i love both you and the german language way too much
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Freitag, April 30, 2004
last night i dreamed that i was brushing...my hair? or maybe someone else's? i'm not sure. and there was this little asian girl near us who was brushing her hair with a tiny little doll-sized brush...not like an american girl brush, but the size of something you'd have had for a barbie-sized doll only higher quality. anyway, she was brushing her own long hair with it, but only this one little piece right near her face, so i asked if she wanted me to help her, and she said yes, and then i started brushing her hair (not with my own full-sized brush, but with her miniature one) really carefully, working up from the ends and dismantling all the tangles while holding onto the hair above them--you know, so it wouldn't pull on her scalp. and i said 'tell me if i'm hurting you,' as one does when dealing with another's hair, and she said 'you're not' and i brushed it for a little longer, and it was really really well-conditioned, shiny, smooth hair like i wish i had, only black of course. and then i got to the little underneath hairs at the back of her neck, and i consciously noted that this was where it had always hurt when my mother had brushed my hair, and i made sure to be incredibly careful, and only deal with a few strands at a time (it was a wee little brush, remember), work tip to root and all that, but when i started to try to untangle those little hairs she sqealed and pulled away anyway. that's all i remember. not sure why that seems important, but i was talking to tricia about dreams the other day and i've been trying to remember my dreams more recently.
9:43 PM
Samstag, April 24, 2004
being at northstar was so nice. just being around people who weren't surprised by or afraid of my not being in school, who believed in a lot of my ideals and who had actual experience and advice for someone in my situation. it was so amazingly nice and strange to be surrounded by teenagers who weren't obsessively preoccupied with the college application process, to sit in on a class that was filled only with people who had consciously decided to be there, even just to see adults who didn't feel the need to force kids into 'appropriate language' or whatnot. it felt really really good. and real. like so much of what we do is stupid artificial crap masquerading as reality or as stuff that matters, and these kids a outside of all of that and are...just living actual real lives. and that's what i want and have been trying to get. much as i love westport and everyone in it, it does feel slightly oppressive to be back here, like i can feel the cultural insanity closing in on me and putting me back into college hysteria. until i was trying to talk to patrick, who is nearly as distanced from the college application process as i could imagine anyone being, i don't think i realized how much college still dominates my thoughts and my conversation. it disgusts me. i'm considering planning ahead of time to take an extra year before going to college, maybe even before applying to colleges. i dunno what i'd do though...americorps or something, maybe (i love how i cant even conceive of getting a job. seriously i need a job right now).
speaking of jobs the summer is looking pretty good...i think i'm gonna try to take some nifty night classes at fairfield u. and maybe volunteer or get a job during the daytime and maybe start taking cello again and work at and/or run laddie's road races (and age group track) and of course skate. i still totally don't understand how i could not be going to cty this summer. just remembered that i had a strange strange dream a few nights ago that it was the last day of cty and i had missed passionfruit and i couldnt remember the last dance and i was devastated and really confused because part of me knew that i had already done that all before, and had nomored, and couldnt be at cty, but i still was and it was very bizarre. probably an echo of missing sunrise in 01. scheize, if i had realized i'd never be going back to skidmore again...wow, i'm surprised at how painful it is, even now, to remember waking up that morning and realizing that we'd somehow slept through or turned off the alarm. wow. anyway. i'll try to get more ready for this summerness as it approaches.
2:41 AM
Dienstag, April 20, 2004
heh. so ken's away message reads: "Let me be the one you call. If you jump, I'll break your fall, lift you up, and fly away with you into the night. If you need to fall apart, I can mend a broken heart. If you need to crash, then crash and burn, you're not alone."
When do the tables turn? When do I get to hear that said to me?
this makes me laugh in a sad and a sad-for-the-world kind of a way, cuz i always hear this song and feel the nearly-opposite problem. I usually feel that I have enough people who, if not individually then at least compositely, support me like that. not quite always, but nearly. the thing thats makes me sad about this song, though, is that i feel like i'm CONSTANTLY trying to sing it to the world, to so many friends and people, and i either can't communicate it properly, or i'm too afraid that they wouldn't want me for 'the one they call,' or they in fact DON'T want me, or i just suck at life so that i'd have to change the lyrics to: "Let me be the one you call. If you jump, I'll want fervently to break your fall, lift you up, and fly away with you into the night, but have no idea how to. If you need to fall apart, I can try really really hard mend a broken heart but probably end up sitting alone worrying/suffering because i know you're suffering and there's nothing i can do about it. If you need to crash, then crash and burn, you're not alone, but you might feel alone because i can't seem to make it clear to you that i love you and will always want to do anything i can to make your life easier or happier, or because you don't consider my presence/support significant enough to prevent alone-ness."
