OK, to follow up, and to be fair, I checked my pay stubs online, and despite my fear after he said he didn't "authorize" my extra hour of work that one workweek, my boss did not take off that hour of overtime, so I got paid for the work I worked, even if he didn't like it.  Honestly, that has dulled my drive to find other work ... for a bit.  I'm still not really happy with my work situation, and my relationship with my boss can still turn south the next time I feel he's nagging me.  Plus, I could use a job that pays more money.  I'm not looking for other jobs with vigor, but I am still looking.

So out of the blue My Fucking Father said after dinner I should clean my room and even though he's probably right I won't know because fuck you I won't do what you tell me.

I need to go out more on the weekend.  Doesn't matter that I don't have anywhere to go.  I should just go.

The Massage Parlor Wormhole

I truly, honestly wanted to get started on my taxes, even despite the nagging from My Father Saturday.  But I got sucked into looking up massage parlors for the past damn hour.  I'm not going to one.  Hell, they're probably not open anyway.  But that's what I've just done for the past hour, and now I'll have to go to sleep.

Well, maybe I'll write something down.  But then I'll have to go to sleep.

Yeah, Parents Are Starting To Get To Me

So My Fucking Mother blew up on me yesterday at dinner.  I walked out with just a t-shirt just as My Fucking Father opened the back door, letting the relative cool air in.  "Wear a shirt!" she screamed.  Bitch, you know how it is in my bedroom?!  And how in the hell was I supposed to know he was going to fucking open the door?!

And My Fucking Father was nagging me today after dinner.  He asked me over, then said, "Why don't you do your taxes?  You're not doing anything, right?"  Fuck you.  I was going to do them this weekend, but since he just nagged at me about that bullshit, and now that we've all been extended until July 15, I'm not fucking going to it this weekend, OK?

I've been home too fucking much.

Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe

There is no stripper more enthusiastic about getting money from me than ... well, it's that girl who jerked me around (I mean in figuratively, although she did literally as well) the last time I saw her.  I caved into her because she was so close and she was nagging me so much that I finally caved in, but she was such a fucking ripoff -- and an annoying one at that -- that I don't feel like seeing her, ever again.

And yet she keeps texting me, like she did before I caved in to her this time.  She wished me a Happy New Year, and then just yesterday she just said, "Hey."  And I was going to do what I did after she texted me HNY: Nothing.  I feel like ghosting her will be the only way she is going to stop bothering me.  Because the way I look at it, with the way she mistreated me the last two trysts we've had, she's not worth the bother.  I can get jobbed and fucked by much hotter chicks who do more for as much money, if not less.  Yeah, she tittyfucked me the first time and she's close by, but she still ain't worth it when compared to all the other bullshit I've had to take from her.

I'm just scared she won't stop, like this will become a Fatal Attraction kind of thing.  The texts might get more numerous.  She might find out where I live.  She might stalk me.  She might try to ruin my life.  Man, I know I live a life of sin, but I don't deserve that.

Not The Goddamn Miles Again ...

So I'm having dinner when Mother, as is her wont, asks me a question in her accusatory, nagging tone: "Did you get all my miles yet?"  And so we're harkening back to getting all those miles for trips my parents took pretty much last year on a bunch of partner airlines that I had to go back and forth with for a ton of bullshit.  And it was last night where, out of the blue, Mother thought she would revisit the subject.  I never felt I was fully done with the miles; honestly, there were follow-up requests for me to get more proof from those partner airlines, and I never followed through on them.

However, after showing my frustration with Mother fucking digging up old bones, she got onto the Internet and showed me what she was talking about.  There were miles for flights Father got that, for some reason, Mother did not get.  But there was something more disturbing.  Mother had boarding passes for, like, a dozen flights on their across-the-Pacific journey they took over the turn of the year.  I dutifully requested mileage for every one.  I received replies basically saying, "We got it, you will get your miles shortly," for some, but not all, of the flight segments.  And then, when I saw first Father's and then Mother's online mileage statements, there were the flights they took, but without any miles.  Now, I ran into a similar situation when I went to Hong Kong; even though I flew on partner airlines, apparently the code of ticket and seat I bought did not make me eligible for getting partner miles on them.  I suspect that's the case here; but if so, why didn't customer service get back to us saying that miles could not be accrued on those flights?

