Regina Noctis

I just had to make my own gossip magazine cover with headlines about selected friends.

The rest of you should be glad that it only has room for three headlines. ;)

A bit of music. Inspired originally by a line from The Fifth Element. A tribute to a movie I like, and the only Gary Oldman character that doesn’t annoy me.

I’m hoping he won’t annoy me in the third Harry Potter movie, which I have yet to see. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

Here’s the song, Mr. Zorg, in either Windows Media Player audio or MP3 format. The Media Player version should stream as long as the appropriate player is installed, and is set to a low bitrate to work with a 56k modem. The mp3 is better quality, but won’t work so well with a modem, and doesn’t automatically stream. If you’re interested, take your pick.

Someone needs to pry me away from the computer. Really. I’ve gotten far too into surfing around now that I can without anyone hovering over my shoulder. I’m up later than I should be, seeing as how I have to get up in the morning to take my next dose of antibiotic.

One pill every eight hours is a pain when you don’t run on a standard 24-hour day. It doesn’t work for me to take my 2am pill and then go immediately to sleep so I can be rested when the alarm goes off for the next pill. Especially since I have to eat something when I take the pills. It’s not enough to induce food coma, which would help me sleep. It’s just enough to wake me up if I’m starting to wind down. And when the 10am pill rolls around, I don’t want to eat anything. I’m never hungry when I wake up. It takes hours for me to reach the point where I can think about eating.

*grumble*

I hope you all enjoyed your break from my tendency to post multiple times a day most days. It is now at an end. If I’m going to ramble too much for your taste, or you’re already too overloaded with a bazillion friends to read, then now’s the time to opt out. Either filter me or drop me, because you all should know by now that I do babble a lot here. I have managed to overwhelm people in the past. I’m sure that I’ll do it again.

That’s right, I now have internet connectivity on my own computer, rather than having to steal my mother’s when she’s at the grocery store.

On top of that, I managed to prove to her that sharing a cable modem is cheaper than both of us with separate phone lines and dial-up services. And that was even if I took the cheapest dial-up I could find. I’m glad I was able to find a logical reason to continue being “spoiled” by a faster connection than I’d get using my modem.

Now all we need is for the WiFi equipment to get here, and all computers in the house will have access to the cable modem.

Of course, that will also get around the issue I was having with sending the possible theme songs I’d come up with for Eric in the Elevator. I was having technical issues with getting them from my machine to the only machine with connectivity. Even if none of them feel appropriate for the theme song, hopefully our intrepid host will find some use for them. And if he doesn’t, that’s all good too. I had lots of fun trying to come up with some things that fit the time requirement and sounded fairly different from each other.

It feels so good to be able to ramble without worrying whether anyone is looking over my shoulder or getting impatient with the amount of time I’m hogging the computer.

Yay!

I just love these. *covet covet covet*

I think my favorites are Aunt Sarah, Grandpa Esbat, and Granny Hazel.

Yes, I probably would hang them in my house year-round, and not just at the appropriate season.

What do you expect from someone who spent most of her life wishing that she’d been a part of the Addams Family, and who had decided at about the age of six that she wanted to grow up to be Morticia Addams?

And my mother wonders where I “suddenly” got the impulse that led to me being involved in the Deathrock scene, and, later, Goths. I’ve had those tendencies since sometime in the 70’s.

Of course, while I’m coveting the impossible, I might as well covet this too. In black brocade, with either black or silver chiffon.

Nearly two weeks ago now, I woke up to discover that my left eye was almost entirely swollen shut, and the right one was swollen a little along the inner corner. I assumed that it was an allergy, since one of the symptoms of bad allergy attacks for me has always been at least one eye swelling. My usual allergy medication always knocks it back down to normal in a couple hours, so I took some, and didn’t worry about it.

Three hours later, my eyes were still swollen, and had begun to itch like mad, and to sting. I got worried about an eye infection, and set up an emergency appointment with my optometrist. Turned out that it was an allergic reaction and not an infection. It was just such an extreme allergic reaction that my normal allergy medication wasn’t able to handle it. I was given a prescription for strong allergy eyedrops, and told to put icepacks on my eyes repeatedly throughout the day to reduce the swelling.

That worked for a few days, but two days before my follow-up appointment to see how this was working, my left eye suddenly swelled almost shut. No itching or stinging this time, and the right eye was fine. But icepacks and prescription eyedrops were doing me no good.

My left eye was still swollen by the time my appointment rolled around, and the eyelid was starting to become sore to the touch. The optometrist had no idea what was causing this, and said he could put me on a stronger medication, but was chicken to do so. (His words, not mine, too. I was amused by a doctor calling himself a chicken. Aren’t they supposed to be oh-so-superior?) I’d had some unusually high pressure in my eyes a few years ago. It never quite developed into glaucoma, and eventually went away. But my pressure is still at the high end of normal, and he didn’t want to risk it without an opthamologist looking at me first.

