My dad has cancer.
He is going through chemotherapy.
It’s taking a toll on his body and naturally his psyche.
His prognosis is fine.
He is a pain in the ass, please stop asking about him
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Most of the parents in the park are mothers. That’s not anti-feminist or gender biased but a fact. A dad at the playground with his children is a minority.
There is one dad who I see frequently and I find him recognizable because he is at the park frequently and he is highly unkempt. I see him with his shaggy light brown hair in his eyes, poor posture and lanky figure and wonder what woman would want to bare his children, let alone trust him with the kids. I know it’s terrible how I judge people, but I find him so slouchy and unappealing.
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Filed under: Current Situation, MiLF | Tags: flirting, guns and roses, karaoke, touching
The other night my single girlfriend invited me to Karaoke which was more fun than I could have expected, and not just because I was not the worst singer. There were drinks and a bunch of 90s songs that I knew by heart.
Considering most people were drinking and all of the songs were classics from our childhood, people from different “parties” joined the other singers on stage. We danced, we made fools of ourselves, there was physical contact.
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Filed under: Current Situation | Tags: Cognitive behavior therapy, dead head, deadhead, grateful dead
I tried being a DeadHead but I liked the tye dyes and the pot more than the music. I was too high strung to chill out and sway to the music. I’d love bumming hits of weed off others at concerts and try my hand at dancing, wondering if everyone knew that I was an impostor.
There’s a joke, what does a Deadhead say when you take away his weed?
What is this crap I’m listening to?
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My mom always said Life is not a dress rehearsal. She said it so frequently and lived by it so fully we put it on her tombstone. Life is not a dress rehearsal.
I know some people make bucket lists, and some producers make movies called Bucket List but why do you have to wait until you are old and gray with death looming in front of you to make a “bucket list”? Why not just live your life fully? That’s what my mom did, to the point of me perceiving her as selfish at times, and that is what I intend to do.
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Labor day has come and gone without much fanfare which was more than fine. Usually the holiday was just a reminder of everybody having more fun than me but this year I did not feel like I was missing out.
My husband had the week off leading up to the long weekend and he encouraged me to treat it as a true vacation. It was bliss to really just be together as a family. Naturally, I miss my mom more than anything and the awkwardness of being in her house without her and knowing she will never come home is subsiding. I am more in love with my husband than ever and not just because he helps me cope with my dad.
I constantly struggle to be with my father. He is my dad. He did change my diapers and come to my school plays (then comment how insignificant my role was and wondered what I did at all of the rehearsals). He has a tally for all of the selfless things he has done as my father and believes that I should be indebted to him because he answered the call of duty, or doodie when I was a baby (Bad pun, sorry.)
But it’s not selfless if I am forever indebted to him. While he remembers every positive thing he has done and has virtually no memory of the negatives or gets hyper defensive when I mention them, he remembers the opposite in others. He can still cite feeling slighted when my brother over a decade ago did not spend time with him because he chose to be with his girlfriend. Now my dad will have some greater explanation on why this is, our cousin was in town and blah blah. And in my dad’s memory my brother is completely in the wrong and he, my father remains infallible. It ceases to be fun.
My dad can justify insulting and demeaning his kids. “I didn’t call you an asshole. I said you are acting like an asshole.” Regardless of his word choice, I don’t want to be around that berating.
Yes, I know I’m lucky to have a father who does love me and shows me in his convoluted way and wants to be with me, hence the struggle. I just don’t like putting myself into situations which I know bring out the worst in me. I try not to let it get to me and keep everything in perspective, but I’m a fallible human being.
Tom Petty sings that even the losers get lucky sometimes. I figure if something someone some anything is going to slip through the cracks, why not roll the dice and see if it is you? Of course, you have to weigh the consequences if what you are do not slip through but in fact are obvious.
I don’t advocate stealing because the pay off is not worth the risk. However, let’s say asking for a discount or trying to get some paper approved, well there is no harm in asking. I don’t play the lottery – a tax for people who are bad at math – but people do win. That one in a million does exist.
My sister once hypothesized that a person was better off saving his or her lottery allowance for one week and buy 54 tickets at once. But I suppose people like to have a little bit excitement each week and roll the dice to see.
Just some random thoughts. My toe is throbbing because I stubbed it.
Filed under: Current Situation
Whenever my sister and I suggested something to my mother that did not benefit my mom such as getting a bigger mattress in our room, she would say, when I die, you can change it. Given the longtime resident in her body Cancer, we would joke about her death with more ease than most.
My mom would say how much fun she thought my siblings and I would have going through her jewelry when she passed. “I want you each to go around and take turns choosing one piece at a time.” I asked my sister which art pieces she wanted and told her which ones I wanted. Then we envisioned my brother claiming the Lichtenstein, unaware that it is a knock-off. My sister and I almost put pieces of masking tape with our respective names on the back of some of the pictures so there would be no confusion down the road and let my brother think that he was part of the discussion.
Now that my mom has passed and we are in no rush to dismantle the house, I wonder if my mom cringes when I walk inside with wet feet from the pool. Does she care that my husband puts the knives and the wine glasses in the dishwasher?
As I take care of her investments, I have to remind myself that I am not doing any of it for mom, but rather for me and my kids.
Filed under: Current Situation | Tags: adding facebook friends, facebook, past life
I’ve gotten all sorts of requests for friends on Facebook that would flatter the insecure teenager I once was. Now, I wonder why people who have never spoken to me in 3-D suddenly want to befriend me in 2-D.
I’m sure some people want to befriend me because they are accumulating friends. Somehow having 100 Facebook friends is empowering for some, which may explain why I have received requests from people who I don’t know or from say my former neighbor who once complained about my barking dog. I would not know him if I passed him on the street yet he wants to know of my latest happenings. There were a few friends from high school I was touched sought me out on Facebook, or perhaps the side bar just suggested me as a friend, but nonetheless they chose to add me as a friend. Excited to hear from a blast from the past I sent a note to my newly accepted friends only to have it ignored which makes me wonder why did you add me in the first place? I wanted to de-friend her but since we had several mutual friends I didn’t.
Then there are my friends I was genuinely excited to reconnect with such as someone I had known my first year of boarding school and held a special place in my heart. She waited over a week before accepting my invitation even though I later learned she had logged on during that time and she never responded to my heartfelt letters and notes on her wall. Perhaps she was not that interested in being friends but did not oppose having another friend in her list.
My sister and I go back and forth about whether to accept certain people from our past, a friend’s mother, certain cousins, husband’s business associates, her moyel, my tenants, and so on. I guess it depends on how one wants to use the site to determine if we want to be friends. Just because one person is trying to accumulate names doesn’t mean I have to partake.
