I got tired of answering message after message during Irma (which was our first hurricane as Florida residents), so I started posting #bluedotupdates on my Facebook page. Normally with a screenshot of the current conditions. Of course, hurricanes are hard to predict. They can change course in the blink of an eye. Like, for Irma, it was headed straight for Sunrise, so we decided maybe it would be smart to go north west. Well, Irma decided to go there before we could totally make our minds up. Probably a good thing that we were frozen by fear…
We’re located between Miami and West Palm. Closer to Boca than Fort Lauderdale. We are often in the Cone of Uncertainty. We are often nervous. We are often scared. The #bluedotupdates are often soothing. People know where we are and how we’re fairing. While I can get exhausted thinking about what could happen, and answering the same “Are you guys OK” day after day, I appreciate that people care.
I mean, it’s not like I have many friends… mostly acquaintances. People I want to meet up with when they’re near… then blow me off after making tentative plans. And I get it - I absolutely suck donkey balls at staying in touch with people. I hate the phone, but I would rather talk than text. Texting takes too long and I’m never sure where the conversation actually ends. Quick likes on Facebook are more my speed, but they don’t breed intimate friendships.
I’m a fucking walking disaster.
But anyhoo… that’s not the point.
The point is that I’m Facebook friends with three members of my blood family. Two that I was really close to growing up and one that I became close with recently. M & C are my aunt’s daughters and L is my godfather’s oldest.
I’ll give you one guess as to who reached out to see if I was OK.
I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of being hurt. I’m tired of letting that branch of the family tree live rent free in my head. (...And if you read the archives, I tend to say the same things about my mother.)
The sad thing is that I know therapy would probably help with bits and pieces of that, but every therapist I’ve ever seen wants to dive into the minutiae of my parents’ alcoholism, the physical and mental abuse my mother put me through… and I know that that’s probably the root of all my problems that are outside the scope of the bipolar.
But.
It’s easier to work through that shit here than it is to talk to a complete stranger. I don’t know. Despite everything, I’m still a little protective of my family. Not that they deserve it. (Well maybe my father does. He tried the hardest to do right by me… but the rest of them can go fuck themselves.) Here I can edit my word vomit. Dial back the emotions. Engage in unhealthy behaviours. *shrug*
Maybe I like constantly feeling like shit.
Who knows.
- - - - - - - - - -
In other news, and not really in order of importance:
We went to Universal last weekend for Halloween Horror Nights. The only house worth the price of admission was the Halloween (1978) house. We had express passes - which is the only way to do the event, tbh - they’re great if we want to do certain houses more than once. (We can justify the cost of those since the HHN ticket is included in our annual pass.) Since we had early access, we were able to get into Halloween before the doors opened to the crowd. And it freaked me the fuck out. (That movie is the only one to consistently scare the shit out of me no matter how many times I’ve seen it. I hear the music and my blood runs cold.) We also got lost in the house. There was one room that was a hall of mirrors and… GAH! That, of course, was the one room we couldn’t find our way out of. We used the express pass to go through it a second time (when the wait was two-ish hours) and it scared me even more the second time, despite knowing where the jump scares were.
I’m running a ridiculous amount of races between now and Wine & Dine: 5K tomorrow, two 5Ks next weekend, a 5K the weekend after that, and a half marathon the weekend after that. Then, I take the weekend off for my first trip back to UConn in years. (And I almost got a room in Storrs before remembering that the football stadium is in East Hartford… I’m close enough to the stadium to walk to the game.) Have I mentioned that I HATE running?
My Stetopher fic is a struggle. I haven’t figured out the actual plot yet, so it’s eleven chapters of backstory / exposition. I’m oddly OK with the struggle; it means the characters are more in character than most of my fan fic. I’m also loving bouncing in between the three characters thoughts. It’s a fun project, even if it makes me want to tear my hair out.