I really wasn't looking all that closely at my parents' statements because 1) I was bored and 2) I needed to log into my fantasy football leagues; drafts for both were last night, although I thank Buddha they did not overlap.  But seeing as I don't know which ones Father got miles for but Mother did not, and which ones neither got miles for, and that there were a dozen flights they took on this sojourn, I basically have to start from square one and see what I requested on my parents' behalf, for which flights the airline asked for information, and for which flights they eventually gave miles to, and whether it was for one or both parents.  That's a pain-in-the-ass to track back, and it's so confusing that I'm fucking tired thinking about it.  So I'm just going to take the L on this bad, harried day and hopefully I'll have a calmer soul and cleaner mind tomorrow so I can deal with this.

Morning will suck.  I am going to be opening boxes with urine samples, so it's likely that I piss will be touching my hands.  Again.

Had a meeting with my boss.  Told him about the last I went back there and how piss touched my hands.  Should have told him that I left there a different man than when I came in.  He insisted that no piss touches your hands if you're wearing gloves.  I'm sticking to my guns, and when I go in I believe I'll put on a second pair.

Also, I'll have that nagging woman telling me what to do.  I understand that she knows what she's doing, but it's annoying nevertheless.

Hopefully we'll be done with all this shit (and piss) by 10:30.  The only upside I can think of is that difficult days like this will make the workday go by faster.

Should get up now.  Have been late the past couple workdays.

Getting Re-Educated -- Bullshit ...

So, remember when I said one of my supervisors is keen on "re-training me" so I would work faster?  Once I passed my six-month review earlier this week, up to yesterday morning, I thought I was just being paranoid.  But later in the morning he sidles up to me and says, "Remember what I said last week about re-training you?  We'll do that later today."  Well, fuck me.

And he proceeded to go back and tell me everything I have been doing wrong.  Well, not really.  But yes, really.  Look, I'll be honest: I'm really most embarrassed about two mistakes that happened while he was looking over my shoulder.  One was me waiting for a form when I should have been looking for a folder (sorry to be so vague; like I think I've said before, I don't want to give too much detail because then people might know what I'm talking about).  I saw this folder in the filing cabinet but ignored it because I was looking for a form, which just happens to be inside the folder.  He opened up the cabinet, looked into the folder, and took out the form.  Fuck me.  The other fuck-up was kind of the opposite: I grabbed a form when I didn't need to.  It was of a certain kind that we don't look up, even though I was told, according to this sheet, to get it.  I mean, my supervisor told me this, but I forgot.

See, I don't do well when someone is looking over my shoulder, especially one who is critiquing my work.  So I made two errors -- admittedly mistakes on my part -- with him watching me.  That probably doesn't look good in his eyes.  Add to it that I don't think he's that great of a manager.  The other people around him mention, for example, that he likes to do things his way.  And he is kind of grabby when I ask him questions.  Now, to be fair, I do ask him a lot of questions, so he may think that some "re-education" is in order.  Plus he did give me one tip that would make things faster for me.  Finally, maybe he hates doing this as much as I hate him doing this to me.  Maybe he was told to re-train me because he has orders from my actual boss.

Or, it could be all of these things.  That he is trying to help me, but is being a dick about it because he has very poor interpersonal skills.  And that while I don't like being told what to do, I do need the help.

At any rate, we're going through this shit again, only in a different area.  I'll try to keep an open mind about it, but I'll reserve the right to roll my eyes, and/or start telling him he's a nag.  We'll see.

I Just Want To State, For The Record ...

... that I was goaded into trying to get my new tires installed by this guy my parents know instead of the chain store place I wanted to go to.  Last night, when they finally gave me this person's contact information, they revealed that they got this recommendation from their (only) friend, who has used them twice.  But I was thinking that my folks know this guy, too.  No, it turns out -- they only strenuously recommended this person because their friend recommended him to them.  They have never used them for anything.  And they expect me to take my car over to a complete stranger ... who, by the way, does not have a shop and would be doing this out of his house garage???

I don't want to do this.  I want to bring this to an actual professional who, if things go wrong, I can blame for fucking up.  But both my parents' nagging has broken me.  I cannot defy them any longer, lest I get thrown out of the house.  So, I am waking up in several hours to call the tire people, again, and this time asking them to just hold the tires I ordered at its warehouse so I can pick them up.  If the customer service rep says that they have already sent them to the (second) place I wanted them installed, frankly, I'm going to ignore my damn folks and just pay the extra money so they can change my tires.  If they've already been sent, what's the fucking point of taking those tires and bringing them home?

