Frigid

So dad's house flooded. The sprinkler main (a really really huge high pressure pipe) in the ceiling of the condo above ours exploded in the 10 degree weather we have been having, and as soon as it thawed it rained thousands of gallons of water down through the entire upstairs unit and down into ours, through ours, into the store room....

I'm told it was a waterfall. The place has to be gutted.

I'm exhausted. Dealing with all this shit, with my sisters refusal to assist in any way.

The only good thing? Because it's not our pipe, or the neighbors pipe, it belongs to the entire association so our insurance doesn't apply. Why is that good? My sister hasn't paid the homeowners insurance since dad died.

I'm sure my surprise is tangible.

****************************************

Anyway, it's fucking cold, I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I can't sleep and I'm tired of every one's bullshit. I hate Christmas, I hate people, I hate pretending. I hate getting my feelings hurt for no reason, I hate being sensitive to things. I wish shit just didn't bother me, that I really didn't care about anything.

I wish that I didn't get mad, didn't want better than what I got. Sometimes I wish I was stupid, naive, selfish. Complacent.

****************************************

I just don't know when I'm going to see things in 'the light' rather than 'the reality/grim'. I don't know if I care.


I should be happy with my station in life.

Curiosity Killed the...Well, Nothing, Really.

So I did a little intel on J's new lady. I've found some things that would make the parents explode from within, taking out whole tracts of land and town with them.

Me? I don't really care. I'm interested in whether or not she's going through a 'phase' with some of this stuff, just flirting with it, or if she's gung-ho and keeping it a secret. Either way--Don't much care, but I can't say as I can not have judgements about it.

Whatever. I'm not making any sense. Email me and I'll explain it to you.

*******************************

My shoulders are all fucked up. Not good.

*******************************

My house smells like Ben-Gay. I'm not sure why.

*******************************

I've nearly knitted a blister into my pinkie finger on my right hand. Yet I cannot stop myself--there's so much knitting to be done before Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas....I'm over it already.

Peeeeektures

Photos, anyone?




Here's me with T's brother J (our housemate)on Thanksgiving. J's version of 'small mouth' leaves a bit to be desired. (I actually have no idea what he's doing here.)



Random wedding photo, taken by my cousin. My friend and excoworker's husband (hawaiian shirt), me, and my other cousin. (not a terribly flattering shot of him.)I suppose I should mention my sister who is in there as well.



Another random wedding pic, taken by my cousin. Note that there is no food in front of me, only wine. Indeed.



Official wedding photo. I just really like this one. (Barf.)



Back to Thanksgiving. T, me, J in the back, the beautiful SIL A next to me, and second to youngest bro D down below. Also featuring a wee bit of the wreckage that was my kitchen. This is like, the third in the series of us trying to all look normal and smile together so D's lovely lady could take the picture....and this is as good as it got. (We'd been drinking. It happens.)

And...I'm over it.

Socks

I spent a few months (!!??) knitting a pair of socks for my bestest friendy. She loves them, and that's what matters--especially since she was willing to forgive getting her birthday present for Christmas.

This also means that I am now free to knit the pairs to 2 single socks I have trolling around my knitting....heap. One is for my sister (uuugh.) and one is for my ex coworker and friend J. Guess which one I started first? I hope to finish J's sock ASAP (I'm on the heel already!) and then bang out the one for my sister so I can give it to her at Christmas.

Since, you know, my aunt told me and my cousin that she was going to call my sister and invite her to the last family holiday or some shit, so I decided to play the 'dear sweet baby sister' card and tell my sister that the house was being sold and whatever, since she already knew....right?

Wrong. I totally blew it. I told her, she didn't know, and now they're GOING. So whoopdee do.

My cousin said a very interesting thing today. He said that holidays, especially holidays after kids are grown/matriarchs and patriarchs have passed on, are a time when the 'clique-y lines in the sand' are drawn. When people make choices as to who in the family they like, and want to spend time with. Gone are the obligations, gone are the needs to prove anything....mostly.