wow. that feels like it's largely elucidated a problem i've had for a long time...when was group therapy? i think i first noticed it around then. of course, it doesn't make it clear how i could SOLVE the problem. ahh well, i oughtn't to ask too much.
i think a lot of the time when i say i love people more than they love me the problem is that i want to be on the giving (or receiving, but generally those situations are easier for me to work out...like there's a group of people i assume want to be that 'one i call' and so i just CALL one of them and they're essentially always wonderful) end of that kind of love, and i am rejected or feel rejected by them, or i fail them or feel that i've failed them.
so yeah. in case you didn't know, those altered lyrics very probably describe how i feel about you (or at least one of the ways that i feel about you), even if it would seem weird or inappropriate for me to feel that way (of course the weird/inappropriate category is pretty unlikely to be reading this, i think, but still)...lots of things i do are weird (and inappropriate? maybe...dont care right now)
i have a feeling this may have come across as really royally stupid. oh well. at least right now it feels really true, so i guess i'll have to live with its stupidity, however much it shows.
2:54 AM
after skating i went to the beach to be near the water and read some...willy faulks, as i have recently and affectionately been thinking of him, made me laugh with his INSANE sentences (and I'm not talking like the pages where he abandons all punctuation; he just uses ridiculous numbers of parentheses and colons and things to make page-long sentences. he also used parentheses-within-parentheses, at one point, which made me real happy.). I did catch one really nice bunch of words, though, so now i shall share it with you: "...there is a might-have-been which is more true than truth, from which the dreamer, waking, says not 'Did I but dream?' but rather says, indicts high heaven's very self with: 'Why did I wake since waking I shall never sleep again?'" (That was the last four lines of a fifteen-line sentence, and that a pretty reasonable one. silly willy. ) Kind of makes me think of cty, the way it feels at once realer than real life and completely separate and suspended and dream-like and UNreal. it also makes me think of a couple of random dreams i've had that shouldn't have been that wonderful in any way i could pin down, but somehow made me regret waking up more intensely than more obviously enjoyable dreams. and stuff.
princeton made me really really happy. i love people so much.
tomorrow smith and northstar and brothers, then maybe spending the night (havent talked to them much at all) and trinity and/or wesleyan on the way home then irish dancing (hornpipe! yippee!). I should definitely be asleep right now, shouldn't I?
1:19 AM
Sonntag, April 18, 2004
hung out with allison and erin tonight...always good times.
so we're sitting around watching horrendous tv and talking about the possibility of a new facet to cleavage theory (i just realized it could be a fifth 's', if you know/remember what i'm talking about :p )
al: (laughing at noticing the oddness of the conversation we're having) I think we should talk about our boobs more often.
me: (also laughing) we talk about our boobs like every time we see each other! I don't think we COULD talk about boobs more often.
al: (sighs) what would we talk about if i WEREN'T sexually frustrated?
me: (thoughful pause)...boobs
al: you guys should get guys. then we could talk about (thoughtful pause)...penises.
AAAND a discussion of penises ensues.
me: (hugging erin) grandma!
al: (also hugging erin) mommy!
erin: awww (in the middle, patting us on arm or head) i have my two babies with me!
Perhaps all friendships must reach a point when you have nothing new, interesting, or meaningful to say to each other, and all that's left is to talk about body parts of interest and create fictional geneaologies. or maybe they just reach a point where any hint of inhibition is gone and all the ridiculous stupidity you're unconsciously hiding from the world all day gets to come out and play. or maybe we're just really strange children. in any case it's hard to imagine what could make me happier than spending an evening with those two.