They tried to set up an emergency appointment for me with the local doctor they usually work with. He was on vacation for three and a half weeks. So they tried the one in Bakersfield. He was booked solid for the next three days, and then he was leaving for a month-long vacation. They managed to get me an emergency appointment with him anyway, as long as I went there directly from the optometrist’s office that day. With my left eye swollen, I sure as hell didn’t want to spend thirty minutes guessing at distances between cars while on a highway, and then have to do the same in order to get home. I convinced Mom to give me a lift.

I wound up sitting there until all his other patients were gone. He took me last, just before going home. The time he spent on me? About four minutes. Shone light in my eyes, checked eye pressure, poked gently with a fingertip at my swollen eyelid. He then told me that the swelling from the allergy had been slightly blocking blood flow in my eyelid, and that I had the bare beginnings of an infection inside the eyelid that would turn into a sty. That’s all this latest problem was. So I’m on penicillin and hot compresses three times a day.

But he also said that my eyes are extremely prominent, which is a sign of thyroid disease. So now I have to go to a GP and get my thyroid tested. All of this without insurance.

I’ve noticed that when I have insurance, I stay relatively fit and don’t very often need to go to a doctor. In the five years before I lost my job, I had to go to a doctor once. I did have to go to a dentist a lot, but that was to repair the damage that had happened during the time that I didn’t have insurance and couldn’t go to a dentist.

Last time I was uninsured, it was broken teeth, almost-glaucoma, and gall bladder surgery. This time, it’s eye problems and tests for thyroid disease.

I swear, I’m like a household appliance. The moment that the warranty expires, I break down.

…but this is my Essah.

While I was in NJ for the wedding, I introduced Lester to LJ. He’s got one now. I figured that would want to know, and maybe some of the other people who met him when he came out to visit me in the Bay Area.

So, welcome to LJ. Yay!

I just had to laugh at this.

What Is Your Best Sexual Skill?
Name:
Age:
Sex:	MaleFemale
Sexuality:	StraightGayBisexual
Flirting Skill Level – 23%
Kissing Skill Level – 28%
Cudding Skill Level – 94%
Sex Skill Level – 89%
Why They Love You	You are wet and wild.
Why They Hate You	You are too sexy.
This fun quiz by lady_wintermoon – Taken 3390 Times.

New – Kwiz.Biz Astrology and Horoscopes

Too funny. Way too funny. If that’s why they hate me, they’re on crack.

Of course, now I’ve got the appropriate song stuck in my head.

I wasn’t gonna, but what the hell. Comment counter, away.

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Total Commenters: 91
Total Comments: 2143
Report generated 6/16/2004 12:45:54 PM by ’s LJ Comment Stats Wizard 1.1

Apparently, what’s wrong with my eyes is not actually an infection. In spite of all my reasons to think otherwise, it’s actually an immensely bad allergic reaction. It’s too much for my normal allergy medication to handle, so the doctor gave me some antihistimine eyedrops to work directly on the spot where the allergy hit me. And I have to put coldpacks on my eyes every hour. I have another appointment in a week, since he’s not sure that this allergic reaction will be cleared up by then and he wants to check. It’s that extreme a reaction.

Meantime, the eyedrops worked wonders. My eyes (the left one in particular) have been itching fit to drive me around the bend since I got woken up to this thing around midnight thirty. I have fought very hard not to rub at my eyes, in spite of the fact that the itch was driving me out of my mind. One drop of the eyedrops when I finally got them about an hour and a half ago, and the itch is nearly gone. It’s still vaguely there, but entirely ignorable, and it should improve quickly as I do my four-times-a-day eyedrop routine.

Now all I am is tired. As soon as dinner is out of the way, I’m a-gonna fall over for several hours. If I’m lucky, I might even make it to my bed before doing so.

I do have to try and make it to dinner… and not be surly while I’m doing it. Aunt Demon Dog is visiting here in Hellano. Much as I’d like to give her back a dose of what she gives to everyone else, I’m trying to honor my mother’s wishes that I treat her as I would any other guest. That’s hard enough when I’ve gotten plenty of sleep. But it won’t be that much longer now.

I must say one good thing about having her show up on our doorstep in spite of being told no, don’t come, this is not a good time. Her demands on my mother’s time and my grandmother’s time have given me a rare opportunity to spend quite a chunk of time online, catching up on email and journals, and even rambling more in the style I was once accustomed to here. It’s also been a necessary distraction to keep me from clawing my eyes out.

