BJ Woods

Doctor Dave had slept with one of his patients and had felt guilty all day long.

No matter how much he tried to forget about it, he couldn’t. The guilt and sense of betrayal was overwhelming.

But every once in a while he’d hear a soothing voice within himself, trying to reassure him:

“Dave, don’t worry about it. You aren’t the first doctor to sleep with one of their patients and you won’t be the last. You’re single, let it go….”

But invariably another voice would bring him back to reality:

“Dave, you’re a veterinarian….”

I wake up to the storm this morning with a Mazzy Star song in my head.

I had a very strange dream. I was doing bookkeeping and clerical work at this office somewhere, I can’t recall the location.

There were two other women who worked there, and one man. It seemed like a sort of bank.

The first thing I can remember is needing to print out a check for someone who was sitting out in the lobby and I kept wrecking the check number and having to put correction tape over the number, only I kept screwing it up, and this woman had all these funny calendars on her desk. You know the ones, they have them at your insurance agent’s office, little tiny ones, with the tear-off sheets for each month, except these had only Chinese writing on them. 

The man at the office wanted me to go through a list of names and correspond the list with each of some items in his office, to make sure they matched, and I remember it was somwhat intense, like I had a deadline or something and it was getting close. The ‘items’ were these strange pillows, all black velour-y, velvety kind of material, which had been sliced lengthwise, like a hamburger bun. The two split sides were shut together by a clasp of some sort, as with a ladies’ purse. When you opened these things, there was this lint-like material, and some dusty stuff. On the inside upper part of each one was a person’s name and each of these names corresponded to the ones on the list.

Was this some sort of weird crematorium I was working at? Were these dead people’s ashes? Who knew.

The next thing I remember is the office is expecting a guest and it’s the next day after work, only I’m the last one there. I’m tidying up and just about to go into another room when there’s a knock at the door.

I have a huge stack of stuff and magazines that I’m moving somewhere and holler that it’s open and that I’ll be right back. Without looking up, I come back into the room and I’m still tidying stuff up, and without looking up, I ask the person to make themselves comfortable, and ask her what she’d like to drink, coffee, tea, diet coke, water?

The woman answers by saying “Whatever’s easiest for you to get, I guess.” I look up and see that it’s Julia Stiles. Very weird.

I’m still jobless. As far as FT work goes, anyway. Been living on ramen noodle soup, generic cigarettes, and no cable tv.

I’m still working PT at the MN orchestra sales office, making a lil bit of commission here & there. It’ll hafta do. Had an interview Wednesday. Got another on Tuesday. In the meantime, it’s the weekend, and I’m takin’ it easy.

The apartment needs a good cleaning and the boyfriend needs some lunch and some good lovin’ (he fell asleep on the couch after work, even though I asked him if he needs a nap and he says ‘no’, haha).

My friend in brooklyn is moving back to MN but I’m afraid for her…she should really stay, and if at least not in NY, then not back to MN. See, she mainly moved to get away from her boyfriend, who is a sorry piece of crap and well, he’s not like, dangerous or anything but she just took too much shit from him and felt powerless to his shit so she felt it best to just move altogether. So now I don’t know what she’ll do.

Back a couple weeks ago, I vowed to be as honest in here as I wanted to be and now is the time and here is the place.

The situation at home with my folks seems a bit better, or quieter, rather, than it has been. I was having a hard time at first dealing with all of it at once and well, rather than try to explain what was bothering me, I shall just throw out a big bone now. Below is a copy of an entry I wrote back in March, but never published.  I just copy & pasted it here ’cause I’m lazy and mostly ’cause it is hard to re-tell what I felt at the time when I wrote it.

March 15, 2000
My dad had a car accident last year (a year ago this month, to be technical).  He became unconscious and his car slid into oncoming traffic on the other lane of a street near our house, on the way home from work one day. 

Because of him not being ‘awake’ when it happened, his body did not tense in anticipation of an impact, and lived through it.  Had it been the other way around, he would have surely died.  This is what the investigating officer told my mom. 

He was in the emergency room for several hours before we could see him, and when we did we were relived to find that he had been awake and was feeling OK, having only suffered a few scrapes and bangs.  The doctor ordered an M.R.I. and complete x-rays to be sure.  The doc’s x-ray results showed dad’s pacemaker had slipped lower onto his chest, from where it was originally sutured (they just tie those things on to tissue, it wasn’t like an implant).  They didn’t know if it was because of impact from the accident or not.  We did find out that there was no heart damage or cardiac tissue changes which would indicate a heart attack.