2:13 AM
Samstag, April 17, 2004
i was talking to dad today, trying to explain why things he was doing upset me (this is essentially the nature of all our fights, i guess), and i basically ended up saying that most of what he says to me gets filtered through my mind into 'you are unworthy/disappointing.' I dont think that's it, though. SOME things he says that he doesn't mean to mean that do mean that to me, but now i'm trying to figure out why that happens. I think it's like...i never really thought about it, but beyond loving me because theyre my parents and they wouldn't be able to help it, ive always felt that mommy really likes me, for who i am and how i am, similarly to how friends like each other, because she thinks i'm funny or cute or loving or whatever. but i dont really feel that from daddy; i feel more like he likes me for what i do, because he is proud of me and admires me and my many accomplishments. whenever i try to explain how things he says make me feel like he thinks lowly of me, he tries to reassure me that he's very proud of so many of the things that i do, that he thinks i'm a very intelligent, worthy, mature, talented, socially skilled person. I could never figure out why that would upset me even more, but i guess it's because by saying that he's reaffirming that my worth to him is based on my accomplishments, on his being proud of me, and that that makes me feel like he's demanding continued demonstrations of intelligence, maturity, and talent, that if i stop doing the things that make him proud of me or that he admires, theres nothing left of his appreciation of ME for the assorted maggienesses that define me more than any talents or accomplishments. does this make sense? like you guys dont look at me and think 'i really like maggie because she does well in math classes' or 'i want to be friends with maggie because she's really dedicated to running,' do you? i mean, maybe you're proud of me for those things, admire me for those things, or are happy for me for those things, but the actual reasons why you love me (actually maybe 'like me' is a better thing to say...i dont htink you really always need reasons to love someone) are things that are both less substantial or measurable and way more real. I guess those things are way less likely to change, too, so i feel like, if my whole life went to hell and i had, temporarily nothing left to be proud of, you could potentially still like me because i could potentially still be me in whatever ways that other people find entertaining or worthwhile.
so with my dad, i guess, i feel like i'm too much his daughter and not at all his friend, which leads to me feeling like i'm his daughter in a very mulan-ish way, responsible for bringing the family honor...and i KNOW he doesn't think that way, and that he wants my successes for my sake and not for his, but it still definitely feels like my successes are what define me in his eyes. aaand i've definitely gone on too long about this. as much as i sometimes wish my dad were my mom, i was starting to figure out arguments/emotional discussions with him today. for one thing, he never gets sad. it's kind of unsettling and sometimes infuriating, but also nice because i dont have to worry about hurting him with some poorly-formed, anger-driven, harsh comment. he also (sometimes) just doesn't mind letting me cry and talk and ask questions until i feel better as much as mommy does. i think it's probably still easier to deal with another really emotional (if way more controlled with age) person than with daddy, whose emotional states in argument seem to be calm, mild indignation, and crazed (animal) rage. fortunately he doesnt seem to go in for the rage with me. or perhaps i should say 'nowadays' instead of 'with me'...*shrug* how would i tell the difference. anyway. i wonder if any of this will make sense when i'm not real tired and headachy.
3:20 AM
Donnerstag, April 15, 2004
i cant stop thinking about mr mott. i kept wanting to bring it up in the car on the way to/from irish dancing with my mom, but i just kept not bringing it up. its so hard/weird to imagine him putting a gun to his head. was he shaking? was he crying? was he just calm and secure in what he'd finally decided to do? how could he make himself do it? how did he load the gun, lift it, pull the trigger, knowing that he was destroying himself? it's...terrifying. and now the guilt enters. should we have tried harder to appreciate him? should we not have scoffed at the beard? should i not have entirely avoided making eye contact with him since freshman year? i don't ahve a ridiculously inflated sense of my own importance (at least not in terms of mr. mott's life) but i cant help feeling like a part of one or more of the pressures that mustve been on him making his life so unbearable. was he really an alcoholic? i never believed that anyone knew that as much as they all said they did, but it might've been true, nonetheless. i...i don't know. poor mr. mott. how did nobody notice how he was suffering? i cant believe he seriously shot himself. and i hated him. not hated hated, but in the way that one 'hates' teachers. i thought he was a worthless teacher and a pretty mean, though usually seeming to try to be nice or fair, and creepy guy. i joked and complained about him and told people to avoid taking his classes at all costs, and then he killed himself. and i...mr mott, i feel so much love and pity and sorrow for you now. i'm so sorry i never felt it or even tried to feel it while you were alive.
