#(that part is true she DID fall in love with someone *cough* MARC. but not the point!)

[thedeadthree]

shouting from the rooftops because this song is FITTING for chiara/marc and im yelling. and taylor swift did it again and made a song that fits them as well why am i crying.

[this-lioness]

Another bullshit update on life in general

Work has kept me busy, and I’ve been trying to get more done creatively and around the house, as well.

This was the first weekend in awhile I didn’t do any (or much) meal prep, since we had enough in the freezer to last us for all the dinners this week, and even a few lunches for Marc.  I made a dozen eggs, cut up and roasted almost 5 lbs of potatoes, and called it a day.

I cancelled the physical therapist, because between work, gym, housekeeping and trying to do something other than being a machine I did not have time for an additional two rounds of exercises every single day.  We were getting up at 5 AM, leaving for work at 6:30 AM, leaving work for home at 5 PM, getting home from the gym around 7, then eating for a half hour.  It was not going to happen.

We ended up cancelling the gym membership, because -- as much as we want to go -- we are just too tired and hungry after an hour-long commute to be like, “Yay, let’s do something tedious and exhausting for a half hour!”

The long term goal was to cancel the membership anyway, however.  I told Marc I want us to concentrate on finishing the sheetrock in the former “cat room” this coming weekend so that we actually use it for its intended purpose, which was exercise.  I have that barre I bought last year that I haven’t had time or room to use even once, and the treadmill and hand weights is just sitting and collecting dust.  So anyway, that’s the plan for next weekend.

We will also be fostering two cats in the next couple weeks, and trying to find them a home.  Long story short we met an artist at one of the galleries downtown, very nice guy, and his friend or nephew or I forget has recently knocked up his girlfriend and decided, “Well, we need to move and get rid of the cats I guess!”

So they’re two year-old sisters, and he wants them to stay together, which is fine.  Like Rosie, they actually look very young, like maybe only 5 months old.  They have never been to the vet in their life, so no shots, and neither of them are fixed, which means it will be on us to take care of all that before they get adopted out.  I’m sure he’s going to be a great Dad [/sarcasm].

When Marc found out that the cats needed a full vet workup, including spay, he was initially resistant due to the cost.  I said okay, if you’re not comfortable with it you’re not comfortable with it, and went upstairs to investigate our options.  The Walmart just opened up a “Vet IQ” clinic that does basic veterinary care, and we can utilize a local spay clinic for about $50 per cat, so on that end alone we’d be shelling out less than $300 (there’s always food and litter, of course).

After awhile Marc came up and was like, “I think I was a little hasty, I’m sure we can make it work.” After I told him the anticipated costs he was much more into it, so that’s good.  Hopefully we won’t have any trouble finding a home for them.

Rosie is doing well at feeding time in her crate!  It has not stopped her from being an absolute maniac spaz about food, but there is almost no growling at all while she eats now.  She goes in her crate, Marc covers it up with a towel, and she eats with seemingly less hysterical anxiety.  I’ll call it a tentative win.

Rosie, by the way, loves Bones. Bones can usually take her or leave her, although his tolerance level is much higher when she’s not acting the spaz, although you see moments of affection for her as well.  She greets him with a nice long body rub when they cross paths, and yesterday Marc caught him grooming her head.  It does my heart good.

At the risk of jinxing myself, I’ve been doing much better at bowling for the past few weeks!  I did decently at league on Friday, and when we went for our Sunday practice I had a series of something like 145, 106 and 140.  Considering I was lucky to break 100 a couple months ago I’m feeling very encouraged.

What has worked for me, honestly, is throwing out a lot of convention wisdom.  Marc has always been very patient with me, explaining game theory and approach and all that, but no matter how much I tried to put it all together it just wasn’t working.  And I was really, really trying.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was chatting with someone about Dyscalculia, and did a bit more casual reading about it.  I was reminded that it often causes issues with spatial awareness, something I can absolutely vouch for (I actually suspect it’s part of what’s caused me to have such persistent problems with perspective and anatomy over the years, although that’s a discussion for another time.)

So I started keeping that in mind when we play: I used the techniques that I knew were helpful, but in any aspect where I was supposed to do one thing, but consistently got unexpected and problematic results, I tried to go more by “feel”.

It’s hard to explain why this works, but it has so far.  Basically, I had to throw out the notion of bowling at “angles”, and became more of a straight-shooter, keeping in mind that my ball does have a tendency to hook left.  I got something like 3 or 4 strikes in one game on Friday!

Which is not to say that I’m suddenly a good bowler, because I’m not, but I’m better, which is what I wanted.  What’s annoying is when (admittedly well-meaning) people are like, “Here’s what you’re doing wrong!” and try to teach me about techniques which I already know, but which just don’t work for me.

This happened two weeks ago I think, and I’m sure the lady meant well, but she also was ignoring me when I said multiple fucking times, “I understand, but I have spatial awareness problems, that doesn’t work for me.”

Like, repeating something at me over and over is not going to make it any more true.  I hear what you’re saying, you’re just wrong.

