advanced warning.  Yesterday, I was woken up by both My Fucking Mother and My Fucking Father to help them clean up my former bedroom, which, for some goddamn reason, is going to be the bedroom My Fucking Mother recuperates in when she gets knee surgery.  She says she can only go up the stairs after surgery and not down.  That's bullshit.

Anyway, even though this surgery hasn't even been scheduled yet, they both decided, out of the blue, that they're going to redesign it.  And that meant both shitty parental units woke me up to move heavy, heavy things around.  That was bad enough because I had a long day working a Gopher football Game.  But when My Fucking Father decided to bang his hammer to get the bedframe aligned, I sighed loud enough for My Fucking Mother to lose her goddamn mind.  "I do everything for you!  I cook and clean and give you beds!  And I ask you to do this one thing, and you get so mad!"  And I realized yesterday that she is a fucking toxic narcissist.  It has always been about her, her, her.  And after years of insulting me, acting hurt over shoving gifts in my face for which I didn't ask is the ultimate sign of mental manipulation.  And she and My Fucking Father tore my bags into shreds because they wanted to get into a locked part of my desk.  They call me unreasonable???

I don't bother arguing with either of them anymore because they can't speak English well enough to understand my nuanced emotional points.  Now, I don't bother arguing with them because they are too goddamn narcissistic to see how hypocritical dicks they are.  Fuck them both.  If they want to throw me out of the house for throwing my stuff on the floor, they have to kill me.  What assholes.

Addendum To: Do I Or Do I Not Want To Get Cut Early?

Well, I blog posted my thoughts about 24 hours ago, but then what happened at work yesterday/Thursday happens.  When I left work Wednesday, my boss told me the last two days this week will be so light that we will be cut early.  Were we cut early yesterday/Thursday?  Fuck to the no.  The lab did other stuff, so in the morning he decided we would be keying that stuff once we got done with our stuff.  (Turns out there was more of our stuff that we needed to do, and because the goddamn scanner is shit and I had to literally shove the forms in them every five fuckin' minutes, we basically had a full day.  The other people in The Main Department did that other stuff for the last, oh, 20 minutes of their workday.)  See, I was led to believe I would have a short day, so I began to plan my afternoon after leaving work, but then I was told that I would not be leaving early after all, and so I feel misled.

Near the end of the day, my boss came over and said I could leave early.  It was only 15 minutes or so, but, as he has been telling me more and more often as I finish out my day in The Main Department, if I built up overtime because of working in The Fourth Department early in the week, I could thus leave early later in the week.  Well, maybe I shouldn't say, "I could thus leave early"; it's more like, "my boss is telling me to leave."  He's on me doing only 40 hours again, and while he might not be directly haranguing me about it, I think he is doing the next best thing, which is just telling me to go when the opportunity to go arises.

He in fact told me as I was leaving yesterday/Thursday that his intent is to have me leave early enough today/Friday so that I work only 40 hours.  Well, he expected to cut us all yesterday/Thursday and that shit didn't happen, so we'll see if he can come through with his promise this time around.  (I have already planned on exercising at the community center straight from work if I leave early enough.)  But even though he was straight with me late in my day, I'm still bothered by his manipulation into making sure I don't get overtime.  The work is the work.  We need to stick around until the work gets done.  We are still short-staffed; in fact, another person was let go a week ago, and I don't think that departure was either planned or, from my former co-worker's point-of-view, wanted.  Regardless, my boss is damned to prevent me from getting any OT.  And I'll be honest: I have gotten a good quaff of OT this year, and I want some more goddamn OT.  So yeah, what he said yesterday got my goat a little.

And yes, I am upset at him for wanting to cut me early when, in the morning, I got upset with him for not cutting me early.  My grievance swings in one direction and then swings in the other.  Does that make me a hypocrite?  Sure!

Addendem To: My Paranoid Masseuse

Yeah, so things aren't going so well with my stripper masseuse.  I called ******a's number(s plural; for some reason she has two cellphones) that Saturday afternoon ... and I couldn't leave a voicemail because the mailboxes on both of her phones were full.  I can't see how she would have so many messages waiting for her that she either did not read or delete.  I can see, however, her manipulating her box so that it's just stuffed with messages to the point where no one else can leave a VM.

And yet, the next day, she called me.  I have no idea if she traced my Caller ID or remembered me from a text earlier on Saturday or the week, but she asked if I could make time for her.  To which I said ... uh, maybe?  When I couldn't reach her that Saturday, I began to solidify plans for my Sunday, most of which revolved around doing my taxes.  I told her as much, but I left open the possibility that I would be free in the afternoon.  ******a said she was going to do some chores, and after she's done she'll call to see if I am free at that point.  That seemed like a plan.

And plans are made only to be ruined.  I left a little later than I usually have on Sundays; my parents still think I'm working at my day job, and I just wanted to keep up the ruse a little while longer, but I didn't want to wake up at 9 if I didn't have to, so I think I woke around ... 9:15?  9:30?  Anyway, I went to grab a couple donuts at first Glam Doll and then at Bogart's, and then I visited Grandmother and my uncle at Lakewood.  I brought matches with me, from a matchbox I got from Pizzeria Lola several years ago, and they may have been told old, but I had to go through ten matches to get three to light up for only the slight breeze extinguish them as soon as I lit up the unburned portion of the incense sticks on Grandmother's headstone.  Should buy a Bic lighter.

The big time slog happened after Lakewood, when I went to the Hennepin County Library closest to Lakewood (Hosmer, housed in a beautiful building).  I really buckled down to try and finish my taxes, and I came to realize that I had to revamp most if not all the forms I worked on.  It had to do with the American Rescue Plan's, uh, plan to forgive the first $10,200 of unemployment insurance getting taxed at the federal level.  (I don't think the state is doing the same, but I don't know why they wouldn't similarly forgive, and I'm not sure that there won't be an adjustment later this year.)  There is a new worksheet on which you need to do some new math, and that adjusted amounts on Schedule 1, and that changes what I had to put down on my 1040 ... and I think it got to the point where I needed to print a couple new tax forms (was it the one on capital gains?) so I could start over again.  Thank God printing apparently is free at all HCL branches.

So I stayed longer than I thought I would, and I didn't make much headway.  I decided to spend the next chunk of my afternoon at the Wedge, specifically trying out the burger at Bebe Zito, the new ice cream shop right next to ol' Caffetto.  They serve burgers on weekends, and many people (including the ones on this Facebook group concentrating on burgers in the Twin Cities) rave about them.

It was a 20-minute wait for the burger, so I decided to buy a couple Cokes, walk down two blocks where I parked, threw one of the Cokes in the car, and walk back.  All that, I figured, would be enough time so that my burger would be ready once I got back to Bebe Zito.  But halfway on my way back, I got the call from ******a.  She said she could be ready around 2, which was 30-45 minutes from when she called me.  Since it was Mother's Day, I don't think it would have been great for me to get back at 4, which has become the time around which I get back during the week.  In other words, I thought about coming back just to placate Mother.  So I told her I was in a bit of a time crunch, and sorry, and I want to try again next week.  She understood.  God bless her.  I love her.

---

During the call on my way back to Bebe Zito (by the way, we spoke for a few minutes; I got back approximately 30 minutes after I ordered; and I had to wait another 5-10 minutes for my burger -- which is all that it's cracked up to be ... and so is their ice cream, which I had once before), I told ******a I couldn't leave a message because her mailboxes were full.  She said she would look into that.  I crossed my fingers that there would be no problem when I called her the following weekend, which was this past weekend.  No dice; both mailboxes were full.