3:52 AM
Mittwoch, April 14, 2004
oh my god he killed himself
6:17 PM
mr. mott died. i feel really guilty. not that i wished him ill or anything, i guess i just feel bad that i dont feel quite sad enough. no, that's not it. i do feel sad. for his family, for the fact that he definitely was too you and not ready/expecting it, for the general idea of his not being around or the fear of there being no more mr. mott. i mean, the fact that i could never stand him doesnt mean he wasnt a worthy person, that he didn't positively impact the lives of others. i hope he did. i guess what i don't feel is any kind of personal missing him, and thats what makes me feel bad. hmmmm. you can't like everybody, though, and sooner or later everybody has to die...this is just the first experience i've been aware of where someone i really didn't like died...like i can't say that he did meaningful work or changed the world for the better, like i have no way to eulogize him and it makes me feel sad/guilty. not that he needs some random former western humanities student to do that for him, but still...i guess i feel like i've been speaking ill of the dead for the past two years? i don't know. i hope whatever mr. mott-ness remains is well.
3:39 PM
Dienstag, April 13, 2004
so many one-mores aren't going back to cty this summer, and it makes me sad. actually, it's making me really angry right now even though i know that that's ridiculous. like the blasted ingrates should hand over their birthdays so that i or those like me could have them. argh. anyway. i got my present/package from tricia today which was SO EXCITING and i loved it and it contained a computer sheep (like a computer cow but with its own distinctive identity :p ) and funnybooks, one of which contains the 'cuz hey, free dummy' quote. AAAND of course there was also a wee little note from tricia and it just made me really really really happy. :D !!
and easter was good. We had brunch (veggie sushi!) with the lemoines which was fun. i fear our magnetic poetry may have stolen emily's innocence, but ah well. she wasn't the first to be scandalized so. 'sjust a shame the spanish set hasn't produced anything really funny. easter vigil mass lived up to itself, though it was odd sitting downstairs for it for the first time i can remember, and we could totally have gotten sprinkled but we didn't (mommy didn't notice that we wouldnt so she didn't move over) i was ridiculously disappointed for some reason and cried a little. 'sfun being me sometimes. but i love watching the incense swirling in cones in the light. and i love 'and his chariots, and charioteers'. and i love the celtic alelluia (sp?) and how the church is all darkish and then all the lights come on when they start to play it. and i love passing the flame back candle to candle. i dont understand why so few people come to the vigil...its seriously the most marvelous mass of the year. why go in the morning unless you have little kids?
and saturday i hung out with cassie, which was superturboaffen fun (and apparently her younger brother is taking deutsch! he has the anti-frau, though ): ). it had a lot of the feel of an old-school playdate, somehow. she introduced me to blackadder, which was sehr funny, and i introduced her to bubba (hee hee), and she lent me thief of time and we made smoothies and devised a scheme for backyard archaeology ans other marvelous funness. she showed me this really spiffy bag she knit and i showed her my sock and she said that someone who had gaut (sp?) could wear it (cuz it's oversized), and i thought that was so funny i told my mommy and she said i should hang onto anyone who would think/say that as a friend. i guess that sounds kind of strange but it made total sense to me, just because cassie is really awesome and kind of ctyish but mostly just cassie-ish and that was kind of an example of her cassie-ness. *sigh* i'd forgotten exactly how much i needed to miss that girl! aaaaanyway.
i feel like i have more to say, but i guess i don't.
12:36 AM
Donnerstag, April 08, 2004
ich habe eine socke gestrickt :D
4:31 PM
Dienstag, April 06, 2004
suzanne told me today that melissa (one of the other skating coaches) recently found out she has stage four colon cancer, and that it's spread to her liver and one of her ovaries. it's really really serious...she said they're doing some final tests tomorrow, which may show if it's days-are-numbered serious or just bigbigsurgery-followed-by-hellishchemotherapy-and-then-hope-for-the-best serious. it's so unbelievably awful...and i mean unbelievably in that i totally don't feel like it's true. suzanne was telling me and missy (another coach) at the same time, and none of us was reacting in what would seem to be the appropriate way after hearing that a seemingly healthy, 33-year-old, lifelong friend (in suzanne's and missy's cases, not mine, of course). it's shocking, but not even like it's so overwhelming as to cause everything to come to an abrupt stop when you hear about it, its more like it's just absolutely too...something...to be true, so you refuse to believe it and go on about your life unaffected. its strange. can't even imagine what it's like to be melissa right now. and i know that a lot of times i say 'i can't imagine' when i think i have a hint of an inkling of what something might be like, or an improbably imagined image, but now i really literally can't understand or even really contemplate what any of this must be like. i can hardly even imagine melissa looking anything but healthy. i don't know. i guess i've just to hope/pray for her...i still don't really believe it, though.
