Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Things I Should Say

My father called me last night. I have not called him in a long time. He is angry with me for not calling him. I find it hard to believe that he doesn’t know why we have such a strained relationship, then again, maybe I have to really lay it out for him. Last night, I could not do it. We had somewhat of a conversation but he was eager to get off the phone, which was really stupid because he called me. Anyways. He wants to buy his girlfriend a dog for Christmas. I really do not give a shit about his girlfriend, but I pushed the idea of a rescue dog and he seemed okay with that. So basically, I was only interested in the welfare of an animal. Pretty fucking pathetic, I know, but I don’t know how else to feel. I know what I have to tell him. I have to say:

“Dad, the reason I don’t call you anymore is because you drink too much. I don’t call you because you abandoned our family and left me to look after my mother and brother. You refuse to help my mother financially, even though she is on disability. You refused to help me even when I tried to tell you that by you not taking care of her, you are leaving me with a huge burden for the rest of my life, and that while this is going on, you are taking care of your girlfriend and her two children by providing for them financially, as well as leaving your pension to that family when you die. So when I am struggling financially to help my mother, possibly denying my own children certain things, they will be living it up, without a financial care in the world. I don’t call you because when I begged you not to drag my mentally ill mother in to court because she did not have a lawyer and she could not handle the stress, you would not listen to me and went ahead. I don’t call you because you always forget to call me on my birthday. I don’t call you because you left my brother without the strong, supportive, male role model he needed when he was younger. I don’t call you because you called my mother an idiot, to my face, and this filled me with so much rage that I could have killed you. You have no empathy for me or my family. You left me and you don’t care to think about it or deal with it. I have no respect for you anymore and I am shell shocked from the realization that my biological father could be so selfish and uncaring; that a parent could leave their children in such a circumstance and not care. I don’t want to spend Christmas with the family you live with because I hate them. They are not my family and they never cared about my brother or me. I hate seeing the huge house you live in, with the brand new cars in the driveway and the hundreds of presents under the enormous tree every Christmas. I am not going to be the good daughter anymore and placate you. I am the bad daughter now, and its time for me to take care of myself and the other people that need me. I expect nothing from you and I get nothing from you. If you want to do something good for me for once, stop drinking. Stop drinking and start being accountable for your actions and maybe then the guilt and realization of what an asshole you have been will hit you. Maybe then we can talk about what needs to be done. Until then, there is nothing.”

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them

I was listening to the news this morning while I was getting dressed for work and was stunned when I heard Bush’s latest statement about the war in Iraq. He is claiming that the ‘sectarian’ violence (are you as sick of these new bullshit terms they come up with as I am?) is not civil war, but rather it is part of an al-Qaida plot to use violence in order to encourage the Sunnis and the Shi’ites to war against each other. Is anyone even questioning what this guy says anymore? Are we listening to the words that are coming out of his mouth? Why is it that at EVERY press conference he stumbles clumsily past every question about the war and gives some half-witted answer to a question that was never asked in the first place. No one holds him accountable for this, no one pursues the matter further. Wasn’t it just the other day that Kissinger openly referred to the sectarian violence as a civil war? Isn’t he one of the people advising the Bush administration on Iraq? And now Bush has decided that in order to have a more successful exit strategy, it is imperative that Iran and Syria are involved in the ‘democratization’ of Iraq. Hey Bush – while you’re deciding what everyone is going to have to do and dictating what terms they have to do it on (like telling Iran to knock of the nuclear shit, or the US won’t deal with them, like they give a shit) the Ayatollah of Iran is meeting with the leaders in Iraq. Yeah, probably not to talk about how great you guys are either. What a fucking mess.

In the meantime, somewhere in Afghanistan, the Taliban has regrouped and is very quickly regaining power. Bush wants to send more NATO troops there. If I were NATO I would say “Hey, fuck you man – you’re the one that decided to put all your eggs in the Iraq basket. Why don’t you pull some of those guys out of there and start doing what you originally said you were going to do? Remember that? You know, where the heart of terrorism lies? Where the organization that blew up your shit on your home soil lives? Little place called Afghanistan. Maybe you should look into that.”

Scary times people; and it’s only going to get worse.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Scrooged

All of the family bullshit I wrote about an entry or two ago has caused me to start thinking about the holidays. This must be the time of year when everyone who doesn’t have a perfect family starts getting stomach pains.