However, if they have not gone out, I'll get the tires my goddamn self, take them home, and tell my parents, whose cockamamie idea this was, to go out to this rando and tell him to change the tires of my precious car.  Better believe that if anything fuckin' happens to my car, they're responsible.

Whether this works or not, I just want them to shut their goddamn mouths about this.  These people are so motherfucking cheap that they'll nag and nag and nag on me to take these tires from a professional shop to some guy (WHO THEY DON'T EVEN FUCKING KNOW!!!) because they can't stand me spending $130 more than I could otherwise.

(By the way, they would not even know about this shit if the original place I wanted to send these tires to did not leave a voicemail at the landline.  Didn't think of that, goddammit.)

I have this morbid dream that this guy fucks up the installation.  I'm driving my car back from work, there's a bend in the highway ... and one of the tires just pops off of the wheel.  I skid to a stop just as the semi behind me tries to veer around me, but fails.  No, that driver plows right into me, killing me just like that.  The police go to the house and break the bad news to my parents.  Upon investigation, where they find the popped-out tire sitting immaculately against the barrier of the highway and the police ask who installed the tires, they're going to goddamn fucking lie and say that going to some private citizen's house was my idea, that I was fanatical in getting these tires done for cheap.

I so hate my parents right now.  I really, really do.

Goddamn, one voicemail to the landline fucking blows up to this.  Want to get my tires changed, but the voicemail was the one from the first shop, the one that said they don't do Japanese cars.  Well, my parents heard the voicemail, and over dinner yesterday they kept digging and asking insipid questions before saying, "Hey, I know a guy who does this, and will do them cheap?"

This place (or this shop -- for all I know it's just a driveway) is owned by friends of the friend who is the best (and only) friend of my parents.  I don't trust that jerk-off, so I think that his friends'll do such a shitty job mounting my tires I'll either have to go back to them so they can correct their mistake(s), or go somewhere else -- assuming that such a shit job won't lead to, like, one of the tires rolling off the axle assembly while I'm driving on the highway.  At any rate, going back for re-balancing tires a second time basically eats away any savings I could get eschewing some chain store and its just-more-expensive prices.

I don't know what to do.  But the pressure's on to go to these jagoffs to get my tires replaced before guilt and resentment between me and my parents really kicks in.

I'm tired and don't want to think about this anymore.  I'm not thinking straight.

Are You Telling Me What To Do???

So I park farther away from my department than most people -- that is, there are other doors closer to where I work in the building, but I eschew that because ... well, OK, brace yourself: From where I park, if the sun is shining, it doesn't stream in through the passenger side, which is where I sit to take a nap.  But if I parked closer, I would be parked on the other side of the building, and that would mean my car is parked the exact opposite way, which means that the sun would be beating down my face and therefore I wouldn't be able to sleep because the sun would burn my face.  (This is all excepting that there was no sun today.  Also, I wasn't able to sleep.  But whatever.)

I am coming in through the long way.  There is a long hallway I traverse to reach my department.  Today, I had the bad timing of seeing one of my supervisors walk in ahead of me.  No big deal -- at first.  But then she points down one of the other front doors which I did not come through and says, "Don't forget to punch in."

As you could fathom, for shift workers like me, there are time clocks near every front door.  "I already clocked in."

"You did?"

"Yeah.  At the back (pointing to the back, to be helpful)."

"Oh.  You should clock in here."

"Here."

"Yeah."

EXCUSE ME?!?!?!  I NOW HAVE A SPECIFIC PLACE I NEED TO PUNCH IN?!?!?!  WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!  WHAT GODDAMN DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?!?!?!  I'LL PUNCH IN WHEREVER THE HELL I WANT TO, OKAY?!?!?!  I'M ALREADY WAKING UP AT 5:30 IN THE FUCKING MORNING, AND NOW I HAVE A FRONT DOOR I NEED TO GO THROUGH TO MAKE YOU HAPPY?!?!?!

(sigh)

So I did, and I'll do it until I move back to my new department.  But if overbearing nagging such as this is commonplace at this job ... fuck it, I need to find another job.

