What day is it?

I'm in a fog today. I'm not overly tired. Well, a little bit. But I am dull. Sort of like stupid, only smarter. But in a slow way.

And this is about how much sense I've been making all day.

Maybe I'll just take a warm shower and go to bed. My brain might work better tomorrow. Let's find out.

tired

have been so very tired today. Had 2 naps. One all morning, one most of the afternoon. Would be asleep now if it hadn't been for a bit of drama I had to keep tabs on here. going to sleep now, though. more later. tomorrow. sleep first.

I'm HOME!

I got home at 11:00 last night. It is good to be home.

Sproing and Diva each asked me to bring them a treat. Sproing has asked about it every time I've talked to him since I left. So being the dutiful mother I am, I got him the bag of hot fries he wanted. Diva had asked for gum, and although I couldn't find the brand she wanted, I did get the flavor in anther brand.

I woke them up this morning, surprising them with my presence. They weren't expecting me until late this afternoon. The first thing Sproing says to me? "Did you get it Mommy?" Oy. Diva at least had the decency to exclaim her delight at my arrival. Not Sproing. He was all about his bag of hot fries.

Diva asked me if I had gotten Daddy a treat. Heh heh. Yes, I did NOT tell her, I gave Daddy his treat last night. He liked it a lot. So did I. ;)

P.S. (especially for Derek) I got my shit together and left Mama's house at 1:45! Yes, less than an hour later than I wanted to leave!! I'm pretty damned impressed with myself. And that prep time included a trip to Wal-Mart for a few snacks (and the aforementioned treats) and a fill-up at the gas station (*gasp* sticker shock!!), and doing a few more things for Mama.

A day of travel

I'll be leaving Mama's house this afternoon. After lunch. This is the plan. Many times, however, I have grand plans and don't put the work into them to make them happen the way I intend. If I say I am going to leave here around 1:00, that means that I naively believe I can get packed up and on the road by 1:00. I say this because I truly believe it can happen. On the other hand, past experience leads me to suspect I'll be lucky to be out of here before 3:00. But I think it'll be closer to 1:00. We shall see.

I had planned to go to my Dad's house in Gainesville, but I'm rethinking that. I might just head up I-4 to I-95 and go on to South Carolina. I'll stop when I get tired. I haven't decided yet.

When I get where I'm going I'll post an update assuming I have internet connection.

That is all.

Another one

Rough day.

Went to my aunt and uncle's church this morning. That went well. I have visited that church occasionally since I was a teen. It's a lovely place, both architecturally and spiritually. My cousins are members there, also. Today is the first time I've been to church since Lent. No, wait, I didn't go during Lent. I went during Advent. I think I went to church once in mid-January, but that's the last time. Anyway, I went today and it was lovely. I sat next to my Aunt J and she is lovely. The whole thing was just lovely.

This afternoon I took Mama over to my cousin's house. Today is the cousin's birthday and she hosted a party. I think my aunt was going to have it at their house, but Mama can't get into their house because of the steps. My cousin's house is pretty flat and easy to access.

There were all these people there. Ugh. No, it wasn't particularly crowded. There were (hang on, I'm counting)... 11 people there. Three of them I don't know very well. Whatever. Lunch was a salad buffet, with fruit and crackers and dip in addition to lettuce and a bunch of salad toppings. I got Mama settled into a recliner then got her some fruit and crackers. After everyone else got his/her plate, I had the chance to get mine. But before I could sit down to eat Mama was ready for her salad. So I got Mama's salad. It was frustrating because she was in the den, I was in the kitchen with the food, and I wasn't sure what to get her. I tried asking, but others were talking and we couldn't understand each other very well. But I fixed her food and took it to her.

I finally got to sit down. But by then I was overwhelmed. How? By what? I'm trying to figure that out. Work with me here. Some possible causes:

• Too many people
• People I don't know
• Being too much the servant, not being served
• Making a mess

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that part. I poured myself some Coke and spilled a little drop on the counter. No biggie, but I wanted to wipe it up and needed help getting something with which to do that. Cousin's husband (host) helped me with that. I thanked him very kindly, and mentioned that I tend to be messy. When I got a refill, the soda (pop?) fizzed up on me and overflowed rather dramatically. I needed more paper towels for that. Oops. When I was getting Mama's salad I kept dropping toppings. I dropped olive slices on the floor, dropped croutons on the floor... Salad ingredients seemed to leap off the plate and onto the floor. I felt like a dumb klutz. Nobody said anything about it. No one else needs to. I fill in the criticism all by myself.