Of course, there are a few people who probably would have been happier if it hadn’t happened right when I was also short on sleep. More time to spend online means more opportunity for sleep-depped smartassery to be perpetrated. I’ve actually been remarkably restrained about it. Usually, every restraint is right out the window on days like this, and every comment is likely to be said and/or typed. I’ve managed to not do so in response to a number of posts. And only one of those was truly difficult to prevent. The rest I grumbled about for a bit, and then went on with life. So everyone who didn’t get some species of Christophine smartassery directed at them should probably be relieved. The worst of the lot got kept back this time. And believe me, there wasn’t a single post on my friends page in the range that I read through that didn’t inspire something.

Of course, there’s one of the other problems with sleep deprivation. I can’t for the life of me remember what most of those things were now, and several of them I thought were damn good. And might even have still thought they were damn good once I’d gotten some sleep.

Since I woke up at around midnight, not entirely slept out, thanks to the insane itching in my eye, I am now hitting that crash-and-burn feeling of coming down off of sleep disorders, even though it wasn’t sleep disorders that put me here this time.

One of the downsides of this is that the smartass tendencies are greatly strengthened, while the very few filters and inhibitions that might keep me from saying whatever pops into my head are greatly weakened. Sometimes almost to the point of disappearing altogether.

So, when reading my friends page, and discovering that one friend in particular has announced that he’s the embodiment of all things bright and beautiful, it suddenly becomes very difficult to keep my fingers away from the keyboard long enough to avoid the comment that is begging to be said.

Must not make comment about sunlight, bald spot, and the embodiment of all things bright… must not must not must not…

Aaargh.

, you wanna say it for me instead? You can even take credit for it. :p

I actually got back home Sunday evening, but was absolutely exhausted. I slept Sunday night, all day Monday, and most of Monday night. I’d probably have slept until this morning, except that my left eye decided to take this opportunity to act up. It began as redness and nonstop itchiness, and is now swollen and itchy, having dumped the color somewhere along the way. I figured at first that it was an allergy. I have attacks often enough that swell at least one eye, and sometimes both. But the nonstop watering and the stinging were unusual. Well, the lack of response to my allergy medication proves it to me… I have an eye infection. Wheeee.

But, aside from the one minor thing that, fortunately, waited until after the trip, it’s been a good few days. It was great seeing Lester again. It’s been far too long. And, as weird as it sounds, being in New Jersey was like coming home. Before I moved there, I never thought that I’d say that. None of the other places I’ve lived outside of California ever became home. But somehow, NJ did.

The first night, I hung out with Essah and his soon-to-be wife came over as well. We worked on wedding favors together while we talked. I have to say that Lester fell for a really wonderful woman. I enjoyed every moment I got to spend talking with her. That’s a rarity. I often dislike the significant others that my friends acquire. Not out of jealousy, though I’ve been accused of it. Usually because the SOs in question are immature to the extreme and lack in most, if not all, the social skills. I’m not fond of children, no matter how old they are chronologically. And it’s not true every time. I’ve become friends with some of the SOs of my friends. It’s just rare.

Well, Barbara is certainly one of those rarities. It was one of those connections that sometimes happens with friendships. As if we’d been friends for years. Those have been rare, too. was one of the few, and he hasn’t been chased away by my eccentricities yet, so I’m hoping that Barbara will be able to put up with me as well as he has. I’d certainly enjoy maintaining a friendship with her.

After we finished with the wedding favors, Barbara went home and Lester and I kept working on wedding stuff. I did the calligraphy for the place cards. I did signs, so people would know where in the park the wedding would take place. I was handed a notebook, a small roll of white ribbon, and a paper bag, and told to “figure it out” to make a cover for the vow book so it wouldn’t be obvious that it was a graph paper notebook. There was no glue to do it with, either. Just a roll of packing tape. But I did it, and it looked pretty good, if I do say so myself. All in all, we were up until 5 in the morning NJ time just getting details taken care of. I’d been sleeping badly before I ever went on the trip, hadn’t slept at all the night before I flew out of Bakersfield, and had only gotten 2 hours of sleep on the flight. And I still had a hard time falling asleep after all of that. Sleep disorders. Go figure.

Lester knew I was short on sleep, so he didn’t get me up at ten to head over to the park to get the tent set up and have it inspected. He let me sleep until a bit after noon. I was finally gotten up to get ready for the rehearsal, and the rehearsal dinner afterward.

The rehearsal was immensely disorganized. Lynda, the only other person at the rehearsal that wasn’t in the wedding party (her 11-year-old daughter was instead) and I sat at a picnic table and made comments. Rob might have been there to make catty comments with us (and who better than a gay man to make catty comments with) except that he got talked into standing in for the mayor of Raritan. He was Mayor Rob for the rest of my trip out there.

