Have That Unsafe And Insecure Feeling Again

So I turn off the TV because Channel 4 is doing the sports, and I already know that the ViQueens and the Mild and the Goofers men's basketball team all lost -- just realized that once again, tonight we are Loserville, USA -- and Rosen's Sports Sunday hasn't come on yet. It'll be on in less than ten minutes, but I needed total darkness because of the gut-punching news that my parents really don't have any money anymore.

So I'm in my bed, waiting for it come on (it's very informative) but not really minding if I just pass out. Unconsciousness is my escape from reality, and even though getting drunk or high might make me feel better, passing out at least doesn't cost me anything.

I felt kind of like this once before. It was near the end of my last full-time job, temping for Xcel Energy. I had grown to like it: It was late at night, perfect for a night owl like me, I liked the people I worked with, and I felt productive. The only thing that bothered me about the job since my first day was the sword of Damoclese of the impending end of the department. I don't know when news of its demise began, but it seemingly started at some infinite point before I got the job, like the beginning of the Big Bang.

I lived with it for two-and-a-half years. At some point I figured, Well, if it's gone on this long, how can this department end? So, since I had this full-time job long enough, I started treating it like a full-time job, and not a temp job that could end at any time.

Well, near the end of my tenure there, either late 2005 or 2006 or 2007, more news began to trickle in. They really were going ahead with plans to install this new machine, and therefore our duties in the department were going to change. But it wasn't hard to see the writing on the wall; this contraption would be able to do much of the things we were doing now, and faster. There was no need for all of us there. The day or reckoning was nigh.

Despite everybody saying, "Oh, don't worry about it," I did. I'm not stupid, I knew what was going to happen. So either because I was depressed or I wanted to make sure I got a full eight hours in every day because I didn't know when the checks would stop coming, I let my production sag.

Unfortunately, Xcel was a company who kept track of performance. We would have these monthly printouts of how many checks we went through. I was pretty good for most of my time there, but till the end my supervisor showed me my inexplicable downturn and added this ominous note: "These stats are surprising, and not what I've come to expect from you, but these are the stats."

I knew what was coming next, but I didn't think I could keep my job there even if I did continue to do well. What hurts -- what still hurts to this day -- is the last working day of the year. Little did I know when I wished everybody a Happy New Year, or when I checked next year's calendar for possible days off, would I be called by the temp agency later that morning, a couple hours after work, and told I was canned. It may have been because of my lack of production. To this day I still believe they planned to fire me that day and not tell me. That still pisses me off. None of my goddamn co-workers or supervisors there had the fucking decency to tell me to my face, right in the middle of the holiday season, I was going to be let go.

---

Meanwhile, I had been feeling really sad at my other job, ushering at the theaters in downtown Minneapolis. There was this one cunt who was a floor captain, and she had always been rude to me. No one liked her; shit, she still works there and I bet no one still likes her. But around the time of the end of my full-time job I had one or two major blow-ups where she was a real bitch to me and I let her have it.

The second time I had to talk to my supervisor. He was a really nice guy, but after I told him my grievances and how my life was going, he told me he was loathe to take away a job from someone who hadn't outright demonstrated she shouldn't have it, i.e. she didn't choke a customer out during a performance of The Lion King.

When we left after the meeting, we shook hands outside the front door. He told me to think about it, and that he would grant my request for a leave for the rest of January. I never have told him, but because he didn't give me the answer I sought, that was going to be the last time I shook hands with him, or ever worked for him, or even ever stepped into one of those theaters.

I feel kind of bad for what I did next. Because I was filing for unemployment, I couldn't tell him I quit. But then again, I didn't want to come back because that bitch was still working there. So every month before I knew he started working on the schedule, I would call his number up in the middle of the night (to avoid talking to him personally) and say I need the next month off. I knew he was going to be nice about it, and I knew that would let me keep collecting my checks.

I did that for, oh, ten months. Finally, around December of 2006 or 2007, he sent me a letter saying that I was terminated. Hopefully he wasn't mad, and I really do hope that he doesn't feel I jerked him around. Really, he's a great guy. I am just disappointed that he didn't act like a boss when he needed to and fired somebody who deserved it.

