It’s official. I spent more time trying to get the baby to sleep (2.75 hours) than I did at the meetup (2.25 hours). Something has got to change. Has anyone ever dealt with a kid who has to be rocked to sleep? How do you get them to fall asleep in their own bed? I desperately need help with this. This is not a happy place or time for me.
I don’t know if this is the worst PMS ever, or whether I’m going over the edge. For the past 2 days I’ve just been obsessing about bad times.
A couple of off-hand comments on others’ blogs yesterday about my bad birth experience, and boom, I was up until dawn reliving it, wishing I had closure, for hours. I don’t know if I will ever be mentally ready to have another child, and I’m sad about that.
Tonight, after thinking about Kenn’s entry saying his roommate’s HIV test was positive, I’ve been remembering my friend R.
He was a million contradictions in one person – gay, Jewish, Republican – and one of the nicest people I ever knew. He was diagnosed HIV+ in around 1985, and at that time it was like being handed a death sentence. 2 to 5 years of heavy suffering, no time off for good behavior. In 1986 he attempted suicide. In 1987 he had a heart attack. Still he kept on, weak, ill, but regaining a little of his sense of humor. I didn’t find out until the summer of his heart attack that he was gay or had AIDS, or why he had attempted suicide.
In 1988 I left for college. After I had moved into my dorm room, met my roommate and hallmates, and settled in, I went to the campus post office to make sure my key worked. When I opened my box, I found something there. Great, I thought, already I have junk mail on the first day of college. It wasn’t junk. It was a letter from R. that he had sent me so that I wouldn’t have an empty mailbox. In true R. form, it was in an elephant-shaped card. He was such a hardcore Republican.
I was busy, but I had no excuse. I just forgot to call or write back. Holidays at home were short, and I didn’t take time to visit him. My friends told me he looked bad, and it probably made me uncomfortable to think about seeing him so sick. By the time I finally got around to calling, he was quite ill in the hospital, and just about to move into the hospice. The conversation didn’t last long. He tried to be nice, but was too weak and in too much pain to talk.
He died in 1989, and I never did go to see him. I can’t live a long enough life to get past that guilt. There was a small group of his friends who sat with him around the clock in those last few days. Later I found out that my aunt, who is also a hardcore Republican, was one of the group. I never even realized they knew each other.
So tonight I brood on R. What will it be tomorrow? My parents, my cat, the grass in the back yard? Hopefully it will be nothing, and I can go back to living for today without moaning about yesterday.
Dear fuckstains,
I suppose you think that it’s cute, setting off firecrackers all night. You think it’s funny to set off M80s one at a time while driving slowly past the house. You think that putting a gross of black cats in a tin garbage can and lighting them is great fun.
Know what I think? I think you’re a giant waste of air. If I had my way, I’d light bottle rockets and Roman candles and aim them at you. You’re lucky my husband (for once) has the calmer head. I am letting him deal with you. It is better, at this time, if I do not do it myself.
However, if you wake up my children one more time, I will personally flay and castrate you stinking good for nothing wastes of air.
Now don’t you have something better to do, like taunt others about the way they dress, or get drunk and drive and kill a carload of people, or have a nice 4:20, or whatever it is the cool kids are doing these days?
Love,
Your Neighbor
Microsoft announced last month that it was discontinuing Internet Explorer for the Mac, saying Safari was better and that Mac users should use it instead. Ok, fine. I’ve been using Safari for the past few weeks and really enjoy some of its features, especially the tabbed browsing.
But.
Apparently neither of my banks got the memo. On one, I can’t login, and the page it sends me to to resubmit my username and password is for a different bank in a different city. On another, every time I try to enter a new payee, for each character I type I get a popup javascript window showing me the ASCII code of the character I just typed. Which means I have to do this:
A
[enter]
C
[enter]
M
[enter]
E
[enter]
tab
[enter]
1
[enter]
2
[enter]
space
[enter]
B
[enter]
u
[enter]
g
[enter]
s
[enter]
space
[enter]
L
[enter]
n
[enter]
.
