Category: quill

Posted on

10 October 2023

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY FUCKING DAY

So. Turns out yesterday my landlady had tried to get a hold of me (I think it was yesterday…) because she wanted to explain why the dogs would be barking a lot. She’d had them in the garage because there were lots of people over because… Pat went into hospice. I had wondered if he was going to do at-home hospice or facility hospice but had been surprised he wasn’t there already (unless it was at-home, in which case never mind). But I guess they didn’t have things set up for at-home hospice and then he needed the ambulance again recently — I already told you about that. And a lot of this is me filling in blanks because I just know the bare facts that there was an ambulance here the other day and now Pat’s in hospice. But I had been all paranoid about what she wanted to say to me, basically for nothing.

But today the power was out in my apartment. It wasn’t out in the entire building because we still had water (we’re on a well system) and also hot water, and it wasn’t out on the entire lot for similar reasons, also one of the wifi routers was still up and running. I spent most of the day angry, convinced she’d shut off my power even though she never gave me the electric bill nor even told me the amount (though I still would have wanted to see the bill). It was a bad day. I spent most of it gone because I couldn’t get anything done here anyway; I showered in the dark as it was.

First I went to Meijer and got a bottle of Seafoam, two bottles of motor oil, and a few other bits and bobs. The car had been sounding a little bad. I feel like it sounds better now (I only used one bottle of the motor oil, but I have one in reserve just in case), but that could just be wishful thinking. I don’t think it’s wishful thinking, but I’m probably wrong. I also had to top up the tires because the temp’s been dropped long enough outside that basically the air in them shrank. I hate this time of year. ANYWAY…

Then I went to IHOP. I had been meaning to go and I just wanted some fucking breakfast and a nice sit-down. The prices are pretty good. The only fly in the ointment was literal (fruit) flies; I got the strawberry-banana pancakes to go with my meal (I had eggs and the whole bit) and I had this sinking feeling they had accompanied the fruit. I didn’t see any obvious bugs in my pancakes and I decided not to make a big deal out of it. I feel like I can’t make a big deal out of anything. Everyone thinks I’m a fucking monster and it ruins everything. I also can’t say things nicely because people go “oh look, a sucker” and don’t listen to me. I don’t know how I deal with all that. There’s no way to go with it to actually get the problem solved. People wonder why I’m angry, but it’s been like that all along. Would you be happy? You know you wouldn’t. Fuck off.

(If Matt has told you he was scared of me, he wasn’t fucking scared of me, he just hated me and liked to see me hopeless. Wouldn’t listen if I was nice, stonewalled me if I got pissed off. That’s who you picked as your friend, morons. Enjoy.)

After that I went to the library, which wasn’t much farther up the road. I wanted to make jewelry but something happened when I got there that completely threw me off my feed.

Brother was trying to get hold of me. I texted back and forth with him but he asked for a phone call, so we chatted. My dad has had a brain bleed. It first manifested as a seizure in Carrie’s SUV when she was taking him to a doctor’s appointment. (He hasn’t had a license in years.) She took him to American Legion in Jennings where they diagnosed the bleed and then he got sent to Lake Charles. He’s supposed to have surgery tomorrow. She gave me the general number to the hospital but I doubt I’d have much of a conversation with him if at all, and I don’t want to hear it. I know. I’m an asshole. But he’s just had a brain event and he was an asshole himself before then. Pass. If he comes out of surgery okay, we’ll see.

The other thing I learned from Doug is that he’s in touch with Thea. They talk on Instagram, apparently. Doug is calling her by her ridiculous* transname “Quill” but says he doesn’t understand what all else is going on. I’ll write to him at some point and give my side of it. He at least seems willing to listen. I am fine with him talking with her. He’s her uncle, for fuck’s sake, and he’s in fucking Oregon and usually too broke to travel and she’s still living with her dad. Whatever. And she ought to be in touch with someone from my side of the family, considering.

The other OTHER thing I learned from Doug is that she really is in Colorado. I don’t know when this happened, but I had been keeping half an eye on the Zillow thing for their house here and had seen no signs that it had recently been sold. Zillow has listings whether something is for sale or not, far as I can tell, so that in itself was no indication. But yes, the house was sold last month. And wouldn’t you know it, the piece of shit renovated it to sell it. Couldn’t make it nice while we were living in it, no. My one consolation was that the assessed value dropped by one-quarter this year, probably because the assessor actually got a look inside [shudder], and serves the asshole right. I’m betting he took a loss. My only question at this point is why Colorado. Crys is homesick for California. Completely different state. But, that’s their thing. I’ll probably never know. After all, he could not be bothered to tell me they were leaving. I will probably keel over in shock if I ever hear from him again.

Or tell him to go fuck himself.

And it’s about equal likelihood either way.

I did finally finish two stretch bracelets and then got McDonald’s in case the power was not back on (I would have gotten groceries instead had it been on and I’d known it) and then came back here. Power still wasn’t on but there was this huge-ass pickup truck in the parking lot (there is a small parking lot) and some guy I didn’t recognize. As I was parking, he went up toward the chicken coop with a woman I also didn’t recognize and they were carrying what looked like a big black box and maybe some other things. I went inside, puttered around a bit…

BEEEEEP

…and the power came back on. So that’s what they were doing.