---

OK, so, the bed. It was around this time where I would be lying in my bed, either at night before going to Xcel or the morning after coming back, and I would be trying to figure out life and where I'm going next and what do I want to do and what I am doing here. Life shit, you know? And every single time my heart would race and I would sigh and I would feel chest pains because I could not come up with an answer. What I could count on is lying perfectly still and hoping I would doze off. I would spend no money doing that, and I would have no worries while asleep. I remember telling my best friend my troubles over a voicemail around Christmastime: "I just want to lay down in my safe, secure bed and not do anything. That's the only time nothing bad happens." Or something like that. Buddha bless them, he and his wife were so worried that a) he told me in a voicemail to me that he loved me and b) they actually came around the house to see how I was.

Well, that's how I was feeling a couple hours ago. All I wanted to do was have the power of rest take me over and help stiff-arm my demons till tomorrow.

But this time is different. This time, Grandmother isn't acting too well. This time, my parents don't have the financial security I could take for granted. I imagine my safe, secure sleep being interrupted by Grandmother's loud goings-on in the kitchen, or the sense of dread that my folks can no longer afford to keep the roof above my safe, secure, cozy bed.

I'll be frank with you: I'm a pussy. I've always felt somewhat unsafe and insecure. I'm pretty sure I felt this way when I was young. But, at least looking back, those worries were those of a child who didn't understand the world, and therefore thought his problems were insurmountable. That kid didn't know the world of pain he would grow into, and he didn't understand that things could get so, so much worse.

Yes, I acknowledge that I could be acting irrational, even paranoid, now. Maybe I'm blowing things all out of proportion. But what I know is that, right now, at this very moment, I am sitting next to my bed, the one thing that, at the end of the day, felt as good and as warm and as permanent as any material thing in my life. I could get inbetween the sheets and, at the very least, feel like I have a shield against all the bad things that plagued me. I may not defeat them, but I had something on my side that could hold them back.

Now, not that I think it has betrayed me or anything, but now I don't feel that safe and secure in my bed anymore. My troubles aren't going to go away just because I can fall asleep. And that makes me really, really sad.

I was told by my parents just now that, no, in fact they don't have any money. Now that they've "closed down" The Store, there's nothing they can do.

I don't know exactly what that means. I just know that I'm scared and depressed now.

Grandmother Flipped Out Over Her Checkbook Again

Last night she seemed fine through dinner , although that may be because I've been actively avoiding her, lest she accuse me of taking her checkbook again. But then My Father yelled at her about rice downstairs or something after dinner, and then, after I helped him put more RAM in his desktop, I come upstairs and she says that she has my checkbook.

(I will make one important distinction in the way she "accused" me this time as opposed to the last time, where My Father flipped out at her and told her to shut her mouth. She seemed more passive, weaker when she said it, as if she no longer believes that I took her checkbook, but instead she merely thinks I have it. I don't, of course. But I appreciate the change in tone, and I like to think that her calmer approach to the situation that she imagined in her head is an acknowledgement of how she acted six days ago, and that she at least remembers that she was wrong then.)

Father explained to her how they get money for Grandmother after she signs over a check. I don't know if she was complaining to them about missing her checkbook or not having any money while I was gone in the late afternoon/early evening (I went out to a shopping mall, then worked out for less than an hour), but she was back to her old, doddering, confused ways after dinner. And even after he explained things to her, I could hear her when I was in the bathroom complaining that she can't find her checkbook. While I was pulling my pants up I was thinking, "Oh, fuck. ..." and a part of me wanted to stay in there until she, I don't know, went away or something.

I had no choice but to storm out there, and it was weird seeing her in the front of her room, standing solemnly, hands folded in front of her, and while I passed by her she said, matter-of-factly, that she can't find her checkbook. As I do nowadays, I immediately go downstairs and tell Father.

"Forget it!" he screamed as he tried to put to desktop back together. "Don't help her find her checkbook, don't even go into her room!" I don't think this is the best way to help Grandmother, and I think his beefs with have nothing to do with her ailing mental health and have a lot to do with her annoying him. But honestly, I understand. And so I left.

---

Because the modem fucking wasn't working last night, I turned in early. I woke up from My Father's coughing, then heard my parents as one of them slammed the front door.