For someone that can be hard as iron when she wants to be, Lynda has such a streak of “ol’ softie” in her. She was getting all teary-eyed even during the rehearsal. Though she later claimed that it was just an allergy attack making her eyes water.

The rehearsal dinner was at the Old York Inne, and it was piles and piles of pizza. Now, as with most of us who grew up on the style of pizza sold on the Left Coast, I’m not a fan of East Coast pizza. I usually have issues with pizza that’s so limp it must be folded in order to eat it. had introduced me to one place that I hadn’t wanted to run screaming from when I went out to visit him a few years ago. I thought it was the only place that I’d ever find in the East that would pass my standards for good pizza. So, the pizza in Raritan was a surprise. If anything, I liked it even better than the pizza I’d had with Mixiebear. The flavor was just so good, I didn’t care about the necessity of folding pizza. Though I refused to fold my pizza even then. I just attacked it with a knife and fork.

Back at Lester’s after the pizza dinner, Lester and I hung out and talked. We’d finished up the last of the preparation for the wedding on Thursday night, so we had Friday night to talk. Nothing more could really be done until the decorating committee hit the site of the wedding the next morning. Rob, when he found out that he was supposed to help decorate, tried to talk me into helping on that, too. I informed him that I’d put in my hours already, and it was his turn. I was bloody well going to enjoy the rest of my short vacation.

It’s just as well that I wasn’t at the park to help decorate the next morning. I wound up being something of a go-to person for minor problems in the mad rush to get ready the next morning. At one point, as I was doing a punk-rock alteration on Lester’s mother’s dress (“What do you mean the sleeves are too long and there’s no needle and thread? Okay, who’s got duct tape or electrical tape?”) I got praised by Lester’s Mom and a few of the rest of the family members for my creativity and wisdom. I just shook my head, and told them all, “You people are a might bit strange. I’ve never been praised for putting tape all over someone’s mother before.”

Co-ordinating the flow of people getting ready was interesting, too. The house has only one bathroom. I thought ahead, and took my shower the night before so there’d be one fewer person stacked up to use the facilities. My total use of the bathroom was maybe ten minutes, while I put the finishing touches on the hair (“You HAVE to wear the black fake braids for the wedding! AND the black flashing braid!”) and slapped on some warpaint. I got informed I had to wear the glitter, too, so I did.

Finally, everyone was ready and the photographer arrived. Even I didn’t manage to avoid having my picture taken, though there were fewer with me in them than Lester and his sister Vera wanted.

We eventually piled into various vehicles and headed over to the park. Getting everyone seated was a bit of a trial. People were ignoring the requests that they be seated in favor of milling around and talking. I tried to lead by example and went to kick one of the ushers into action to seat me. That failed. So I just sat there making commentary to Mayor Rob, who was seated next to me.

After much hollering by various members of the wedding party, the guests finally allowed themselves to be shown to their chairs, and the wedding started. I was worried that some big disaster would happen, considering how badly the rehearsal had gone. They’d attempted to rehearse twice on Friday night, and wound up spending more time arguing about who was supposed to be where than actually rehearsing. I guess this wedding fell under the old theater superstition, though. Bad dress rehearsal, good opening night. The ceremony went off perfectly. The only hitch was when the Mayor accidentally called Lester by his father’s first name. Lester corrected her, and everything went on.

And it was a very beautiful ceremony. They had a harpist performing the music, and the Mayor of Raritan in her black official robe to perform the ceremony. They stood under a flower-covered white arch, framed by two old trees. The vows they’d written were very sweet. And I got a good smirk at Lynda’s “allergies” interfering with her attempts to take pictures.

So, now there’s a Mrs. Essah. And a very lovely, sweet, and smart Mrs. Essah at that.

We ate the wedding dinner under the tent that had been set up on Friday, and it was quite excellent. Four entrees, huge fruit plates, more good bread than you could shake a bridesmaid at. Sangria for those of us inclined to drink, and I decided to ignore the amazing bouncing blood sugar and be so inclined.

Since Barbara and Lester both had friends from out of town, rather than spend their wedding night on their own, they threw a big party at the hotel they were staying at. After the wedding, many of us trekked over there, and kept on going into the night.

So it was I got back to Lester’s parents house completely and utterly exhausted. I’d had very little sleep before the trip, and significantly less while there. It finally did in the sleep disorders, and I wanted to sleep. But I knew I couldn’t since I’d miss my flight Sunday morning. I did lie down for about four hours, but never actually got to sleep. It did feel good just to stretch out for while, in spite of staying awake once I was there.