So, whatever had been going on, Elizabeth hadn’t known about it because undoubtedly she was at hospice with Pat. I should have said something when we texted, but as I didn’t know whether she had done it on purpose, I didn’t want to potentially start an argument or fight. But now it’s all sorted, so whatever.

I wish the rest of my life were, but one day at a time, I guess.

—–
*I don’t actually think it is all that ridiculous, upon further reflection. It’s fine, and if she’d just wanted to change her name to change her name, and had come up with some other reason than “I’m not Grandma Althea” — what the fuck? — then I probably would have been okay with it. But it was like this big repudiation of her entire childhood and her parents, especially me. No. I’m not going to simp for that. She can deal.

And while we’re on the subject. How come these gender assholes can’t pick actually growing the fuck up as a way of distancing themselves from childhood? Because that’s not at all what they’re doing.

And finally: Yes, I did call my daughter an asshole. She is a great big stinky one. That’s her choice. I will be happy to stop seeing her as one when she stops being one.

I did not say I wasn’t one. But she definitely is one. The end.

Posted on

Almost two-year anniversary

Wrote this in the parent group today:

—–

Coming up on the two-year anniversary of when I left my daughter’s house. She was insisting she was either non-binary or a boy and her father decided that was a fantastic time to start a new relationship (we weren’t together, just co-parenting, but he replicated his old pattern of sneaking around behind my back and he always zeroes in on a new situation and ignores everything else) and frankly, I was the odd one out. I knew even then that I would have no allies to back me up in trying to keep her from harming herself. Even her therapist had bought into it. And it’s horrible living in a place where you know you are no longer welcome.

The thing that sticks out to me is how they both went straight into silent treatment. I wasn’t allowed to talk about what was wrong with the situation anymore because they simply would not answer me. She probably wouldn’t have come up with that tactic herself, so I’m pretty sure her father suggested it. We all did communicate about some things for a while after I left but after he signed the car over, even that died away.

I ended up homeless earlier this year. They knew. Neither cared, apparently. I wouldn’t have asked for a rescue, but some expression of concern might have been nice.

I have to own up to my end, I’ve been angry and sweary. But I’ve also given them lots of openings to engage with the issues and asked questions and raised concerns and… nothing. It’s been we are both going to act crazy and/or unethically and we are going to completely destroy your life and you don’t get a say in it at all. I refuse to shut up and be polite when that is going on. The only reason I’ve gone pretty much silent from my end is because there isn’t any point. They’ve both made up their minds that her fantasy and his ego are more important than me.

He is on my permanent shit list. I had had this vague notion that when she was grown we’d come out of this as friends or at least cordial but he couldn’t even give me that. Nearly twenty years of “I love you” and “I’m glad you’re in my life” and then as soon as his long-ago ex decided she needed to get out of California he turned it right off like a switch. (She quit her job almost as soon as she got here and they got married at some point so yeah, don’t tell me that’s not what it was. He makes $130k a year at least and has home equity out the yinyang [the house has doubled or tripled in value since he bought it]. He can carry them. She knows it. I hope she dumps him at some point and if he thinks I’ll even entertain a conversation with him after that, well, buckle up Buttercup.)

Daughter, I don’t know. I come from a background of familial abuse and alcoholism and most of the physical abuse was from my brother and so I know what young people are capable of. I am not ready to make up my mind about her. If she’s too much like her father and what’s happened so far is a sign of things to come, though, there won’t be any hope there. First question she had when I told them I was leaving was “Are you taking the cats?” She’s told her therapists I’m a “conservative Catholic.” (Anyone who knows me in person would laugh themselves silly, and I am only Catholic by a technicality, which I already explained to her.) I complained to her when I lost my room in January that serial killers get treated better than I’ve been in this situation — free room and board! — and she remarked that if I was comparing myself to serial killers, that doesn’t look real great for me. I think that was the last time we talked. I’m not sure there will be another.

Meanwhile my best friend since age 8 or 9 has decided that my misery is all because I obsess too much about the trans thing. The fact that an 18yo young woman has been on testosterone for six months and has been using a binder and will probably opt for an elective mastectomy doesn’t faze her at all. The weird thing is she’s a social conservative but then, I’ve been telling people this is not a leftist movement. There’s room within conservatism to accept it for what it claims on the tin even if a lot of conservatives don’t. So I’m not wholly surprised. But it’s getting to the point that I could be talking about a completely different thing and she’ll start in on me with the “quit with the trans stuff” again. I am not sure how much longer she’s going to be in the picture, and I hate to say it, because in a lot of ways she’s been really supportive of my general situation. But she’s a social worker. If she has any sense of responsibility for people’s health and sanity whatsoever then she should be working harder to understand this issue than she is. She is very head-in-the-sand about a lot of things that matter: not only is she uninformed, she delights in being uninformed and considers it the morally superior position. Not even kidding. It’s one of the few areas where we clash. And now it’s gotten personal for me, she’s making it all about my feelings as if my brain is faulty instead of being concerned about my daughter’s welfare. Red flag. She has a 9yo daughter, too. I don’t even know.

Sorry to vent. August has been hard and September isn’t shaping up to be much better.