I swear Grandmother is up early and waits until they leave before she gets up. In turn, I don't leave my bedroom when she goes out to the kitchen. It didn't use to be this way; before, I would get out there and take her levels and make sure she takes her medicine in the morning. But, and I don't like admitting this, I don't like talking to her now. She weirds me out with her checkbook-looking and her talking to herself and her sighing and her wandering around and shit.

I know she's lonely. I can hear her from the sounds she makes in the kitchen. When she opens the refrigerator door I know she's just looking for its own sake. And sometimes I hear her pull out a chair, sit down, drink a gulp of her tea and make that annoying, "Ahhhhhhh!" sound after she swallows. And then I hear nothing. And I know that she's just sitting there, motionless, staring outside to the gray sky, probably thinking about life, loneliness and her mortality. And I want to race out there and tell her everything's going to be fine. But then she'll either say I have her checkbook or she'll ask me for money. And that's why I avoid her. I regret it, but I am just afraid to be around her now. And I'm sure she's getting sicker because of it.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -2). So I thought Tubby Smith's squad would be exposed once they had to live Williams Arena. No, at least not yet. They ripped off a 3-0 week which included advancing to the finals of the Old Spice Classic in Orlando after coming back to defeat both DePaul and Indiana St. Granted, the Gophers have been impressive in winning early-season tournaments before, only to collapse in Big Ten play and miss the NCAAs altogether; just look at last year. Nonetheless, I am very impressed by this team so far, and they deserve the benefit of the doubt, at least for now. They face Dayton for the title Sunday evening, then come home to the Barn to face Virginia Tech in the annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge game.

#0: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -5). I also underestimated the Gopher grapplers after their mild upset at Cornell. All the then-fourth-ranked U. did this week was march into State College, Pa. and upset then-#2 and defending national champions Penn St. by a dominating score of 23-14. That's pretty fucking impressive. They rise to third in the polls this week; they host North Dakota St. Sunday afternoon and visit Central Michigan Friday.

#-1: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -9). Well, at least the team is finishing strongly. They finished with an undefeated 3-0 screening week. They should have; the strongest opponent of the three was Wisconsin (which they swept at the Sports Pavilion), and the other two, Iowa and Indiana, have one conference win a piece.

Since the B1G doesn't have a conference tournament, their regular season ended last (Friday) night. They finish the year 18-11 overall and 11-9 within the conference. Due to a combination of schedule of strength, program reputation and the benefit of a doubt, they're still ranked in the AVCA Top 25 at #19. That should come up when next week's poll comes out, but will they have done enough to earn a seed?

In case you don't know how the volleyball tournament works, the four regional sites (host to the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games) are determined years in advance. Because v-ball doesn't make any money, NCAA bylaws mandate that if the host of one of these regionals makes the tournament, the bracket is set up in a way where they would play in their home court should they make it to the third round.

This year's constellation of sites is interesting. The NCAA wanted to spread the tourney beyond the traditional power bases of the West Coast and Midwest by giving Florida and Kentucky regionals. (The other regional is in Hawai'i, and the Rainbow Wahine are ranked third in the AVCA with only one loss; they're going to be prohibitive favorites come regional time.) Kentucky and Florida are, respectively, 16th and 17th in the AVCA, just, respectively, three and two spots above the U. Seeds aren't given strictly by poll spots in the AVCA, but it's going to be interesting to see if any of the other three regional hosts will be given seeds, even though all three sit on the bubble. Would having an unseeded host in the tourney be an embarrassment? And will the tournament committee give the four hosts seeds that will magically fit, i.e. manipulate the seeds so that, say, Hawai'i is 2 (they were behind second-ranked Nebraska, but I just found out they were not just beaten but swept by Purdue), Kentucky is 13, Florida's 14 and Minnesota 16 so it just happens that they avoid seeing each other till the national semifinals? Actually, I think that's the way they have to do it. We'll find out the details on the selection show Sunday at 5 Central.

#-2: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -3). Defeated New Hampshire at home Saturday, 6-1. Amanda Kessel scored a hat trick in this game as well as the one against the Wildcats the day before. They are now 8-2 in the Big Ten, 10-2 overall. They've won four in a row, but those games were all at Ridder (score difference in those four games: 24-4). They're on the road for the next four, three of which come in the next seven days: A two-game set at Harvard, then the first of a two-game series at North Dakota.