My father called me the other day and asked me what my Christmas plans were. My husband and I have agreed with each other that Christmas is for kids and a royal pain in the ass for everyone else so we are NOT doing gifts this year. You hear that everyone??? Do not get us anything because we are not getting you anything. I am tired of walking aimlessly around the mall trying to figure out what my father in law likes besides cats and whisky. Or worrying that if I get my mother in law a house robe or some other article of clothing that the size tag will offend her. Let’s be honest sweetie, you’re fat. Oh, and joy of joys!!! Getting a present for my dad’s girlfriend. This usually involves scrounging in the housewares department of Winners or Walmart to find the cheapest most thoughtless thing I can possibly get. Now there’s the Christmas spirit! Hey look, it’s a candle holder in the shape of a turtle. It was made in Ghana and it cost me $3.99. Merry fucking Christmas, you money sucking, gold-digging whore. How about a gift for my dad? Sure, time for another bottle of rum from the LCBO because, as we all know, my father is a raging alcoholic and that pretty much sums up his hobbies. I wonder if he’ll get drunk and yell at one of his girlfriend’s relatives again this year. Oh the anticipation!

Now it’s time to hop in the car and head over to the in-laws. Ahh, I can smell the burnt Christmas cookies from blocks away; we must be getting close!


Fa la la la la.

Here we are! Oh look and they even dragged Grandma out from the home to prop her on the couch and insult everyone under her breath for the whole afternoon. Watch out now; don’t give her more than a glass of that cheap shitty French white wine you always serve or UH OH! Grandma gets really lippy! Here’s a fun activity for when you get bored waiting for the micro-waved ham dinner that tastes like someone wiped their ass with it before it’s put on the table: count how many glasses of said cheap white wine the mother in law has before 3pm. She’s a clever one. I’ll give you a tip: she hides the glass in between a bunch of Christmas cards that she displays on the side table and sips only when she thinks no one is looking.

Dinner time! Wheel Grandma to the table, pretend to eat the fecal-infused tripe that gets slopped onto your plate and count the hours until you can leave. Not until you open presents though! Amongst the other thoughtless gifts littered around the room after the orgy of greed is over are some of the things you have received: a hand-knitted pair of wool socks from Grandma that wouldn’t fit a five year old, a grab bag from the dollar store from mother in law, and a bottle of cheap shitty French red wine from father in law.

Meal finished: check
Presents opened: check
Mother in law freak-out over how one of you managed to ruin yet another Christmas: check
Time to get the fuck out of there.

One night of reprieve at your own house where you and your husband get drunk and talk about how when you have kids it will all be different and those mother fuckers can come to your house for a change if they really want to celebrate the holiday season.

Christmas day.

Dinner at dad and his girlfriend’s house. A giant house with a giant tree and thousands of glittering, sparkling gifts under it. None of these gifts are for you. For some reason your gift is brought up from the basement (still haven’t figured this one out. Guess it isn’t good enough to be put under the imposing edifice that is their holiday tree). For my brother: an ugly sweater and a pair of wool socks. For my husband: something to do with tools, and a pair of wool socks. For me: something to do with make-up and a pair of wool socks. All totally thoughtless, not to mention never very practical. What am I going to do with one of those giant make-up cases that comes with make-up already in it? You know the ones with EVERY colour except the ones that would actually go with your complexion?

Watch dad, his girlfriend and her ungrateful, spoiled brat son and selfish little twit of a daughter open their gifts. Though both in their 20’s, they still make Christmas wish lists. Pretty stupid eh? Yeah, well they get everything on the lists. Last year the “family gift” for all of them was a trip to New York for a few days to go and see a couple of Broadway shows. That and all the other myriad gifts they passed around to each other as usual.

Ding dong! Girlfriend’s idiot and most likely half-retarded inbred relatives come over and it’s time for dinner. Some old woman we are not related to yells at my 23 year old brother to eat his carrots because “they’re good fer ya”. I’m already half in the bag at this point and therefore am audibly amused by this situation. Dirty look from father. Time to shut up and eat my carrots.

Dead silence and I mean DEAD SILENCE while food is consumed. 20 people in a room and not a single one of them can make conversation. Uncomfortable. My brother and I are now both drinking heavily. Husband will be driving home.

And that pretty much sums it up. After dinner you clear the odd plate, mill around the kitchen a few times to make it look like you are cleaning up, and then you can pretty much leave.

