The Moving Saga

If I never move a dagnabbin, godforsaken box in my entire life, I WILL HUG A PORCUPINE. A real one. Quills and all. I would rather have to slowly and painstakingly remove hooked quills from my chest region, than pick up another box/carton/bin/container/random bucket of junk. Which means I'm in for a painful next few days, considering that now it's UNpacking time. Joyous. This wasn't your typical one day movathon however. This became what will be forever known as the Massive Epic Weekend Saga Moving Hell Adventure. Lets begin:

Day 0:

Preparing for the move! Combine one negative-nancy-familial-moving-helper plus one ill boyfriend plus new house furniture moving plus two pre-trips so that I had a set up room having for myself plus uber stress plus still not finished the house PLUS U-Haul totally SCREWING us by allowing us to book (a month in advance) a 17 foot truck then calling us the day before moving day to tell us that it wouldn't be there. But they had a 14 foot one. 2 hours away. Discount Trucks saved the day with a 24 foot truck only 30 minutes away. Our saviours. Awake from 3pm Day -1 til 2 am Day 1.

Day 1:

Up at 6am, picked up the truck. Laughed my ass off watching little 5'4 mom driving a 24 foot truck around town. Movers arrived (one tiny 110 pound girl, and one 6 foot 4 basket ball player) and the race was on! Huge heavy tubs of dishes and crystal were my job to slug from the kitchen to the cars, load'em up, take them to the house (thank god it's only 15 minutes away), unload them and then head back. Lather, rinse, repeat. It took 6 hours to pack the truck top to bottom, back to front, slamming the door closed to keep things from tumbling out. Ate the only meal of the day at 8pm. Movers were finally finished at 11pm. Bruises start showing up all over my forearms from lifting heavy things. Pass out at 2am again.

Day 2:

Up at 6am, had to tape up mom's wrist cuz she fell out of the moving truck and landed on her hand. 7am at the old house filling up the truck with shit from the garage going to my fathers place for storage. In a colossal rage, much swearing and heaving and burning through emotions with hard physical labour. Feels good. So much dust I think I may be dying. 9:30 am, family shows up to help. We pack until 3pm. Truck is full (and much more poorly packed than Day 1. Damn professionals make it look so easy). 3:30 more family arrives. I get to tie an air hockey table to the roof of a station wagon. Feeling the burn now. More random bruises from falling out of the moving truck when I missed a step full skinned shin. Excellent. Get to the house, unpack. Mom heads off to my fathers house so he can unload his shit. Have a brief nap. Wake up, keep slugging. My sinuses are so swollen from dust that everytime I swallow my ear drums explode. I sleep sitting up and crumpled over to one side.

Day 3:

More moving and hauling. I spend some time at the new house unpacking. Almost die in a massive box mountain collapse. Manage to save myself and the cat and anything fragile. Lose a date with dignity when I stand up to climb over the box and immediately trip and smash my eyebrow into a cement topped table. Move moving, more slugging, think I'm getting sick. Mom, sister and I have a sleepover on the floor of the old house. I discover new bruises on my stomach, hips, thighs and arms from using various body parts to heave heavy things up into lifting positions. Is intensely glad to be wearing padded bras through all of this. I wrap myself up in a duvet to watch an awesome thunderstorm, promptly fall over and fall asleep at 10pm.

Day 4: D-Day

More moving, more hauling. Temperatures sore and I'm soaked within 10 minutes of lifting boxes. Have a mini freak out at how much crap there still is. Family is back to help out. We work right up til 10 pm packing and making van trips. Day four of my sister doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL TO HELP. No lifting no directing no helping NOTHING. Swallow my rage and keep moving. Boyfriend comes to help a bit for about 2 hours. Gets distracted by a guitar while I'm lifting heavy things. I send him home. Not helpful. We are at the house cleaning and packing yet MORE junk into the car until 5:30 am Day 5. Sneaked garbage bags into other people's garbage boxes. Threw some old furniture around behind the garage as a terrible "oversight" for the new owners. The three of us quietly walk through every empty room, crying. It isn't fair that we've been forced out at gun point because my fathers ego was more important than his family's well-being financially, or physically (case in point: attempted murder). Spend more time crying. Finally lock up and leave the old house. Cry all the way to the new house. Stumble into bed. Fall asleep somewhere around 6am. Seem to find peace in sleep. No dreams, no nightmares. Just four hours of well deserved sleep.

It's over.

Even our lawyer didn't think we would make it. We did. Fuck the world, fuck all the non-believers, fuck the doubters and the people who wanted to see us in a shelter instead of helping us. We survived. Though not on our own time-frame, we left on our own terms. We left with dignity (mostly), pride (a bit battered), and with the knowledge that we did it on our own (mostly, family is a god send).

Now it's time to unpack. There is light. The bank is paid, the creditors are next. We are finally able to start fresh. It's time to move forwards. No more looking back.

Doomsday

He gets out today.