My dad has been out of work on disability since the car accident, because we will never know if the accident happened because he a) fell asleep, b) had a seizure, c) had a diabetic seizure or reaction.  He will probably never work again, so he is basically retired.  Yes, he is getting his pension payments, so $$ is not a problem for my folks right now.

Over the last couple years, my family has noticed alot of gradual change in my dad’s behavior, which, to the outside observer, would seem like mild depression, or just plain lethargy, burn-out, etc., for whatever reason.

The results from the M.R.I. dad had after the accident showed some significant differences in dad’s brain scan, where there were things missing in places there should be.  Come to find out dad had some brain atrophy (tissue loss/damage).  Well after yet some MORE testing, they have figured out that he is suffering from an uncommon form of dementia called Pick’s Disease, of which there is little to no real medical cure or treatment.

For those of you who don’t know, there are like, five known types of dementia, one of which is alzheimer’s disease.  The difference being, that with alzheimers, some brain functions can go away and sometimes come back (memory, etc.), but with dementia, once a person stops doing something like remembering things, pronouncing words correctly, etc., that part of the brain physically dies.  It shrivels up and goes away forever.

Dad gradually began to act entirely different, very childlike in character, and needs a structured day to day life. Much in the same way as when you have children you have to have a bit of structure so that they can learn and grow and respect their parents and household rules and such.

Since all this has been going on, he has also been wanting to sleep all day, or do nothing at all but sit around, or try to go outside and smoke cigarettes (none of which are healthy, and don’t help any). So we have to literally get him doing things, even if it means helping around the house, reading a book, engaging in conversation or whatever, so that he does not lose touch with everything and go to bed. Of course we would not force him to do these things if he was incapable; on the contrary; he is entirely capable, he just needs to be cajoled a little into doing them.

Once he gets started doing something, anything constructive or worthwhile, he feels okay, mentally and sometimes physically.

At this point in time, we don’t know whether his will progress into alzheimers, or stay the same, or even just get worse but not progress into alzheimers. It’s very difficult to tell because all the doc’s were able to detect from the tests was that there was some atrophy in the brain, and that lots of people who eventually developed alzheimers showed these same losses at first.

On top of all this, Dad has had dealt with two heart attacks, one in 1987 and one in 1991, the last one resulting in a triple bypass heart surgery and the addition of a pacemaker. Soon after his first heart attack he developed a minor case of diabetes, which he is now controlling hypodermically with insulin. As a rule, Dad was very good about taking his meds for heart disease and diabetes until about two years ago, when he stopped altogether because they made him feel sick.

Well everyone w/diabetes knows that one of the things you need to do is build up a tolerance for the drugs because if you don’t, you have mild side effects, that cause you to not feel good. In order to build up the tolerance you need to take them regularly. Needless to say, he had not gone that long w/o the drugs because we noticed that he had stopped.

Here’s the kicker: my dad is only 55. He has not lived that hard, was never an alcoholic, didn’t work a hazardous job, or anything like that. So the only precursors to him feeling this way is the heart disease and the diabetes. My mother, on the other hand, is 52, and has never felt healthier in her life. She is very active in the community, she is a councilperson for the city she lives in, she ran for mayor last year, she is quite involved in alot of civic goings-on.  To be happy, she will always be a busy person. It is in her blood, it’s her livelyhood. This will stop soon, and she has already gradually stopped doing some of these things, because they keep her away from home.

My mother has been almost forced to retire as well, since she cares for children in her home, it has become necessary for her to stop working in order to focus all her attention on helping Dad. Also because of his sickness, he has displayed some behavior which she felt was inappropriate around the house during her workday. My poor dear mother is at her wits end, because although she is a very patient and loving person, she cannot deal with this on her own.

In order to keep doing what makes her happy she will need to either get some respite care (in-home) for Dad, or he will have to go to a home. He is in no mental shape to be making this decision for himself, he thinks if he goes into one, they will let him sit around all day and do nothing and smoke non-stop.