Husband, brother and I pile in the car, light our first cigarettes of the evening, inhale deeply and prepare for a long car ride of some serious lampooning and good old fashioned family-bashing.

Repeat again next year, even after you swear you won’t. You know you will.

Monday, November 13, 2006

A Haiku for the Women in Accounting

Chattering loudly
The vapid ramblings pain me
Their behinds are large

Thursday, November 09, 2006

No Title Necessary

I’m in a funk. I guess the funk started a few days ago and was reflected in my last entry. The funk seems to be worse this morning. I have no idea why, but I decided to get in on the lottery pool here at work because the payout was worth $36 million. I never play the lottery but this time I figured what the heck. I put in for a ticket. If we won, everyone in our group would be $1.5 million richer.

On the way home last night I started thinking about what I would do with my money. The house across the street from us is for sale. It is a beautiful house and would be perfect for my mother. I decide that I will win the money and buy the house for my mother, then pay off our mortgage and put the rest in the bank to collect interest, or invest it in something.

I want to buy the house for my mother because she is currently living in a house about 30 minutes away from me that is falling apart. This is the house my brother and I grew up in. My parents separated when I was 14, about three years after the car accident that left my mother disabled, in chronic pain, and unable to work. My father moved out and stopped helping us take care of the house. There was a pool in the backyard that my brother and I did not know how to take care of; it is now a crumbling hole in the backyard. The windows are rotting out; the cold air gets in, the hot air leaks out. The house is in a bad state. My father paid child support for a few years, choosing to claim it eventually so that my mother had to pay taxes on it. He used to make me and my brother take the cheques to my mother. We would go over to have dinner at his and his girlfriend’s house. (A 2700 square foot house with a nice big backyard with a shiny, clean, happy little pool in it). It was after dinner that he would make a big production about his girlfriend not being in the room when he would hand me the cheque. When I look back on this now, I am appalled at the audacity of the situation and I get a lump in my throat that will burn there until the day I die, or until the day I am finally able to make my father feel what my mother, brother and I all felt and continue to feel.

Not such a big deal, you might say. No, not that part. My father would get angry with us when he would see the state the house was in. He would ask us why our mother did not take care of the pool, or why she was not keeping up the house. Throughout this, my mother was battling severe depression. Most days, we did not see her because she was in bed. This was a combination of the depression and of the pain. Her family did not speak to her for reasons I will not get into here other than they are a useless bunch of gits that were raised by two of the worst parents in the world (that’s right, I hated my grandparents on my mothers side and may they burn in hell) and my father’s side of the family fucked right off as soon as my parents separated (other than the obligatory holiday dinners my brother and I still had and have occasionally with them).

So we were pretty isolated, the three of us. My father was with his girlfriend and her two kids, both of them similar in age to us. The girl became my father’s new daughter. He hates the son, which is just really terrific of him. It’s so nice of him to move on to another family and find someone else to treat like shit. However, and this is a BIG however, he fucking gave these kids allowance money. Can you fucking believe that?? He had stopped paying my mother, refused to help us with the house, and he was giving these kids allowance money.

My parents have tried to divorce twice now. The second time, my father forced my mother in to court. She did not have a lawyer. I called him a week before they were to appear in court and begged him to call the whole thing off. He refused. So my mother was charged for not showing up in court. My mother, the depressed woman in pain who could barely make it out of bed to wash her fucking hair, was expected to go through all of this.

The settlement was fucked up and never fully resolved. It is now a divorce with a codicil. They are divorced, but it is not fully official until they have reached a settlement.

My father has a great pension, and he makes over $80,000 a year. He refuses to leave any money to my mother if he dies and he refuses to share his pension with her. He will only give her the house, of which he still owns half. The house he has failed to maintain, leaving it for his children to take care of. I have called him many times and asked him for help. I have told him that even if he doesn’t want to help my mother to please help me and ease my burden, both financial and emotional. He refuses.

I recently found out that he has signed his pension over to his girlfriend in the event of his death. His girlfriend with the giant house, her own pension, another house she now owns that belonged to her dead mother, and her patch of land up North.