So I finally had my plate and was sitting at the table. I began to cry. As Gregory says, I leaked. I wasn't sobbing or anything, but as my eyes filled up so I couldn't see my salad clearly, I got up and went to the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the tub and cried (quietly) for a while. After a bit I washed off my face (and was faceless. Boy did that look weird!) and returned to the table. I resumed my meal and pretended everything was fine. Even if anyone had noticed and asked what the problem was, what could I say? I can't put it into words myself. Very frustrating.

As I sat on the tub I asked myself why I'm upset. I felt put-upon. I felt out of place. I felt I didn't belong, except to take care of Mama. Again, no one gave any indication of that intent. I came up with it all by myself. Troublesome thing, aren't I? And I asked myself if I had any valid reason to feel that way. I never came to any conclusion about that. I did want to come right home and write about it, though. I need this. I need to write it down, talk myself through the feelings, try to figure it out here. And I really appreciate those of you who follow along this angst-strewn path with me, offering encouragement or suggestions.

When I finished my lunch and felt it socially appropriate I went into the front living room, away from everyone else. Then my Aunt J came in to sit with me. She's a sweet lady. She loves me very much, and told me so, and said she wishes I could love myself too. I admitted to her that I'm having a bad day. We chatted a while, and I made nice. I did the things I'm supposed to do. When Cousin began to open her gifts I went into the den and sat beside Mama.

Cousin really liked the cards I picked out. (Got 2 from the store last night, one from me, one from Mama) They were both funny and appropriate. I'm glad she liked them. Anyway, I stayed with the group and pretended to be OK. I tried to join the conversation here and there, but everything I said seemed to be out of place. Not inappropriate or anything, but when adding my perspective to topics of conversation, suddenly the flow of conversation stopped. I guess I'm too unique to play that crowd.

As I cried to myself in the bathroom I had a strong desire to go away. To come back to Mama's and be alone, and to write this post. I wondered how Mama would get home. I could have asked my aunt and uncle to bring her, but I hate asking my uncle for anything. He's a pain in the ass. I also didn't want to call attention to myself. Had I left that would have made a big stir. I really didn't want that drama. I could also have gone outside to sit by myself. But it is hot here. And that, too would have been more drama than I wanted.

Did I do the right thing? When I was having so much trouble at the book club meeting Thursday, I left. I stayed around to "do" for Mama, but I left the meeting. (I blogged about that, didn't I?)(Yup) Should I have left, or was it right to pretend, to fake it, and stay?

I need someone to take care of me. This is one source of these problems. Superman takes really good care of me. Really really good. He knows my weaknesses, understands when I show the painful face. He takes over for me and tells me it'll be alright when I start to make a mess. He gets the jokes, perspectives, opinions I spew forth. I don't feel so alone when he is around. He defends and protects me, runs interference when I need my space.

I posses a lot of strength, this I know. But there is a lot of weakness, too. I'm not sure how that works, and I don't want to think about it right now. I'm good at taking care of others to some extent, and I get a lot of satisfaction from doing so. However, (and this is a big "however") it takes a lot out of me. I'm not sure how this works, either, and I'm confusing myself right now. For the past two weeks I've been doing a LOT of giving, not receiving much. I'm worn out.

I leave here tomorrow. Mama has a doctor's appointment in the morning, and I will take her there. We'll come back here and have some lunch, then I'm going to my Dad's house in Gainesville. I'll spend the night in Gainesville, and hopefully get up fairly early Tuesday and head back to South Carolina. I am looking forward to the drive home. I am looking forward to possibly meeting another blog buddy in Charleston on the way. (Yipee!)

However (another big "however") I am not really looking forward to getting home. Not totally. There are many things about going home that are really good. But home is so much work! Everyone there is so needy! Especially since I've been gone for 2 weeks everyone at home wants a chunk of me. This has not been a vacation for me. With the exception of Superman, I think everyone at home considers me to have been on vacation. I'm not on vacation. I've worked very hard. The physical work hasn't been bad at all. Not like digging ditches for 2 weeks. But the emotional drain has been great. They are going to suck me dry when I get home. So no, I'm not looking forward to going home.

I'm gonna go now. I need another good cry. I'm going to iterate laundry and cry into the dry clothes.

Making my life more difficult by degrees

It's a little thing, but sometimes those little things can cause big annoyances.
Have you noticed that Blogger has redesigned the text verification? It is now even harder to read. This pisses me off.
/rant

This information might come in handy some day

11

Don't look at me in that tone of voice! You know you want to know, too. Go ahead, click the linky link.