I swore I would not text her, but I wanted to see her and I have no other way to communicate with her, so I texted the phone number she got most recently.  And I got a text back saying my message was blocked.  Weird!  I was able to text her other, older number, but I never heard back from her.

I then decided that I would drop by her place after work (this Sunday, I actually worked).  I didn't know what to expect, but I was hoping that she would be, like, tanning herself outside because it was a sunny day.  But when I rolled past her apartment, there was no sign of her, and her curtains were drawn shut.  I was not going to go up and knock on her patio door.  So I just rolled by.

I hope ******a is OK.  But frankly, she's been going on and on for the past year about how people in the building she lives in can listen to her in her apartment and shit.  She's been talking crazy for a long, long time; that's why she goes on and on about Hillary Clinton.  For all I know, she's having a psychotic break, in which case I can no longer help her.  I regret not biting the bullet and getting felt up by her on Mother's Day.  And unless something dramatic happens or if she bends her rules to text me once again ... well, I'll need to find another stripper masseuse.

Box-Of-Rocks Dumb

There was a stripper party going on last night.  Didn't feel like going.  Parties scare me too much these days.  I will make an exception under the right circumstances, but this one did not have such circumstances.  And then I was texting back-and-forth with the host, and right now, if I don't ever go to one of her parties again, I'd be totally fine with it.

I talked about her once here on Wailing And Failing.  She was hosting a party at a townhome that wasn't hers, even though it belongs to a stripper working that party.  She furtively tried to masturbate me through my pants when I got my first lapper from her, which was good.  Otherwise, she was ... strange.  Overbearing; she kept asking me if I liked her party.  Although her eyes are light blue, they always seem glassy, like it's a symptom that she's not all there, you know?  And sometimes she does not understand the simple questions I'm texting, and she misunderstands in the most annoying, dumbest way.  Once I explicitly asked her what time one of her parties ended.  She said 2.  "So a. m.?" I asked?  "No, 2 p.m." she replied.  I told her I couldn't come to her party because it's in the afternoon.  "No, it starts at 2 and ends at 9."  If you only would have looked at my text. ...

She did it again in the run-up to her party last night, and this time it was sort of the final straw for me.  I told her I would not go to her party because I was still skittish over attending parties with lots of people.  She kept trying to reassure me -- well, she first said that this party has nothing to do with a shooting that took place in the parking lot of the strip club she works at, like I fucking talked about that shit at all -- by saying stuff like, "17 Minutes is not far," and "I'm only letting a few in the house at a time," which made me think that the rest of would just have to wait in their cars or something, which is absurd.

I wasn't going.  That's the bottom line.  So I just shut down and didn't reply to her after she continued to try and convince me her party was safe.  So yesterday, the morning of the party, I texted: "I'm not coming today.  But thank you for the offer."  To which she replied, "I already know."  Bitch, you've been trying to convince me to come to your party for days now!  How do you mean you know when you wouldn't take my reasons not to go for an answer?!  And I got so triggered I had to get in the last word; last night, well after the party would have been over, I sent her an eyeroll emoji.  Because I'm over it, and her.

Right now I just don't have any patience for strippers who are dumb.  And she is box-of-rocks dumb, as stupid as they come, and it's not really close.  I mean, I have stopped talking to strippers who rip me off, and those that manipulate me in order to shake me down for more money.  But I consider them to be petty and juvenile and craven, people who know what they're doing and will go pretty far in order to get what they want from me.  This woman ... like I said, she's as dumb as a box of rocks.  I am just floored that she somehow can function in society, let alone host a party.

Maybe I'll give her a chance when I'm desperate.  But right now, I don't fuckin' need her.

For The Greater Good. Maybe.

OK, I knew that if there was one accusation of inappropriate sexual behavior, there would be another, and another, and another.  The Bloodletting has taken a third and fourth swipe at Senator Al Franken.  I have been OK with the apology the first woman who accused him of groping, Leeann Tweeden, accepted from the senator.  The second woman's accusation seemed to be a blow people thought would happen and thus be absorbed.  But three and four women?  Yeah, that's a pattern.

I cannot defend this anymore.  When you have this many people say Franken grabbed him, and when the last two said it happened while he was a senator, well, that establishes a pattern of immorality and creepiness as a public officer.  So he must resign.

But ...

Yeah, I'm reconsidering.  Even thinking about equivocating makes me sad, because this feels like I have committed to go down a road I don't know if I can come back from.  However, I also believe that everybody has a line, and that everyone has a breaking point.  What I wonder is if that line and that breaking point changes depending on the circumstance.

This all began from a tweet coming from a source close to Roger Stone, noted Republican PR hitman.  Franken has been a notable progressive figure in the Senate, publicly going toe-to-toe with Republicans, especially when it comes to Net Neutrality.  The Republicans would love to get Franken's scalp (and by God, in these times, I wonder if I have to apologize for using the Native American stereotype "scalp").  And while his resignation may not tip the balance of power in the Senate -- Democrats don't have the majority and we have a Democratic governor who would replace Franken with another Dem -- he has been a leading voice for so many subjects that, I think, Republicans would be emboldened to take advantage of a humbled, quieted opposition to ram through their agenda.

And what would that agenda include?  Well, for example, there's that huge tax bill that would shove what remaining wealth the poor and the middle class have to the 1%.  And since Net Neutrality has been a passion for Franken, there won't be anyone who is ready and able to stand in the FCC's way in deregulating and thus turning that utility into the province of the rich as well.  Now, it doesn't really matter that a certain person is or is not in the Senate to fight this.  There has to be other Democrats who can stand up and fight Net Neutrality with Franken felled and maybe on his way out.  But way too often the political winds blow when those fighting those winds feel that they can't, or they shouldn't, or they don't deserve to.  What I'm trying to say is that I know that the remaining Democratic senators, or the Democratic voters in Minnesota, or the zeitgeist, will not cause enough of a ruckus that would somehow force Republicans to reconsider.  In other words (and to appropriate/twist a phrase often used in government), Republicans will enact their hateful, racist, divisive laws with the consent of the governed.

OK, that might not make any sense.  What I am trying to say is that we, as The Resistance, stands to lose a lot if Franken leaves.  We have someone who has the will, the intelligence, and the wit to fight against the oligarchy and for the rest of us, The Real Americans.  And it's an unassailable fact that we have someone who has also fought tirelessly for women's rights, whether it be control of their bodies or equality in the workplace.  Yes, someone like him also groped several women.  (I want to add that several women who have worked for him wrote a letter saying that he treated them with the upmost respect.  That too has to mean something.)  Both facts exist, both facets reside in the same man.  So are you really going to cut him loose when The Resistance will be significantly weakened with his departure?

I hate purity tests, almost as much as I hate bitching (can I say the word "bitch?") about purity tests.  I hear those who hate being told to shut up about being touched inappropriately so we can fulfill our political aims.  But you know what?  I'm willing to tell sacrifice them.  You know, those who say that Franken unequivocally has to go in order for someone to finally listen to them will lead us to a political beatdown that will eventually result in an anti-choice agenda, poverty for more Americans and rule by the rich.  As much as I hate to say this, those who demand this purity test on Sen. Al Franken believe they can withstand any totalitarian rule by Donald Trump and his Republicans.  And those who will suffer if this tax plan goes through, and if Net Neutrality becomes a dusty story in history books?  Those who demand this purity test on Sen. Al Franken won't listen to those people.  You only get angry if your ax is being gored.  That's how it usually is in life, but that means that different people will look at the same situation very differently.  They need to recognize that.