I am stunned. I am alone. I have never in my life felt so alone. It is a combination of emotions. The first and foremost is rage (the blinding, makes your hands shake kind), the desperation I feel at the fact that I cannot make my mother better nor can I give her gobs of money to help her get through her life, the pity I feel for my little brother, the poor little 11 year old boy left to be the man of the house and given no support or relief from this by my father, the boy that is now a 23 year old man who hates his dad but doesn’t want to talk about it, more rage at the children my father now lives with, the 23 and 19 year old who still live at home and have everything paid for, who have a giant fucking Christmas tree every year with so many presents under it they don’t all fit, the rage at the girl because, at 23, she still makes “wish lists” for Christmas and her birthday and Tiffany’s jewellery is always on these lists. AND SHE GETS WHAT SHE WANTS.

I have been the good daughter for too long, and this is my fault. I have allowed my father to get away with this and still have a daughter that speaks to him. He is an alcoholic because he cannot face what he has done in his life, and his drinking is just one more thing to fuck up my life.

This is what I started thinking about last night when I was thinking about winning the lottery. I did not win, of course, as I found out this morning. And for some reason, this caused something in me to snap. I can’t explain it. This is not just hormones, or the fact that it has been raining for three fucking years here, this is every molecule of every piece of anger I have had for the last 13 years waking up. Thinking I was going to win the lottery was stupid. I just wanted something good to happen, something that would give me a break for a little while.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Time for a Rant

Hey – I’m entitled. I think I generally keep my complaining to a minimum anyway, well, sometimes. So here we go, a multi-faceted rant, covering many subjects.

The wedding. I wrote about all the bullshit my husband and I had to take care of for this event. We lent money ($5000) to the bride and groom to pay for their day, we helped organize things, and we showed up early the day of, ran around like crazy idiots and made sure that everything went smoothly for the reception. The day cost us thousands of dollars, yes, THOUSANDS. Let’s break this mofo down shall we?

Lending the broke ass couple some money: $5000
Husband’s Suit: $750
My dress/shoes/jewellery: $200.00 (I found a cheap dress at the superstore)
Shower gift: $50.00
Wedding Gift: $200.00
Hotel Room: $120.00
Taxis: $30.00
TOTAL: $6350.00

I will not make a “priceless” reference here.

You know how much our wedding cost? Like, the whole thing. Yeah, it was $2500 dollars and that includes the honeymoon. So anyways, they have finally paid us back, but you know what the funny thing is? They paid us exactly, to the dollar, what we lent them. Um hello? Do you live in a world without interest? Cause I sure as hell don’t. We took money from our line of credit to lend them. Of course, there is interest. Now, it’s not much but you would think another adult would figure this out and ask us before they wrote the cheque, if there was any additional money to be paid.

Next.

We were supposed to get a little gift at the wedding (according to the groom) which we did not get. Then, the bride and groom told my husband to pick a weekend that we could take off and they would send us to a bed and breakfast, to thank us for all of the help. Not to mention that my husband was in the wedding party and should be getting something anyway. This was a few weeks ago. We had dinner with them over the weekend and the subject never came up. So I guess this means that we aren’t going to get that either


I’m not going to go crazy on this point here, but I will say this. I am absolutely so fucking sick and tired of doing shit for family and friends and getting nothing in return. EVER. It stops now. I mean it. If I ever start wavering on this and you see an entry where I am talking about helping someone out, or organizing something for someone, turn on my computer, grab me by the back of my head and shove my face in front of this entry.

Next.

Every day someone brings their new baby in to this office and all the women gather around like a bunch of barnyard hens and cluck, cluck, cluck away at the baby and they are so goddamn loud that I cannot concentrate on my work. They literally do this for an hour. Ladies: I have work to do. It is just a baby. Get over it. Oh hey, and while you’re at it, stop pissing on the seat in the ladies room.

Next.

The woman a couple offices down from me who talks to her family on the phone ALL DAY LONG really loud. SHUTUP.

Next.

It’s been raining for weeks and my hair is a frizz ball.

Next.

Everyone in the office is sick. All the time. Stop coming in to work and bringing your germs.


Okay, I think that about sums it up for now.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Welcome to Mushville, Population: Me

Something has happened to me. I am no longer the loveable hard ass I used to be. I think it is all Charlie’s fault. I practically fall all over myself to take care of this dog. Anything he wants, my heart oozes love, and I make sure he gets it.

At 5am this morning, the little bark followed by the quiet “I think I might have to pee” whine, was, as usual, ignored by my husband and heard instantly by me. Because my husband is off this week, it means he gets up for the dog in the mornings.

I nudge him with my foot. He groans. Then the snoring starts again.

“HEY!” I hiss.

“Whaaaat?”

