Regina Noctis

One of the size-positive communities to which I belong got hit hard by a troll tonight. The mod’s personal journal also got hit by the same idiot. In both cases, there’s an estimate of 100 or so posts or comments that are nothing but the worst images this guy could find – decapitated human bodies, bodies in advanced stages of decomposition, mutations, extreme disfigurements, close-ups of of diarrhea, and on and on. The mod is in the process of filling out an abuse report and trying to remove the posts from the community, but it’s going to take her some time. I don’t envy her all the work. I did, at least, leave her a message thanking her for the work she’s doing.

Some folks just need to grow the fuck up.

Last Sunday, I was prepping a shopping list. I had about eight different dim sum and won tons I was planning for a dinner, and headed into the kitchen to check supplies of this and that. When I got there, I discovered that we had a guest that I didn’t recognize. The talk seemed to be serious, so I put aside plans to wander around the kitchen and check on things. I sat down to listen.

It turned out that this was the guy that had rented a room in his house to my psychotic cousin after we threw him out of here. It only took three weeks for this guy to kick the cousin out. Since then, he has been dealing with the repercussions of my cousin’s insanity.

John has taken to showing up at the guy’s house at two or three in the morning on random nights, yelling and pounding on the door until the guy wakes up. He yells threats and such, and the guy calls the cops. He has called the cops three times now, and by the time they get there, John is gone. The cops tell the guy that there’s nothing they can do about it, since John is long gone by the time they get there.

One of those times, after John woke him, the guy couldn’t get back to sleep and took a ride in his car to calm down. It’s one of two cars he owns. The other is a 64 Chevy that he’s been restoring.

When he got back from his ride, he discovered that someone took a rock (he says a rock just like the ones at the hotel where the psycho is living now, which are apparently rather distinctive in this area) and threw it through the rear windshield of the Chevy. That time, the cops said that since there were no witnesses and they couldn’t pull fingerprints off of a rock, there was nothing they could do.

He’s also had to clean up the godawful mess John apparently made in the room he’d had for three weeks. In the course of this, he found a magazine. The magazine had belonged to the guy’s wife. It was a women’s fitness magazine. John took it, and filled it up with fucking insane ramblings. So awful that no one except me was able to read all of it. My immense rage gave me enough of a barrier that this didn’t make me physically ill, the way it has everyone else.

John is obsessing on rape. He wrote over a picture of a woman in one advertisement that he would take the woman and strangle her to death, just so he could rape her dead body for weeks. But the worst part was that he made repeated references to raping his daughters. He seemed to focus in particular on his middle daughter Jiovanni. He was quite graphic and quite explicit. Enough so that we were concerned that he was talking about events that had already occurred.

After Becky left John, she had the girls examined, and the doctor said that none of the three of them exhibited any of the signs of trauma they’d expect from any sexual abuse. But this, apparently, was several years ago that she did this. I pointed out to Becky that this could have been happening since the breakup, but she said that the girls have never had any unsupervised visits with John since then. That just isn’t true. The guy John was living with told us about at least one time that John showed up at the guy’s house with all three girls in the car. And all three of the girls spent time here when John still lived here. Sure, we were around during the day, but those girls would be here for several days at a time, and at least one of them would sleep out in John’s room with him every night. His room, like mine, is not attached to the house, and has, if anything, better insulation and soundproofing than my converted garage does. If something had happened, we’d never have heard anything. And we can’t be there 24-7. The rest of us have to sleep, too. So yeah, I think that it’s possible that this has been going on. It would certainly explain the kind of behaviour I see in Jiovanni.

On Tuesday, I showed Becky the magazine. I still feel that she didn’t take it as seriously as she should. But I did, at least, get a promise out of her that she will take it to the cops. She stated in the beginning, after reading a few passages, that she would. Then she started talking herself out of it, saying that it was all just fantasy and that while she sees it as a threat, is it really or is it protected free speech? Could the cops really do anything about it? I pointed out to her that we don’t know the laws, and the cops do. She’s not going to get those questions answered by asking me. What she needs to do is go to the cops with it, and they’ll act on it if they can. And if they can’t, well, if something’s discovered later, or John tries something with the girls, we have proof of premeditation right there that the cops will have documented. So she finally agreed to go to the cops with it. I told her that if she didn’t, I would.

Everyone was pretty upset over all of this. It’s taken me this long to process everything enough that I could even think about using this outlet to get some of this out of my system.