Number one, the law in my state does not allow smoking in these kinds of facilities, and two, if he does in fact go into one, it would of course be one where they have some daily structure. Assisted living, but to a degree. He definitely is capable of structure, with some kind of supervision, but he is by no means able to live and maintain his own room or apartment or whatever they have for people there. Also, there is the problem with money.
If they put Dad into one of those places, they pretty much have a handle on all your money, and they almost only leave you with the shirt on your back.

My mother does not know what to do. She has consulted some legal advice as to what extent of the law some of these facilities abide by, with regards to costs, etc. She also needs some support, from others in her situation. I myself love both my parents with all my heart but have no idea what to do.

It is stressing me out when my mom calls me to yell and cry and get upset about it because it’s overwhelming. Jeez…I can’t even deal with my own problems, small as they are.  It sometimes makes me want to cry. I have been going online (to tie up my phone line) a lot more, or just not at home this past two weeks because I am afraid of how I’ll handle it when she calls.  I don’t know what to tell her.  I feel bad about it too.

I know this seems selfish but I am very very very afraid of the future and am not ready to start caring for my folks.  I don’t even have children of my own yet, let alone have any career direction, and have not really even ‘found myself’ yet and this is all happening too fast!  I have to cancel stuff or put it off so I can go be with my dad so my mom can attend to her civic or volunteer duties.  She does sometimes feel guilty about her devotion to these things but what can you do?  If you are committed to the community, you have a certain amount of obligation, but at the same time you want and need to be at home where there are other issues.

I am not the only one this all is weighing on, my sister has a family of her own, a husband of two years and a four year old son. She gave him her two cents on Sunday like I did. She feels like she wants to help mom but doesn’t know how or feels like I do.

Flashback…
Before we really *knew* what was wrong with dad, there was a lot of dramatic changes in him, prior to and after the accident. 

It sort of hit a turning point in March (at least from my point of view, Mom has dealt with this before). Mom and Dad both quit smoking cigarettes many years ago, when my sis and I were still small. A couple of years ago, Dad started up again, out of the blue.  My mother had developed terrible asthma shortly after she quit, and cannot even tolerate the smell of cigarettes on people’s clothing and hair, and just being arount that makes it hard for her to breathe, so of course, there is no smoking in my folks’ house.

Anyway, last year on my parents anniversary, he promised to quit. He kept his promise until spring and then quit again before Christmas in ‘99. We figured out that he is so childish because he was quitting because it was cold outside, and he didn’t want to be outside, thus an easy way to quit smoking.

On Sunday, my mother and sister and I met at mom’s so we could attend our cousin’s baby shower. We were planning on taking Dad along and he was going to go to our very good friends’ house to visit while we were at the party. When we got there, my mom and dad were in their bedroom, talking about his sneaking money from her and using it to buy cigarrettes. The day before, my sis was over at mom’s visiting and she left her purse and cigarette case in the car. My dad went out there and took a few of them from her and hid them, so they were also discussing that incident.

My sis and I we were getting ready to leave, waiting for mom out in the front room of the house when she left the bedroom and went to go freshen up in the bathroom. When my dad left the bedroom, he went outside and proceeded to smoke one of the cigarettes he took from my sis, but not before he chuckled and boasted that he was about to do so as he was going out the door. Not knowing the resolution of what they were discussing back in the bedroom, cause we couldn’t really hear, and also because we felt it was none of our business, my sister and I said and did nothing. I guess since it is not our house, we felt there was nothing to be done about it, and perhaps mom said he could go out and have one.

Upon hearing me tell her that Dad went outside to smoke when she asked me where he was, mom ran out into the yard and tried to go up to him and stop him. He walked across the street into the schoolyard across the street and mom went after him and was telling him to come back home. I went to the door and tried to calm her down, said something about making a scene and she yelled and told me that she wasn’t making a scene, and even if she was, had every right to be, and she came back in the house.

Dad followed her in, probably because she yelled so much at him to get back home. We all were upset because mom must have had enough. She was crying and yelling about how he had just agreed not to do this to himself, and doesn’t he love himself or us enough to not do this? My sis started in yelling at him and crying because she was mad and upset and scared and confused, I was crying because I was so overwhelmed at the site of both of them crying and yelling and also because I was mad and also afraid for my dad since he seemed pretty smug and nonchalant about the whole thing, and also because I hate to see my mom in such a state.

My mom asked him if he really wanted to do this to himself? Did he really care to trade us for a cigarette? He thought about it for a second and said yeah, he would. My mom got pretty sore at that answer even though she knows that he can’t always keep up a normal conversation and he may have not really thought before he spoke.