Because we need some levity

Mama is feeling well enough to sit at her computer for a little while. She's gotten lots of email in the last couple of weeks. She sent this to me, and I must share it with you.

This is a cigarette advertisement from long ago- maybe the 1930s? I saw this and thought of you. :)

Homophobic nightmare

I had a nightmare of homophobic spiritual abuse. I woke up tense, gasping, like I had been running.

It involved the step-brother I grew up with. I say it this way because our parents are no longer married. He now lives in Vancouver. He came out about a dozen years ago, and is married to his partner (husband, duh) there in Canada. They've been married for a while now. I can't remember exactly when the wedding was. It was not too long after he came out to the family, but they had been together for a while by then, I think. No matter…

The dream setting was a large old church building, specifically the classroom areas. It was a weekday, but there was a lot of activity in the building. People of all ages were very busy doing stuff. I was there with some friends (I have no idea who these people were) and I was waiting for my step-mother to show up. She and her girlfriend were driving in from Vancouver. To the southeast US. Non-stop. My (former) step-mother is not a lesbian, and is in her early 70s now. But in my dream she was in her mid 50s and had a lesbian partner who was 30 something.

It was a surprise to me that her son Charlie (that's her gay son's name) was coming with her. The three of them finally arrived in town in two separate cars. I was with Superman and we were all busy with something, a project that was going on. Vague. So the gays show up at the church looking for me. I wanted to drive back to Vancouver with them, and was trying to figure out how to convince Superman that this was a good idea. There was some sewing involved, too. Like I needed to go with them so I could help sew something in Vancouver. They don't have any seamstresses in Vancouver? Dreams are strange.

Well, surprisingly Superman thought it was a good idea for me to help them drive back to Canada. In either a huge camper-van or a tiny boxy yellow car. Both were available. Very strange. No matter. I was trying to find everything I needed to pack for the trip. It was all stored in various classrooms in the church building. Very disorganized, very cluttered. A lot like my life. And the lesbians got into a nasty catfight.

This being a church, there were some preachers there. One was the minister of the congregation, and one was another preacher who was working to build another church. The other guy had a lot of church stuff stored in the building, and we kept coming across all their stuff while looking for mine. A lot of it was children's craft and art projects. Cute, sentimental, but basically trash. Charlie wanted to throw it all away and I was trying to get him to leave it alone and help me look for my stuff. The lesbians were no help at all. (Sorry ladies. This is a dream, remember, and no reflection on you personally. Trust me!)

My step-mother and her girlfriend finally took off toward home in the big van. That left me and Charlie in the small yellow car. We were about to get in the car when the preachers called Charlie over. Not wanting to be rude or make waves, he went to see what they wanted. Well, they "captured" him and took him into the worship area. They made him kneel down and began to pray loudly over him and preach fire and brimstone at him. There were the two preachers and at least two other men, maybe three, who were prominent members of the church. They surrounded Charlie and were all breathing "holy" fire down on him. I could see them. I was sitting in the little yellow car (don't know what the significance of the color is, but it seemed important at the time) wondering what I could do. These guys were whipped up into a religious fervor and I was afraid to get close to them. I felt horrible for Charlie! One of the reasons he had come with his mother was to get away from home for a while because he had some emotional crap he was trying to deal with. So the poor guy was already emotionally fragile.

I was afraid if I tried to physically intervene I would be restrained and make matters worse. I was also afraid of getting the same treatment. These men knew me as a solid Christian, meaning of course that I believed as they do. Under that guise I had some "stealth" advantages. I could have possibly gone into the group, pretended to join them, and take Charlie away. But that would be rough, because they knew I was Charlie's friend. I began to try to move out of the car, and all of a sudden another one of the men of the church was right there with me, to prevent me from intervening. He started talking to me as if I were "in sin" because of my association with Charlie. He'd been put there to watch me, make sure I didn't try to interrupt. Just that part pissed me off, but then he started to molest me! He was running his hands over my arms, then my sides and hips, then trying to rub my breasts. The hypocritical asshole!!! I was livid, but too weak to make any physical attempt to escape.

At some point I made it into the room where they had Charlie. The poor guy was an emotional basket case! I felt so helpless, and guilty that I hadn't done more to protect him.

