Regina Noctis

So, Tuesday night before the hearing, I was plagued with nightmares, which began with one in which I opened my bedroom door and found my dismembered cat on the concrete outside. The dreams got steadily worse from there. While suffering these dreams, I also managed to twist myself into a bad position, and spent most of two days with an incredible pain in the muscles along the spine, directly between my shoulder blades. Repeated stretching and deep massage only ever got rid of it for half an hour, and then it came back.

Mom woke me from a nightmare around 7am, and we got ready and headed off to the courthouse. Our ex parte hearing was scheduled for nine, but discussion of upcoming cases with various lawyers kept the judge in chambers until nearly 10:30. The seats in the courtroom were highly uncomfortable, being built for people with hips less wide than mine. That combined with the pain in my back and poor sleep made the wait extremely difficult. Finally, when court was in session, our hearing was first, and the judge granted the temporary restraining order with nearly no questions asked. The only thing the judge asked was whether the psycho cousin was there, if he’d been notified, and upon finding out why he wasn’t, asked if psycho was still in custody. He wasn’t. He’d been released the night before, after we turned in the paperwork saying we couldn’t inform of the hearing because we didn’t know where he was being held. Then the judge granted the restraining order, move-out order, and no contact order. A new hearing date for next month was set to make the restraining order permanent. And then we were stuck trying to figure out how to serve the psychotic cousin since, though he’d been released, we still had no clue where he was. The restraining order was not in effect until psycho was served.

I spent the day trying to deal with my back, and then while I was eating dinner, psycho cousin called. He’d tried to stay with his aunt in Bakersfield. She could stand him for a single night, and then threw him out. She was so fed up with him that she wouldn’t even give him a ride to Hellano to his mother’s house. So he called to ask us to pick him up and take him there. If we hadn’t needed to know where he was in order to get the restraining order served, we would have told him tough shit, walk it. A hike of a bit over 30 miles will probably do you some good. But we needed to know, so we picked him up, took him to his mother’s, and I made a note of the address.

This morning, Mom found the county sheriff substation and turned in the paperwork to have them serve the psycho cousin. The Sheriff, unlike the local PD, took the whole thing very seriously. He spent about five minutes finishing up what he was doing, and then drove over and served my cousin. He even explained, in careful detail, all the things that psycho was not allowed to do, even though that is not a requirement of serving the papers. Then the Sheriff came over and delivered the proof of service to us, so we could take that to the courthouse, get it stamped and filed, and give the local PD their copies of the paperwork to show that the restraining order was legal and in effect. The Sheriff also entered the restraining order into CLETS, so the information is available to the police statewide.

While we were waiting for the Sheriff to serve the papers and then deliver the proof of service to us, I went and stayed in a hot shower until I used up every drop of hot water in the tank. I let the water pound on the spot in my back that was still driving me crazy. I’d had a rotten night’s sleep because of the pain, unable to find a comfortable position to sleep. I fell asleep around 6am and woke up around 8:30am. I didn’t have a lot of hope that the hot shower would make any difference on the muscles in my back, but it was worth a try because I did not want to spend another day and night like that. Surprisingly, the hot shower helped, and I now only get an occasional twinge from that spot if I move my arms in certain ways. It’s no longer constant, and that’s a great relief.

After the Sheriff and Deputy left, Mom and I headed off to Bakersfield, intent on getting Basque lamb dip sandwiches and my graded artwork. The sandwich mission was accomplished, but there were problems with the picking-up-of-the-artwork. I got back the last two projects, the self-portrait and the poster assignments. But the rest of the stuff, which he’d already graded but wanted to see again, and that I delivered to his office on Tuesday, was nowhere to be found. Since Mr. Shafik wasn’t in his office when I dropped off the stuff, and I was let in by the teacher that he shares his office with, I’m wondering if he didn’t notice it and thinks that I didn’t turn it in. I intend to dig up Mr. Shafik’s email address and write him about it tonight. I’ve got electronic copies of the completed stuff, so it’s not gone for good. But it’d be nice to have the printed and mounted stuff back. And if he thinks I didn’t turn it in, that could negatively affect my grade.

After that, we headed home, and I wandered off to my room to take a nap. My poor sleep had caught up with me, and with the pain in my back gone, I got a decent amount of sleep. I was just waking up from my nap when my phone rang. was going to be in the general area (sort of, it was really actually a bit out of his way to come here) and wanted to know if I was up for meeting him at Denny’s to hang out for a bit. So I hopped on over to Denny’s, and had a good chat with him about any number of things. It was fun, and just what I needed after all the things that have been going on around here. All the stress I’ve been living under made me particularly catty, and he greatly enjoyed my rather harsh estimate of some people we both know.