After all this, we got him to promise that he will stop this stupid behavior and stop trying to kill himself, and he did seem pretty sorry and he said he loved us and didn’t want to make us mad. We left, all somewhat calmed down and more reserved, and when my sis and mom got out of the car to run into Target for a gift bag he asked me for a cigarette. I give up.

That was then. There have been better days, and of course I think it will keep going okay for awhile but then what do I know? I could be wrong.

A couple of weeks later, I went over to mom & dad’s to “visit” with dad while mom went to a meeting and not fifteen minutes after she left, he went outside and started down the street.

He was headed to the gas station across the highway to buy cigarrettes, I was sure, because mom had warned me that he tried to do the same thing twice earlier that week. Let me tell you that my dad is not capable of driving a vehicle (anymore) or keeping a job or should even be leaving the house alone because of his condition.

He was too far gone for me to chase him and I didn’t want to aggrivate or scare him or anything so I called the cops. Damn right I did. My folks live in a small town and everyone pretty much knows everyone so of course the cops do too, and are very understanding and accomodating. Luckily they picked him up and brought him home. Since the entry above, my mom has been retired one month ago this week & they’ve been spending alot more time together and all seems okay.

For now..

Same day, different year..

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I have just been through the annual pilgrimage of torture and humiliation known as buying a bathing suit. Back in the 1940s, the bathing suit for a woman with a mature figure was designed for a woman with a mature figure: boned, trussed, and reinforced, not so much sewn, as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift, and they did a darn good job.

Today’s stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure chipped from marble. The mature woman has a choice — she can either front up at the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus who has escaped from Disney’s Fantasia, or she can wander around every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of FLEXIBLE rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice, and entered the chamber of horrors known as “The Fitting Room.” The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing suits was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, giving the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks. The reason for this is that any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap into place, I gasped in horror — my bosom had disappeared. Eventually I found one cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib. The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman is meant to wear her bosom spread across the chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full-view assessment.
The suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fit those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom and sides. I looked like a lump of Play-Doh wearing undersized cling wrap. As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent salesgirl popped her head through the curtains, “Oh, that is sooo YOU!” she said, admiring the suit. I replied that I wasn’t so sure and asked what else she had to show me.

I tried on a crinkly cream colored one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two-piece that gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serviette ring. I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged frill and came out looking like Tarzan’s Jane on a bad day. I tried a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning. I tried on a bright pink suit with such a high-cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear it.

Finally I found a suit that fit. A two-piece affair, with shorts-like bottoms and a halter top. It was cheap, comfortable and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. When I got home, I read the label, which said, ‘Material may become transparent in water’.
I’m determined to wear it anyway. I’ll just have to learn to do the breaststroke in the sand.

Disclaimer: I didn’t write this, but I found it online somewhere.  I thought it was funny enough to capture and share… 

Same day, different year..

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“…can ya see, can ya see the real me?” -The Who

Yeah I like classic rock, I was listening to the who on the radio late last nite, some kind of taped interview stuff w/playing of recorded tracks and recorded live performances. I love classic rock. I love it alot.

Now I don’t want all of you to email me and yakk non stop about how much you also, love classic rock. I hate that shit. Not that I don’t wanna hear other people talk about what they like, I just don’t like it when people sit around and yakk about it….which leads me to another topic….

I have interests. Likes, if you will. But I don’t like to sit around and yakk so much on them. Just because I like 31 Flavors doesn’t mean ya gotta come and quiz me on them.

Yeah I like independent films. Don’t ask me who my favorite director is, or who I’d prefer to do my sets if I were a producer. I don’t KNOW.  “What’s your favorite movie?” you ask. I donno. “Who was in it?” “…um I can’t remember, the guy that smokes alot, the one with the red hair and is married to what’s-her-face”

I really CAN’T remember….I mustve seen in back in 1992. PLEASE don’t demand to know. I’m sure if I really cared I could go look it up.

Rubber bands and stuff
Call me the “Don’t put rubber bands in your hair” poster child… now you know why they tell you to use the covered ones instead!