And remember that while we're squabbling over how much of a pig Al Franken is, Republicans are laughing their asses off.  There is manipulation behind this -- that I have no doubt.  It's very likely that all of this is a Stone-orchestrated hit, although Franken apparently gave Stone enough ammunition to kill off his political career.  Or more likely (although you'll have to work with me here because it has to do with mind games), Stone and Tweeden knew that this is a climate where, if one woman speaks out against Franken, other women who have been groped by Franken would feel safe to also speak out.  The Bloodletting would occur organically, and down goes a progressive voice.  And the Republicans win again.

The Republicans win again.  That's where I wind up.  That's the bottom line for me.  So yes, I can look away somewhat from these new accusations.  I don't want to say that his actions of fighting for pro-woman legislation means more to me than these gropes ... but it does mean more to me.  I want those who want Franken's head to think long and hard about what taking out Franken will mean -- not just to them, but to The Resistance, to the country, and to the forces of good, currently being assailed by this fat orange asshole, his morally bankrupt party, and Russia.

While writing this, my line and my breaking point have moved.  Yes, open up an investigation to Franken, and if his conduct is bad enough to warrant sanction or censure, good.  If he wants to serve out his term and announce he won't run for re-election ... uh, get back to me on this., I don't know how to feel about it right now.  But resign?  With the stakes so high, and the sanity of our country hanging in such a precarious balance?  As impotent as people think Franken is now -- and possibly as he thinks of himself now -- no.  Hell no, fuck no.  For the greater good.  Yep, I said it; for the greater good, Al Franken still needs to stay.

Mother And Father Fighting -- Man, That Takes Me Back

My God, my parents just had the biggest goddamn fight I've seen and heard (mostly heard) in years, if not decades.  And it all stems from a letter.  And from me.

They just sold one of their properties here, and they told me last (Wednesday) night to write a letter to the insurance company to cancel the homeowner's insurance policy.  And quickly, My Father and Mother showed they had very different ideas on how to write a cancellation notice.  First, Mother wanted me to write out a letter which she will type at the library later today.  Then, Father said that I could just write it out on a piece of paper because the plan is to fax it, not mail it.  And after I wrote a very perfunctory and quick request to cancel this policy number which is for this property (they came back from some errand) Mother wanted me to write a return address down.  And then she told me to write down the phone number.  And then no, not the landline, but Father's cell #.  (I asked her why she couldn't do it; she said that a letter written two different ways would arouse suspicion.)

So I did it and got up and left in incredulity.  My Mother took the sheet I wrote and walked to My Father, who was finishing up washing the dishes, similarly getting incredulous that I wrote down not one but two phone numbers.  At this point it was apparent that she wanted to be as meticulous as possible with this letter I wrote for them while he wanted to just get the damn thing sent.  And he let her know about as soon as I entered my bedroom: "I told you I wanted a simple goddamn letter!"  And so I heard a yell-fest between the two that rivals anything I heard when I was a kid, and they were arguing as soon as they came home late at night and continued as they went down the stairs and hit the shower.

This fight did not last as long as those childhood memories: Ten or fifteen minutes at the most, long compared to arguments between decent and sane couples but short for my folks.  But they went at it.  Through the Chinese I thought I could make out, My Father was on the attack, berating My Mother for continually ignoring his desire for a quick letter quickly sent.  Mother may or may not have ridiculed him for thinking he could do a half-ass effort for such an important letter, but I think she just started to get defensive about Father haranguing her.

I was just going to let the knock-down-drag-out fight outside as I retreated to my safe space.  But then I heard something slightly different.  Father had already locked the door when they came back from that errand after dinner.  But I heard Mother quickly unlatch all the locks and storm out, with a grunting Father shoving open the screen door after she exited.

Then I heard their minivan start up.  I've heard this a couple times before; after a fight, Mother just takes off.  She would be gone for hours at a time, but she would come back before we went to bed.  That's what I thought she felt like she needed to do, but this time Father chased after her.

So now I had to see what the fuck was going on.  Mother wanted to bolt for parts unknown, but this time Father wouldn't let her.  She started the car; he may have talked her down to the point she turned it off.  She continued yelling and started it up.  He walked away from the driver's-side door, but instead walked behind the car.  The minivan started creeping back before Mother realized she was about to run Father over, so she jerked it to a stop.  Finally, as he circled back beside her, she turned off the car and went back inside.

I didn't see anybody driving or passing by.  I have no idea how no one at least heard them; they were screaming so loudly (at least Mother) that if a cop car was rolling by, I know a cop would have stopped to ask what the fuck was going on.  But as embarrassing as that was, I couldn't help but focus on the behavior of both of my parental units.  Both of them were terrible.  But I don't know who was worse: Mother for storming out of the house and yelling so loudly the neighbors could hear, or Father for manipulating Mother's feelings and then challenging her into staying, even by standing behind a car that could run him over.  She shouldn't have bolted out the door, but he shouldn't have forced her to stay.  Both of them suck.

And so I go back to one of the statements I tell myself whenever I feel the need to sum up my life: I have been ruined because of my parents.  I have both My Mother's penchant for overreacting and My Father's need to be right.  And all my yelling?  Turns out I get it from both of them.  I learned really well listening into downstairs when I was young.

She didn't leave the driveway, but she's sleeping in my sister's room.  Just another day in the Unforgivable Wetness household.

Avoiding My Asshole Brother For A Second Weekend (Scheduled Post)

For the second consecutive Saturday (which is a rarity -- more on that in a second), My Asshole Brother and my sister-in-law and my niece are coming over today/Saturday, and this time it appears as though they're having dinner -- ribs and everything.  When Father serves ribs, it's fancy.

But I will not be there.  For the second consecutive Saturday I will avoid My Asshole Brother.  My main reason, of course, is that I don't want to see the bullying motherfucker.  But unlike last Saturday, where I tried my best to stay away while they were at the house, this time I actually have a good reason to be gone.  I am busy getting ready for Sunday's party, and then I have the United match in the afternoon.  Sure, I could go back, but the earliest I would be back is 6, and by then they'll probably be done eating, and I still need to eat dinner, and so it's just best if I just stay out for dinner.  So it's half an excuse, if anything.

All this time away from My Asshole Brother makes me concerned about my relationship with my niece.  I swear I blogged about him turning my niece against me, and if I know him (and I do) he's doing it right now.  And unfortunately he has my absences to use against me -- "See, he's not here because he doesn't love you."  And I hate that bullshit manipulation; if I want to see her, I have to put up with him.

So of course the ball's in my court.  And you know, I don't regret not being there.  In fact, if they're dropping by next Saturday, I won't be at home, either; have to attend my friend's musical in the afternoon, then attend the United match in the evening.  Still think it's best to stay away from toxic people, you know?

No Goddamn Way I'm Coming Back With My Asshole Brother At Home

I had a feeling that he, my sister-in-law and niece would be dropping by today.  Not just because it would be just my luck, but also because, well, Mother loves her granddaughter and it's the weekend, so it makes sense.

That's the good thing about always thinking ahead.  I can gird myself in case the worst comes.  This morning I thought about the possibility of that happening, and I girded myself.

I went downstairs to tell Father (who was reading stuff on his computer) and Mother (who was working on her computer) that I was leaving -- a rarity, but just in case.  Told Father first; told him I'd be back around 4.

Just as I was leaving and he was turning back to his desktop, he turned back to me: "Oh, Jimmy's coming at noon."

My folks know that we don't get along, and I'm sure they knew we didn't get along last week in Hong Kong, to put it mildly.