Unless, of course, you're talking about my family, where if you offer a free meal and no need to help/bring anything, the whole crowd will show up. Also any opportunity to get gossip or dirt.

My sisters hate my aunt, hate me, don't get along with our cousins. Yet they're going to waylay staying home and doing Christmas together with my niece and nephews, people they seem to enjoy, to come spend the holiday in a crowd of people that can't stand them and vice versa. Because it's FREE! Because they won't have to COOK! Because they'll be WAITED ON and can attempt to glean insider information about me, auntie, cousins, whatever, to be used against us later.

I was by no real means looking forward to this holiday, but I wasn't inwardly cringing at the idea of spending a holiday with the 3 members of my blood family that I know love me (cousins). But now...Now I'm cringing. It's going to be me, my cousins (who are going to spend part of the holiday with their father), my aunt and uncle (delightful people though they are, ha) and my SISTERS.

Fuck, I may as well load the car with a case of whiskey and head over to my mom's place.

But I agreed to go, and now everyone is expecting me, so I will go. I want to spend one last holiday at that house. I suppose this just shows how much.

Cold

We put up the Christmas tree and it promptly snowed. Do Not Want. Thanks.

And now it's cold as hell in the house, and I am going to do nothing about it, because I have a husband with a nuclear reactor in his chest. (Seriously, this man runs at about 110 degrees, I swear.)

Has everyone seen the "Where the Hell is Matt" video? Totally adorable, happy making, and I may have cried.



Watch it!

Also: Imogen Heap. This woman is amazing. Anyone know the band Frou Frou? They did the song at the end of the movie Garden State? Anyone? Well, she's the vocalist. Some rapper jackass sampled one of her songs and she is now famous-y again.

Can't embed, but 2 songs to look for are Hide and Seek (which was sampled) and Headlock. (First Train Home is also amazing.)

She edits and mixes all her own stuff. And is a highly sought after remixer person.

Go forth and youtube, my people!

Wine and Yarn and Makeup

I've been watching makeup tutorials on youtube in an attempt to 1)Be able to put makeup on in a way that no longer resembles a 14 year old and 2)Be able to put makeup on so that I will look hot and therefore feel better about myself.

So, well, there's that. It's interesting, the science of makeup. I kinda dig it.

T isn't complaining. He's used to coming home to his wife wearing a bathrobe, no makeup, hair in the weird tuft/bun thing I normally wear it in. Lately--Pants! Bra! Boobs are 'loud and proud', as I often say. Makeup, contacts, hair fixed. Granted, I'm more depressed and angry now than I have been in a really, really long time, but FAKING IT IS GETTING EASIER. Seriously. If you look pretty--No one cares if you're sad. No one cares if you're upset, angry. So long as you keep your trap shut and look like something someone wants to fuck? Life's GOOD, baby!

I've found the secret to 'passing'.

T, of course, notices. There is no 'passing' with T. Part of the reason I married him; he knows me better than I know myself.

No one else knows unless I tell them. Delightful. No longer do I need to fear going out in public in a black, bleak mood. No one will look at me and know. Know 'there's something wrong with her'. They won't get that far.

I've given no thought to my appearance for so long that it's mildly terrifying the attention you get when you are, well, pretty. When you have hair a color not often seen, and curly at that--when you have big boobs, jeans that actually fit. T and I went to lunch the other day, and when I got up to use the restroom a table full of men stared at me--Stared, like I was a walking plasma television with football on, or naked. At first I panicked, I thought something was wrong with me. Then I realized--this, this is what it's like to be pretty. Being stared at, looked at, given better service by men.

I don't think I like it. I think the only reason I'm even remotely ok with it is because I'm married, happily so. I don't think I could handle it if I was single.

I sound conceited.

**************************************

So I did go to coffee with T's arch nemesis. You remember.