Today I put one in my hair and had to CUT it out. I’ve done this before, no biggie, right? Well instead of cutting the band I cut some of my hair w/o realizing it. So now I have the all cut up screwed up punk hair do on half my head. That’s okay. I already look dumb most days…LOL

When my four year old nephew, Brandon, was a baby just starting to talk, I was always telling him he was goofy. He couldn’t say it right and it was hilarious at the time. He knows how to say it right now but he still says it wrong just for old time’s sake.

Tonight I go to my sis’s house and for the millionth time in his life, he is on me at the door, yappin’ at my heels. “Hi, Auntie! Wanna play Super Mario with me?”, “Wanna see what my army guys can do?”, “Wanna trade Pokemon cards?”, “Wanna do this/that?”

I have to just laugh at him because I suck at Nintendo, have already seen what his army guys can do, and I don’t own a single Pokemon card. Instead I pick him up into my arms and tip him upside down and carry him around the house by his ankles, much in the traditional way that ALL people other than kids’ parents carry the kids around’ the house.

Even though sometimes he annoys the bejesus out of me, I find my time with him is probably the most most fun part of any day. I go over there and my world is upside down, much more different than when I’m hanging out at home, where I feel fine reading a book or surfing the web or chattin’ on the phone, but over there, in my nephew’s room, I find myself perfectly happy surrounded by coloring books, and Sesame Street tapes and Cheez-Its.  Except walking aruond his room is something one should not attempt to do in stocking feet.  Unless you like walking on Legos!

Usually the kid is a pill to try to put to bed whenever company is over, but tonite he told his Mama that he still never got his ‘treat’ today, and since she didn’t have any cookies or anything she let him have a little bowl of Alpha-bits cereal with milk in it.

This boy started to eat his cereal in a nice, neat manner until his mama left the room, and he was at the table with his Auntie.

From out of nowhere, his manner of eating turned into one of slobbishness, if there was ever such a word. One normal sized spoonful quickly turned into a heaping sized spoonful where sometimes pieces fell to the table and floor and the boy was quickly emptying the bowl. With all the zest of an overgrown hog, this kid proceeded to slurp the milk out of his spoon, thereby leaving huge puddles on the table, and moved the last of the cereal, piece by piece, from spoon to mouth.

Then he picks up the bowl and drinks from it, creating more puddles on the table. Puts the bowl down, bends and tilts his head toward the table and slurps the puddles from it, all while I am watching him. He licks his lips and face in that all-around circle tongue motion that kids seem to have down pat, and after a moment, belches loudly, and then gives me the sweetest look any kid ever had on his face.

I take one look at him and say “You’re goofy!” to which he replies “No, YOU foofy!”

Gonna go to bed so I can rejoin the adult world tomorrow.

Same day, different year..

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• Just an outloud observation – 2003

My mother grew up poor. She married a man who could provide financially, not wealth but enough to raise two girls in a decent home in an okay neighborhood, and provide a normal life, not a rich, spoiled life but one that had more than its fair share of fun, and my sister and I were pretty well taken care of. We always had nice toys and clothes, but instead of from the specialty shops at the mall, they’d been from Kmart and Sears. We earned our keep too, doing chores and helping out around the house.

When my sis and I were small, my family went camping every weekend in the summers and we fished, swam, and did go on lots of road trips, but didn’t do things like I’d heard other kids do, like go to Disneyworld, or go to the malls every weekend with wallets full of spending cash. Plus when I was 11 up til the end of high school I babysat often, earning my own ‘allowance’ if you will. When I was in fourth grade my dad let me order a few records and tapes from his Columbia House catalog a few times. Music was always something that filled our house and I loved all kinds of it so my parents encouraged me when I told them I wanted to be in the choir at school, which I did from 2nd until 6th grade, also joining the band in 5th & 6th. I played a brand new trumpet, leased from Schmitt Music company, which my parents reminded me every day was costing them so I’d better practice! We did dine out fairly often but my parents were somewhat frugal with such things so they would get coupon books and specials, we did go out alot on special occasions, sometimes to somewhat fancy restaurants even when we were small. Folks would come up to our parents and remark about how we were well behaved young ladies (every restaurant I go to nowadays the kids are just terrible out in public with their familes). We didn’t get cars from our daddy on our 16th birthday although birthdays were fun and generous, just never full of all the cool stuff other kids had (mom always said be a trendsetter, not a fad follower). We never really wanted for anything, meaning we never said ‘Mom I want this’ and then got it, like most kids we grew up with.