Now I’m making plans to head up to the Bay Area this weekend, so I can attend at least one BayCon meeting before the con actually begins, and will be staying with until the convention starts. A vacation, at last. Hopefully there will be no ATMs eating my card and preventing me from making the trip, as happened on my spring break. So, I plan to get out of here on Saturday.

As per usual while I’m out of town, I will not be reading LJ or checking email, or having anything else to do with a computer. I’ve got conversations to have, people to annoy or amuse, and kareoke to sing, as well as a convention to work. If anyone needs to get hold of me and doesn’t have my cell number, everyone on my friends list has access to the LJ text messaging that goes to my cell phone. That’s what I activated it for. (Please note – not naming any names here to protect the guilty – this was NOT activated so I could get a ton of messages waking me up when I finally do manage to get to sleep, telling me that LJ is back up and similar things. If that continues, guilty parties will be summarily removed from the flist to keep them from the temptation.)

Essah, why is it that when you send me a snail mail letter, you write my middle initial as C? My middle name doesn’t start with a C. I’ve been meaning to ask, but everything that’s been going on has made it slip my mind time after time.

Today was not fun, and it was all thanks to my psychotic cousin. This came as no surprise.

I did, eventually, get to sleep, and got enough that I was reasonably well-rested for class today. The banging sounds petered off around 3:30 in the morning, and I managed to stay asleep until around 10:30. Seven solid hour of sleep is, for me, quite an accomplishment.

When I got up, I discovered that the end of the banging sounds came because John stole my Oriental rug out of the storage room (where I repeatedly told my grandmother not to put it, because I knew psycho would steal it if she did.) He had torn apart his bed and shoved it up against the wall, and since he long before ripped out the carpet and carpet padding in his room so it’s down to the bare cement, he’d had nothing to sleep on after he destroyed his bed. That was what led to the attempt at sleeping on top of the van. So he eventually took my rug in there, spread it on the cement, and slept on that. I’m surprised, actually, that I got it back intact.

However, the pyscho also managed to “lose” my grandmother’s car. He says he has no idea where it is. I told her she should turn him in for stealing her car when he first made it disappear a almost a week ago, but she wouldn’t listen.

Then my uncle called. He was using his connections and influence as a captain in the Department of Corrections to try and get the local police brass to take matters with my psychotic cousin very seriously. It sounds like he has them mostly on our side at this point, and that’s good to know, since they haven’t always done so. There was a time that there was an emergency protective order issued to keep John away from my mother and grandmother. They called and turned him in for violating it, and he was picked up. But the cops decided it was not all that big a deal and released him a few hours later. This happened three times before they finally kept him. We’re trying to avoid that kind of thing with the restraining order this time.

In the process of talking with various parts of the Department of Corrections and the police departments and sheriff substations in the area, he found out that psycho cousin had been arrested the day before the night of the banging noises. He was arrested around noon for being under the influence, and was released around 1am, which is when he came here and started keeping me awake.

We also learned that the psycho cousin has apparently been spying on/stalking my uncle and his family, for a few nights running. One of psycho’s baseball caps was found lying in their front yard in Bakersfield, in front of a window. The next night, an empty pack of my grandmother’s cigarettes (she does not smoke a common brand – Gunsmoke menthol) and an empty pack of my cousin’s preferred brand of smokes, both lying in the yard in front of a window. Then, we discovered that psycho stole my mother’s Chevron card, which is how he was managing his merry trips back and forth between here and Bakersfield. It was finally found lying on the ground outside the fence at the prison my uncle works at. It doesn’t entirely surprise me that the one he appears to be stalking out of my uncle’s family is my uncle himself. Psycho cousin has had a hate on for his dad for as long as I can remember. I can remember when we were teenagers all the times he’d fantasize out loud to me about beating my uncle to death.

A couple hours before I had to leave for finals, psycho cousin took my grandmother’s van. Why not, since he already managed to lose my grandmother’s Pontiac. He was told to have it back by five, since that’s when I had to leave for Bakersfield and mom wanted a vehicle here in case she needed to run any errands while I was gone. He ignored her and took off.