I’ve taken a break from using italki for Ukrainian lessons. I’m not feeling it right now. I just haven’t found the right teacher and it’s frustrating. I found a (online, yet a true classroom setting) class based in NYC, affiliated with a Ukrainian group that I am familiar with and trust. When I was going through everything with the class organiser, I mentioned my struggles with italki. It boiled down to: there’s a huge difference between a native speaker trying to teach a language and someone who has been trained to teach that as a second language. I looked into teaching English as a Second Language a few years ago, and opted not to because I would essentially have to relearn English. Yeah. No. It tracks. Except now, I’m in the ridiculously odd position of using the Яблуко text for a third class. And, that book has been written in to the point where I have to retype the assignments because I can’t just take a photo of the page. Plus, the paper is C2S so I can’t write in pencil. It has to be pen, and it can only be one type of pen. (Staedtler triplus fineliner, if you must know. It’s the only one that doesn’t smudge… but who the fuck prints a textbook on coated paper?!?!)
At any rate, we have that basic chapter one conversation: How are you? Fine. (Як справи? (Добре!)) What’s your name? Wendell (Як вас звати? (Вендел)) Where do you live? America (Звідки ви? (З Америки)) What’s your profession? Accountant (Яка ваша професія? (Бугалтер)) How old are you? 47 (Скільки вам років? (Сорок сім)) —and next thing I know, I’m in Beginner Two. ACK!!!! Also, it is an absolute bitch to switch between languages on the keyboard. First world problems?
Well. I’ve spent way too much quality weekend time going through those in that blog post and some others.
We’re painting the room we call the Person Cave and we needed to figure out a way to maximise the closet space. Last weekend, he painted the closet white and installed shelves. I’ve been trying to reorganise 40+ years of crap.
I suppose it goes without saying that I’ve spent most of the last two weekends crying.
But… I’ve actually thrown away a lot of memorabilia. Like my parent’s honeymoon photos, my mother’s UCONN scrapbook, their wedding album, my baby book. One of my rules was that I would only keep it if it didn’t piss me off to look at it. So. No pictures of people I didn’t know. No pictures of places I’ve never been. No pictures of people who are dead to me. I kept a bunch of photos of my parents, back when they were young and in love, but only because my father looked so happy in them. The one thing he kept saying during our last conversation was that he wished I knew the woman he married. The woman she used to be. I look at those pictures and I see a strange woman laughing with my father and smiling at him. The only reason I know who she is is because I look like her, and well… historical context. I mean, as far as I know, my father only married once. And if it’s not my mother in those photos than the people I’ve always thought of as my grandparents are… not.
It’s all a bit of a head fuck, to be honest.
Today’s unexpected memory landmine was a bunch of stuff from the UCONN Mens’ Ice Hockey coach, Coach Marshall. He was such a good guy and it showed in the post it notes stuck to every single ticket he left at the door for me, the random letters he’d send me as part of the fundraising bullshit he had to do, the letter of recommendation he wrote for me. And at some point, past me decided it would be a good idea to keep the booklet from his memorial service with all that. Fuck. I’m crying just thinking about all of it. When it came to getting a job in hockey, he was my number one cheerleader. I owe that man so much. And he’s gone.
Yeah.
So… it’s been a bit of a tough day for me.
Let’s end this on a happy note, yeah?
This may very well be my favourite lyric of any song ever (well, as of right now):
Нині не льотна погода
Сказала мені, шоби я
Літав собі голий по хаті,
Показував дулі з вікна.
На мене багато хто скаже,
Шо я тіпа з боку смішний,
А той, хто багато говорить,
По-моєму трохи дурний.
Roughly translates to: The weather is bad today. I’m walking around the house naked, showing my bits from the window. People say I look funny, but I think people who talk too much are dumb.
Seeing how it’s been fucking raining since Thursday, I thought it fitting.
UConn’s last pure white husky has crossed the rainbow bridge…
I’m a fucking mess right now.
I can’t even deny it… tear tracks are running down my face and I haven’t been able to stop the tears for days. (Other than when I need to pull my shit together for work, of course. They can’t see how broken I am.)
A dog that wasn’t mine… that I wasn’t even close to… is dead and I can’t deal with it.
I suppose, all things considered, I should have seen this coming.
I’m past exhausted.
I’m not sleeping.
I’ve barely been eating.
And, I’ve been waiting for this day.
My complete and utter breakdown.
The day the depression brings me to my knees.
Catharsis.
Why was the death of a dog such a big deal? How could something like that move me to the tears I so needed to shed?