For about a day, even my grandmother was sickened with John. But now she’s back to asking us to let him move back in. She thinks that she can keep an eye on him, keep him out of trouble. I find this just incredible that she can be so delusional where he’s concerned. She wasn’t able to keep enough of “an eye” on him to keep him from doing drugs when he was here before. Her being there did nothing to keep him from stealing Mom’s and my things, destroying some of our stuff, threatening to beat us or kill us, threatening to rape me, or assaulting my mother twice and trying to kill her. She has also decided that she was there to witness what happened the night John tried to kill my mom, and that what really happened was that my mom slipped and fell. She’s absolutely convinced of it, and that for some inexplicable reason, we’re lying to her when we say otherwise. But at least she has stopped trying the emotional blackmail on me when I don’t bow down to her will or agree that she’s right about everything and we’re either wrong or liars. Her “I wish I was dead and gone to hell!” thing stopped when I told her, “If that’s what you want so much, then hurry up about it because I’m tired of hearing it.” The other one, the one about how she should just move out because we don’t let her have her own life in her own house so she should go to assisted living and let us do whatever we want has finally disappeared also. She finally drove me to the point that I told her, “Okay, then fucking do it already. I’m sick of hearing about it, I’m sick of the way you rewrite everything in your head, I’m sick of your need to be right no matter what happens or what evidence is given you otherwise, and I’m sick of you.” When I was a kid, that emotional blackmail worked. Even when I was a teen. But not anymore. All it does is piss me off. I tried being patient with it and talk gently to her when she started up, and I did that for years. Nothing changed. But now she is coming to the realization that she can neither push me around or blackmail me into things, and it’s been an amazing relief. She still doesn’t ever try to talk like a reasonable person, but instead of the emotional blackmail now, she just storms off to her room and sulks. She eventually gets on the phone and waits for an opportunity when I’m in the room to tell whoever she’s talking to about how badly she’s treated in her own home, but this game of hers isn’t going to be any more successful than the others. And above anything else, that psychotic asshole she cherishes above the lives and safety of everyone else is never ever moving back here. She can throw all the tantrums she wants, and she can blacken my name to her friends all she wants. I don’t give a shit what a bunch of strangers thinks of me.

I’m angry. Angrier than I think I’ve ever been with her and with the psycho. Thank Eris for LJ, so I can let some of this shit out periodically. I think I’d go right out of my mind if I couldn’t write at least some of this out of my system.

The last couple days have been rather rocky at best.

Monday started off okay, but descended into irritation, followed by boredom, followed by fear and panic. At least the first night of the Westminster dog show was on that night, so it ended well.

Irritation on Monday happened when I went to pick up the book and class packet for my late-start class. This is not a class I want to take, or even think that I should take, but it’s a requirement. It’s one of those classes geared to teach people who are fresh out of high school skills to survive at college. Considering I went down the college road before, even if I did drop out later after my hand injury closed the path I’d chosen, I don’t feel like this class is in any way necessary. But here I am, getting it out of the way. At least it’s only six nights, one night a week. So, in spite of taking this class under protest, I went off to at least do it right, get the book and the class packet, do the homework, all that stuff. I got to the Hellano campus of Bakersfield College and discovered that the book store was closed. When I went to the admin desk and asked about it, I was told that the book store is only open for the first two weeks of the semester, and then is closed until the following semester. I was told I’d have to drive to the main BC campus to pick up these two things I’d need. I raised a stink. I told them on no uncertain terms that if they have late-start classes, they need to have the class materials available to the students who are taking those classes. I went on and on about it until someone finally went and got the two things I needed and rang them up there at the admin desk.

So that was irritation. Boredom came with doing the homework and actually attending the class. Yes, o instructor extroadinaire, I know how to apply to the college. Yes, I know how to register for classes. How do you think I got here? Yes, I know about taking assessment tests and how to read a class schedule and how to choose the classes I need for my major. Can I go home now? No? Haven’t you gotten the idea that I know all of these from the fact that I have not only answered every question you’ve asked the class, I’ve also corrected a couple mistakes you made and pointed out when you skipped a piece of important information for these former high school students? Okay. Fine. Give me the worksheet so I can show you my study schedule and prove that yes, I do actually know how much time minimum I need to spend in study based on the formula you’re trying to teach these kids. Wake me when class is over.

Fear and panic certainly woke me up. I got home and saw yellow tape strung across the driveway. Because of the problems we’ve had with the psycho, and because the wind was blowing so I couldn’t read the big CAUTION written on the tape, my first reaction was “OH MY GOD! Crime scene tape!” (Yeah, okay, I watch too many cop shows. Sue me.) My first thought was that the psycho had shown up and slaughtered Mom and Grandma while I was in class trying not to fall asleep. I got out of the car and ran for the house, and then discovered that it was caution tape from repair work being done on the carport. But damn was I awake at that point.

It took a long time for me to calm down, so I didn’t get to sleep as early as I’d have liked. I then got woken up by Morris about three and a half hours after I got to sleep. If I’m asleep anywhere in the main house, he lets me sleep. But for some reason, me sleeping in my bedroom means I’m supposed to wake up and cater to him, and he generally wakes me at two hour intervals all night if he gets the chance. This time, he started up when he did because that’s when he got let out of the main house and got his opportunity. Once I’m awake, I can’t usually get back to sleep, so I got up and wandered into the house on a caffiene hunt. I discovered we were out. So I grumbled my way through the morning, had a fight with the scanner to get a good enough quality scan of the 100-year-old picture that I’m repairing in Photoshop for class, and then only had time to grab a leftover gizzard from the previous night’s fried chicken for breakfast. So I went to my first class hungry and grumpy. That was exacerbated by the day, since I have some pretty bad associations with Valentine’s Day. The deaths of ten people I knew, including a guy I’d been madly in love with for four years; cops on the doorstep looking for a runaway friend; a whole host of other more minor things. All of it usually makes me alternately depressed and angry on February 14.

