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| message board December 2008
... and thus another year ends ... not with a bang, but with a whimper. Posted at 1:32 AM
She's back, and she's as frustrating as ever. Whheeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! <Kill me now. Please.> Posted at 9:52 PM
Not that a week's break from my grandma was going to be remotely enough of a break after a full year without any amount of down time, but this past week has been anything but a vacation, between driving back and forth to Toledo, taking sick people to doctors, fixing critical problems with buildings I'm not living in, clearing ice and snow, driving on literal sheets of ice, running countless errands, arguing repeatedly with idiots at the customer service center of one of my credit card companies, and having one person or another keeping me from getting even a single night's full sleep or having a single morning where I had a chance to sleep in. Tomorrow I pick her up at Cleveland Hopkins airport, and I'm not in the least bit rested or refreshed - and I have at least three and a half more months before there's even a possibility that I'll have any kind of break at all. I'm glad to be able to help my grandma as I have been, but I'm coming more and more to hate this job and everything there is to do with it. I'd be that way with any job that I had to work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with few and insignificant breaks to give me any rest or sanity. Add in the lack of pay and the repeated frustrations I get from my family, and I'd have to say that no job could be this bad. Why I keep doing this is getting harder and harder to understand. No man can endure such misery for too long. Sometime soon I must give in to the inevitable. Posted at 10:53 PM
I got a chance to visit with Steve and the Burkhardts; I got a tasty, fattening meal; I got reminiscing and joking and sharing; I got to watch a few episodes of BIg Bang Theory for the first time; and I got Amish Friendship bread. Not bad for one evening. Posted at 11:59 PM
Less than a week ago it was -5 degrees Fahrenheit and today it reached an almost balmy 60. What the hell is up with the weather? This is an unprecedented sort of freaky. Posted at 12:16 AM
Ice skating is not recreational when you're in your car. Posted at 6:34 PM
... and there was much rejoicing.
Posted at 11:04 PM
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. I have to, because the temperature climbed to 40 F and it rained all day, melting all of the snow and ice from just about everywhere. Personally I'm quite happy to not have to mess with the snow and ice, but it seems unfair that we've had snow and ice up until Christmas and (according to forecasts) will have snow and ice after Christmas - just not on the actual day. Way to go, Mother Nature. Posted at 10:08 PM
Why is it so impossible to now see that previously ubiquitous TV show repeat, Gilligan's Island? Even with hundreds of channels it's nowhere to be found. Posted at 8:48 PM
Happy birthday, Greg! Posted at 11:16 PM
Free! FREE!!! FREEEE!!!! Posted at 8:24 PM
It's amazing that the aggravations of Christmas don't make more serial killers. Posted at 8:28 PM
Am I missing some secret rulebook? It sure seems like life is a much more complicated than it needs to be. Posted at 8:16 PM
I need a long, long vacation - or at least a good break from caring for my grandma. Or is that the same thing? Posted at 10:09 PM
Wow. Shoveling snow still sucks as much as last year. Who knew? Posted at 11:04 PM
Yes, grandma, you're insanium in the cranium. Posted at 1:02 AM
Logan's Run may have been on to something. Who really wants to live past twenty-one? After forty you look back and realize that it certainly doesn't get any better, and it often gets a significant bit worse. Who needs that? And with overpopulation and scarcity of resources and greenhouse gas emissions - it's time to cull the herd. ... and as a correlated advantage, the Republican party would all but disappear if everyone over twenty-one were terminated. Posted at 11:59 PM
Don't you hate it when you just miss doing something important because you were a few minutes off? I went to the post office and was there at 4:40 PM, thinking that I was fine since they'd be open 'til five. Of course the fact that they closed at 4:30 PM screwed that up. Just ten minutes - even fifteen would have felt less frustrating, but just being a couple minutes too late - knowing that if I'd just done things a little quicker I might have been there in time ... Ugh! So frustrating. Posted at 10:00 PM
Life is disappointing. Truly. Posted at 10:03 PM
Nothin' in mine - I'm broke - but why does that guy on TV keep askin'? Does he want to mug me? Posted at 11:40 PM
I am just exhausted. Yesterday and today have left me so tired, and I have no idea why. Ugh. So tired. Posted at 10:26 PM
An excellent post today over at Daily Kos - a primer for all of those anti-gay marriage people out there who like to claim they just want to keep marriage the way it's been cast in the Bible (for 5,000 years, so they repeatedly claim). Fine. Just make sure you pay attention to all of the required aspects.