Sometime after he left, we got a call from the Discover card people. My grandmother hadn’t used her Discover card in months, so it was noted when all of the sudden someone started charging things to it this afternoon. We checked her billfold, and sure enough, the card was gone. So, psycho cousin stole another credit card. I was surprised because my grandmother did not say she would pay the bill, but told them that her grandson stole her card. Finally, she seems to be realizing that bailing him out every time he does something like this only makes it possible for him to continue doing this stuff, and worse. So now Discover will be on to him for the charges. Yay for her. I didn’t think that she’d ever reach this point.

Then Mom got a call from the courthouse, around 4:30 this afternoon. There’s a form that needed to be filled out and returned by noon today for the hearing to go forward. It was the form that said whether or not we’d notified psycho of the hearing that was scheduled for tomorrow morning. Mom was so stressed by everything that was going on that she completely forgot about that. I never heard that there was this deadline, because my arthritis was killing me that day, and Mom told me to remain where I was sitting instead of standing in line to turn in the paperwork, since I had been on my feet in spite of pretty severe pain all day by then. So the hearing has been rescheduled for Wednesday at 9am. We were to inform psycho of the change, fill out the form, and turn it in by noon tomorrow.

So off I went to turn in my final project in Digital Arts and have my conference with the instructor, grumbling to myself about having to put up with the psychotic cousin for an extra night.

The bright spot in the day was the conference with my instructor. Mr. Shafik said that it had been a great pleasure to have me in the class, that my work very much impressed him, that I have a great eye for layout and application of the software, that I was creating some really great things. He told me that he really wanted me to continue in the program toward a digital arts degree, and that he thinks I can go far with it. He was pleased to learn that I’ve already registered classes for the fall quarter, and that I have him as instructor for two of them. Considering that I got off to a rather rocky start with him, and he was something of a bastard toward me at the beginning of the semester, I wasn’t expecting such a glowing review at the conference. I’ve been feeding on the compliments since I got home. And next semester I’ll be like a real college student. I wasn’t able to stack all my classes up on Monday and Wednesday nights only. I will actually be going to class four days a week. That’ll be a switch. But I’m looking forward to it, particularly since all the classes are graphic design classes, and I’ve been having a ball with all the graphics classes I’ve taken.

Then I got home from class to discover that the van was still gone. I figured that the psycho was just doing his usual, and he’d come trailing in around one or two in the morning, after having used up every dreg of gas in the van. But when I got inside the house, I found out that the story is quite different.

Psycho’s ex-wife, their children, and her mother were all out of town in Oroville. Psycho went over to their house and broke in. Neighbors saw him doing so, and called the cops. They arrested him as he was taking a shower there (even though he took one just before he left here.) So he’s now in jail, and I can’t notify him of the change in the hearing date. My grandmother’s van is sitting in Bakersfield. My uncle went over to pick it up, and now Mom and I have to head into Bakersfield tomorrow to get the van back.

The psychotic cousin may even be in jail for a while this time. That was not only breaking and entering. He’d gone over to his ex-wife’s house and terrorized everyone there a couple days after he got out of jail for the assault on my mom, and his ex-wife got a restraining order. If she thought to put that he had to stay away from the propert – which we are doing – as well as stay away from her, her mom, and the kids, then he was violating the restraining order and they can keep him for some time on that. If, that is, the cops take it seriously. It’s possible they’ll release him later tonight, or sometime tomorrow. They did that, after all, with the emergency protective order. Maybe they’ll take it more seriously for Becky, though. She works in the Department of Corrections too, and so is considered to be a part of the “blue wall.”

I’m going to hope that they keep him, at least until we’ve got our restraining order in place. That would mean no more nights of dealing with the psycho, and cleaning up the damage he’s done after giving the local PD a tour of it all. Not that this is stopping us from locking the house up completely every night until we’re sure he’s out of our lives. We just don’t have a lot of confidence in them keeping him.

I was nearly asleep, when strange banging noises started up outside.

We finally found a way to get all the doors fixed so the psycho cousin can’t force them, but I can still get in. We finally found a lock that he hadn’t wrecked by painting over it, and found the corresponding key. So now the doors can all be locked, and I can get in through the kitchen door. We also managed to find a way to block the bathroom window that won’t lock, so he can’t force his way into the house there.

So, in theory, I can get into the house. Unfortunately, thanks to the latest bout of stupidity, I can’t.

Psycho has decided that his room is too messed up to sleep in. Maybe he did more stuff to it tonight, I don’t know. When last I saw it, it had been covered in grafitti, but the bed was still perfectly servicable. But since the room is too messed up for him to sleep in, he’s decided he’s going to sleep on top of the van, which is parked next to the kitchen door. The banging sounds I heard were him trying to climb up on top of it.