They're Halfway Home, Goddammit

I haven't heard from my folks in a while.  I don't miss them -- yeah, that sounds harsh, but it's true -- but it is still funny that I hadn't heard from them for, oh, five days at least.  Plus there are some e-mails that they need to answer because I can't.  The business of making sure their business is still going while they're away is like a second job to me, and sometimes I resent it.

Yesterday morning I was curious to see if there's a chance they'd contact me through WhatsApp.  Before they left Father left me a copy of their itinerary.  Whenever they're at sea, I can't reach them.  (Well, I can, but according to our plan, talking on the phone while they're on a cruising ship costs five bucks a minute.  No way.)  I know they couldn't be at sea for five days, so I was wondering if they'd be on land yesterday or some time this weekend.  So I scrolled down the list, looking for yesterday's date, saw that they were on land yesterday (and they did contact me later in the morning) ... and realized that of the two columns of dates and destinations, I had to go to the top of the second column to get yesterday's location.  Crap, they're more than halfway home.

I don't miss them.  Again, that sounds harsh, but it's true, I don't miss them.  I have loved having the house to myself.  I like the quiet.  I like not hearing them bicker, if not outright argue.  The only rattling of voices occurs in my head, where it should be.  I like strewing my laundry on the floor to sort whites and coloreds and those that need to be washed in cold water versus those that need to be washed in warm.  I like having the tie I wore for Super Bowl LII lying on the couch and no one giving me shit about it.  I am living the bachelor life -- even better since I'm living at home rent-free -- and it's perfect.

I wonder if it's going to be like this, and if I'm going to feel the same way, once they are gone.  I wonder about their impending demise (and I mean impending in an we're-all-gonna-die kind of way) and how it's going to feel knowing that they won't ever be back.  Will I ever miss them?  Will it hit me some random moment that they're gone for good, and will I then break down?  Well, right now, buoyed by knowing (and getting bummed out) that they'll be back ... no, I don't think I'll miss them.  Right now, as I type this, all I can think about is the nagging, the complaining, the yelling, the incessant expectation to go back to school or find a girlfriend.  Every time I see I never live up to their expectations.  I feel like a disappointment whenever I'm around them.  And that's why it feels like such a relief when they're not around me.

So I am beyond sad -- I am in fact crestfallen -- that they are less than a month away (I think) from coming back home.  At some point (not too soon) I have to tidy up things and get a stripper to clean the house.  But until then I need to relax, stop and smell the roses, and be grateful of the time I have in the house I grew up in, alone.

Where Did This Aggression Come From?

Looking back on yesterday (Thursday), I was passive-aggressive, defensive and confrontational, and I don't know why.

In the morning I had to get up early because I had physical therapy.  Of course I stumbled out of the house late, and so I got to my appointment late.  I still had to fill out a form when my therapist told me to come into the room, and he mentioned that "we were late."  I believed that he implied that it was my fault for running late, so I got exasperated and apologized defensively.  That's when I realized that I need his help in healing my back and so I apologized sincerely, and he said he was sorry if he sounded like a nag.  OK, we're straight.

Coming home from work I altered my drive because there was an asshole driver who I had to cut off in order to merge onto a highway.  I then thought he was going to go to the same exit as I was, so I went to the next exit over.  I then got stuck behind two slow cars while making a left turn.  I went over to the left, faster lane, thinking that I could pass them because they were taking a side street.  They didn't, I screamed, "Shit!" and I merged inbetween the two, leaving very little room both ahead and behind me.  I'm glad that the car behind me didn't travel down the same street I did, because he then would have known where I live.

Where did this aggression come from?  There's nothing in my life right now that's weighing on my mind.  Parents are gone and not in my hair.  Work is going well.  I'm not constipated or anything.  Today is the Chinese New Year -- Happy New Year, by the way.  And I've got a big dick.  I did snap during the situations when I was in both of them.  But beyond that, what am I so angry about?

I think I was born angry.  I think that's the answer.  Well, that and there are a couple other relatively trivial things I could say have been bothering me.  I might blog post them later.

SAY SOMETHING, GODDAMMITT!!!

OK, so this thing about being 40 and saying whatever the fuck I want, but still worried that I'll offend people, all that thing, that contradiction, it's driving me fucking nuts.