12:26 AM
Sonntag, April 04, 2004
this week has been like one enourmous flashback to middle school. maybe not quite the whole week, but a substantial portion of it. having the animals around is causing me to waver between a need to hug and draw comfort from all of them and comfort their imagined personalities, and the knowledge that they're just stuffed anials of varying rattiness, that i've been fine without them for years, and that i should just put them in a sealed bin and take them back to the attic or else throw them out. add to that some of the other random blasts from the past of this week and i feel like sixth grade maggie right now. heheh. sixth grade. mr bones. mint leaves. book talks. mrs lutz. the whale dance. mrs. evans (SHE CAN'T HEAR US). the mimi. heh.heh.heh.heh.heh. good times, in the way that they were scary as hell while they were happening but so funny in retrospect. i really think we should take a field trip to getysburg someday and go looking for mr. cohen. tee hee hee.
1:45 AM
Samstag, April 03, 2004
just purged the college files and threw away sarah lawrence, reed, davidson, pomona, colorado college, scripps, claremont mckenna, swarthmore, bryn mawr, colby, and bates.
that hurt. especially the bolded ones, as you might imagine. i made myself feel better by making a list of all the schools i was eliminating mainly because of a lab science requirement, in case i change my mind about that in the next year and want to look back at the schools i could otherwise love. i doubt it'll happen, though, and it sucks to say goodbye to some of my more dearly loved fantasies.
bright side i now only have 21 colleges; i could fit them into only two files if i wanted!! i'm proud of me. i think erin may already have whittled more successfully, but whatevs i'm working on it :).
3:21 PM
so heather has invited me to come to her seder on monday night, but it turns out that that's the night mommy and i were going to go to reconciliation at some random church because we forgot to go at st. luke when we had it this monday. so part of me says lent's already shot, easter's shot, there's no quick easy catholic way out of my current spiritual confusion and i should take the opportunity to be around other people's faith (even if heather, herself is a bit of an atheist...no worries, right?) as a starting point for pursuing some of the other 'paths' grandma sullivan is said to have been so keen on. but i bet she went to confession every lent...actually i bet she went every week, so there you go. yeah, the other part of me says i WANT lent to work, and i WANT WANT WANT to be able to feel easter joy. because, seriously, i've had some really wonderful amazing easters, and the thought of an empty, rejoicing-less one is so unbearably sad. but i don't know how to get back to that. i feel so distant from god, and even though i'm constantly telling myself i'm going to take steps to reconnect i never do anything. i say i'll meditate, i say i'll say the rosary, i say i'll wash all the dishes or make some other sacrifice to the parents, and i never do ANY of it, and i don't know why. i have to remind myself to pray at all the past few days, which is so weird...its normally just a natural, almost automatic sense of wrapping myself in god whenever i wrap myself in a fleece blanket, of thanksgiving and joy whenever i'm happy or content, whenever i notice my body or mind working the way they're supposed to, of seeking and finding support or comfort when stuff is hard or painful or frightening, of overpowering love whenever i'm with people i love or when i hear about the trouble or pain of a friend. i know i dont outwardly make a big deal of it that often...or at least i think i don't. i guess i try not to...but god is a constant and incredibly big part of my life and my self, and i'm SO not doing well with the way i've been feeling recently...it's almost like i'm praying through jello or something...like i can still feel god there when i go looking, but there's this distorting, muffling, insulating barrier that's keeping my life and my everyday maggieness seperate from from the greater godness, so i can't tap into it all the time, and so that even when i pray deliberately i'm just barely getting through and its all messed up. i dunno if i'm explaining it well but once i thought of jello i realize that that's exacty how it feels.
so i guess theoretically, catholicly speaking, the best thing for me to do would be to bring this ALL up in reconciliation and to get the healing of the Church. But there's no way i'm going to some random priest in fairfield, in the middle of a communal reconciliation service, and saying 'look i've got this problem. i'm losing god and i feel like i'm praying through jello' it'd take way too long and be way too weird, and it's just not something i'd feel like i could do. i guess i could confess something normal and and see how far the rush of (a) being done with the ordeal and (b) being absolved of all my sins, would take me. the priests DO almost always manage to say something that makes me feel...just...good. but i'm in a different state of mind now than i think i've ever been. *wails* help me! i don't know what's wrong.
wow. this feels somehow more personal and too-exposed than even writing about the water thing. be strong maggie. meep. whatevs.