I had to stop and think there, in Father's computer room, for an extra beat.  "Tell him I say hi," I said.  Then I told Mother with the caveat that a friend of mine might want to meet up after dinner.  Wanted to give the impression that I might come in late and leave early, as is my want.  In reality, I have the United match to go to tonight; still don't know if they know whether I have season tickets.

Look, for all the obligatory his and byes we give each other and gave each other in Hong Kong, I fucking don't like him because he's a bully.  He can say all he wants about just wanting to drop by so my niece can see his parents, but he's just a fucking manipulator, trying to play mind games as the first son and the one bearing my folks progeny.  He's lording it over me, and so he thinks he can get away with everything -- like he has all his life.  Trying to be an adult around my niece just adds more pressure to me coming back home and thinking everything's OK, when it's not.  For me, it rarely has.

So why in the hell should I come back home while they're there?  Fuck being the better man.  I'm not going to debase myself and give My Asshole Brother the satisfaction.  How about just dropping off my niece and let my parents and I take care of her for a while?  That'll let me have bonding time with her without needing to deal with him.

Ah, it's no use.  I have to go home at some point.  Besides, I can't avoid My Asshole Brother forever because that'll mean avoiding my niece forever, and as much as I hate being over a barrel, I can't have that.  If I miss them today, fine.  Next time, I'll have to fucking play nice.  Because I'm supposed to be the bigger man, even though he isn't, because no one sees him as not being the bigger man.

Until then, though, maybe I'll stop by Dairy Queen before coming home today.  I mean, it's hot out there.

They Fought.

I think I've talked before on Wailing And Failing that my earliest memories of my parents had no pictures per se.  They worked so long that they wouldn't come home oftentimes till after dark, sometimes several hours after my brother and I got home from school.  They would never say hi to us; instead they would immediately trot down to the their master bedroom and the master bathroom, where they always showered together.  And while we were playing (more like fighting) upstairs, we would hear Mother just screaming in the bathroom.  Sometimes Father would talk calmly, other times he would give it right back to her.  But that is how I defined their relationship with each other, which influenced how I saw their relationship to me -- angry, dissatisfied, angry.

I'm in therapy over that, and as I get to know the intricacies of how it damaged me, I'll talk more about it on WAF.  However, as their time taking care of The Store wound down, they fought much less often.  Obviously their yelling (or at least Mother's yelling) centered around work, and with the source/trigger being sold off to the company next door, I figured the yelling stopped too.  (It didn't help, by the way, that they worked and lived together.  They are unique amongst parents, I think, in being right next to each other 24 hours a day for years.  That had to make things restive between them.)

But more than a week ago, they fought again.  And oh my God, I could be wrong, but this fight was as loud, as vicious, as violent as could be without someone raising a hand to the other.  I had heard them yelling for so long and for so often that I had become kind of numb to the screaming.  But there were times when I got scared that something was going to happen, like one of them was going to do something bad to the other, then come upstairs and do something bad to us.  And Tuesday, at the age of 40, I got that feeling again.

---

That Tuesday I said I wasn't going to come home to eat dinner.  This was a day where *a*** was having a party and I was going to force myself inside her mouth to the point where she would have to swallow my cum.  (Yeah, I'm burying the lede.)

I was going to type up a letter for Mother at the library the afternoon before *a***'s party, but I forgot it leaving in the morning heading off to "work," so I went back home so I could type it that night.  When I came home their minivan was gone and the door was open -- weird combination.  I went downstairs because I heard their TV on.  It was Father.  I figured Mother went out to do something while he stayed home, which happened a lot.  I just told him I had to grab some stuff and then leave again.  He told me to shut the door.

A couple hours later, after I got that letter done, I saw Mother upstairs knitting.  I've seen her knit this late in the evening sometimes, but oftentimes it's because she wanted to be away from Father.  She was being a bitch that night.  First she got on me for not telling her I was going to Target, and then she accused me of leaving something out of the letter.  She said none of the sort and was being sort of scatterbrained, again.  But I got away from her and hid in my bedroom.

I thought nothing of her strange behavior because she is sometimes strange.  However, a little later Father came upstairs, presumably to get something from the kitchen.  Almost as soon as I could hear his steps, Mother started assaulting him with words.  To this day I am angered that I don't understand Chinese; I didn't understand what the hell she was ranting about in the bathroom when I was young, and I don't know what she was screaming to him about that night.  What I did not hear, by the way, was Father's voice.  He got what he wanted or got so sick of the screaming that he decided to not get what he went upstairs for.  But Mother's loud words followed him down the stairs until we could no longer hear his footsteps.

Unbeknownst to me, that was only Round 1.  Round 2 began when Father finally summoned up the courage or the words to come back at Mother.  From the foyer he came and started yelling upstairs back at Mother, loudly and a lot.  I don't remember if Mother yelled back, but she certainly did for a raucous and attention-grabbing Round 3 when she decided to go downstairs and confront him.

I swear, Mother was as loud as she has ever been in my life, and possibly louder.  She was yelling at the top of her voice, so even though they were in the basement, she was able to penetrate the floor so I could hear quite clearly.  Again, though, she was speaking in Chinese, so the only words I could make out were something like, "You wake up at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock and I don't complain!"  I don't remember too many words beyond that, but I noticed something I don't remember from my childhood: She was so emotional when speaking that she started to break down.  Mother probably was in tears when she really began to lay into Father.

This is what I think is happening/happened.  Although they no longer have The Store, they do have real estate interests in town.  Things aren't going as well as it could be.  It's Mother who seems to have the hand on the tiller on this; after all, she is the one who asked me to type this letter at the library.  In the meantime, I don't really recall Father doing anything for the properties they own in the area.

Adding that observation with the fact that he nowadays just lays about around the house while occasionally judging me for what I do and do not do, I am guessing that Mother had it up to here with Father's behavior (or lack thereof) and words.  So, she let her have it.

Father ... well, he either gave up, gave in, parried her meltdown or totally got the upper hand on this argument.  He pulls this garbage a lot: He says something really insulting (he always has a way to push my buttons, that fucking asshole), I (or Mother) go off and start yelling at him while defending myself/herself, and finally, in a quiet tone that makes him sound like he is the calm voice of reason and the better man, says something to the effect of, "Forget it, it doesn't matter" -- which is genius, because it both takes back control of the relationship and completely minimizes all the issues we raise.  Goddamn, he's so fucking manipulative.

That's what I imagine the overall gist of his side of the conversation was.  Again, the entire conversation was in Chinese, and I understand even less of his side of the story.  What I do know is, even though she was screaming so much that it appeared as though she would never forgive him for whatever problem she had with him, Mother quieted down.  Finally, they went to bed, together.

They always went to bed together.

By the way, this whole time I was stunned by all the yelling that all I could do was scroll through my Twitter timeline.

---

Things progressed/snowballed/collapsed after that.  At the tail end of dinner the next night, Mother told me to take Father to the airport.  That evening.  Huh?  (On the way there, of course he got on my fucking case about finding a better job.  That's why I'm not going to get that quote for you on moving the piano to the niece!)

After I got home I checked their e-mail.  He did not, in fact, buy a ticket that day after that fight; he bought it Tuesday afternoon, just before the argument.  So the ticket was the cause of the fight?  Huh??

And then the following day or the day after (it was last week, I forget) Mother, for the first time ever, volunteered information about a fight that they had.  According to her, they argued over this lawsuit regarding one of the properties they own.  She wanted to fight; he ... didn't want to deal with it, she said.  Mother wanted Father to work his network around town for a lawyer who could help fight this in court.  Finally, Father got sick of all of her haranguing and said Tuesday afternoon that he was leaving the next day for Las Vegas.  After a few hours of letting this move marinate, Mother started screaming at him that night ... or, she was continuing the screaming she began that afternoon.