I’d never seen or heard too much about designer clothes like Guess? jeans until the 7th grade when I went to the junior high in Woodbury, the next town over (ours only had an elementry school), then again I don’t think too many other kids had heard of them until then, either. Back to school meant Sears outlet, and then maybe a short visit to the boutique at the small strip mall so we could get some Esprit or Guess? T-shirts and cute accessories in order to fit in a little with the kids from Woodbury who looked down on us kids from Newport, ‘river rats’ they called us (the Mississippi is right on the border) and if your dad didn’t have a law practice or work at 3M as an engineer, you were treated like a second class citizen.

His life was a little different, on the other hand. From what I know his dad was a filanderer and left when James was 15 which explains some of the behavior, the apple never falls too far from the tree. Plus him and his brother went to private schools most of the time. There was never a shortage of money, trips, or getting things they wanted, when they wanted them, things like video games and nicer clothes (not that they were spoiled, but his folks seemed a bit more in tune with popular things for their kids and could afford it). Christmases were always very generous and eating out and going to neat places was common, so it’s slightly different. Also no one in his family ever worried about saving or the future too much because family business took care of that, and business was always fairly good, it seemed. No one in my immediate family really ever felt or taught me that working for yourself was the way to get ahead, there was always this need to “get good grades so you can get a good job or persue college for a better one”.

Same day, different year..

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My life MUST get better after all that has been going on:

I still haven’t found a permanent job (even though I am determined not to work full time for long and eventually have my home business be my income) but I need one to stablize my income and save to build capital.

I am drifting farther from my mother, who seems to need me more and more lately. She calls all the time wanting help from me and I don’t want to disappoint her. She’s got her heart set on a manufactured double wide mobile home (but brand new and pretty impressive for a trailer) and can barely afford but might be able to, “Once I sell my house”. Well, apart from me helping clean her bedroom a week ago–she hasn’t cleaned or fixed up one iota of her existing house–which is in pretty significant disrepair and is JAM-PACKED to the gills with clutter. She claims she’s not physically able to, so I’ve been over a couple times to help her get her shit together so she can move out of the house (which she hasn’t even had anyone look at yet) and into the new place that she has huge plans for, even so far as gone and drawn out a blueprint of where all her stuff’s going to go and how she’ll decorate it but hasn’t even made an offer on (although three others did this past weekend). She’ll be lucky to get a fair price on the old house, thinks it’s worth what the appraiser gave her three years ago for a re-finance but everyone knows that appraisers always go higher than what they think a house will ever realistically sell for. She says “but my bank has me pre-approved for a loan up to $50k if I need it and that will only be a 15-year term” I don’t know how to tell mom, but she just turned sixty and she might never see the last payment through, I’ll be damned if I have to get stuck with it.

Then after some time of starting to believe my fiancee was just getting to be a bigger loser every day, I’ve been proven right. Non-stop he bitches about me not wanting to take just ANY job, just “Go out and work at Burger King or the Video Store, something, anything, why are you being so picky?” and I say I don’t want my resume looking like yours, jumping all over to so many kinds of jobs and that I’m on a specific path and at least want to get a job that I went to school for and have my ten years of experience, pointing out that while I’m job hunting I AM TEMPING right now, often I am working 3 weeks out of the month, isn’t that enough for you? Besides, my temping helps us financially and I’m still going on interviews while I work! His response to that? “Why are you so proud? I have a job that isn’t that great, and you know what? If I were in your shoes, I could go out there, and in one day I guarantee you that I could walk in to some place and get a job that day.” To which I say that the job he has now HE PICKED, APPLIED TO and WANTED TO GET because he hated the one he had before, and secondly, that he’s a man and men can act all cocky and even retarded and somehow still wind up with a job if they bullshit someone enough to hand it to them, and third, It’s fucking SUNDAY NIGHT, why are you fucking giving me grief right NOW? it’s not like I can go out and find a job now you sonofabitch.

Besides, the days of donning a suit, going downtown to stomp the pavement, and running in to a random office asking for a job are OVER. I paid my dues at the beginning of my career when releiving receptionists and it’s common knowledge that when someone walks in and goes up the front desk asking if the company’s hiring, you either always tell them no or hand them an application in case ’something opens up’ and send them on their way. Then all the other girls come over to the desk asking “Who was that?” and you shrug your shoulders and then you all share a chuckle about such desperation.