It was.....depressing. He looks like shit. I can tell that he was expecting me to be fat, ugly, unhappy. Downtrodden, dissatisfied. (I am both of those things, but he doesn't need to know that shit.) He looks horrible. Is sad, unhappy with the way his life is going. His wife didn't join us. Suspect.

He stared at me when I opened the door like there was a light shining out of my chest, my throat. I hugged him, when I stepped back he looked dazed.

Conversation was mostly about food and beverage. Didn't touch on any 'real' issue. We were together for 45 minutes. How sad, how strange, to think that we were so close not all that long ago (in the grand scheme of things) and now have nothing to talk about but working in commercial kitchens. I do know that FB people often gravitate towards other FB people--it takes a special kind of person to deal in that sort of environment for any real length of time.

Mostly it was interesting, and depressing. He asked after T, looked pained when I told him how well things were going.

When I told T, after he came home from work, he said he felt bad. That he thought he should feel great, but instead felt sad--that he'd wanted to win, but not like 'that'.

**************************

So I'm not sleeping. Not by choice, of course. I've tried everything. Tonight? Alcohol. We're getting into the wine in hopes that it will shut my head up enough to go to sleep. If only I knew why I couldn't sleep--it's not like I'm mulling over some major issue, some 'beef', anything, that would keep me awake. Instead, there's nothing. Just, static, like when you turn the tv to a channel you don't normally get. My skin itches, my hair hurts, I can't sit still.

Before anyone starts in on the whole 'alcohol dependency' thing, using alcohol to mute some part of yourself that you should be processing, whatever--I know. I've heard it. I've lived it. Thanks. I was a drug addict for an extended period of time because of just those reasons, my mother is a raging alcoholic--I know the signs. I know the risks. At this point it's more about SLEEPING than getting rid of what's in my head. I don't like drinking, I don't like the feeling of being intoxicated from downers. I just want to go to sleep and wake up when I feel better.

****************************

Being alone sucks. I've touched on this often. Doesn't change the truth of the statement.

****************************

I think it's time to start listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers again.

There's Angry Knitting in My Future

So.

I'm going to sound like a selfish little shit for writing this. Please bear with me.

My aunt, (the aunt who let us use her condo in Hawaii for our honeymoon) who owns nine hundredy million houses and has more money than all of us reading combined, somehow managed to obtain my grandmother's house when she died. (It's a long, complicated story where she fucked over the majority of the family. The end.)

This house has essentially sat empty since she took ownership. No one was allowed to visit, to use it, while she was away. (When my dad was first diagnosed with kidney failure, his dialysis clinic was literally 5 minutes from this house. Also, about 2+hours from HIS house. He asked his sister if he could stay there while he was waiting to be transferred to another, closer clinic, rather than commuting 5 hours a day 3 days a week and! She said NO.)

Anyway, I haven't had access or opportunity to go to this house more than twice in the 9 years since my grandmother passed away. I think about it often--it is a major part of my childhood memory, every holiday was spent there, every time I went to visit my grandmother, growing up, playing the piano, on and on and on. I recently was talking to T about how I wanted to talk to my aunt about our going over to see the house because it is such a huge part of my family's history.

Cut to this evening, when I spoke with my cousin. He asked me if he would see me at Christmas, and I said, I dunno, are you coming over here?

He then informed me that my aunt is SELLING my grandmother's house, and to "Celebrate", is having one last family holiday on site. When I said that I hadn't been invited to this, my cousin essentially hung up on me to call his mother.

My aunt promptly called me, invited me, told me how much she would love for me and T to come, blah blah blah.

I'm compelled to go. T can't go--he's working.

I cried. I am crying. It's so stupid, it's just a house. But I can't wrap my mind around my aunts thinking--she knows how important that house is to her kids! To her family--she doesn't care. She owns no less than 5 OTHER houses--this is the one she wants to sell.

So I'm going. And I'm going to do my damndest to be kind and happy and not scratch her eyes out. And T is staying here.

So much for our first Christmas as newlyweds.