So this woman I recently reconnected with, a woman to whom I sent a message nine years ago, she has a fascinating story.  She is the process of adopting two children, something she has wanted to do since she herself was a child.  She's been active about telling her story and her lovely time with these adorable newborns on Facebook.  And she has been very willing to answer many questions, some of them probing, with some aplomb and humor.  In other words, I didn't think too much was off-limits to a process that's still ongoing and needs to be somewhat secret to protect the identities of these two kids.  I understand, and I think I've walked that line.

Yesterday, she was talking about tracking the development of both kids.  The older one (although she isn't that much older) has been kind of slow in developing, I guess, while the younger one has been on a normal track.  My friend said that she hopes that the older one can take a cue from her new brother and, for a lack of a better word, progress.

Now, I don't exactly know what that means.  I don't have a kid; hell, I'm a kid myself.  However, to me, my friend seemed to be intimating that this prospective daughter may have some kind of issues.  But I didn't know.  So, in the comments section, I asked if this child was, and I put this in quotes, "behind."

That's all I said.  That's all I said.

I checked my Facebook.  All of a sudden, my comment was gone.

I swear, I was totally nice in asking.  And I never thought that she would take umbrage at it.  But, unless there is some law where you can't discuss the health of prospective adoptees (which I didn't think applied here she may have talked about these issues), it looks as though she deleted my comment because she didn't like it.

As much as I have been talking about saying what I want to say and not giving two fucks about what anyone else thinks, I care about what she thinks.  I really do.  She didn't have to respond to a Facebook message I sent her nine years ago.  And maybe it's also because I'm 40 that I feel such a tug of time that I want to make sure I do nothing to sever a connection I had with someone (OK, maybe "connection" is too strong a word, but this means a lot to me) when I was a lot younger.

So, what did I do?  I sent her a message though Facebook.  We've communicated like that before.  I thought I could get an explanation and smooth things over with an apology.  So I did -- I said sorry if I offended you, I thought it was cool.

Again, that's all I said.  That's all I said.

I heard nothing.  Well, I have heard nothing.  And I don't get it.  Usually she is loquacious, and since she often likes my comments as well as those of her "real" friends when she posts a status update I know she's on Facebook constantly.  So why the silent treatment?  Is she mad?  I think she's mad.  She deleted something she didn't like, and now she's not going to give me an explanation and let me twist in the wind.  That's what it feels like.  Look, if you're upset, just let me know.  Then give me a chance to make up for it, or at least just tell me we're done.  But this silent treatment -- come on!

My reaction to this has to have something to do with my childhood.  My parents were always overbearing when it came to problems they thought I had.  I would never hear the end of their probing, nagging questions -- "What's the problem?"  "Why do you do this?"  "Does it have something to do with school?"  "Why can't you do better then?"  Shit like that.  And as much as I hate that, I have inculcated that incessant badgering, and the insecurity that is the reason behind it, whenever I see there's a problem ... well, whenever I perceive someone has a problem with me.  However, my reaction towards my folks when they start this avalanche of questions was to shut down -- to give them the silent treatment.  So it's a bit contradictory to get bent all out of shape when someone seemingly does it to me.  I admit that.  Still drives me crazy, though.

---

Such as it is, later yesterday evening, I saw that she went back to like a comment I made on a different status update she posted on earlier in the week.  I don't know the reason behind it, but I guess it's a backhanded way of saying that we're cool.  And, by the way, she has yet to unfriend me.  But it's still weird.  And I still don't know if she's mad.  And therefore I'm still on pins and needles on this.

For God's sake, why can't she just say something?

Life With A Single Mother Is Mostly Great

Mother has been home for more than a month now.  I always thought that my parents were inseparable.  They went to The Store together, and they went home together.  When they started to enjoy life, they took vacations together.  And now they are retired and travelling the world together.  So, when they were done wintering in Vegas, I assumed they were coming home together, like they did last year, like they did whenever they had trips out to Las Vegas.  But she surprised me when she said Father was staying in Vegas, at least for a while.

It's been a month now, and I have to say that living with Mother alone is a hell of a lot different than living with both parents again, or what I imagine living with Father alone must be like.  On the whole I think I have lost more than I gained.  I can't strew my clothes about just anywhere with her here.  I also can't sleep in my sister's bed, nor can I masturbate everywhere around the house.