This lawsuit is really weighing on Mother, and it can seriously damage my parents' income.  So, my parents are fighting again, just over a different trigger/source.  You know, I figured that a healthy relationship wouldn't break down to screaming matches, no matter how hard the situation or the times.  That has never happened with this family.  And this is why this family is permanently marked by disappointment and hate.

---

Three other things.

First, in this conversation I had with Mother about the fight, she revealed something interesting about My Father's airplane ticket: He made her book the flight for him.  What?  If you didn't want him to leave, why help him leave?  I pair this with her finally stopping her yelling and going to bed with him and thinking that she is nothing more than a little bitch.  She can scream as much as she wants; at the end of the day, not only is she not getting her way, but she's also going to help you get your way.  How was I so afraid of her for so long when she's just a paper tiger ... and a submissive paper tiger at that?

(By the way, she's gotten much more needy since My Fucking Father left.  She has continually asked me what does this e-mail mean, can you go to my laptop to find this, when are you going to the library so you can print this out, etc.  Did Father get sick of this same crap?  Is that the reason why he left?)

The second is something related, and something she also revealed during this dinner.  She felt like she didn't have any support from Father when it came to this lawsuit.  With him gone (with her help), I think she was implying that it is now up to me to help her with that.  So not only am I now helping her with her real estate affairs, I'm supposed to provide emotional support as well.  I'm still thinking, Fuck no, I didn't sign up for this shit.  But when she confessed this, I saw my feelings of abandonment in her words.  Did I get my loneliness from her?  If so, maybe I'm kind of, well, fated to stick by her, two lonely souls clinging to one another as we propel ourselves downward into the darkness.

Finally, I heard the damndest thing after coming home late from my trip back out to the mall after forgetting Wednesday night: Father was on speakerphone with Mother.  All that goddamn fighting, and now he's talking to her again, like fucking lovebirds?!?!?!

I don't get it.  This love thing is totally fucked up.

Another Goddamn Blindside, Courtesy Of My Folks

In and of itself the surprise Mother told me last (Monday) night should not get me all hot.  But given the bullshit I've had to put up with with both of my parental units, I feel like I'm justified in being very upset.  Hell, that's why I set up this blog -- to vent about shit, especially about the shit flung by my parents.

I was at the dealership last (Monday) night, getting an oil change and tire rotate, and also getting a new door handle as part of a recall and, if they did what I asked them to, checking underneath the hood for any lasting effects of putting the new car in storage for 4 1/2 months over the winter.  They got done early -- a full 90 minutes ahead of my schedule, in fact.  I, however, was not, because of a fateful combination of too many things I need to do and a fucking old-ass laptop that was acting up for much of the evening and got bogged down to the point where I got nothing done.

A frustrating lap around the area, where all the fucking local gas stations are pre-pay except for the one where I mocked and ridiculed the shitty employees for being slow and unprofessional, followed my evening at the dealership.  So I wasn't really in the best of moods when I finally got home.  But at least I could finally take off my Doc Martens (letting my toes relax) and take a dump in peace.

Unfortunately, Mother, running up to me a second time since coming home, approached the bathroom, virtually in a panic, after talking probably to My Fucking Father (I heard her phone ring from downstairs), and dropped another bomb on me.  Mother and I discussed going to one of my parents' real estate properties and doing some handywork -- specifically, if I recall correctly, nailing a gutter.  She wanted to do it Sunday, when I had time.  According to Mother, My Fucking Father nixed that idea because he thought their friend could do it instead.  Guess that fell through because we now have to fix this gutter, or something.  Problem is, we need to do it tomorrow because it appears as though a new tenant comes in on Wednesday.

Well, fuck.  I had plans on going to the library to print out KenPom in order to do research on the bracket, and maybe I could type out this letter for Mother to give to her doctor next week, but that's now out the window.  However, Mother thinks that's too late -- she thinks it'll get too dark, even though sunset now comes past 6.  The fuck.  She wants us to go before I head off to work in the morning.  So, I am supposed to wake up at 6 -- in other words, very soon after I finish this blog post off -- and we will do this in the wee hours of the morning.

This is going to be nothing short of a goddamn disaster, I just know it.  First of all, I couldn't hit a nail on the head if the nail's head was the size of Donald Trump's face.  Second of all, I asked Mother, several times, if the only thing we needed to do was nail this gutter back in place.  She said yes ... which means that she'll find another fucking thing we need to work on in the house.  It's inevitable that either this goes wrong or she'll find something else we'll need to do ... you know, "As long as we're here, and if you have time, son."  Finally, it's supposed to rain in the morning, so I'll be drenched if everything somehow manages to go smoothly, and I'll be both drenched and pissed if it doesn't.

But that's not the big thing that angers me about this blindside.  Once again in my life I'm put into ... "this position."  I see Mother running up to me because she needs my help.  (Frantic panicking for shit that she believes needs to be done immediately?  I get that from her.  Mark it down.)  My guess is she's running like a chicken with its head cut off to do this because My Fucking Father dropped a bomb on her and surprised her by saying in that phone call that 1) their friend can't do whatever this fix is and 2) oh yeah, a new tenant's moving in this week.  That's typical of both of them, though what is more insidious is the way My Fucking Father manipulates Mother into doing things for him.

Finally, this bullshit, where I have push all the important things I need to do off the table because the family needs something do, is rigmarole over which I have had to constantly fight with them.  This fighting is over the expectations that they continually nag me to do which I keep telling them I can't do because of surprises like this.  My Fucking Father randomly telling me to go back to school?  How can I when I have to wake up as early as a goddamn farmer in order to do manual labor for their properties?  How can I find a steady job when I'm constantly trying to help My Fucking Mother understand what this letter means, or figure out why is her laptop acting the way it's acting, or find some long-lost letter for her, or type out a motherfucking text for her (with her adding something dumb because she wants to)?  All of this takes precious hours out of my day.  And I'm supposed to take a class on top of putting out all these goddamn fires for them?!  Fuck you!!!

I have to wake up in about 4 1/2 hours.  I'm tired, yet I can't sleep because I'm overwhelmed over what was dropped onto my lap 4 1/2 hours ago.  And I have to go to work after this!!!

Will I Be Working Out By The Porta-Potties The Next Time?

As I thought and was afraid of, this game is being produced by the team that, en masse, turned on me, disrespected me and treated me like shit two years ago.  This is what you get the team finally gets good.

I saw his name when I was e-mailed my assignment for this week.  (We used to get called up, but apparently it's done through e-mail with go-betweens now.)  What I was exactly assigned, however, was something I have never done with these guys before.  It's something, in fact, I have never done since college.  What it is, however, is in the other truck -- as far the fuck away from these disrespecting assholes as I've ever been.

This is a trend that is continuing, I guess.  After my blow-up (although I think they started when they went nuts on me -- I was just making a phone call, alright?!), I was taken away from my customary position behind these guys to running around with some cameraman.  Next time I worked with them I was sent to the stadium.  And now this.

I'm not stupid, and I'm certainly not as stupid as they think I am.  All of those fucking people, or one of those fucking people -- probably the really fat one -- just decided they can't stand the sight of me -- though none of it my fault -- and by assigning me these shit jobs they are marginalizing me and pushing me to a point where I don't want to work with them anymore.  Typical petty mind games from these assholes.  Who the fuck are these guys pulling office politics, anyway?  I haven't seen these guys in two years.  Whatever they think I did to them should be water under the bridge.  Instead, they're manipulating me.