The flight back went smoothly. It must have, since I slept through everything but lunch.

I had a four hour layover in Phoenix. Even though I’d eaten on the plane, I stopped at Burger King in the airport to grab something to eat anyway. More for something to do to keep myself awake than anything. And to kill time until I knew which gate my plane would be at. Since I was there four hours before my connection, it wasn’t posted anywhere as of yet. I slept on the hour or so of flight time remaining, too. And then came home and slept right up until the eye thing started up. I think I’m about caught up on sleep, finally.

And now I’m off to call the eye doctor and see about getting an appointment to get my eye checked. I wouldn’t worry about it if it was responding to my allergy medication, but it still isn’t. But I am glad that it waited until now, if it was going to have to happen, rather than while I was at the wedding.

In about an hour, I leave for the airport. Off to the wilds (such as they are) of New Jersey to attend Essah’s wedding. I can’t believe he’s getting married. But it’s happening this Saturday.

Be back sometime Sunday, and whining will resume at some unspecified time thereafter.

Something else has been bothering me for a couple months, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to write about it, even in my paper journal. I haven’t been able to talk about it to anyone. Hell, I haven’t even been able to really convince myself to think about it.

My mother’s drinking. It starts, every day, around two in the afternoon, and continues right up until she goes to bed around 10 or 11 at night.

It’s been like that for the four plus years she’s been living here. Not to mention the years and years of drinking from the time she got home from work until bedtime before she lost her job.

She’s often a mean drunk. Though I haven’t told her as much, I’ve been in recovery from emotional damage suffered at her hands as much as I’ve been in recovery from emotional damage suffered at the hands of my gambling-addicted father. It’s almost never physically abusive, but she can aim blows with her tongue that would make some broken bones seem like a relief sometimes.

Since I came back here a different person than I was last time we lived together, it’s almost never aimed at me now.

On the other hand, she never used to show physical signs of drunkness like she does now. She barely keeps her balance when walking. Her speech is starting to get slurred by the third drink. She sways when standing.

She’s overweight, yes. But there is a change in the way she’s overweight. My grandmother talked to me about this a few months ago, and I didn’t want to see it. Denial, that lovely river.

What my grandmother told me was about two men she knew, both of whom were drinkers. Both of whom, after years of drinking, developed the same kind of extended belly that my mother has shortly before their livers gave up and they died from cirrhosis of the liver.

Even though the amount she’s drinking hasn’t changed in the last couple months, her reaction to how much she drinks has. That, plus what my grandmother told me, leads me to believe that her liver is finally succumbing to oceans of gin. I think she’s developing quite a case of cirrhosis.

I think I’m watching her die.

And she isn’t about to go to the doctor. In more normal times, it was almost impossible to get her to go to the doctor. She seems to be living up to her stated ambition to drink herself to death (which decision, in classic addict behaviour, she blames completely on my psycho cousin. As if it will change if he’s gone. She was drinking before she got so depressed over this situation. What am I supposed to think of the drinking and moodswings resulting from it when we were in NJ? That life with me is just as bad? No, she has a problem, and blames her problem on things other than her own behaviour. She does an avoidance of owning the responsibility by saying that she has a problem because of someone or something else. And that someone or something else that she uses as a justification changes based on what’s convenient to blame.) And since that’s her stated ambition, then there’s certainly no way she’s going to do anything about it. Even if she could afford to. She isn’t eligible for the retirement-age forms of insurance yet. Not until her next birthday.

Since I had to move here and begun to watch this deterioration, I have had this deep and often unacknowledged sadness. I was so deep in denial that I would periodically just want to cry, and not know what the cause was.

In the last two days, the blinders have fallen. And it’s all I can do to not cry in front of everyone.

There’s a scared child in me that never grew up. And right now, on top of my fear for my mom, it’s afraid for me, too. That part of me is nearly in hysterics, repeating over and over that she’s the only thing I really have left. What do I do when she’s gone?

I know, I know. I go on. I worry until it happens, I try to help and try to keep her healthy, I mourn when she dies, whether it’s next month, next year, next decade. And I deal with it.

If she died next month, there would be no going back to college. I would have to be here to medicate the cat multiple times a day and take him to the vet when his asthma attacks threaten to kill him. I would have to be here to take care of my grandmother and make sure that my cousin doesn’t lose it completely someday and start hitting her as he did in the years before my mother moved in. It would have to be me. No one else will do it. Not grandma’s step-daugher Marilynn or her children or grandchildren. Not my grandmother’s son who is also my psychotic cousin’s father. I would have to put my life on hold in order to be cook, housekeeper, chauffer, errand girl, seeing-eye dog, and general servant for a woman who, on the good days, dislikes me.