So in other news I finished two more of the Mori Girl Cats, and that dumb little werewolf thing that was strictly for my own amusement.  (Someone was like, “That would make a great t-shirt,” and haha, I’m not fucking falling for that one again.)  I also organized the office / computer area of the Geek Room, we stashed away the last of the convention stuff, and it feels much more clean and open and neat.  A place I actually want to hang out, and not anxiously work while avoiding the pile of shit sitting behind me!

Last night I also installed Sims 3 and treated myself to a handful of expansion and “stuff” packs.  I only had enough time to create one Sim last night, but I already look forward to giving him a cold.

…*cough*...

Unrelated, but I meant to talk about something that happened last Wednesday, when I was out running my Mom around to her appointments and whatnot.

So… for anyone who didn’t follow me on Facebook or my old Tumblr, the short version is that my Mom and I have a very long and complicated history. She was not a very good mother, she is a textbook covert narcissist.  She was an alcoholic for many, many years which caused serious and life-altering problems for me as a teenager and young adult, and after she got sober she transitioned to a prescription drug addiction which further deteriorated our already tenuous and fraught relationship, and landed both her and my stepfather in financial ruin.

About a year and a half ago, to help save them from the road to homelessness, we helped them sell their old house and moved them to Bucks County to live about 10 minutes from us, in a mobile home park.  We helped them get it fixed up, we help with maintenance, running errands, etc.  It’s a very cute little house, and although it took some time I think they see that now, and that their lives are better off.

When they first moved up here my mother was still on prescription drugs, but she very quickly found that it was impossible to find a new doctor to continue prescribing her the same pharmaceutical cocktails she wanted.  And boy did she fucking try. She’s already changed doctors at least three or four times since moving here, whipping out her favorite refrain of “I don’t think this doctor knows what they’re talking about!” every time they’re like, “Yeah, you don’t need to be on a steady stream of opiates.”

Eventually the lack of drugs caught up with her, the withdrawal passed, and for the past year or so she and I have actually gotten along okay.  She is still, and always will be, a difficult person, and I worry about whether or not she’ll find a doctor to start filling prescriptions again, but until then things are… okayish.

Anyway, that’s the long back story.

Back when they were still living at their old house, Marc and I would periodically go to visit them.  My Mom was always drugged out of her gourd, so I fucking hated going, but I had to do my duty, and she made every excuse imagineable for why she couldn’t come visit us.  So once a month we’d pack up, trek over to her house, order take-out, hang out for a while, then go back home again.

Except my Mother would do this thing where, after the food arrived, she would put the plates out, and then she would continue to gather plates and reorganize the kitchen while everyone was sitting down, serving themselves and eating.  

Like, the food would be on the table, we’d all be halfway through our meals and well on our way to being done, and my Mom would still be in the kitchen sorting around in the drawers for a mystery spoon or bowl that she needed, then finding it, washing it out, drying it, realizing it was the wrong one, putting it away, etc.

Eventually she would come out while everyone else was finishing up, serve herself a tablespoon of food, eat half, and then talk about how full she was.

For a while we would be like, “Mom… everyone is eating. We have everything we need. We literally don’t need anything else. Just come in and eat,” and she would ignore us.  Eventually I just stopped caring, and let her do her thing while the rest of us ate.  The sooner we finished the sooner we could leave.

I don’t know how else to describe her behavior apart from manic.  Like, when it was time to order, if I asked her for a menu, she would bring me the menu, and for fifteen minutes after I had called to place the order she would still be rooting through the drawers looking for more / other menus.  She would get herself so worked up that sometimes while we were sitting downstairs hanging out she’d have to go up and be sick.

All this just to give you a sense of what she used to be like.

Anyway.  I’m driving her home from an appointment on Wednesday, and she’s commenting how all of us just naturally turn into their mothers as we get older, even though we don’t want to.  In that I stayed dead silent through this observation I think she recognized that I disagreed.  So then she moved on to how different some daughters are from their mothers, especially in the kitchen.

And she said to me, “Like when I cook, I have to clean as I go along, I can’t just put everything in the sink until later.  Remember when you used to come over to eat, and you’d say to me, ‘Mom, come and eat, the food is ready!’ and I’d be so busy cleaning up that I wouldn’t even realize!”

And I’m like, “....”

Because that’s not what happened.  That’s not even fucking remotely what happened.  So she has spun the reality where she is an out-of-control manic drug addict and spun it into a funny story about how she’s such a neat freak that she doesn’t realize it’s time to eat.

I was sorely tempted to correct her, but at the last second realized it wouldn’t make a difference either way.  She is never going to look back on her behavior with any kind of clarity, and trying to force her to do so would just make the day end on a sour note.  If she wants to live in delusion, that’s on her.  I can tolerate it, but I’m certainly not going to feed into it by saying something like, “Yes, that’s precisely how it happened.”

She’ll have to learn to interpret the silence on her own.

Anyway, I guess that’s it.  Greatly looking forward to getting home and having a nice night on the couch, or maybe playing Sims some more.  I may even make some tea.

I hope all of you are doing well <3