Maybe his decision that he can’t sleep in the bedroom is related to the unpleasant discovery that we made yesterday. A small suitcase was sitting in his closet. In it we found several tools he’d apparently stolen from our neighbor. All of them were covered in feces. The smell wasn’t detectable until the suitcase was opened, and then good Goddess, the stink.

For the time being, we left it there. None of us wanted to deal with it then, and we figured he did it, he can live with it until we get the restraining order in place.

At least the half bath attached to my bedroom is now fixed. I’m a little thirsty, since the psycho found my cache of bottled water and took it. But I can get around that, too. There are garden hoses. And if I want to let the bathroom tap run for long enough – it takes quite some time since it’s so seldom used – I can eventually get non-rusty water out of it. I prefer the water from the Britta pitcher in the refrigerator, but that’s out with the psycho cousin lying on top of the van.

Well, the banging noises have stopped…

Or not. What in the hell is he doing NOW?

I really don’t need this shit. This is finals week. Sleep would be very nice before I have to head in for finals.

In the past, when the psychotic cousin has gone on a rampage, it’s generally over after a single night. But, as my mom said, this time he’s a two-year-old having a tantrum.

He got into the house last night and took a portrait of my grandmother. It was done when I was in high school, an oil pastel by an artist friend of the family. The psycho threw it out into the front yard, shattering the glass, and left it sitting there in the dew overnight. It’s pretty thoroughly ruined. He then went in the living room and held cigarettes against the carpet, burning spots all over the living room floor all the way down to the padding. There are red spots painted on my mother’s high school senior portrait, which was hanging in the living room. The spots look like attempts at drawing on bloody gunshot wounds in her forehead and both cheeks.

Tuesday. Day after tomorrow. I need it to get here fast.

I can’t wait to get the restraining order. After all that stuff he did last night, John came back tonight. Mom and I were watching a movie, and heard him in the kitchen. The cop who came by to survey the damage asked that we call the PD if John showed up again, so we did, but John ran off before the cops could get here. And just now, I came out of the house on my way to my room, and suddenly there was my psychotic cousin, looming over me, back again. We don’t really have legal recourse to keep him away, not until the restraining order is in effect. Even with calling the cops tonight. They don’t plan on arresting him, they just want to question him.

Just have to make it until Tuesday, and then I can do something about it if the psycho shows up again…

The psycho cousin registered his complaint about the restraining order after everyone went to sleep last night.

I’d originally planned to wait up until he came home, so I could notify him of the hearing, as I’m supposed to do. But I’d finally come to the end of my insomnia, and fell asleep early (for me, anyway.)

Once everyone was soundly asleep, John came back. He dragged a full bail of straw over the the swimming pool and threw it in. He threw in a door, tables, chairs, planks, bottles, a big blue barrel. He tore up some of the landscaping, took pots, pans, dishes, rocks, and and least one glass, and threw them all over the front yard and the sidewalk out front. I’m not sure whether there was more than one glass involved, since there are only shattered bits scattered around to go by.

He wrote grafitti all over his room, including “MURDERER” across the mirror, so he could see that as he was looking at himself, and “187 BITCHES” which is the California penal code for murder, as we learned when he painted that on the outside of his bedroom. He also put “MEXICO” all over the place,” RIDE SOUTH SIDE”, and “I LOVE MEXICO” on the walls. We wonder if he’s trying to run for Mexico now.

He destroyed pictures that belonged to our grandfather. He left some clothing behind, wrote grafitti all over it, and coated it in some kind of blue sticky liquid. It looks like he also destroyed the television that once belonged to our grandfather. Normally, since my grandfather’s death, the psycho has been in the throes of hero worship for that evil old bastard. But not last night, apparently. One of the things he wrote was “FUCK (our grandfather’s name) IS A BITCH”.

And I slept through it. I used to be a heavy sleeper, but circumstances in the past had made me become a very light sleeper, waking up at the slightest noise. This time, I slept through all of it.

Considering how crazy he was last night, it’s probably just as well that I wasn’t awake to notify him of the hearing. Considering his past history of violence, the apparent level of insanity last night, and the things he wrote that could be construed as death threats, it would have been dangerous to try give him notice.

We’re calling the cops as soon as my grandmother feels up to it. And come Tuesday, the police report will be added incentive for the judge to give us the restraining order. And then, no more cousin. I’ll be all over the phone, turning him in for violating the order, if he shows his face here again.