Easy.
Despite my… complicated… relationship with my mother, she was a UConn grad, too. There was always a little bit of me that wished - that still wishes, if we’re to be honest (and when have I ever lied here?) - that she could have been there for those years. She was already dead by the time I was applying for colleges. Didn’t know that UConn was the absolute last school I wanted to go to. Because of her. Didn’t know that it was the only school I applied to. Also because of her… and that’s a story for another time. I’m already fucked up enough without revisiting that time of my life.
Standing at the practice field, staring at the Towers dorms. Dating a guy who actually lived in her fucking building. Having to walk past what was her room. She had left enough of her behind in a scrapbook that I was able to find her fucking room. And I don’t think I ever told the boyfriend that… maybe in passing, but not in enough detail.
SO. UConn. It was a place where I was able to finally define myself as something other than Helen’s daughter (even if I carried that weight around for four years). I lived through so much craziness over four years and I don’t regret a moment of it. We always wind up where we’re supposed to be, even if we don’t know it at the time.
Going to UConn was the beginning of a wild ride… again, it was a decision I will never regret and I will always be proud to be a Husky… and a hussy, because we’re Bus 4, after all. And a white Jonathan will - even after all this time - be my husky.
And the last white one is gone. With a generic husky taking his place.
My UConn is gone.
My mother’s UConn is gone.
Replaced with an imposter.
And, while you may not understand why, it hurts. Badly.
To make matters even worse, I just finished a piece of Drarry fan fic that has brought me to tears over the past two days.
Fuck, I wish I could write like that.
Seriously.
It started with Draco in New York, recreating himself, working with at-risk kids and turning his back on all things magical and Malfoy. He ends up sharing dreams with Harry, and it is like the slowest burns of slow burns. Of course, I didn’t cry when Evan killed himself. I didn’t cry at the too real emotions that Draco was going through. Nope. I bawled like a fucking baby when Harry showed up in New York. And then I cried harder when he left. And then I cried even harder when he came back. It. Was. Beautiful. I love when fics break me like that. I really do.
Oddly enough, that level of heartache spurred me on to clean up the mess I made in the Otayuri fic I’ve been working on… until that vicious editor in my head decided to speak up. Yes, editor, I gave up on the slow burn. No, that wasn’t what I wanted to do. No, there won’t be any age-inappropriate scenarios. Yes, this is all Otabek Altin’s fucking fault. Three drafts, three fucking drafts, and he’s all ‘eyes of a soldier’ and Люди могут забыть, что вы сказали. Могут забыть, что вы сделали. Но никогда не забудут, что вы заставили их почувствовать.People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. (God bless Google and Russian language blogs for giving me the ultimate apology quote…)
But the editor did what they set out to do and, well, imposter syndrome.
So, I just wasted a bunch of time rereading all seven of my published fan fics, all the comments, and just started at my statistics.
I’m never going to be a Sara’s Girl, or bixgirl1, but they all did better than I would have thought.
For me, not you, I submit the following for those days when I feel like I can no longer make the words do the thing good because englishing is hard:
if i had a ukie textbook, it’d definitely win the ‘thrown book’ award, but handouts don’t fly through the air quite as nicely
The University of Basketball does it again… whoo-hoo.
——
I’ve been working hard on the Drarry fanfic and thinking about how fucking hard it is to keep characters in character. I had the same problem with the other fandoms, too. I suppose I’ll get over this one as well.
It’s just that I have a very concrete idea of how utterly broken both men are. The things that Harry went through his entire life… I see a guy with PTSD who is terrified that the peace won’t last, that suffers from a bone crushing depression when he looks at his life in terms of the people he’s lost. I see Draco as wanting to be redeemed. He was afraid at the end, when he had to kill Dumbledore and he was unsure of the choices he’d made. He was weak. He was human. He’d transcended whatever it was that being a Malfoy meant. Whether or not JKR meant for him to be ‘read’ that way, I did. I always sympathized a little bit with Draco. (I don’t know why…I just did.)
So… anywhoo… it’s just that these are two very different paths for these characters to take and they don’t quite wind up that way in canon, do they?