Believe it or not after enumerating all of that, giving up my life for however long my grandmother lives is not the main focus of the welter of emotions that have made me so close to crying for the last two days. It is a point, but it’s just a small part of it. The rest of it is just too big and overwhelming to be able to coherently list its causes and conclusions.

I was hoping that pouring all of this out here would help. That it would be some kind of catharsis that would help me conquer some of what I’m feeling. Then, maybe, I could think about it in more rational, concrete terms and maybe come up with something. If not a solution, at least something to make things easier.

This writing isn’t helping.

So, I guess I’ll just stop.

I’ve been trying to wind down enough to sleep ever since I last used LJ, the great therapy outlet on the net. Or the great drama nexus on the net. One and the same thing, really.

Since I was pissed off and wanting to beat the crap out of the psychotic cousin, I went and killed pixels instead. It hasn’t helped. The sun is coming up, and I’m still wide awake.

I’ve got to cook dinner tonight, dammit. I’m going to be a miserable bitch, and not going to want to cook by the time dinner rolls around so I’ll do it with bad grace. Or else I’m going to sleep through it. Either way, I bid fair to drive everyone else nuts.

Ironically enough, considering the whole thing with Junior, my shoulders are so tense I actually almost want someone to attempt a massage.

That’s me. Never satisfied, am I?

Schitzo once got frustrated when an attempt to manipulate me or guilt me into doing some stupid errand that he was too lazy to run for himself wound up only making me pissed off at him. After all, manipulation only truly works when the one you’re trying to manipulate isn’t aware of the attempt. Schitzo wasn’t the great manipulator he liked to think he was. He was about as subtle as a Wagner opera in the room next door. You couldn’t help but notice it. He might as well have been bellowing the Ride of the Valkyries while he was doing it. When it didn’t work out the way he wanted, he informed me that the reason his attempted manipulations didn’t work was because I have no conscience. At the time it only made me angrier. But now I keep thinking that life here in Hellano would be so much easier if he’d been right about that. If I had no conscience and could be completely and utterly self-centered, then I wouldn’t be wrestling with evil little voices for turning Junior away. I wouldn’t have a problem ignoring my grandmother and mother when it comes to John. And I wouldn’t have any problem just getting up and leaving. I’ve had offers from some friends to put me up until I can find a job and help with rent and food and bills. One friend behind the orange curtain, one up in Seattle (though that would be contingent on him getting the job that he was talking about during BayCon.) If I had no conscience, I wouldn’t have a problem taking one of them up on the offer.

Unfortunately, I do have a conscience, and can’t bear to abandon my mother to deal with this place alone. I know she’s had to deal with it for four years. And I also know that the combination of my grandmother and my cousin drove her into a suicidal depression. I am the only person she has to talk to here, the only one that she can pour some of the hurt out to. I’m the only one strong enough to push for the police to take the psycho away. And I’m the only bright spot in her life. If I bailed, she would sink right back to where she was when she tried to slit her wrists two years after moving here. I can identify with that. Two years after I moved here to go to high school, I wanted to kill myself too. And I just can’t do that to her. I didn’t have her here to keep me from sliding into depression, because she was down in Mexico still trying to make things work with my father. But I’m damn well going to be there for her now that I’m here.

Conscience. What a pain in the ass.

Well, hell. NOW I’m starting to get tired. Dammit.

And other pleasant news is the push to reinstitute the draft.

Telling ya, I want to say the hell with it and chuck this whole living in the US thing more and more all the time. The mother unit and I have begun seriously looking at real estate in Spain or Greece. Not that I’m particularly worried about being drafted myself, in spite of the plan to draft women as well as men this time. What in the world would they want with a broken-down, fat, arthritic, mostly blind chick with a tendency toward stress-related arrhythmia? I just dislike both the fact that this country’s going to hell in so many ways, and the gilded handbasket that we’re going in. When I was younger, it would have been all about getting out there and protesting. Christophine, the neo-hippy. Now, I just want to get the hell out of this place. I’m hoping for a regime change this coming election. So much so that I’ve actually registered to vote for the first time in my life. I hated the idea that I would be voting against. I didn’t want to be forced into choosing the lesser of evils. But the current administration’s lies, poor shepherding of the economy, the erosion of the rights and freedoms of American citizens under the name of patriotism and the war on terror, the disregard of such things as the Geneva Convention, and a multitude of other sins perpetrated by Herr Bush and his cronies have convinced me that choosing the lesser evil is necessary. At this point, I’d vote for just about anyone, so long as they were Bush’s opponent.

And if that doesn’t work, and Bush gets another term, I am so fucking out of here.