You know what?  If these guys are going to be this small-minded, maybe it's best that I stay away from these guys.  I don't need to talk to people who don't want to talk to me.  If we're not going to be cordial with each other anymore, fine, I'll deal with someone else.  Probably better that way.  I'll come in and just do my own thing -- eat breakfast, tool around the stadium, work on my phone.  I don't care, because they don't anymore.  Besides, I don't have time to chit-chat after the game's over; I'm going to the roller derby tournament right after the game.  I'll fight with the other fans on getting on the light rail, so I'll be gone as soon as I can.  They probably want it that way, too.

Well, I have to play devil's advocate for these pricks.  If they truly had any balls, they just wouldn't hire me.  I am at-will, and if they hate me that much, why are they bringing me back on?  I don't know; maybe somebody there does like me.  And even though I may not like them (and vice versa), I do like working these games.

Well, shit.  I guess I should be grateful that I'm working at all.  And maybe this new position, where I'm staying away from them is the best way to work for this crew in order to keep working, period.  Whatever.  I just know that Sunday is going to be very stressful.

The Voices In My Head Are My Enemies

Should say this, for I've known a long time: I have voices in my head.  They're not voices of doubt, they are voices of, well, hate.  I hear them whenever I screw something up or I'm in a situation where I'm really tense and frazzled.  They say things like, "You're so stupid," or, "I knew you were gonna fuck this up."  And then, sometimes I can envision a face -- and it's one of one of the people I hate.

It takes the image of My Fucking Father from time to time whenever he's being a dick to me.  For a long time it was that munchkin-like bitch usher who forced me to leave the theaters for good.  Goddamn, she still pisses me off.  From time to time to guy from the team pops into my head.  But recently, it's that fat fuck from the production that torments me.  Man, what a manipulative asshole.

These usually disembodied voices come to me at least once a day, maybe many times over the course of a situation that's really shitty.  I don't think I'm schizophrenic.  But I'm sure most people don't "feel" their voices of hate (or doubt) the way I do.

Just wanted to say.

Oh, I Haven't Talked About The Bullshit Gas Prices Yet!!!

Monday, if I recalled correctly when I updated my status on my MySpace: $3.80

Wednesday: $4.20, the first time I have ever paid more than four bucks a gallon in my fucking life

Thursday: $4.30

Friday: $4.40

Saturday: ???

That's fifty cents, half a buck, in 72 hours, and 60 cents in a little more than a week.  Fuck my life.

How and why is this bullshit happening?  I've seen some things about some other refineries in the Plains states, but the reason I've heard a lot is that it "just so happened" that two refineries in the midwest shut down for "scheduled" maintenance -- at the same time.  Surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre it did.  You know, I've got a question: If these refinery shutdowns were "scheduled," why in the fuck did the public not know about it?  And why in the goddamn hell did they have to go down at the same time?

Do you know what this is called?  Collusion.  Big Oil creating a tight supply so they can squeeze money out of us.  We have had it good for a long time while other parts of the country have seen price spikes, so I guess it was our turn to take it on the fartbox.  That's a much more realistic conspiracy than any teabagger can make about Obama and the government.

It is virtually impossible to believe that we now have the highest gas prices in the United States, surpassing fucking Honolulu.  THIS.  IS.  BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Fucking Father And His Goddamn "Lessons"

Seeing him rocking in that rocking chair while listening to classical music I should have known something was off with him.  Guess it took another goddamn spring snowstorm for him to unleash his bad side, fucking again.

Apparently we got 6.4 inches of snow yesterday.  Half a foot!!!  On April 19!!!  Even though I had no work to go to (they didn't know that), I cashed in on my free Tax Day/Week free HydroMassage coupon that I scheduled for 11.  And since my parents would bitch at me for not helping, I woke up at 9:30 to start shoveling.  Goddamn, it was a lot, and unfortunately the street plow came through overnight, so the edge of the driveway had the highest pile of snow, and since it went through the melt-and-freeze cycle because it was out on the street, it's also the hardest to shovel.

I started off down there, alternately picking up a heavy, wet, dirty pile of snow and picking up huge boulders of snow melted together and tossing them like cabers to the side.  I had the most energy starting off, so I might as well tackle the big stuff first.

My Fucking Father, who sauntered out late into my half-hour of shoveling, didn't seem to know or care about that.  After I got the end yard of snow off my driveway, stretching my muscles to the point where, hey, a HydroMassage seemed like a great idea, I warned him that I was going to start my car.  My parents always insist on me starting my car on cold days even though it does nothing to help my car and only wastes gasoline.  Also, even though I did not have to go right that second, best to avoid My Fucking Father when shoveling.

But leave it to him to impart his good ol' "life lessons."  As I did what he told me to do and use the Chinese broom instead of the snowscraper inside my car to get the mound of snow off of my car, he looked down at the snow he was about to shovel and said, in Chinese, "Shovel for a little bit, then shovel a little bit, then shovel."  Or something like that.  I don't know what the fuck that means.  But what was aggravating was that he thought, after 37 fucking winters, I needed a refresher course on how to shovel.  He wasn't there while I was I picking up those fucking heavy boulders of snow that froze together.  If that asshole was telling me I needed to push the snow off to the side -- something he told me back when I was fucking ten years old, something I would do if the snow wasn't so goddamn heavy -- I should have let him deal with the dirty snow at the end of the driveway.  Let's see him push instead of shovel; he would break the shovel first ... unless he got a heart attack first.

What really pissed me off, however, was when I actually had to leave for the massage parlor.  After I fetched my bag and the bottle of water I wanted to bring with me, My Fucking Father stopped me.  And -- my fucking God, I don't think I'm being defensive -- he said to me, "One thing, son: Whenever you see another car covered in snow, you need to take the snow off of that as well."

OH, YOU FUCKING PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE PIECE OF SHIT!!!  YOU HAVE NEVER, NEVER, NEVER SAID THAT TO ME BEFORE EVER!!!  THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SOMETHING YOU CARED ABOUT TILL NOW!!!  WHY?  BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO BE AN ASSHOLE!!!  AND TO DO IT JUST AS I WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE "FOR WORK!!!"  YOU KNOW GODDAMN WELL THAT IF YOU WANTED ME TO CLEAR YOUR CAR (SO YOU COULD GO, UH, NOWHERE BECAUSE YOU'RE FUCKING RETIRED NOW!!!) YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME WHEN I STARTED MY CAR.  TO TELL ME AT THIS FUCKING POINT SHOWS HOW PETTY OF A BASTARD YOU ARE!!!

He said, "Next time, next time," but I know what that asshole meant.  I went back inside and threw my stuff down so I could clean out that baby's minivan.  Or, what I could; you see, it's a minivan, and even though I got most of the snow on the hood and the sides off, I didn't have a chair so I could get the snow that landed on top.  Maybe My Fucking Father would do a better job at it, especially since he has time to do it.  Oh well; as I finally got into my car and left, I saw him glance at the minivan only half-cleaned and I could see him grimace as he went back to shoveling.  If he's going to be passive-aggressive with me, I'm going to be passive-aggressive with him.  I'll give him the satisfaction of manipulating me into doing something he didn't really want me to do that moment, in that, "oh no, you really shouldn't" tone of voice, but after I lull him into thinking he made me do what I wanted, I do a shitty job at it.  That look of disapproval told me he wasn't happy, and therefore that made me happy.

And as a kicker I came back at 6 even though I easily could have come back at 5.  Because fuck him.