12:41 AM
Freitag, April 02, 2004
Please Don't Think It's Funny
© 1968 Fred M. Rogers
Sometimes you feel like holding your pillow all night long.
Sometimes you hug your teddybear tightly,
He's old but he's still strong.
And sometimes you want to snuggle up closely with your
own mom and dad.
At night, you even need the light sometimes,
But that's not bad.
Please don't think it's funny
When you want an extra kiss.
There are lots and lots of people
Who sometimes feel like this.
Please don't think it's funny
When you want the ones you miss.
There are lots and lots of people
Who sometimes feel like this.
It's great to know you're growing up bigger every day.
But somehow things you like to remember
Are often put away.
And sometimes you wonder over and over
If you should stay inside.
When you enjoy a younger toy ...
You never need to hide.
In the long, long trip of growing,
There are stops along the way
For thoughts of all the soft things
And a look at yesterday.
For a chance to fill our feelings
With comfort and with ease,
And then tell the new tomorrow:
"You can come now when you please."
So please don't think it's funny
When you want an extra kiss.
There are lots and lots of people
Who sometimes feel like this.
Please don't think it's funny
When you want the ones you miss.
There are lots and lots of people
Who sometimes feel like this.
mr rogers knows/knew his stuff.
10:02 AM
am i different from how i used to be? like, fundamentally so? if i am, when did the change occur? was there a freshman/sophomore maggie and a new junior year maggie? or was there a freshman maggie who gradually changed/deteriorated and slowly became who i am now? or am i really inwardly the same and just dealing with some things differently? lloking at my baby book entry for freshman year was so depressing, but i couldnt tell if i was sad because of being messed up then or sad because i was happier then than i am now. of course the pictures looked happy. but like, it was of bethel invitational, i was holding a flag i had bought from some boy scout (remembering this was late september of 2001), and i had just come in tenth in the freshman race. i remember that day...god that was so much fun. now i know that i was going crazy a lot of the time that year, and that ive had wonderful amazing race days since then, but somehow every time i looked at the picture it felt like it couldnt be me...i just wanted to sob. i dont know. if i've changed, then which person is me and which is artificial/the problem. and what's the difference between then and now that's made everything so different? did i just get tired of it like i often think must've happened? was fourth quarter's chemistry strike the beginning of my academic fed-up-ness? but no, i was still carefully calculating my grade, and bringing up my english average...didn't i even sort of do that first quarter this year? no that was slightly different. less controlled. what's the difference, then? was it leaving cty? that's what happened over the summer...could that seriously have had so substantial an effect on me? or was it some positve something that happened to me over the summer that made me unwilling to play games anymore, that made me want to find reality and happiness and thingss that are worthwhile (like an all in the family category...workshoppers? anyone? that was one of my least favorite games, actually, but i was reminded of it anyway...). meep i feel less depressed now than i did a few minutes ago so i guess i'll go read some as i lay dying :p good old willy faulkner always know how to cheer me up.
by the way my room is clean and i LOVE it. here's to me actually keeping it so this time. what's seventeen years of precedent saying that i won't?
1:46 AM
Donnerstag, April 01, 2004
birthday call from priya yesterday, and erin came over while i was on the phone. made me think about our friendship as a circle of three, how we've gotten the long-distance conversations down, with erin and me passing the phone back and forth...it feels so completely natural to me, but when i think about it it seems weird that it should be un-weird. like, what would our lives be like if priya were still here, if she and erin and i had been sitting in the same room together for a quick visit and some cake on my birthday? its so hard to imagine a teenaged life with priya still within walking distance, but when i develop the concept in my mind it seems so wrong and weird that it isn't that way. then again it's hard to guess how her presence would've affected the larger goup...yeah i should stop wondering about alternate worlds. i guess it just puzzles me how we only talk on the phone and it doesnt seem to be a problem.