“Are you going to let Charlie out? I think he has to go.”

“No, he’s fine, he was probably just barking at the cat.”

Now I’m awake as the anger starts to percolate in me. My audible dissatisfaction is not lost on the husband and he gets up to let the dog out. I lie back down. After 5 minutes, I hear nothing and realize that they are both still outside. My husband finally comes back in to announce that Charlie pooped, peed and then barfed EVERYWHERE. When I ask if he is okay, the husband shrugs his shoulders, puts Charlie back in his crate and crawls back in bed. I ask again if the dog is okay, husband grumbles some expletives and then ignores me.

So, I was pretty much awake after that. I was worried about Charlie. So worried that I felt sick myself thinking about all the horrible things that could be wrong with my little baby. I spent the rest of the early morning hours with my head at the end of the bed, straining to hear the dog’s breathing.

He’s fine of course. But I’m not. I have never worried so much about another living thing in my life. God help me when I have children.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Poop

I’ve never been very fond of pooping in public; and by public I mean of course public washrooms. Actually, that’s a lie. If I am ever somewhere like a mall and nature calls, I welcome the cold and sterile anonymity of the mall bathroom. It doesn’t matter if you take a dump there because when you come out of that stall, no one knows you. Even if someone walks into the bathroom and right into your stall just after you has exited it, it doesn’t matter. Even if the person got halfway in only to come back out and give you a dirty look you would say “Yeah, that’s right, I pooped. Everybody poops you know. What are you some kind of cyborg? Don’t you poop?”

Work is a different story.

At my old job, working in Hell as Saddam Hussein’s secretary scheduling meetings for him and his VP Anne Coulter, I worked on a floor with very few people, and most of them were guys. This meant that I basically had the bathroom to myself and at 930am every morning, I would poo and feel great for the rest of the day.

At this job, because I work in a field that seems to be dominated by a lot of women (at least in this country anyway), and I work with about 100 other people in the editorial department, the bathroom is always busy. Often, I try to get in there as early in the morning as possible or during lunch so I can poop in peace. Rarely does this happen. Most of the time (and this is going to sound pathetic) I sit down on the toilet, get ready and someone walks in to the bathroom. I can’t go. So I pretend that all I was doing was going in there to pee, and leave feeling dissatisfied and a little bunged up.

Today I said fuck it.

I marched right into that bathroom stall, dropped my pants and went. Yeah there were other people in there, yeah they totally knew what I was doing but I’ll tell you what- I’m tired of being poo-impaired. I can only hope that this entry will help others who feel the same way as me and walk around the office all day trying to figure out ways to get some privacy in the bathroom.

Just let it go; it’ll be the best thing you accomplished at work all day.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Blog-Mart

I had this thought the other day about blogs, and maybe it sounds kind of paranoid (or even naïve), but, I’ve seen some really cool “mom” blogs on the net and I always enjoy reading them, but I started to wonder about them the other day. A lot of these blogs are updated on a very regular basis by women with multiple children (teh mommeh, this is not about you at all), with obviously very busy lives, yet they seem to have tons of time for things like scrap booking, updating the blog, making it fancy etc., posting family pictures with descriptions, linking to other sites. One of the things I noticed is that some of these women talk about certain things they have bought (shoes, kitchen items etc) and they link to the product’s website from their blog. I find that kind of strange.

Then I started wondering if these blogs were not by the women who we think are authoring them, but by someone in some advertising company. Maybe the advertising companies find cool blogs like these and then hijack them. I know you can have advertising on your blog and get paid for it, but I am wondering if these blogs may have been created for the sole purpose of selling products to women. I mean, these blogs are inspirational – the mothers are so perfect, the kids are perfect, they bake, they decorate, and they go on nice vacations. Why wouldn’t that appeal to us? I mean, I’m not the most conventional person, but I’m guilty of looking through Martha Stewart magazines and worrying about making a nice home for my family. I’m not the ideal consumer; I refuse to shop at places like Wal-Mart (Sprawl-Mart) and I don’t buy into the “keeping up with the Jones’ bullshit, but I read these blogs. And they’re nice. It’s like internet escapism. A perfect little Norman Rockwell world.

Am I paranoid, or is everyone else already aware of this?

I don’t have kids yet. I have a full-time job, a part-time research job that I do from home, a husband, two cats and a puppy a house to keep clean, a social life to squeeze in and I barely have time to shit. How are these women doing it?