But it hasn't been all bad.  For one thing -- the obvious thing -- I get to have a more-than-decent meal cooked by Mother every night.  Not only is it damn nourishing, it is also free.  But more than that, the constant nagging I thought was shared by both parental units has largely been kept to a minimum.  Mother still gets to arguing on some things; for example, just after dinner last (Wednesday) night she told me the bag of leaves were supposed to go in the trash and not the recycling bin when we both know that that bag should be sent to the compost site.  But there has been little talk of the bullshit that has permanently struck a wedge between me and My Fucking Father: No cleaning up my room, no when are you going to go back to school, no when are you going to find a girlfriend, no why don't you set up a schedule.

It appears, then, that the condescension and the bitter fusillades against me and where my life has been and where it's going is confined to Daddy.  I think Mother wants me to get on with my life too, but I think that she has not been nagging on me ever since she got home because 1) she knows how it affects me; 2) she sees how I react with My Fucking Father gets on me on one of those things; and 3) she might not care.  All she has been is ... there.  And you know, that actually is kind of nice.  Funny to remember her growing up as the mean parent.  Now, I think how she is treating me as unconditional love, which is something I've never had before.

Alas, I think it's about to end soon.  Really I've been holding my breath ever since I realized that living with just Mother was going to be OK, because I knew that that "dream" was going to end.  It hasn't happened for a month, but I suspect that's because the weather here has been fairly cold and dodgy, and he was just sick of that shit.  But as of yesterday (Wednesday) it has really warmed up and it appears as though the days of nights below freezing are finally behind us.  That means the weather here is warm enough for him to come back.  And that means that all the nagging and lecturing and fucking questions will come back too.  Oh, and I'll have to mind what I throw on the floor of my bedroom, also.  Fucking Christ.

Oh, one other thing: Mother last (Wednesday) night teased me about showering before or after I do the laundry: "You can't be wondering if and when you shower once your father gets home!"  First of all, I don't give a flying fuck what he thinks about me showering or not showering, and he can squawk about that as much as he wants.  But the main issue I have with her "wait until your father gets home!" threat is that Mother, after being such an imperious figure in my life to the point she ruined me for all other women, showed once again that ultimately she will enslave herself to the patriarchy and defer all potential "punishments" to the motherfucking man of the household.  If I knew before, oh, I left for college that she really was nothing but a coward at heart, I wouldn't have been so afraid of her.  Saying that, I really hate that she said that.  I mean, fuck Father.

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!!!

Cavity Nag

OK, so I got a cavity filled in this afternoon.  This is the upper-left molar; specifically, silver amalgam was put around the back end of the tooth -- the area furthest away from the mouth and any attempt to brush it.  Really, it's impossible to keep it clean.  A filling to protect back there, at least for me, was inevitable.

What I didn't need, however, is the ... I don't know what you call it, nagging or berating or lecturing or insulting I got from the dental student who applied it.  First, while she was drilling me she said, "That's why you need to brush every day!"  Like I'm a child.  Then, when I was finished and I was asking her if I can eat and drink whatever I want with this new filling in, she said the only thing I shouldn't do is brush that area vigorously tonight -- "But it doesn't look as if you've brushed back there at all."

Bitch, I don't know if you're being funny or condescending, I don't need that bullshit.  The fact that you "caught" me for not brushing my teeth doesn't mean you get to lay into me.

And don't worry about not brushing vigorously tonight.  I'm not brushing my teeth at all tonight.  Hell, I didn't brush my teeth at all last night either.  You saw that too, didn't you?  That I was caught red-handed (red-toothed?) is the only reason I didn't slap you and walk out.

Breakthrough!

Not to say that I have been ungrateful going to my psychiatrist.  But today was the first session where I had an epiphany, one of those things I always thought you would get when you go to a psychiatrist.

Not to get too bogged down in it, but the reason I am paralyzed with my career and life choices now has to do with -- tada! -- my parents.  Their constant nagging, criticizing and judging made me unable and unwilling to do anything for fear I would be doing something wrong, and thus reaping their wrath.  So now, whenever someone innocently gives me advice, I instinctively go back to when I was a kid getting yelled at for doing something or for not doing something, and I don't do it.  It's my parents' fault!

So my psychiatrist has told me to stop, think and talking myself through it: Am I not doing it because I really don't want to, or because I'm afraid my parents will disapprove?  That is something I need to work on, because that may be the one through-line, the one thing that might tie all of my problems together.  If I can fix this, maybe I can fix everything else in my life!

Oh, Father, You Got Me Again!