*sigh*
——
Baczynsky’s - in the East Village - the Ukrainian meat market that kept my Easter baskets full of kielbasa and kobanos when I was growing up does fucking MAIL ORDER. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am by this news. I don’t go into to the City (EVER!!!) and since I lost my connection, this has been a kind of huge problem. The local Polish deli makes, well, POLISH kielbasa and kobanos and it doesn’t quite taste the same. I don’t need to worry any more and I. Am. Ecstatic.
——
Conjugating Ukrainian verbs sucks. How did I ever survive Latin and it’s six noun declensions (six each singular and plural)? Gah.
——
I have a serious hard on for this album. I mean a serious hard on. I cannot, I repeat CAN. NOT. stop listening to it. I’m catching words here and there and I try to sing along, but it’s been a struggle. A fun struggle, a very loud, very fun, struggle, but a struggle nonetheless.
I think there really needs to be some sort of program on personal music playing system thingies that keeps you from listening to the same album for weeks. This can’t be healthy, no matter how much I’m enjoying it.
In case you can’t read that: Amberly: I need this retweeted by you to show my family that being gay isn’t always something you choose. They think I’m broken. Please. @Markgatiss
Mark Gatiss: Not a choice @Amberly29519238 - a gift. Be happy and strong. x
(For those not in the know, although I have no idea how you can not know this if you’re a regular reader, Mark Gatiss (pronounced GAY-tiss, BTW) is a co-creator and writer on my beloved Sherlock (BBC). He’s also written for Doctor Who. And… he’s married. To a dude.)
This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, and I totally adore him because of it.
It almost offsets the Moffat factor. But not by too much, since he still lets Moffat write episodes of Sherlock. *sigh*
——
In a more serious note, my divorcing friend pissed me off the other day.
I’d finally had enough and snapped at them via text.
Told them that they seriously needed to figure out how to rewire themselves. This default position of wanting to give up and/or threatening suicide (it’s really one and the same, isn’t it?), is old, is tired, and is not fair to those of us that love them.
I mean, seriously, I’m starting to feel that it’s a cry for attention. At any rate, it’s fucking obnoxious.
And I know I shouldn’t feel that way, but it felt good to call them out on it.
I mean, me, of all people, saying something like that… to someone I feel is shattered beyond repair.
I’m an arsehole… I know that.
I haven’t heard from them since, and I’m (frighteningly) OK with that.
There has been too much drama, and despite my promises to tolerate it, and not walk away, I just can’t deal with it.
They wonder why they’re getting divorced…
If they could only read the texts they sent me from my point of view - or even their spouse’s - they’d see just what sort of damage they’re capable of inflicting and why we’re not willing to put up with it.
I offered to let them live with us because I felt like I was backed into a corner - suicide or a homeless shelter - and neither one is acceptable.
I shouldn’t have made the offer. Once things calmed down, it hit me hard what an amazingly terrible idea that is.
I can’t handle them from a distance… living with them has the potential to absolutely destroy me.
So now, I’m back where I started from - wanting to run as far as them as I possibly can, and needing to stay and support them as long as they make the right decision, of course.
Can’t stand by and support a dead person, can I?
——
In happier news, my boss absolutely loves me. He said as much yesterday.
I got my business cards. If that’s not a sign of permanence, I don’t know what is.
I got an official invite from the Department of Athletics to go to their monthly finance meeting. The other staff accountant didn’t, and he’s the one who is supposed to be working for them full time. I’m supposed to be working for the other building we manage, which is not affiliated with the University in any way, shape, or form.
It makes me wonder - especially since everything’s been so confused and fucked up because of the mess we were thrown into on day one - what my role actually is is. What I’m being groomed for. I have my ideas, of course, and they thrill me beyond belief.
I tell everyone who asks how much I love this job, and it’s the truth. I could not be happier. The universe certainly made up for fucking me over the past year.
I love it to the point that when BU played my employer last night. I was tempted to cheer for both teams. (I love both sets of boys - the school I was supposed to go to and the one that funds my paychecks.) Hockey East is getting more complicated…UConn, my employer, BU. Our neighbours in 114 are going to end up hating me next season. *grin*
And on that note, it’s time to look for a hack to my never ending external drive issue and get the power button on my MBP fixed.