[enter]
And so on ad nauseum. That particular bank has been un-Mac-friendly since they changed online banking systems over a year ago, and nowhere on their website do they have the balls to admit that their online banking only works well with Windows 98+ running IE5+. However when I called to complain about how much it sucks on my Mac, they said “Yeah, we know, you should use the site on a PC.”
OK, fine, assholes, buy me one, willya?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
I’m feeling very Mommy Dearest today. “Don’t fuck with me, fellas!” Whoops, better go put the wire hanger back.
I started writing this as a comment to one of The Hestia Chronicles recent posts but it grew so big that I didn’t want to spam her comments window:
Wow, that quote is beautiful. I’ve been reading some pro-anorexia sites lately (not because I’m anorexic, more that I have an insatiable curiousity) and they are filled with girls like that, who hate themselves so much that they cut themselves with razors and punish themselves for eating. And I think, damn but I’m glad I’m not a teenager anymore. And I think, damn but I don’t want my girls to go through that horrible self-hatred thing. And I think, damn, I used to hate myself a lot but now it’s turned into a sort of grudging like. And I think, damn but it sucks that you go through all that crap when you’re so young and don’t have the defenses and experience to know that it too shall pass.
When I was a teenager my dad went to the ice cream store and got some ice cream for my mom and me. Nobody asked him to, he just did it to be nice. He brought me some pistachio ice cream. I didn’t like pistachio ice cream. Instead of thanking him for it and quietly disposing it, I bitched at him for what seemed like hours about how he should have gotten me something different. What a little shit I was. I am so not looking forward to when the girls hit that age. I pray they won’t be as awful as I was. And I wish I had the time with my parents to let them know I became a mostly respectable and mature person who appreciates what they did for me.
The liberal vs. conservative war is so Mac vs. PC. It’s lame, it’s passe, it’s boring.
Interesting. Following a link from Cogicophony, I took the Presidential candidate selection quiz to see who my perfect candidate is. Short answer? I don’t have one. If there were a true Libertarian candidate out there, that’s who I would agree most closely with – on the par of 100% agreement. Here are my top ten:
1. Libertarian Candidate (100%)
2. Buchanan, Patrick J. – Reform/Republican (64%)
3. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT – Democrat (56%)
4. Bush, George W. – US President (53%)
5. Phillips, Howard – Constitution (53%)
6. Edwards, Senator John, NC – Democrat (52%)
7. Sharpton, Reverend Al – Democrat (46%)
8. Biden, Senator Joe, DE – Democrat (43%)
9. Feingold, Senator Russ, WI – Democrat (41%)
10. Kerry, Senator John, MA – Democrat (41%)
No wonder I hate all politicians. None of them agree with me. Which of course means that none of them are reasonable.
Addlepated in 2004!
Dear Scalia:
When a neighbor peeks in our bedroom windows, they are called perverts and peeping toms and get arrested.
When the government peeks in our bedroom windows, it’s sanctioned by law and they are congratulated for saving us from ourselves.
Know what I think? Anyone who peeks in my windows is a pervert. And if they’re traumatized for life by the sight of my big fat white naked body, that’s what they deserve.
WTF is a homosexual agenda anyway? I know lots of gay people. I guess I’m just not cool enough to be recruited.
Know what else I think? The gummint has no business making laws about abortion, gay marriage, sexual conduct between consenting adults, whether I wear a seatbelt, what food I can eat, or really much of anything else. Just because you don’t like it, Mr. Lawmaker, doesn’t mean it should be illegal. I don’t like cilantro; I think it tastes terrible. Should I lobby to outlaw it?
What is wrong with people? Oh, I’m so frustrated. Political parties suck, all of them. I don’t like them, and I think they should be made illegal, so there.
Addlepated in 2004!