I think I realized something just now: I have the need to tell everybody I'm right, and I get that from My Fucking Father.

Just now, after we had just eaten dinner, he comes back inside after throwing the trash and he calls me from my bedroom, and I already know it's bad.  "Did you see that your car has hail damage?" he says, with that sniveling tone that he saw something that I didn't, and more importantly to him, that he saw something that he believes I should have seen that as soon as I laid eyes on my car.

Monday was wild.  For 15 minutes in the evening, and for only 15 minutes, bad weather swept through town, and we had hail the size of, oh, ping-pong balls.  During that crazy period I walked out to the hall to see My Fucking Father look outside.  Man, that hail was nothing I saw before.  But I didn't think about it the next day.  I took a look, and it seemed fine.  I chalked it up to the new technology of car exteriors, or something.

But just now he basically taunts me, "You can't see it?"  So of course I have to go outside and show concern.  And in the dappling early evening sun, yes, I see the pock marks of hail damage on the hood of my new car.  But I don't want to be the only one, so I look even more intently at my old car as well as my parents' minivan, and they had as much damage as my new car.

"Well, if that's hail damage, then all the cars have hail damage," to which he turned around from martyring himself washing the rest of the dishes to say, wincing smile meant to cut me down, "I'll call the insurance company Monday."  That wince was his way of saying that, once again, I disappointed him.  Don't exactly know how.  If I told him Tuesday that there was hail damage, well, the car is still damaged, so why the smartass tone, dick?  And I don't know how car insurance claims work, so does it really matter if I call it in a week after it happened as opposed to a day?

Oh, I see -- you think I wasn't paying attention?  OK, now I know what this means.  He's going to come back into my bedroom and start nagging me about not throwing away all the papers I've accumulated, and he's going to start asking me every fucking day when I'm going back to school.  I see what he did there -- find a way to see how superior he is to me, how I once again have failed him.  And he's going to goddamn let me know it, for a long fucking time.

Can't let him win.  So that settles it; I'm not going to clean up shit in my room.  'Cause fuck him.  I might stay out for a long time, too.

By the way, this is why I didn't want a new car.  New cars always get old.

Well, Thanks, Father, I Guess ...

I still resent My Father going into my room and fucking with my stuff, but there's not a damn thing I can do about it.  Well, maybe put a lock on the door.  But as bad as our relations have been and probably will be, I'm not ready to lock my door when I leave the house.  And he's been OK with not opening my bedroom door when I am in, so I guess this will be the compromise I will live with.

Nevertheless he will storm through my bedroom because he wants to wipe the floor, which at a minimum is once a week but can often be more than that.  After he does that he usually admonishes me for not cleaning my room, which usually results in yelling and eye-rolling.  That's why I don't want him in my room.

Thursday and yesterday he was off on one of his cleaning jags.  Thursday he rearranged the whole upstairs bathroom in order to clean everything.  Yesterday he tossed everything I had on the floor of my bedroom somewhere else in order, presumably, to wipe the floor.  Today, before dashing off to drive my old car and see if it's holding up, My Father called me down and ordered me to clean my room.

And then he said that if there was anything broken in the room to let him know and he'll fix it.  What do you mean?  Well, there are things that broken in my room.  The more annoying thing is that an area of the screen door to the window was cut.  That has allowed many an insect to come into my room, especially that past couple of humid days, when a pair of, well, big insects have come in.  The track to one of the closet doors is also off, making it kind of hard to push open and close.

Now, they are former problems, because Father fixed them.  As soon as he told me he fixed them I went back upstairs to my room, Father tailing behind.  Apparently he put in a whole new screen window, and Father showed me how easily the door moves to open and close.  And that is ... fantastic.

You know, I hate to give My Father credit.  I really do.  But whenever I saw that open screen I'd say to myself, "OK, this weekend I'm going to fix it," and whenever I tried to force open my closet door, I would say to myself, "This sucks, but I'll just deal with it."  Actually fixing it, to be honest with myself, was pretty low on the list.  Hell, I didn't even think about either problem as I bolted out the door this morning.  So what My Father did was, well, really, really ... ugh ... nice.

So I thanked him -- to which he took advantage of my rare compliment and ordered me to pick up my stuff.  It felt really nice to have a working closet door and a screen window that actually screened stuff, so I just shrugged him off.  I think my stuff's fine where they are.  But, uh, thanks, anyway, Father.