More Car Trouble, More Car Suffering

The rough idling is something I've begun to tolerate; as long as the mechanic says it should be OK so long as it doesn't kill the engine or trigger the "Check Engine" light, I can just breathe deeply.  It's still not "OK" OK. I keep hoping that when I put my car into drive that everything would be fine, that I won't get the rhythmic thumping whenever I stop at a light or sign.  I particularly dread it in the afternoon; for some reason it's usually fine when I first drive my car in the morning.  It's in the afternoon -- the drive back home from my test scoring job, for example -- where it's at its worst.

Lately it's been screwing with me.  Monday morning my drive to work was bad, which is out of character.  This (Tuesday) morning it drove just fine.  But after work, just after I turned right onto a road and stepped on the gas, my car ... did not accelerate.  Eventually it did, but after I fucking jammed my foot on the gas.  That scared the shit out of me; there was a lot of afternoon rush traffic that was only a red light away from catching me.  This is the same shit that happened to me last fall: The thumping from my car combined with the  inability to accelerate.  Fucking Christ, I thought The Mechanic Around The Corner fixed this already!

I just looked back at the diagnosis from the huge bill I had to pay for my car the last time this shit happened. $800+ to replace a fuel injector, replace the entire ignition system (cap, rotor, wires) and mess with the valve timing.  This is still under warranty, right?  I might have to fucking go back to these guys to get this shit fixed even though I have no confidence that they know how.

And yet tomorrow my car might not be as bad as it drove today.  The mechanic I now trust, the one who said that my car's not "bad" bad right now, has no fucking idea what it is but wonders if it's weather-related.  It's supposed to reach 50 tomorrow afternoon, so maybe this problem will go away.  (Then again, I've driven this car through temperatures lower than the past two days and some times there was no shuddering.) All I know is I fucking don't know anything, the people I hoped would know don't fucking know anything, I desperately need to make sure my car is functioning, and I have no money to pay for any repairs to keep it functioning.  Fuck my life.

Short Temper In The Morning

Didn't get much sleep this morning. Schedule over the weekend threw me off. Should've gone to bed earlier Sunday night/Monday morning, but didn't.
Woken up by Grandmother. Still feelin' very groggy. Things were OK, but I thought something was off. Grandmother was quite spry and chipper.

When I tested her blood, I checked the time: 7:21 a.m. And that clock's fast. She woke me up ten minutes before I wanted to. And I was angry. But irrationally so.

What I did next is something I'm not proud of. I blog this to understand why I did it in an effort to not do it again. I don't know if that's possible; I'm always at my worst in the morning. But the original aim of Wailing And Failing is to work through and eliminate my shortcomings.

This is what I did, and I want I meant to "communicate" to Grandmother my disapproval of her waking me up ten minutes early:

• Looked at her as she was opening an alcoholic wipe.  Stared at her as if she was stupid.  Why are you opening that?  You don't fucking see the insulin needle anywhere in front of you, do you?
• Waited, passive-aggressively, to see if she would at least make a move to the refrigerator, where I put the insulin.  She does do that nowadays, and I'd appreciate it now, since she woke me up early and stuff.  This was your fucking idea, why don't you get your bushy-tailed ass up to the fridge and get it yourself?
• I sigh, not overly loud yet loud enough to, I think, have her hear it.  Fine, you goddamn deaf, blind and dumb bat, I'll do it myself.
• I finally wait long enough to bait my Grandmother into finally getting around to what I think is her problem: "Where's the insulin?" she asked.  Good -- got you in my manipulative trap.
• Gesturing like she's a mute, I lay out my palm and wave it towards the refrigerator.  Well of course it's in the fridge, where it always is.  Now fetch.
• I sigh as I lower myself back into my chair, like that hydraulic sound you hear when a forklift lowers its fork.  You should be doing this work all by your fucking self, Granny, since you woke me up so motherfucking early in the morning, Christ. ...
• And then she walks back from the kitchen without the insulin.  Where the fuck is it?  Oh, right ... I forgot to put it in the fridge last night.  It's in my room.  Let me go get it.  Whoops.

When I went back inside, I checked my watch.  By the time I get it, go back to the dining room, give it to Grandmother, and go back into my bed, the alarm would go off.  I turn off the alarm on my watch as soon as it beeps and hit the snooze button on my cell.  I loll in bed another eight minutes before the alarm goes off again, but I don't fall back to sleep because I now think of all the things I should be doing now that I'm up early.

I'm trying, and I really don't want to disrespect and bully my Grandmother.  When I reflect on what I did this morning, all I can think of is ... My Fucking Father.  He hasn't acted civilly towards her ever since I left for college, and maybe even since my childhood.  He complained on Saturday about how she's a drain on the household utilities, but I think it's overblown.  And I sublimate his behavior towards her and copy it when she pisses me off the same way she pisses him off.  And I don't like it, because My Fucking Father's an asshole, and I don't want to spread the poison I learn from him.

But even after I vow not to follow down My Fucking Father's path, this morning happens.  Will I ever learn?  And can I ever change?

Roller Derby Follies, Part I

I love Girl Scout cookies.  Haven't had the chance to buy them because I keep missing them whenever they were selling them.  One Saturday, however, I was walking into My Favorite Coffeeshop (Until Their Wireless Starting Fucking Up) and I saw a table with Girl Scouts selling cookies.  Sweet!  I'll take a box of Trefoils.

And I saw the same thing when I went to the North Star Roller Girls bout last week.  I wanted to try some Lemon Creme ... whatever thingies, and I went down to their table at halftime to buy one.

But whether it was the kids poorly explaining it, me poorly understanding it, or the bizarre purpose of this particular table, it took me a few awkward moments to figure out that this table wasn't for buying Girl Scout cookies.  This was to donate Girl Scout cookies to one of two local organizations.

Now, I don't mean to be a grinch, but I felt a tad misled.  Everybody wants to buy Girl Scout cookies because they want to eat Girl Scout cookies.  Maybe it's just me, but I've never heard of donating them.  Also, is giving boxes of tasty-but-not-nutritious cookies the best thing to give as charity?

I should have walked away ... but ... well, these are kids you're talking about, and they're trying to do the right thing, and even though I thought I was going to purchase a box, I'm kind of stuck with going through with it anyway.  So I "donated" one box to a local group where a family will hopefully eat it as comfort food.

I should feel good.  But I don't.  I felt manipulated.  And now I have to not spend $3.50 somewhere, a predicament compounded by that goddamn 1-2 punch of a credit card late fee and rebates sent too late.

This sucks.

Father Wants To Get Into The Modem Business

I went downstairs because Mother needed help turning on the computer and Internet connection -- huh? -- when I saw a modem.

I assume My Fucking Father brought it home because he finally got fed up with all the times the modem I bought, the second I bought since we went to broadband, disconnected. It's hard to describe because I don't think this happens to anybody else, but at times, the modem will lose the signal or thing it gets from the Internet and disconnect. Sometimes it comes back, but sometimes it stubbornly goes haywire. It's distressing to see the Internet light on the modems I've had blink, then disappear, then reappear as a red light, then as a green one before blinking and starting the frustrating cycle all over again.

I had been on the phone with my ISP when it first happened, and the Indian rep told me that I had to exchange modems because the first one has had a history of dropping connections. But soon after I installed the second it also happened, so that's bullshit. I'm convinced it's not the modem. If it happens to a second modem, it's not the modem, it's the socket or the wiring. I really think it's because the house or its wiring is so old that it can't maintain connection to the Internet, especially when it goes on for a while or if it's really hot, the two conditions seemingly always present when the damn modem goes on the blink.