So, I had planned to write a few memories of BayCon next time I got a shot at the computer with an internet connection for longer than it takes me to read email and LJ. That’s been the way it is… that hour I get every few days is just enough time to read my email, catch up on everyone’s LJ, and maybe make a comment or two if I’m lucky. Never time to write anything myself.

Today, however, has changed that. I have a chance at the computer for however long I want it, but events more immediate have gotten in the way of rambling about the con before my shoddy memory loses it all. I need to rant about things today instead. So, if you’re not in the mood for an extended rant about things in Hellano, feel free to skip on down to someone else. Writing this may be my therapy so I don’t go do something that could land me in jail, but it’s no one’s therapy to read all this happy crappy.

My sleep disorders have been acting up since before the convention, and last night was no exception. I did manage to wind down and get to sleep earlier than I have been lately… earlier meaning “before 8 in the morning.” The sun wasn’t even thinking about coming up yet when I turned out the light.

Just before I went to sleep, the light had been on in my grandmother’s storage room. There were thumping and dragging sounds coming from it, which didn’t make sleep easy. I probably should have investigated, since that usually means that John is up to something that he shouldn’t have been doing with either my mom’s stuff or mine, but I wasn’t only tired. I was in hiding. One of John’s relatives from his mother’s side has been visiting, a guy named Junior who’s about fifteen years older than me. I hadn’t encountered Junior since I was about five. And Junior’s a rather sad man, having come from an immensely abusive situation when he was growing up. He’s been here in Hellano visiting for a few days, and I’ve been trying to be friendly and gentle with him. Even after all this time, I recognize the sadness and the damage in him. Being nice backfired, though I think he was gearing up for this even before I met him.

The way I found out he was here was when I woke up one afternoon after a siege with my insomnia. A glass filled with flowers was sitting in front of my door. I took the glass into my room, then wandered across the patio and into the house. Someone I didn’t know was sitting and talking with my grandmother. Eventually he asked me if I’d liked the flowers he’d given me. I thought it was a little strange to be getting flowers from someone I didn’t know, but I told him that they were pretty and thanked him for them anyway.

It was sometime after that my mother told me that this was Junior, from when I was a kid, and he’d come to stay for a few days. So I made nice and talked with him for a bit. Next thing I knew, he was following me to my room, trying to convince me to let him give me a massage. I’m not a fan of getting massages. It’s extremely rare that someone doesn’t make me hurt instead of relax. Ever since my right hip and shoulder and my lower back got damaged when I got hit by a car, massages hurt. They make me more tense rather than less.

So, Junior asked about the graphics I do and the music I create, and I sat down at my machine to show him, since he was interested. And while I was doing so, he began rubbing my shoulders in spite of my having declined. While he was very gentle about it, and for once it didn’t make me hurt, the fact that he was violating my boundaries made me tense up. Fortunately, before I had to back him off, his ride to Bakersfield showed up and he left. That was a relief.

He came back yesterday, and when he called to say he’d be back for a few more days, I was the only one he wanted to talk to, but I was asleep. When he arrived, he came and knocked on my door, waking me up, so he could offer to finish what he’d started the day before. I explained that I was asleep, and he wandered away again. But the attracted-to-you vibe had been very strong, and even a little obsessive feeling, already. I was disturbed enough that I couldn’t get back to sleep. I eventually got up and started work on the computers that I’d been putting off. He showed up again, wanting to sit and talk while I worked on the machines. He made mention of the massage again, and asked if I had lotion or baby oil. I told him no, though I do. There was no way in hell the clothing was coming off. Knowing his past as I do, I was having a hard time being as direct about it as I should have. Some of the old lack of boundaries coming up and haunting me, really. While I’ve come far, there is still a bit of me that has difficulty with the notion of doing anything that might hurt someone else’s feeling, ever, even if letting it happen is going to be something that I emphatically do not want. Evil little voice in my head, telling me it wasn’t that much if it make someone who’d had such an unhappy life feel good for a little while, and wasn’t I just such a bitch to deny them. But so many of the things that have given me the emotional wounds I’ve been trying to heal came about because of listening to that voice and not enforcing my own boundaries. I can’t take that step backward. I don’t want to be that doormat again. So I ignored the evil little voice.

When it became clear that Junior was going to stick around in an attempt to gently wear down my no, I told him that I needed to go and contact someone about some of the things I was doing. I wanted to see if they were online, since they were in school and I had a chance right then to maybe find them, but later they’d be asleep. He wanted to know who I was looking to talk to, and I told him (thank you, and for being my excuse, even if you didn’t know you were.) Really, I went into my mom’s room to hide until I judged Junior went to bed, and to think about how to handle this situation in the nicest way possible without taking that step backwards that the evil little voice always wants me to take.