#-3: Wild (Last Week: -1). They were blitzed at home by Edmonton, the worst team in the league the past few years, 5-2, but with the way their young gunners were scoring, you can see the chemistry of that opponent coming together. They've drafted high enough for so long, at some point we have to see dividends. Well, I saw them last (Friday) night. Those Oilers are going to be very, very good.

I can't hate on the Mild, though (although I guess I just did). That loss ended a five-game winning streak that included a shootout win over St. Louis and a regular win over Nashville. And because they're smack dab in the middle of a Wild six-game homestand, they have a chance to pad or regain their record as the best in the entire National Hockey League. Those games are against Calgary and Tampa Bay (Sunday and Monday), then they take a quick visit north to play at Edmonton Wednesday before coming back to the X and hosting New Jersey Friday.

#-4: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -8). Don't get it. They hosted their Subway Classic and trashed Binghamton by 25 and North Dakota St. by 39. But then they take a trip to Moraga, Calif. for the St. Mary's Hilton Tournament and lose in the final two seconds by ... fucking Quinnipiac?! With no wins against teams better than Quinnipiac, Florida St. or South Florida, I can rapidly see how good this team is -- and, by extension, who they're capable of beating and who they're going to get whipped by. And the teams in the latter looks like it's going to be a lot bigger than those in the former. Sheesh. They finish their tournament tonight (Saturday night) vs. Virginia Tech, then play at Wake Forest Thursday.

#-5: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -4). A 1-1 week: Beat the hell out of St. Cloud St. at home 5-0, then lose 4-3 to Michigan St. The Goofs have lost their #1 ranking; they are now third, and they could slip further after the back half of this series against the Spartans tonight (Saturday night) and the beginning of a two-game set against MSU-Mankato at Mariucci starting Friday.

#-6: Vikings (Last Week: -7). I'm not as down on the ViQueens' 27-21 loss to the Oakland Raiders as others. In fact, I don't know why people are down on this team as much as they were after they got their asses kicked at Green Bay the week before. The main reason the team lost is turnovers, which happen and shouldn't, but it's fixable. Many of the TO's were interceptions thrown by Christian Ponder, who still is a rookie. Hey, the season's over; let the nOOb figure out how to play in this game. One pick was bad, another (the one in the end zone) was a lack of judgment, but both mistakes are fixable. And even with all that, they were still down only by a touchdown at the end of the game. And there are people acting like they lost by 30.

Now that they're 2-8, I acknowledge the possible that Leslie Frazier is on the hot seat. Results are results, so I can accept the questions over his coaching tenure. I'm still happy he finally replaced Donovan McNabb with Ponder. Man, just let the kid figure it out. They're at Atlanta tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon.

#-7: Gopher football (Last Week: -6). Now see, I'm more down on the Goofs' gridiron team because I thought they would have a better game against Northwestern. In fact, I thought they had a decent chance of beating the Wildcats. But even though MarQueis Gray was able to rip Northwestern on the ground for 147 rushing yards and a TD, they still weren't able to make the game competitive, therefore they have now lost three in a row.

The future isn't looking all that great either, according to this article on the Strib. TCF Bank is now three years old, and predictably, they have lost attendance after the honeymoon because the team blows. They were buoyed this year by opposing crowds for the Iowa, Wisconsin and Nebraska games. They won't be playing here next year, nor any other team that would be able to make a road trip to Minneapolis.

But Illinois has made the trip in the regular season finale/Senior Day game. Illini Head Coach Ron Zook is probably gone, which means the Goofs have a chance to end the year with a win.

#-8: Twins (Re-Entry!). They're here because they lost long-time Closer Joe Nathan, who signed a contract with the Bastard Washington Senators v.2.0. He might not have been worth the money the Twinks needed to pay him if they exercised their team option, but I wasn't ready to give up on him yet.

Last year was the first year coming back from Tommy John surgery. Once Matt Capps imploded and Nathan was given back the closer spot, he pitched pretty well. Moreover, they always say that you have to give pitchers recovering from Tommy John surgery a full year after they begin pitching competitively to see how they are faring. That falls somewhere next year. Finally, you can argue that he was one of the most-familiar faces of the Twins organization, and if this franchise is on the down part of a cycle, and it'll take several years to become good again, I say you need to give reasons for fans to come to the ballpark, and those reasons are the people they grew up rooting for, guys like Michael Cuddyer and Nathan. Well, now the latter's gone and the former is about to go to Philadelphia. The organization is losing the people that emotionally connect to the team. And that's a very bad thing.