Mom and I spent much of today shuttling between courthouse, local copier place, and home.

The paperwork for the restraining order has been turned in. The judge looked it over, and decided that what we’d written on there showed abuses so egregious, that we have been scheduled for an emergency hearing to get things taken care of as fast as possible. By law, there must be a period of time to notify the psychotic cousin of the hearing, so the hearing was not today. And of course, court isn’t in session over the weekend. Our hearing is scheduled for the 17th. Since this is not service of the restraining order, but only notice of the hearing, I get to be the one to inform the psychotic cousin. Mom can’t because she’s listed as primary on the paperwork for the restraining order. But anyone else, even someone listed to also be protected from psycho cousin, can do it, as long as they are 18 or over.

Psycho cousin, of course, has not been home since we got back from the courthouse the last time, so I haven’t been able to notify him. But I do have a couple of days, and he’ll be back. He’s decided, you see, that he doesn’t have to obey my grandmother when she tells him to leave her home and never come back. He thinks that because this address is listed on his driver’s license, this is his residence and we can’t make him leave.

He’ll have a rude awakening when he’s served with the restraining order and move-out order after the hearing on the 17th. And I will be laughing my ass off at him.

Bye bye, psycho. You’re never going to get to come back here again. If you do, it’s a felony charge and prison instead of the light county time you’ve been doing for your “misdemeanor” assaults, “minor” thievery, and vandalism.

For the first time since we found out that he’d be getting out this month instead of July, I feel tired. I think that I may actually be able to get more than two to four hours of sleep for the first time in more than a week.

and are my new heroes. At least for the next few hours, anyway. I’m fickle about who my heroes are.

I just got a call from Sylvan saying he and Elryion may have solved my BayCon staffing problem. I only have one question, and that is whether or not Shane will be in the Kinkajou hotel room as well. We do desperately need the room credit. and I have both been unemployed for long enough that we no longer get unemployment checks, and Phil spent a number of years jobless, and is trying to get out from under the huge pile of debts he has from that time, so what income he makes is spoken for. Even 25% of the room for three nights split three ways is outside our ability to pay. If Elyrion is staying in the room he’s already got, well, I’ll figure out something.

I sent email off to the Weasel Momma. Oooh, while I’m thinking about it, I should also email Ms. and the former Ferret King, since they are the rest of the command structure I need to coordinate with to some degree. Almost forgot about that.

So, at least one crisis likely averted. Now if I can just get the rest under control…

My running joke practically since they reinstated night reg at BayCon and made me head of it (which I still don’t remember ever agreeing to, damn you ) is that I am the Queen of the Dark Side of Registration. One year, as I was swaggering around in all black – long coat, boots, pants, top – I even had my own musical accompaniment, as I was followed around by other sci-fi geeks (most notabley my second-in-command that year, ) who were singing the Empire theme everywhere I went.

Well, it looks like that I’ve been proven right, I AM of the Dark Side, and I seem to have corrupted another one by having on my staff again this year. And I’m sure that no one who knows him is at all surprised that is Sith.

Okay, so I just heard from my second that she isn’t going to be able to work BayCon. At best, she’d only be able to work the Saturday night shift. I can’t get too angry at her about it, though it’s very stressing to need to find yet another staff member on this much notice before the convention. After all, this is because of school, and her education is more important than this convention. She will still be at the culinary institute when BayCon rolls around.

So, this is an emergency cattlecall/begging for help. I can, if necessary, manage with the staff I’ve got since the total of Kinkajous was increased by one for this year, and I’ve worked all the other years with only four Kinkajous, including me. Often without any night reg dedicated gopher, as well. However, Friday and Saturday nights in particular are generally so busy that a fifth staffer is a great help and keeps me from going nuts or deciding that, while everyone else gets a break, I need to remain in order to take up the slack. Is there anyone who can handle working three shifts of night reg at the convention and is willing to share our hotel room so the cost of the room for the convention is reduced to 0 for all people in it? Or do you know someone who’s fairly trustworthy and reliable who’d be willing? Please let me know ASAP.