I hadn’t come up with a solution yet when I began to get tired, so I logged off the computer and headed to my room, thinking that I’d sleep on it. I was almost asleep when Junior knocked on my door, again, and offered again to give me that massage. I told him I was going to sleep, and he left again.

That’s when the thumping and dragging sounds started in the storage room last night/this morning, but I didn’t want to encounter Junior again. I eventually fell asleep in spite of them, and then got woken up three hours later, just shortly after the sun came up, by the sound of a power drill outside my room. I wasn’t able to sleep again for a long time, wondering what in the hell was going on out there, and thinking I should look, but not wanting to deal with Junior again right then. Eventually, I fell asleep again.

When I finally got up and headed into the house, it was to learn from my mother and grandmother that John had been in the storage room all night. He took things of my mom’s and grandmother’s and mine, tore them to pieces, and threw them away. We don’t know how much stuff, because my mother didn’t go through the trash can finding all the pieces. Just what was on top was my grandmother’s air filter, my mother’s coffee maker, and my green rattan shelving unit, which I’d been planning to use for extra storage in the half-bath in my garage bedroom.

All I could say for about five minutes was, “He did WHAT?”

I was absolutely livid. I was prevented from calling the cops on him, since my grandmother didn’t think it was that big a deal, and my mother was too afraid of the stress giving my grandmother a heart attack if the cops did come for him. But I informed them… grandmother, mother, Junior, and John… that if one more thing of mine or my mothers gets stolen, destroyed, or thrown out, I am going to the cops… and I will keep on going to the cops for everything John does, no matter how minor, and talk to the parole board about scheduling immediate drug testing every time I even think he might be using again. I am fed up beyond belief. Mom tried to talk me out of that, and I told her that the emotional blackmail, whether from grandma or her, only works on me for so long, and then it makes me even more furious instead. I also reminded her that when I moved in, I’d told her that I would have cops all over John every time he stepped out of line because I was not going to allow myself to be victimized. And I reminded her that she told me to go ahead and do what I felt was necessary, even over objections.

I have allowed objections to stop me up until now, with the exception of Christmas Even when he was threatening Mom’s life, and the cat’s, and mine. But no more. Not one moment more. If I have to, I will do everything in my power to make John’s life here so miserable that he will move out, if I can’t get him locked up where he belongs.

And if my grandmother starts in about how she wishes she was dead and gone to hell because she can’t stand any of what I’m doing, I may not even be able to keep myself from telling her to go the fuck ahead. I had it with that particular song and dance before I even moved back here. It no longer gets the result with me that it once did. It only gets my anger and makes me all the more determined to do whatever it is that set her off. My mother is the only thing that has been stopping me, but that rein is starting to loosen as well. If I have to be the strong one here, then I have to be. If I have to do something that will make the rest of the family here in Hellano pissed off at me, then so be it. I am not here to be a victim, or to allow that pusbag to victimize the rest of the family either. I allowed myself to be victimized by a number of people in the past. I am not that person anymore, and I’m not about to let someone push me into becoming that again.

Hatred is not something I often feel. Dislike, sure. But outright hatred is rare for me. When it comes, it is huge and burning. It borders on homocidal. If John overdosed tonight, I’d throw a month-long party and dance on his grave every day of it. If he gives me the reason by actually coming after me, if I have to defend myself against him, I will use deadly force, and use it with relish.

And I’m a pacifist. I have never believed in taking life. Hell, I don’t believe in violence. If I get angry enough for violence, I take it out on a wall or something. The only thing that gets hurt is me. But I actually find myself hoping that he will come at me so I can put him down like the rabid dog he is. I keep an array of weaponry around my room, not obviously out, but where I know I can put out a hand and grab it. All of it just waiting for him to come after me like he did my mom once.

If I had any sense of aim with a gun at all, I’d get a license and one of those, too. Since I don’t, it’ll just have to be knives, swords, and staves, if it comes down to that.

Meantime, I’ll just keep hoping that he overdoses one of these nights, and prep the month of party.

Then, for the final cherry on my day, Junior came in while I was watching Sister Act a short time ago. He told me that he was attracted to me, and has been from the very first day. This was obvious to everyone in the house. I’ve heard nothing but talk about how Junior’s sweet on me in a creepy kind of way for several days now. So I finally talked with him about it, and explained to him that I was flattered that he found me so attractive, but that I didn’t feel the same way and that wasn’t going to change. Junior said he wouldn’t bug me anymore and went away. And the evil little voice has been telling me ever since how mean I was to hurt this guy who’d been through so much already.

Welcome to another sleepless night. I can tell that this is going to going on for a while.

Fuck.