Want to go shopping for Black Friday, but I need to rake the leaves and maybe haul some of them away and go to storage and put down the fertilizer. And that makes me not want to do anything and just sit in my bed and watch football instead. But I can't, because I said I won't be here to eat tonight.

There's also a Gopher volleyball game I thought I wanted to go to tonight. But in a sign that it's not really that important to me, I didn't go to the website to check the time. Besides, they're only 10-9 in-conference and I don't want to see a team that sucks. Finally, they play at 7 (I finally checked), the prime time I want to go shopping.

I thought I was going to go to a volleyball game some time this year. How did I not plan this?

Daylight's burning outside and it ain't even light out. Have to go out.

The Warmest Thanksgiving In 21 Years ... And I Was Inside

I haven't been able to just sleep in, both because of my late-night job and because of my anxiety over my Grandmother. I thought that would continue because I had a feeling my parents would not leave for The Store today and would just stay at home cooking Thanksgiving dinner; they didn't.

But you know, I think my internal clock decided it was OK to let my folks handle any crap that might go down with Grandmother. That's why I slept till 11:45. I had thoughts of waking up in the morning to either go get coffee and work online or, if I were even more ambitious, exercise in preparation for Thanksgiving. But I didn't, and I didn't care.

But maybe I should have. It officially reached 59 degrees outside. Perfect fall weather, and it would have been great to just walk around on a perfect fall day. However, I was only coaxed out by my Grandmother rapping on the outside of my window from the deck. Apparently she was walking around the front lawn, went through the side door and decided she wanted to come in through the back. I went outside to close the side door and realized that it really nice outside. Too bad I wanted to stay in and watch football, and then I had to help set the dinner table for the family and my brother and sister-in-law who dropped by.

The only time I enjoyed extended time outside was when I took the recyclables outside after dinner, around 6:30. It was night, but it was in the low fifties. With my long underwear, felt nice. Too bad there was no sun.

Review Of The 2010 Playmates Vying To Be 2011 Playmate Of The Year (I Know This Is Really, Really Late)

I've been meaning to this for a long time because, hey, Playboy is porn, and I cannot live without my porn. Stuff I wanted to talk about instead just got in the way, you know?

There isn't any new insight half a year after Claire Sinclair was named 2011 PMOY. I still stick to my guns when I initially looked through the 2010 list: It's an underwhelming bunch.

Let's start with Miss January, Jamie Edmondson. Usually I go for redheads. But she got to be Playmate largely beecause she was on The Amazing Race. I watched the season she was on, and believe me, she was a straight-up cunt, as ugly an American as has ever travelled overseas. (She went on an All-Star edition last year after she got naked in PB -- just as bad.) Next.

Miss February, Heather Ray Young, was featured in the same edition as Edmondson. Last year, the January and February editions were combined into one, definitely to save money, even though it was a heretical move that Hugh Hefner has, I think, vowed never to do again. Every PB issue should have its own month. As for Young ... well, initially I thought she was a bitch. But I am on her facebook and she posts pictures regularly. But, then again, she insists on using her middle name, which is pretentious.

I want to jump around the months to keep me and you on our toes. Let's go to Sinclair, Miss October and current PMOY champ. She definitely is different from what your regular Playmate looks like. She's not blonde or chiseled. She has a buxom, cutie-pie throwback look to World War II pin-ups. That's great, and yet, compared to the cookie-cutter hotties surrounding her, she doesn't measure up. I feel bad about that because variety is the spice of life. But when I heard early talk that she was the slam-dunk PMOY, I was disappointed. I'm an asshole.

Let's go down a month to Shera Bechard, Miss November. She acts like an outright stuck-up bitch in this video interview for her hometown paper, the Toronto Sun. But she is the creator of #FriskyFriday, a weekly Twitter feature where Playboy models shoot and post sexy photos of themselves. I wish I had time to look for a link to this one where she is in the bathroom and the pic is taking from the doorway, and her back is to you but you can see her sweet fucking ass and her face reflected from the bathroom mirror, yet everything else is hidden. fap-fap-fap She is a classic beauty. No wonder Hef's banging her.