Ever since we met he’s been feeding me all this intentions to pursue his dreams of “being financially independent and wealthy and not working for anyone but himself” yet he’s never lived on his own and taken care of himself, he’s hardly able to wake himself in time to go to work every day (because that’s what I’m there for, apparently) and bitches that I’m always home using the compuer when he wants to, “to do research and work on our business” (it’s my computer, btw) and then when he does get on the computer he actually is just fucking around, surfing porn and posting his life away yelling at liberals on some crappy message board. All this has basically just proven to me that he’s a pipe dreamer, a George Bailey if you will, talking all day about mountains but living a molehill. If that’s not enough he had the nerve last winter to tell me he wants to date other people and “he doesn’t want to be tied down getting married and having to own a home,” and shit saying he wants to go to Burning Man and OzzFest and Sturgis and stuff every year and he regrets never having spent any time ’sowing his wild oats, being single and partying and being promiscuous’ and whatnot, then just before Christmas he comes over with a carload of presents for his family and mine, is beaming and saying he’s sorry and we’ll work things out…having money again…that’s what obviously keeps him happy. Naturally most people are, indeed, happier when they have less financial stress…however, we are so different, class-wise and probably never will agree about anything.

I also can’t believe I let him grow on me to a point where I used to LIVE day to day just for him, every moment thinking about mostly him, caring for him, considering him before me, taking care of his every need, being a listener, being a friend and everything. I found a lame ass diary that he’s kept since we moved into this apartment in April and he writes about how he’s depressed that he’s not dating often, that he hates living in the ghetto in this apartment (he wanted it more than I did) and then there’s the part he wrote about back when I first lost my job and he had spent many months helping out financially (which I always credit him for) while I, along with MANY Americans tried to find work that wasn’t out there because of the economy being poor. He writes in a recent entry “I think getting financially involved with her was my first mistake. When she lost her job I should have just said, ‘I wish I could help, but I’m saving.’ I was under no obligation then, like I am now, well I’m really not–but my name is on the lease this time” and “…I’m sick of being stuck in a relationship and I have this need to be considered attractive to cute women, I’m sick of being only attractive enough for fatty’s with problems….”

No, asshole, your first mistake was falling in love with me after 2-1/2 weeks of being together, crying about how you were in love with me but not fully realizing the weight of asking me to marry you almost two Novembers ago after admitting to feeling “scared about the future of the world” and wanting to also have kids or at least freeze some sperm so you could “leave some kind of legacy behind” (a legacy? LOL! of what? of being a narcissistic asshole, with huge plans and not one accomplishment? I can’t fucking believe I didn’t realize the selfishness of that statement back when you made it). Also I’m not a ‘fatty with problems’. Your last girlfriend was, according your stories of her mistreating you in front of your friends and then lying about being pregnant to get you to stay with her instead of leaving like you should have. I don’t have ‘problems’, you do. YOU’RE the one who approached ME back before we dated. YOU’RE the one who didn’t mention right UP FRONT that you wanted to be a perverted, cheating, filandering pig, keeping your bride-to-be at home all the time picking your dirty underwear off the floor, and meanwhile you’re out wondering if the 19 year old girls at work are attracted to you, and tell a girl you want to marry her and have a dozen children only because you’re selfish enough to believe they’ll be grateful to your silly ass after leaving them like your dad left you and still forgive you once they read the journal you kept around “for the sake of posterity” but is instead loaded up with sorry gripes and moans about your “depressing situation”. Poor you. Sit on it.

Looking back, I noticed you were really only happy when I was working, keeping the house up, picking up after you (dirty socks and shorts and all), but bitched about me not having a permanent job and then when I got interviews, had the nerve to tell me what a pain in the ass you think it is to have to drive me to ONE OF THEM, because “the muffler might fall off, and then how am I getting to work?” Gee, hon, you told me a week ago when I ASKED NICELY that you would give me a ride, plus…um, didn’t that car of yours have a muffler problem back when YOU BOUGHT IT?! And uh…how come you haven’t fixed it in ummm….OVER A YEAR? And um… after we moved out of my old apartment weren’t you supposed to be taking care of YOURSELF back then? Or was I responsible for keeping everything tidy for you while you were living with your dad and I was living TWO TOWNS AWAY at my moms? You even had the gall to bitch to me about a day you were late for work (when you were living with your dad and I was at mom’s) because I forgot to call to wake you that weekend that your dad & Kari were out of town. Um…didn’t I buy you an alarm clock? Yeah, at Wal*Mart, the one who’s box said “Loudest on the market!”?