oh and dad is ridiculously annoying. their toilet is broken so he uses our bathroom in the middle of the night every nightand feels the need to come in and tell me to go to bed whenever he notices i'm awake. he can never give me a reason why i should go to bed at a specific time (brian's nocturnal-ness never seemed to bother him, that i noticed), he just reminds me that sleep is important and that i shouldn't forget to go to bed. *sigh* when have i ever FORGOTTEN that i needed to sleep? ach he bothers me. oh well, i just didn't say anything, didnt accept his advice or contradict him. actually, when he was leaving he said i should go to bed soon, 'if just to comfort your old mom and dad' and i said 'well, you'll be asleep so you won't know (or maybe i said won't have to worry about it? not sure)'. ah well. silly weird dad. did i ever tell anyone how he recently took this whole newfound interest in 'parenting' to a new level? just that he seems to have decided that he's now responsible not only for my academic success but also for my safety in my social life. it made me laugh because the event about which he needed to assert his right to know who/what/where/when (questions: the anti-drug...i swear i sometimes think he gets his ideas from tv public service announcements) was the john mayer concert. cuz jennifer is obviously going to lead me astray. it's not my fault (or only very slightly my fault) if he doesn't know the friends i've had since fifth grade and before. actually, it doesn't bother me if/that he doesn't know them; i know he has virtually no memory for a lot of things these days, but like, you'd think he, as the COMPLETELY UNINVOLVED parent in scoial situations would leave stuff like that up to mom, as he always has...it also bothers me that he's been so damn inconsistent...i mean if all this new involvement/control (an yes, i know it's objectively minimal, but it's a ton of involvement for our family, historically speaking) is the right thing for him to do, why didn't he do it ever befor with me, or ever with the boys (though patrick says he had some of it in his early high school years. poor oldest child.)? and if it wasn't a good idea then, why is it now? i tried to get him to admit the contradiction, to admit either that he was wrong or that he had been wrong before, and he said the reason he was now afraid i would fall into trouble in my social life was because i was no longer in school. i guess because allison and allison and erin and jenny and christina are the drug dealers, and the random kids at school aren't? it bothers me that he could know that little about...reality, and still think he's capable of saving me from the big bad he must feel lurking out in the world by asking who jennifer is. i guess it also bothers me because its so...i dunno...too late? if he wanted to affect who i was, or keep me from falling in with some undesirable crowd (every time i think this i want to laugh at the ridiculousness because its YOU GUYS i'm talking about and youre all so PERFECT and RESPONSIBLE and...and mommy knows this, and its CRAZY that he doesnt) or whatever he thinks his magical 'parenting' skills are capable of doing for me, he should have done it SO LONG ago. my morality about drinking and drugs and sex and whatever else he fears is already largely formed...the opportunities for me to become an alcoholic or to start smoking are years old, and the opportunities for me to get on a path and into a value system or group of friends that would lead me that way are years and years older. i always assumed he thought he'd done enough to influence me, considering how far away i am from all kinds of badness, but now he feels the need to keep encroaching. and to tell me to go to sleep, but he's been doing that at least since brian left. i must agree with bono's ideathat they 've never been able to decide what kind of parents they wanted to be, that they never really had a unified strategy on anything. i feel bad saying it, but im not even exactly criticizing them, cuz even if it's officially a bad idea i like the fact that i got to be self-directed for so long. its annoying that dad seems now to think that he was failing me all that time though, and that he's now going to do what sitcom dads do. and thats an incredibly bitchy and unfair thing for me to say, and i always feel awful after saying it to him, but i say it a lot because it feels so completely like that, like dad trying to be like some artificial idea of a normal parent-child relationship he holds in his mind. especially how he constantly insists i hate him or think everything he says is wrong or whatever and how it's not my fault but because i'm a teenager, wehn i DONT hat him or disagree with everything he says, and he just doesnt seem to notice the normal interactions we have (well, normal from my perspective. he seems to think of fighting as more normal). he also made some comment yesterday about me having only a year of kid-ness left, and i thought it was odd because i so seldom feel my status as a minor...what would an 18th birthday do for me other than enable me to vote for planning and zoning several motnhs later? my child-ness, it's always seemed to me, comes from being economically dependent on my parents, and that's not ending any time soon, as far as i can see. anyway. i didn't expect for this to turn into a rant about daddy. there's a dead moth on my floor and it's creeping me out. maybe i should try to incorporate paragraphs into my blog more often. nah. :p
2:09 AM
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