The brunettes are not memorable, not this ... er, last year. Kyra Milan (March) and Kassie Lyn Logsdon (May) are ... there. And although I like the Latin ladies, Miss August, Francesa Frigo, does nothing for me. The neckbreaker is her PMOY bid video, which makes her look like she'd be a lifeless drag to be with on a date:

The blondes fare much better. Amy Leigh Andrews (April) has kind of a fat face. But PB uses (or at least used) for their page asking for an e-mail address before you get to see nude photos a pic of her with a purple plaid shirt on, except that it's unbuttoned and framed around her big tits, so her already ample bosom is lifted up even more. Also, I like the fact that on her PMOY bid vid she shows us around her apartment, including a magazine rack with copies of Playboy just laying out in the open. Man, if every hot girl could just do that:

Shanna McLaughlin (July) seems kind of old, but maybe that's just her sexy maturity. She's quite chesty and has a great ass as well; furthermore, she owns a modeling company. Hmmm, maybe I'll be able to leech off of her if we ever got together:

The last three are really close. Ashley Hobbs (December) has these saucer eyes and a sharp chin with a dimple, indelible physical qualities that make her sexy. And her thin body is something very masturbatable. Finally, on her facebook I think it says that she's in a management position with the United Way or something, or at least she was until she moved to Cali to pursue modeling. Doesn't matter if she was or still is; a babe as hot as her on top of people is sexy. If she were my boss I think I'd have to jerk off right in front of her, right at my work desk.

Then there's Olivia Paige (September) who strikes me as fucking hot for some reason. For a few seconds in her PMOY bid vid she plays with her dog by alternately slapping its cheeks. It may be abusive, but it also looks fun. Maybe I'm giving her some slack because she personally thanked me for my tweet saying she was a perv for posting a Twitpic of her making cookies in the shape of breasts with her grandmother -- and that I liked it!

But, if I have to give PMOY to somebody, I'll give it Katie Vernola, Miss June. I think the main draw is that she was 18 when she did her spread. There's one photo in that pictorial of her, directly facing the camera, sitting on the floor and leaning back on a bed with a come-hither look that belies her relatively short time on Earth.

As a whole, I wish there were better. But I will repeat what I always say in the face of naked women in front of me: I'd still fuck all of them. God's honest truth.

Snow Evaporates On Its Own

You know, the one thing that's great about winter during shoulder season (when it starts to get cold and when it starts to warm up) is seeing snow melt.

We had a few inches of snow fall Saturday. It wasn't a big deal -- it's just a few inches, nothing I haven't seen before. But I dreaded -- absolutely fucking dreaded -- shoveling it. I just didn't want to start yet another season of hurting my back shoveling that shit. Last winter was the worst in a long time; we obliterated our season average for snow, and I think we wound up with the fifth-highest total in the area ever.

People are predicting a winter not quite the same, but very similar, which means more hours of trying to clear our driveway and trying not to get hurt or frostbitten in the process. I'm too old for this shit.

So imagine my joy when I heard reports before the storm that it will be warm enough to melt. And thank Buddha the weather forecasters were right. Starting really on Monday, the snow that I left on the driveway (Father cleared out some of it at the top of the driveway, from the front door to their car) would go away on its own. This afternoon, it was completely gone, replaced with wetness. In fact, I could only see small patches of icy snow on the front lawn. That should be gone this time tomorrow, when there's a chance we will hit 60 on Thanksgiving Day.

Before I would bemoan the fact that Thanksgiving is so warm. This year, I'll totally take it.

And last night, before heading off to work, Grandmother fucking confronts me again: "Where did you put my papers?" she asked while holding her passport. She flipped through the pages, indicating that she was missing things she thought were in it, and once again she accused me of doing something to them. Only she wasn't wildly flipping out like she was Sunday night -- I think.

"I'm not talking about my checkbook," Grandmother disclaimed. I could take that one of two ways. Either she remembers how she reacted Sunday night and wants to put that behind her, which would be good that she understands her unruly behavior. Or, she said that in a, "I know you did something to my checkbook, but I'm not worried about that now" sort of way. Which would, you know, suck and reinforce my belief that she needs to be put in a home.