Okay. Enough.
——————————————————-

I called my sister for advice but her hubby said she went to a candle party, my mom is coming back home from being out of town and was hoping I’d come over to help, so I’ve called one of my girl friends who said she will come get me when she’s finished running an errand, and said she has Southern Comfort at her place.

All this to mentally digest when all that’s going through my head right now is a verse from an stupid oldies song that I heard on the radio this morning:

Keep your mind on the drivin’Keep your hands on the wheel,Keep your snoopy eyes on the road a-head,We’re havin’ fun, sittin’ in the back-seat,

Kissin’ and a-huggin’ with Fred.

Don’t get me wrong, I know WHAT to do, either he’s going or I’m going but I can’t figure exactly which right now and I’m tempted to do something drastic but should really plot things out first.

Another night with the Idiot Box…

Tonight after a while I got up from doing some work and decided to take a break and put in some couch/boob toob time. I totally had the munchies, so I went looking for the potato chips I bought the other day. Imagine my dismay to find a rolled up bag containing a few partial chips but mostly little bits. Which really frosted my hide because I had this great dip leftover in the fridge. I started to try and dip these measly little chips for a minute but it was really silly looking, so I shrugged my shoulders, poured the chip-bits into the dip and ate it with a spoon. I’m such a classy chick

Then I put on The Real World and watched that, then I watched in horror when The Ugly Rich Girls came on. Trust me, those air-brushed, Photoshop-ped pics on the web site totally misrepresent how they REALLY look on camera. One of them (Ally) looks like what you might get if you bred “Chip” from ‘My Three Sons’ with a horse that sports a John Travolta chin. Her mouth as a can opener could give Black & Decker a run for their money. The other (Jaime) looks like a skinnier but much uglier Kathy Najimi (I actually like her). Her head is twice as big as a normal human’s and she’s always acting like she’s PMS-ing and someone took away her Midol, her diet Coke, and her twice monthly manicure. She dresses horribly, resembling a water buffalo who raided the costume racks from Martin & Lewis’s “Laugh-In” set. Add to that a whiny, Fran Drescher-ish ‘Oh my Gawwwd” at 10 minute intervals.

They say “We may be rich but we’re normal!”, but I don’t know any normal people who can just drop 3 grand at Saks & Company’s shoe department like it was a trip to Walgreens for some gum and Kodak film. They think they’re so knowledgeable about the 60’s, meaning they know what Pucci is but not Jane Fonda. Also I don’t know normal people who take a trip to Mystique Greek islands on a cruise aboard the Christina O. Yacht, but don’t know what the ‘O’ stands for. Onasis, you stupid whores.

Oh and get this: “My dad invented cargo pants and everyone stole that”, says the evil Hilfiger spawn, the smaller, horse-toothed one of the two.

Their “Pearls of wisdom”?

Try: “Clothing is like my drug” “I’m sorry, I can’t have conversations with people I don’t know”

“[Take the] subway? No fuckin’ way!”

Then there’s the commercials. FUCK! I try not to watch commercials, but it’s hard when your life sucks so bad that you are bored out of your mind–so all you can do is watch TV. I am so sick of these cellular/mobile device commercials where the selling point is that you can burp and fart back and forth with your stupid buddies. I have to change the channel.

And why does every movie that comes out now have to have a Michelle Branch or Evanesence song playing during the trailers? Do you know the words? Yes, they’re “Ahhh noyyy iinng”. And why GOD WHY did Limp Bizkit have to fuck around and mess up “Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who? UGH. It’s bad enough that nothing seems sacred nowadays, what with every modern rock band re-making shit and not having an original thought, but what’s worse is that kids who are huge fans of these idiots will think Fred Durst is brilliant enough to have come up with it himself. Don’t get me started on the Foo Fighters lame cover of Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” and Kid Rock’s sorry attempt to do Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love”

FUUUUUUCK! That is just killing me.

Then there’s the potholder–gawd–I mean oven mitt. That fucking thing has annoyed me to the end of my rope. I’m hunting down the guy who pitched that idea to Arby’s and then shooting him with a rifle.

Same day, different year..

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