Thursday, October 07, 2004

26 Sad, new baby, bad papers

<>10-07-04 Mayatime: 12.19.11.12.3 10 Akbal 6 Yax

I’m so sad.

It’s selfish to be so sad. But I am sad nonetheless.

The Native American guy who worked on me a few weeks ago said all my problems stem from my sadness. He said I need to own my sadness, and feel entitled to it. He said I need to cry more.

Beth had her baby Monday. She’s a happy mommy. No, I don’t think she’ll consciously dump me and tell me to fuck off because she has a kid. But babies take over your life. All my other friends just drifted away; their only topic of conversation being babies, their only interests were baby-related, their lives revolved around The Baby. Yes, in caps. “Don’t call me, The Baby is sleeping and she’ll wake up.” “I can’t e-mail you because the computer is in The Baby’s room.” “I can’t go out because I have no one to watch The Baby.” How can anyone who’s intelligent and active allow her world to shrink to the size of a ten pound ham? I am trying to stay in contact with her. I don’t want to be frantic or grabby or needy about it. But I hate feeling this way. I guess I have to own this fear too.

Last night my car started peeing green antifreeze everywhere. By this morning it had bled out. My father agreed to drive me to work. I dropped the car off at a service station and he brought me to the office. On the way there, he was ranting about his “papers” that my mother took. He says he got a letter saying “they” were taking away his Social Security. He was yelling, almost crying, “I’m sick, I’m going to die, and they’re taking away my money!” I KNEW that wasn’t true. He said he was going to “go down there” (wherever there is!) and swear at them. I told him NOT to do that. They (whoever they are) would definitely call the cops. My dad’s pretty incoherent when he’s NOT upset. When he gets upset, forget it.

When I was getting out of the car, I forgot my bottle of water in his car. No big deal, right?

I called my mom as soon as I got in and established that they are actually giving him MORE money, not less. And yes, she took the papers to stop him from going somewhere and making a fool out of himself.

So I’m working on my database of advertisers and in comes my dad, with my water. I said, “how did you find me?” He went to EVERY business in the building until he found me, to give me my bottle of water. It didn’t occur to him to call and see if I really wanted it, or to call and ask where I was in the building. That’s why I’m so sad. My dad is such a nice guy. It’s not fair.

While he was there, I tried to talk to him about his Social Security. He insists the “papers” say that they are taking away his money. I lied (if I was a Christian, certainly I would go to hell for lying to my Alzheimer’s father) and said, “Mommy read them to me,” but he didn’t care, because he KNOWS they said “they” are taking away his money.

Then after he left, the car place called: $724.64 to fix my water pump, and while they’re in there, my timing belt (since to replace the belt requires taking out the water pump and the belt’s kind of old). So definitely we are not going to Ohio to Runic-Con. I didn’t want to spend $700 to go there, and now I’m spending that to fix my car. Is there some kind of message there?

I just want to curl up and cry and cry. I wrote a terrible scene in my novel Ridden where Tse-Nen-Ray, the main character, gets raped and beaten and she thinks, “Goddess, why do you hate me?” Tse, honey, I know just how you feel.

My friend Agrimeer the poet, who reads this when he can (hi!), wrote me a poem about an ocelot a few days ago. If he gives permission, I’ll put it here. He said in another e-mail that I should not even consider chemical mood enhancers (anti-depressants) since my sadness is absolutely understandable. He said that “any human” in my situation would be sad. That’s encouraging, I guess, to think that I’m not a just a big fat whiney cry-baby.

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