Posted at 9:54 PM
Christmas shopping, wrapping, packaging, packing for my grandma's trip to my sister's, and shipping everything - all of these are done, and that is a massive step forward that frees me up a bit. Today's work on the Illustrator files I'm working on was fairly non-productive, but I have some ideas that may work where I couldn't get what I wanted today. I'll find out tomorrow. I'm still very exhausted and achy and unhappy and unpleasant. I think some of this is my typical response to the season, that combined with the hectic schedule of the last few weeks that's left me short of sleep, more than a bit over-exerted physically, and mentally and emotionally stressed and rushed and frustrated - all of that combined with my grandma being much more disjointed mentally during the past two weeks than ever before and requiring much more attention and care. I'm quite worn and weary, but at least one set of tasks are out of the way. Hopefully I can knock out more items soon. Posted at 10:37 PM
It's too much and not enough at the same time. If only I could sleep for days without end. I'm so exhausted. Posted at 10:45 PM
Falling ... falling ... Depression is all around me, everywhere, in everything. No warning. Powerful and debilitating. Draining. Posted at 10:25 PM
All I wanted was a relaxed day without stress , rush, or insanity. I still had all sorts of work I planned to get done - but I needed a lighter pace and less insanity. Why is that so much to ask? Posted at 3:37 AM
My grandma will be my undoing. She'll give me a heart attack, drive me insane, or turn me into a serial killer. Maybe even all three. The kind of stress I've endured today is incredibly unhealthy, and she's left me feeling weak and in physical pain. No matter how much I want to be her caregiver, I can't endure this kind of abuse - and I'm not sure why I've allowed it at all. Posted at 9:54 PM
Simon e.mailed me tonight! After years of no sign of him anywhere and no ability to find him, I had seriously worried that he had somehow died, even though he's eight years younger than me. He sounds fine and seems to be doing well for himself. I would love to speak more with him or even visit, but just knowing he is safe and sound is like a miracle. This is the best present I can ever remember. Posted at 10:22 PM
Can we have a little less suckiness? Posted at 11:13 PM
If you listen to somebody and either don't understand what they're saying or you simply aren't paying any attention to what they're telling you, don't say, "Okay," "Yeah," or "Sure." And if you do fail to understand or pay attention and then say one of those things, don't be surprised or defensive if the person you're talking with gets frustrated or upset. You should have paid attention or asked questions, and you sure as hell should not have make a reply that means you do indeed understand. Is this really so hard to get? ... fuckers ... Posted at 11:27 PM
If you've been reading my Journal for very long it may come as no shock to say that my mother is insane, but she really is. I've gone about three months now since she first told me that she was moving my grandma to live with her ... wherever they ended up living. And once they did find a new home to buy and move to, she held firm to that idea. What she didn't hold firm to - in any way or for any duration - was when she would move my grandma. First it was a few days, then sometime in a couple months, then before the end of the year, then just after the end of the year, and fairly recently by the end of March or early April (and these later time frames only came after I kept pushing for this time frame so as not to move my grandma during the winter). Now my mom, in a phone call last night, wants to delay moving my grandma to live with her indefinitely. Sometime next week she'll call me and tell me she's changed her mind again and she's coming to move her in a few days. Who knows? I've given up trying to keep track of any of this or lend any credence to any utterance. Until my mom comes and starts packing my grandma's things I don't see any point in believing anything she tells me in this regard. But just because I won't believe or plan or any specific date any more doesn't mean I will stop preparing myself to leave. There's too much uncertainty and fear and danger in not having an exit plan. Heck, I could wake up tomorrow and find my grandma dead in her bed from a stroke. Who knows? She's 94 - I really have no idea what to expect anymore. The bottom line is that something could happen to my grandma or something could happen to my mom's brain and she could plan to move my grandma away in a day. After the shock and worry and frustration I've had over the last three months I won't set myself up to go through this again. Plans need to be made - to what minimal extent I can do so - and I need to come up with options for work and shelter and debt-management and basic living needs. I need to keep thinking outside of the box and do what I can to survive. Clearly nobody else is going to help, and nice as it would be, it's unlikely I'll win the lottery any time soon. So yes, my mom's insane. She makes me want to beat my head against a wall and hide in a quiet, sheltered corner where nobody will think to look. Between my sister and my mom my family seems determined to drive me insane so I can be just like them ... but I won't go gently into that dark night, my friends. I won't. I have an insane world of darkness of my own, my depression, and it is a frightful, terrible place. But it is infinitely better than the dark pit of insanity that my family seems determined to cast me into. I will fight to keep from falling into that pit with all I can. But as much as I fight, they will surely keep trying to push me over the edge. Posted at 9:04 PM
Journal, by Paul Cales, © December 2008
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December 31, 2008