Wednesday: Woken three hours after finally got to sleep by next-door-neighbor who insists on mowing lawn at 6 in the morning. Internet connection goes down late morning. New computer will accept signal from wifi router when it is working, but for inexplicable reason will not recognize signal when cable modem plugged directly into computer. Unable to determine because of this whether loss of connectivity due to outage of service area or the seemingly required monthly reset and reconfigure of router. Cannot try reconfiguring router as unable to access configuration utility, and wizard included on wifi router’s CD requires that computer be hooked directly to cable modem with working internet connectivity in first stage. No time to try and fix issue as have to work on self-portrait and get as much done as possible for preliminary critique in Digital Arts. Interrupted while working on self-portrait by arrival of Aunt Demon Dog from DC for visit. Overhear conversation between grandmother unit and aunt that the grandmother is feeling very ill and tired and does not want anything done on Mother’s Day as not feeling up to doing much of anything but lying on couch. Aunt Demon Dog stops trying to push plans on grandmother unit but never actually agrees not to do something. Finally escape to class with only eyes, nose, lips, and part of (double) chin complete for self-portrait critique. Have constant pain in hips, knees, and lower back as small storms sweep in and out repeatedly all day and yoyoing barometric pressure aggravates arthritis. Get home from class at nearly 11pm to discover nothing to eat in house. Grandmother did not want dinner, so planned pork roast not cooked. Aunt Demon Dog decided was hungry and ate up anything that would have been quick, simple, and easy on my arthritis to fix. Wind up having to make trip to Denny’s in order to get something to eat, as had not eaten since dinner the night before. Finally fall into bed after get back home, and find unable to sleep despite three hours of sleep. Give up and work more on self portrait, finally getting tired about five in the morning.

Thursday: Woken at 9am by cat knocking on door and yowling to come in. Zombie way through morning, guzzling mochas instead of brains, and then try to work more on self portrait. Start to feel cross-eyed after three hours of staring at picture zoomed 800% while trying to pick out where one shade of flesh-tone ends and the next begins. Consider taking digital picture used as reference, paste over work, and applying filters to make it look drawn instead of photograph. Consider taking instructor’s children hostage until given guarantee of A no matter how incomplete work on project. Consider going online and and searching to see if missing some technique or shortcut which would make project easier. Remember have no internet connection and no time to work on restoring connection until project finished. Grumble a lot and go back to work. Get interrupted by mother unit at door, coming to get car keys. Psychotic cousin called and being released right away rather than Saturday. Mom and Grandma off to pick him up at grandmother unit’s insistance. Get begged and pleaded with to at least allow cousin one week to get his car fixed and his things packed before move to Salinas. Finally relent on getting restraining order immediately and agree to week in the interest of peace and quiet to work on Digital Arts project, with great misgivings. Discover on their return that jail time did not have usual effect on cousin. Usually he is quiet and humble for a week or two afterward, but this time he is continuing as if he never went away. Says in the car on the way back that he’s never doing drugs again, then takes the van as soon as back home and goes off to buy more drugs. Spend most of day hiding in room to avoid psychotic cousin. Cousin up all night on drug binge, as can clearly tell with own insomnia acting up so effectively all night long.

Friday: Woken two hours after got to sleep by cousin blasting radio outside room. Storm fronts continuing to chase each other in and out of the area, playing havoc with arthritis. Even wrists and fingers starting to feel it while working on project, causing many false starts and much deleting of additions. Wonder whether will manage to complete it for Monday due date. Taking hostages starting to look more appealing. Learn that Aunt Demon Dog has invited her granddaughter and two-year-old great-granddaughter to come stay weekend here without clearing it first with anyone who actually lives here. Suggest closing door in their faces as we did not invite them and no one wants them here, soundly vetoed. Discover mother unit did not actually throw away restraining order paperwork as she told me, but has held onto it, so at least won’t have to go wait for clerk in courthouse to get new forms. Wind up cooking dinner for family despite arthritis aches, wind up unable to stand or even sit by the time dinner is prepared, and go lie down instead of eating. Come in an hour later to get dinner, much to disgust of Aunt Demon Dog who had planned to eat my dinner as well as her own. Told her if she got between me and the dinner I spent three hours cooking, would kill her. Was in pain, PMSing, stressed, and done being polite about her eating my share of the one meal I’m hungry for a day. Demon Dog saw look on my face and backed off. Unable to sleep again that night despite multiple short sleep nights. Worked on project. Cooked batch of artichokes for Aunt Demon Dog by request, finishing at 3 in the morning. Finally got to sleep as sun was coming up.