She then said, "OK, I'll look again." I was on my way out; I told her just before I went to the bathroom, and she, as is her wont these days, cornering me with something just before I go. Her checking her bedroom again can also be taken one of two ways: Either she's saying, "Maybe I was wrong," or "Fine, I'll take care of it." I'll take the former, but I have a bad feeling it's the latter.

Just to be safe, I went downstairs and immediately told on her to Father, who went upstairs to check what was going on. He went back downstairs almost immediately. I don't he did anything. In fact, I think Grandmother told her something to get him off her back, and now she's angry at me for ratting on her. I could totally see her getting back at me.

Man, I just want her to fucking leave me alone today. I'll take just one fucking day. Please.

There's A Stranger In My House

Grandmother was at it again last night, and it was worse than it was before. She once again wanted to find her checkbooks, the ones that I found in her purse, twice. I thought she was OK when she went up to my bedroom door and immediately remembered they were in her purse.

But later, during dinner, she confronted me not about her checkbooks but about her ATM card. I was tired and I wanted to see how she would react if I didn't just drop everything and help her find it, so I told her I didn't have it and would help her look for it as soon as I was done eating.

She basically became someone -- something -- else entirely. She was muttering to herself at the dinner table, talking about where her money went, how she put it somewhere and now she can't find it, and, worst of all, accusing me of taking it. It was different last night. Before, she only asked if I took it. With her increasing emotion at the dinner table, I truly think she believes I took it.

Grandmother looked possessed. Her eyes were wide and her body language was as in control as I had ever seen it. She gave off the impression that she was alert and under control, but when she opened her mouth she was anything but. The indignation on her face when she was staring at me was something I have never seen from her before. She's been taken over by a monster.

It was then that she decided she didn't want to eat anymore; something about being too pissed off to finish her soup. That was when Father stepped in and asked her what was the matter.

"It's nothing," Grandmother said. She always said that to me when I asked her if everything was alright. I used to believe her. No more.

But she continued, "I can't find my checkbook and ATM card." And Father saw a replay of helping her find it last week. He tried helping her mentally retrace her steps, but she wouldn't get off accusing me of stealing them. She then complained that living here made her crazy, and Father used that to try and convince her to leave. But she just got up and went to her bedroom, supposedly to rest.

No, not to rest. It's taking me a long time to eat my huge bowl of soup nowadays, and that meant Grandmother came out to confront me to more times about her goddamn ATM card. First she threw down the cards she could find in front of me at the dinner table, to which I could only say, again, "I didn't take your card." Then, while we were cleaning up, she waddled back out to the dining room, listlessly. Father asked her if she was OK, to which she replied that her head hurt and, finally, she turned my way and asked, "Come one, where's my card."

Father, washing the dishes from the sink, finally had enough: "HE DOESN'T HAVE YOUR CARD, YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!!" Grandmother always shirks from his yelling, and so she just waddled back to her room, muttering more stuff about her money.

I couldn't deal. All I wanted to do was head out to see the MLS Cup. But Father knew he had to try and nip this in the bud once again, so after he was done cleaning the dishes he marched into Grandmother's bedroom and helped her find the things that probably were in front of her all along, yelling at her every second of the way. What I caught was this:

"He takes care of you, and now you think he steals from you?!"

"My head hurts."

"Our heads hurt because you complain so much!"

And then, not a peep from Grandmother's room. I came out to ask Father if he found her ATM card. He said it was in her purse, in one of the clear windows. Of course.

---

I no longer look forward to going home. Ever since her dementia (and it has to be dementia) worsened after Daylight Saving Time ended, she has been replaced by this money-grubbing, paranoid demon. I don't know if I'm going to have Good Grandmother or someone who needs help finding shit that's in front of her -- or, worse, someone who wants to kill me.

I'm serious about that. I was really scared last night that she believes I have her money. (And for the record, she has no money because she spent it all.) When I came back home I told Father my fears. He told me to lock the door.

I did a couple better. I put my computer bag and bookbag in front of the door. If somehow Grandmother opened the door (that fucking thing doesn't close all the way) with a knife in her hand, maybe her stumbling over the bags will give me enough time to wake up and defend myself.

I didn't want to go to sleep early; I have to adjust my clock because I start my late-night job tonight. But I didn't want a confrontation with Grandmother, so I turned in early.

I heard a knock on the door. I ignored it. She went away.

Bitch is going to kill me, I know it.

Our relationship has changed. For good.