In class, at least, I managed to get so involved with restoring the old photograph of my great-grandfather and his fellow oil drillers that I didn’t even think about what day it was once. Hell, I hardly noticed when class ended. This restoration job is hard. I’ve had to entirely reconstruct parts of the photograph, including some faces.

The dinner plan for tonight was for my mom and grandmother to have enchiladas – something that they love and have been craving, but I hate. It wasn’t a big deal, since I was in the city and could pick up something for myself there. I decided to get some sushi as a treat for myself. But when I got to the restaurant, I discovered that it would be a minimum of an hour before I’d be able to eat. I told them to forget it and hit the road home. Figured I’d just make a stop at Denny’s and grab something there (and how sad is it that Denny’s is the best restaurant in Hellano?)

Everyone in Hellano seemed to have decided to eat at Denny’s. Wait time for a table was an hour and ten minutes, maybe more. The place across the street had a wait time only a few minutes less. Even the fast food establishments had lines stretching out the driveways and onto the streets. I tried to call home to bitch about it all and to ask whether the last of the fried chicken was still available, and the phone was busy. The woman who does some of the housework for my grandmother had been there when I left for Denny’s, and that plus the busy phone meant that her jailbird son had called and they were going to be on the phone for a while. I decided I was going to drive home and explain to the woman that I could put up with the calls on Sundays, since it doesn’t interfere with the rest of us using the phone. Sundays are generally dead phone days. But the collect calls from prison have been expanding until it’s almost nightly, and sometimes the rest of us need to use the frigging phone. Or else I was going to kick her teeth down her throat. I was in such a foul mood (and low blood sugar moodswings were so bad by then) that either seemed like a perfectly reasonable option. Luckily for her, she was gone by the time I got home.

I grabbed the last small piece of chicken and ate that, but it didn’t help either the hunger or the low blood sugar that much. There really wasn’t anything else around, since this is the low point of the buying cycle. Tomorrow’s the next trip to the grocery store. Eventually I went back out in the hopes of finding something. In the end, I wound up finding a fast food restaurant that didn’t have quite so much of a line. Fast food was the last thing I’d wanted, but I needed to eat something before the low blood sugar and my homegrown insulin overload started sending me into all the lovely symptoms of insulin shock. With some food in me I began to feel much better, and the second night of the Westminster dog show went a long way to providing even more of a cure. Tonight’s the night I got to yell “Puli!” a lot as they paraded around one of my favorite breeds.

After Best in Show got named, I wandered back out here and looked around Mofi, and actually found something that made me feel truly good for the first time all day.

One of the reasons I grumble and growl on Valentine’s Day is because of the whole valentine exhange thing. When I was a kid, I loved making valentines for people. I spent a lot of time on them, trying to make something that would appeal to the personal taste of each person. That included the kids at school, since it was practically mandatory that you had to pass out valentines to your classmates at the schools I attended. I started days ahead, and put a lot of thought and care into them. And every year, since I was the unpopular fat kid, everyone else in the class would give valentines to everybody but me. I generally had one or two friends in any school I attended, and at least one of them would give me a store-bought card. But the rest of the class would carefully exclude me. I didn’t say anything about it or react outwardly, but I was an (overly)sensitive kid and the snubbing hurt quite a bit. When I was older, I’d sometimes put up anonymous messages in forums for various friends (and sometimes signed ones) because I was thinking of them and wanted to do something to make their day a little brighter. And while I didn’t expect reciprocation, it did hurt that I never got any kind of message, anonymous or otherwise. It would just be nice not to feel always forgotten or actively snubbed. Even the people I considered my closest friends would put up messages for other friends and forget me. Boyfriends (most of ‘em, anyway. One didn’t) either forgot or openly sneered at me for being an overly-romantic idiot when I crafted things for them. And I still keep doing it. I hop over to the LJ valentine community every year and post messages (some anonymous, some not) for a random selection of friends. Who varies from year to year, for the most part. Some are every year. Never got one myself, something that’s gone on so long that now I expect to be forgotten and just sigh and wonder why I bother every year. I even posted anonymous Valentines wishes over on the Mofi thread, and assumed there’d be nothing in return.

But this time, there was an anonymous message that named me. So, yeah, in spite of all the stuff that’s gone on in the last couple days, I feel good.

So, after all of that, I sit here with the candle I lit for Ralph, something I’ve done every year since he died 19 years ago, and for once on this day, something to smile about.

…but the lemmingness of it all finally sucked me in.

Johari bomb, away.