Saturday: Woken three hours after got to sleep by cousin blasting radio again. Guzzled caffiene and prepared for trip to Bakersfield to get dim sum and pick up blank CDs for transporting project from home to school. Aunt Demon Dog drives, and scares the hell out of me the whole time, despite desensitization of growing up around father’s insane driving. Learn on trip that Demon Dog has now not only invited her granddaughter and great-granddaughter for entire weekend, but has also invited my uncle, his wife, their kids, and their grandkids to come and eat dinner for Mother’s Day despite grandmother unit’s request that no one do anything. Demon Dog expects Mom and me to make the ham that would comfortabley have fed the people we knew about to stretch to feed the army descending on us. Have gone at this point from cooking for four to cooking for fourteen with next to no warning. Spend entire day in Bakersfield furious with Demon Dog. Mother unit and I both fight urge to wring Demon Dog’s neck as plans presented to us as if they have already been cleared with grandmother unit, and if she wants to have her family around her, we’ll deal with the cooking. Get home to discover the Sunday plans have not only not been cleared with grandmother unit, but were unknown to her until that moment. Suggest three of us pack up and head to coast until all is over and let Aunt Demon Dog try to cook for the mob while clunking round the kitchen on her walker. Am serious, but treated as joke. Suggest ravening hordes bring pizza from our favorite place instead of cooking. Grandmother unit agrees, but then suggestion is also dismissed as joke. Suggest locking all doors and pretending not to be home when hordes appear and begin knocking. Also suggest a huge range of things to call Aunt Demon Dog. Only suggestion adopted, at least until Demon Dog arrives for dinner with granddaughter and great-granddaughter. Cook Chinese food for seven when planned for four, nearly getting burned with boiling hot oil from deep-frying marinated pork when two-year-old keeps charging through kitchen while I’m trying to cook. Two-year-old’s mother and Demon Dog do nothing to control child. By time done cooking, actually glad that arthritis pain so intense am nearly in tears, because have excuse to go lock myself in my room until everyone has gone. Two-year-old’s shrieks had worked my last nerve by then. Finally get to eat cold dinner at ten, and discover mother unit also has not eaten, as still too furious with Demon Dog to eat. Also learn that psychotic cousin has brought over Junior, who is still obsessed with me and has been known to spy on me through gaps in bedroom curtains and otherwise indulge in generally stalkerish behaviour. Go work on project to try and calm down. Too angry to sleep. Wind up getting to sleep around 7 Sunday morning.

Sunday: Woken one and a half hours after finally got to sleep by cousin hammering on and generally destroying something. Wander into house to discover that mother unit has spoken with Aunt Demon Dog, and dinner plans have changed. Ravening horde will only be appearing for an hour or two for dessert. Not perfect, but better. Announce that will not be participating much, if at all, as must get project finished for final critique on Monday. Would have hidden in room anyway, as can’t deal for long with only one shrieking child and now will have five or six. Work on project until 4pm, then go in to get snack. Show off work to mother unit and uncle unit. Wind up having long discussion with uncle about situation with pyschotic cousin. Told by uncle that he supports me on the restraining order completely and that he’s proud that I’m taking the initiative despite all opposition since no one else here will. Felt good to have some support, since often feel as if making a lone stand with little to no support from family and nothing but bad consequences for me. Went back in house around dinnertime to discover everyone but mother and grandmother units gone. Even people planned for when big ham bought and army of potatoes scalloped have bailed on dinner. Demon Dog, her granddaughter, and great granddaughter were expected and planned for, and all left just before dinner was done. Grandmother unit exhausted and crying over whole day. Far too much ham for the only two people who will now be having dinner. Damn inconsiderate relatives. Wind up sitting in living room for two hours staring at wall, as have been staring at screen almost nonstop all day, and most of each day for some time. Want to look at something more than a foot or two away for a while, especially if does not involve a screen or monitor. Learn from grandmother unit that psychotic cousin has taken Mom’s TV and gotten rid of it, either dumped it or (more likely) sold it for drugs. News is final straw for Mom. Follow her out to psychotic cousins room, and listen to her remind him through the door that the deadline to move is Thursday and he appears to have done nothing toward moving out other than getting flat fixed on car. Informs him that she and I will both be going to get restraining order if he doesn’t go. Feel like cheering that she is with me on it now, but restrain it. Go out to own room to work more on project, and finally thinking that it will actually be finished in time. Have brief talk with mother unit in her room at 11pm, coordinating schedules on getting restraining order along with other errands that need doing. Go back out to room to work on project and guzzle water. Head into the house around 1 for a break, and discover exterior light not working. Reach up to check if bulb is loose, and discover bulb has disappeared sometime since 11. Go into house to get new bulb, and then discover that psychotic cousin not only removed bulb but also broke fixture so can’t put in new bulb. Exterior light only way to safely navigate treacherous stairs into and out of house at night. Mother unit has fallen on same stairs, and grandmother unit has fallen twice, because impossible to see where stairs are at night. Know psychotic cousin is aware I am motivating force behind restraining order, and suspect this is attempt to injure me while making it look like an accident so will not be up to going to court. Too furious to sleep for rest of night, work on project instead. Finally get to sleep around 5:30 in the morning.