This room was not the worship sanctuary, but very large and empty of furnishings. Maybe a social hall? Whatever. I got to Charlie, took his hand, and we began to run away. There were a lot of people in the room, milling around, many with no sense of purpose. Some were for us, some were ag'in' us. Some tried to block our progress and some were chasing after us. And we were moving v-e-r-y—s-l-o-w-l-y, the way dreams are sometimes. I could see the exit but couldn't run fast enough. Charlie was right with me, also not running fast enough. Except his tears. They were running down his cheeks just fine.

Do dreams ever do this to you? You get to this point in the dream and never progress until finally you just wake up? It seemed like this attempted escape took as long as the entire rest of the dream. When I woke up I still had that negative emotional energy in my head. It felt very wrong. I felt such guilt, such remorse for not intervening to protect him.

Random firings

The brain isn't working well today. At all. Not only do I feel kinda dull (it happens sometimes) I also am losing my ability to make decisions. I hate when this happens. Usually it is a sign of encroaching insanity.

I took Mama to her book club meeting this morning. For this month they read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. I looked at the book last night, read the blurb on the flap to see what it was about. It's about a school shooting. The folks at the book club meeting said it was good, well written, etc. I decided last night that I didn't want to try to read it. That subject is pretty intense, and I'm feeling a bit fragile these days.

But I went to the meeting. I sat by the door. The group includes my aunt, and the leader of the group is an old acquaintance whose daughter I used to babysit back in the dark ages of my youth. It was nice to see some old familiar faces. But I didn't know if I could sit through the club meeting. Sure enough, about 10 minutes into it I had to leave. That's specifically why I sat beside the door. Mama hadn't given any forethought to my emotional needs concerning this topic, not that I'm blaming her. It just didn't occur to her. But when I got up and left the room it clicked with her. She was really good about it, too. After the meeting some of the others asked about me (why I'd left? I dunno) and Mama said the subject was too intense for me, as I have children in high school now and until recently drove a school bus. She didn't mention that I am crazy as a shit house rat, and I appreciate her for that. All in all the relationship with Mama in this experience was quite positive.

My point is that I'm feeling pretty crazy right now. You might recall that early last week I was experiencing some bouts of insanity. Things calmed down, I felt kinda normal over the weekend. But yesterday it got worse again. Why? I have no fucking idea.

Depression is part, if not all of it. Here's an indicator. I drove to the pharmacy this evening to get a refill on my antidepressant (ironically?) and passed a hibiscus bush. (I think it's hibiscus. That's what it looks like) I don't particularly like hibiscus flowers. I saw a pretty yellow flower. I got so incredibly sad when I saw it. It brought tears to my eyes, and not in a healthy way.

I'm driving Mama's car through this shopping village parking lot. At a stop sign I glance over at the foliage beside the roadway, seeing this hibiscus flower. An overwhelming feeling of painful sadness washes over me. WTF? Seriously, my eyes threaten to leak. And I think to myself "Java, get a grip. It's a fuckin' flower for chrissake." Ding Ding Ding! Depression! And yet I cry.

I feel restless. And I'm beginning to withdraw. I don't sit with Mama much. I sit with her and visit during meals, usually. But most of the time I'm in the kitchen or the bedroom staying away from her. She's getting lonely and bored, the poor dear. I try. I don't have anything to chit-chat about. When she talks I get restless and feel like I need to escape. She is really a very nice lady! It isn't her, it's me. I would rather keep busy doing the mundane stuff that needs to be done (laundry, watering the plants, fixing meals) than to sit and visit with her. Poor Mama.

Another insanity clue: Tonight Mama watched Wheel of Fortune. She enjoys the Jeopardy/Wheel hour. I took supper to her during Wheel of Fortune. I intended to sit with her while we ate, but when I looked at the show, heard the soundtrack, I had to leave. It was too intense. Why? They spin the wheel and it can stop anywhere! It might stop on $300 or $3000, or on the trip to Mexico (this week's Mexican decor grates on my nerves, too). But it might stop on Bankrupt! I can't handle that kind of stress! Seriously, Wheel of Fortune on the telly gave me an anxiety attack. Or would have if I'd stayed. Something ain't right.

Oh, and yesterday I saw a commercial for I don't know what, but there was a pretty family playing in the grass. A beautiful young mother, thin and smartly dressed. A father; young, strong, happy, definitely DILF material. And a young child, maybe 2 or 3 years old, cute as a bug. They were all happily playing in the grass there. There was a clutch in my heart, a sadness like dark molasses slowly flowed over my countenance. Huh? I dunno.

But enough about me. How are you? :)