For some reason, however, one thing seems to fix it. The ISP person wanted me to test the modem by putting it in other phonejacks. I noticed that after I did that to both my modems, then put it back to where it was, the connection turned out fine, and it stayed fine. So now, after I look at my laptop and see there's no connection, then make sure the internet light on the modem is in fact not solid green, I unplug the whole thing, go into Mother's office, plug it into the power strip and phone jack, wait for half a minute, then take the modem back into the computer room. And except for one weird time, it works.

My Fucking Father doesn't know that. Maybe I told him, but if I did, he didn't care to listen. He thinks it's the modem I bought, which is bullshit, because the problem's with the wiring, which is the house, so it's his goddamn fault.

Oh, another thing: Over the summer he had me dump air conditioning water. Yeah, our HVAC system is so old that when we needed to cool off, the water generated to cool the house down didn't drain to some standpipe in the bottom of our house, but instead through a hose My Father had to connect it to. The other end sat in a pail in the middle of the HVAC room, and every, oh, six hours it would get full, so we had to make sure we took that pail and poured it down the drain. I'm definitely sure no other family with its shit together has to do that. But we do. So it's alright that we have to make sure we pour water waste down the sink, but dealing with a sometimes-spotty Internet means My Fucking Father has to get a brand-new modem? Fuck you, Father.

That's one reason why I got so apoplectic when I saw this modem in the computer room. There may be more, but after I calmed down, I noted the triggers to this:

• This shows My Fucking Father doesn't trust me, or thinks I'm stupid; his judgemental actions have always pissed me off;
• Doing this is a way to show me up -- "I know how to do this";
• He gave up on me -- "I gave you a chance to fix this, but now that you've failed, it's my turn";
• He once again is wading into territory he doesn't fully understand, though that has never stopped him;
• I paid for the modem that still works (I should ask for a refund if he goes through with this);
• I consider this an invasion of my privacy; while him fucking rearranging my room was an invasion of my physical space, this is an intrusion into what I feel is my responsibility and, compared with everyone else living here, my area of expertise -- both things that are mine, I believe;
• And, finally and most importantly, I think this is a way to control me and force me to leave the house.  I pay for Internet.  If he puts this modem in, he can say that he bought the modem, therefore he can dictate how it's used -- and, in my case, when.  If he wants it unplugged overnight so I can't "work," it's his modem, his rules.  Never mind that I pay for the house Internet.  If he takes this away from me, I truly am not at peace in this house.  And then My Fucking Father could throw me out.

To get back at him, I marched upstairs to the deck with his precious modem.  Even though my brother was talking to him, I didn't give a shit about making a scene.  "Just to let you know," I stammered, fumbling through my words, goddammit, "You're going to get the same problems with this modem as you do with mine."  To which he meekly said, "OK," in that tone of voice where you know he's ignoring and will do whatever the fuck he wants.  Once again, Fuck you, Father.

Just for that, I stayed out till 2 in the morning, then came storming down the stairs and into the computer room once I got back.  Well, at least he hasn't switched modems yet.  However, the computer was still on, and I saw the master bedroom was ajar.  Huh?  It kind of looked like there was some kind of incident or something.

The Night Ride That Could Have Been, That Should Have Been

Holy shitballs, do you know what My Fucking Father just said on the phone to me today? My uncle's still at home recuperating, and My Fucking Father told me to go over there today and, not see how he's doing, but find out if he can come back to work. This is obviously fucked up because he doesn't really give a shit about his kid brother's health unless it pertains to lightening his workload at the store. What was even more bothersome, yet typical of My Fucking Father's behavior, is he wants me to visit instead of calling him his goddamn self. I bring it up and he says: "You going over there is easier." Oh, by far it is.

But the most juvenile, hateful thing that really pushes my buttons was one of the things he was saying while complaining to me about my uncle. He has stuff to do, he says -- and "I'm doing all of these things for you!"

For me? For me??? Listen, asshole, if that's too much goddamn work, don't do it for me or us. No, I don't want you being so "nice" about doing it if it's too hard for you. And I certainly don't want you to do it if you think you have to tell us that you're nice. Please, take a rest. Relax. Chill, Father, chill. And while you're at it, stop yelling at me. Stop throwing my shit away. And stop acting like we owe you anything. Because we didn't ask you to remodel homes. If this is the rearrangment you set up, where you close on your properties (real estate, by the way, is a pain in the ass, and I did not ask you to do that shit, let alone do that shit for me) in exchange for some angst you're entitled to lay on us, don't bother. Please don't fuckin' bother. Because you're not getting anywhere because of it. Whine all you want, you baby, you do this on your own.

---

I wished against logic that he wouldn't be like this so quickly. And yet My Fucking Father represents a problem that never goes away and never is manageable.

What I mean is, last night during dinner Mother said: "Close the doors and open the air conditioning, otherwise Father will get mad." And that's it. When he's away he's never really away. He dominates most of our thinking, most of my thinking, and I hate that about him, and myself. We're always walking on eggshells to please him, or more importantly, to not make him mad. I really don't want to give a fuck, but I'm in no position to be financially independent, so I tell myself in my head that I need to compromise in order to keep the peace. That sounds reasonable in other families, but for some reason that feels like giving in in this one.

That angered me. The fact that I let him throw my magazines away still angered me. So I was in no mood to talk to him last night when I picked him up at the airport. Then again, I usually don't talk to him when I pick him up at the airport.

His flight was delayed by 15 minutes, but there was a potential detour on the highway. I went out the same times as I usually do in case the detour actually did affect my path to the airport. It didn't, so I spent my time looking for this cell phone lot, a space of free parking where you're supposed to go and wait instead of waiting by the side of the airport. Found it, tilited the driver's seat of my parent's minivan, and waited.

Five minutes later, he called. I figure it always takes him another five minutes to get curbside -- for some reason, this is a small terminal -- so I listened to the end of the BBC World Service's "The World Today" before heading out. Saw him waiting. Was he waiting long? A part of me said, "Should've been here sooner!" Another part said, "Serves him right!" Somebody help me.

My Father didn't yell at me for driving up; he could've suspected that I wasn't at the airport at all, like I said, but I guess he figured I drove up from the other end, or maybe he didn't care. Anyway, he got in, said thank you -- see, when you take me on guilt trips my whole life because you think you're entitled to them, these thank you's mean nothing to me -- and I tried to begin our silence.

But there was this damn condo he went out to Vegas for, and I had this urge to say it because, well, that's the whole reason he went out there this weekend. Luckily in the interests of piercing the silence we enveloped the car a little too much, he started on, of all things, the weather down there:

"Really hot down there."

"Yeah, I heard 110."

"118."

"Oh."

"The condo looks pretty good!"

"Really?"

"Yeah. We might even buy the condo in the corner instead."

"OK."

"$100,000 more."

"$100,000?"

And that was the end of our conversation until we got home and told him that noodles are ready to be eaten.

What he didn't know was that the part of me who just wanted to take him home and be done with this chore won this internal battle raging inside me. Because there was another person inside me who wanted to pick a fight with My Fucking Father. This one was going to argue with him, show him up, bring up all the Entertainment Weeklys he threw away except the one last week which he saved due to his quick thinking, and the comment Mother made about turning on the AC so as not to make him mad. This was nighttime and there was no one driving with us. I easily could've punched him in the face, or driven us off the road. Would that stop your bitching, Father?! Do you see that everything's worse now that you're back? Fucker.

And now he acted like a bitch about complaining when Uncle's coming back to work, a part of me regrets that I didn't get us into an accident. Anything to stop this goddamn nonsense.