Monday: Woken 9:30 in the morning by overindulgence in water while working on project all night. Run into house to find all bathrooms occupied. Surprised whites of eyes have not turned yellow by time finally get a chance at a bathroom. Come out to discover psychotic cousin stealing cigarettes from grandmother unit’s pack. Chase him through house yelling about light, to which his only reply is, “Yeah, whatever. Don’t like it, go call the police, you fat fucking cow.” Nearly did. It’s minor, but still vandalism. And there’s the stolen TV set. But would rather get him out of here permanently with restraining order instead of another short trip to jail and time for mother unit to waver again. Spend most of day until class time finishing up project. Forget to eat something before class, something I should have done since won’t get home until almost 11pm and will be hypoglycemic, shaking, and dangerous behind wheel by then. Discover on way to class that psychotic cousin has stolen all change stashed in car to buy day parking permit at school. Fortunately, find I do have one dollar bill remaining in wallet to use at machine. Barely make it to class on time, get project printed and mounted, and then get many pleasant surprises as instructor, who normally does not compliment without following it up with pointing out flaws in work, said six times how great my self portrait was without any followup comments. Everytime he came to it as he worked his way down the line he’d tell me it was great. Was one of the best moments of entire week. Also got back graded sales sheet project. Expected to fail utterly on it as am not good at advertising copy, but got A, with comments about excellence of illustrations, good layout, and good balance between image and text elements. Yes! Got home despite hypoglycemic shakes to discover grandmother unit had blown up at mother unit over restraining order, then threw a martyr act and marched off to bed without wanting any dinner. Mom was too upset to bother cooking, and marched off to her room to calm down. Got home and talked with Mom a bit, then headed to Denny’s and stuffed myself silly. Came home and crawled into bed, but unable to sleep (what a shock.) Finally drifted off around 4am.

Tuesday: Woken up at 9:30 in the morning for no reason that I could discover. Just suddenly awake and couldn’t get back to sleep. Computer healed itself overnight and when go to use it discover that it is now recognizing signal from cable modem. Finally get wifi router reconfigured and restore internet connectivity to the LAN. Discovered that psychotic cousin got himself a pit bull somewhere. Still no sign of him moving out. He took his car in the morning and was gone all day. Eventually got a call from his ex-wife and her mother. He showed up there, acted crazy at them all until they were afraid he was going to seriously hurt them, then he took their gas-powered weedeater and left. That was early afternoon. Grandmother unit took the call, and has since stopped fighting the idea of a restraining order. Got refills on prescriptions and delivered still more supporting paperwork to local hospital for MIA application, as was accused of lying when said unemployment benefits ended in 2003, so delivered paperwork from EDD showing last check was August of 2003. Psychotic cousin not heard from again until finally showed up here again at 10pm, without weedeater. No one has said as much, but we all figure he took his ex-wife’s weedeater and sold it so he could get more drug money. Theory borne out shortly afterward when he started hammering something. Finally went out with Mom to investigate, but could not find what he was destroying. Destruction always a part of it when he’s high. Reminded psychotic cousin that Thursday is approaching and none of us have seen him doing anything about leaving. Found out then that he’d told the grandmother unit the day before that he would not be moving to Salinas after all. Figure since restraining orders have been periodically threatened before with no followthrough, psychotic cousin assumes this is the same. He will learn different by Friday at the latest, since judges rule on restraining orders within 24 hours of filing. Psychotic cousin also informed by Mom that we will get the restraining order even if he does leave (my constant plan, with constant veto attempts by the mother unit) so he can’t ever come back. Made some sketches for final project in Digital Arts. Decided better list events here so won’t forget anything, since memory resembles Swiss cheese most days. Now must attempt sleep, as need to get together with mother unit before class tomorrow to start filling out paperwork. That way can get it turned in first thing Thursday morning and hopefully have restraining order on same day. Worried won’t sleep. Insomnia still acting up, and don’t feel tired at all. Bad sign.