I don't know whether to scream until I'm hoarse, cry until I'm dried out, tremble until I shake apart, worry until I throw up, or tear myself to pieces to ensure he never gets a hold of me again.

I want to whisk my mom and sister away to a place where he can never see them. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't save her again. If he came back while I was away.

I'm heading for an emotional lockdown. I feel numb and terrified and despairing and empty.

I want to be left alone but I want to curl up in someone's arms so they can protect me.

I want to sit and let myself be pulled into that place where the world is too heavy, where talking and feeling and smiling and breathing is too much. Where all I can do is exist. But I want to live and breathe and smile and laugh and love and feel. To stick it to him. To prove that he didn't kill me.

I think he did though. A part of me. A part of me I don't know how to repair. A part of me he spent my whole life cutting away at piece by piece. Maybe I should be happy he's finally destroyed it for good. He can't hurt it anymore. I can't help but want it back though.

My heart races, my hands shake, the tears thunder behind my eyes, trapped by my own stubborn resolve to face this with the same desperation to LIVE that I did when I faced him bleeding and sobbing and begging for him to give me the wrench. When I stood between him and my mom, in my three inch heeled boots, stance wide and grabbed him by the throat and told him to stay away. I want to curl up under a rock and die like after the first hit when he had me on the floor, and stood over me, holding me down for the second one. When I heard him tell me that it would be ok, and he used my nickname, and I wanted him to kill me so I didn't have to live knowing this had happened. When I didn't know if my mom was alive or dead and all I could think about was how I could save them from him. When I thought my sister would be left alone.

I want to rage at the world for leaving me alone. For the doctors and nurses at the hospital who wrapped me in a blanket, separated me from my delirious, bleeding mother and then closed the door. Trapping me in a room, the only person who saw. Who remembered. And left me alone to face a future that was crumbling in front of me. Later, to the police who separated me from my mom and sister to take my statement. And then put me in a room, alone. To my friends who were innocently unaware of what had happened who understandbly never thought to reach out to find out where I had gone and why I had left them. To the therapist who saw me and told me I was coping as well as he'd seen and he had nothing more to offer. Unfairly, to the family who cannot see past my hard exterior because I won't let them. To the boyfriend who wants to be close to me and can never truly understand why I can't let it happen. Who is hurt by my distance. At myself, for blaming my father for so many of my malfunctions. At him, because my blame falls true.

I want to cry. For all of the people he hurt and extorted. For the lives he has ruined and the futures he has inexplicably altered. For my cousins who lost a close uncle. For my aunt who fears her own brother. For his cousins who lost out on so much trust, and so much money. Who shared my nightmares of him and who now protect us so dearly. For my uncle who is dying who has lost one of the true friends he thought he had. To my sister who is torn over what to do. To my mother who lost everything financially, who almost lost her life with her children and who was so horribly betrayed by someone she loved. For my friend, my almost brother, who lost a second family that was whole and loving and stable. For myself. Who lost her father. Whose memories are tainted with emotional abuse. Who knows that he made a choice. To lie and let her live, or to lie and try to kill her. And he chose to try to kill me. Because some of my family does not believe me when I tell them how hurtful he was to us. How cruel he was to me. How abusive. That they believe the lies and the image he created of our family.

I want to rejoice. For my mothers freedom. For the end to the abuse and oppression and disdain he wrought upon her. For the freedom to have fun and to be with friends and to come and go as she pleases. That she had regained her independence and her vitality. For my own freedom. For the chance to live life the way I want without such negativity. That we are no longer controlled by him. That my life will not be governed by his guilt trips and his condecension and disdain. That I no longer need his approval.

I want to live, to spite him.
I want to die because he has destroyed everything. He has polluted my views, my ideals. He has changed me in ways I can see and ways I know I won't see yet.

Though not an anniversary yet, today is a day I wish I didn't have to face. Today is the reality, that though he is out in the world, he is dead to me. Today is the reality that though he is dead to me, he is very much alive, which makes him dangerous. Today is a day of nightmares.

Though that day shattered my existence, today is every bit as much a Doomsday. I am too weak to hold together. I am too stubborn to fall apart. I float disconnected in between. Waiting for something to pull me in one direction or the other.

The Night Watch

Ahhhh....the glories of the night watch. Surly drunks. Amorous drunks. Drunks in the their underwear. Angry drunks. Pukey drunks. Drunks that pee in public (did I mention they're women? And they just hike up their skirts? Right in front of everyone?). Drunks throwing stuff off of balconeys. Drunks picking fights. Drunks wishing they didn't pick fights after the OPP is done with them. Drunks who wake up in the drunk tank tomorrow morning wondering what the heck happened after they picked a fight WITH the OPP.

Not to mention the questions like: "Does the TV have channels?" "Where are the towels in my room?" "Can I go swimming?" "Can I still use my microwave after midnight?" "Can you send someone up to my room to fix my microwave that I tried to use after midnight, but please ask him to wear his hover boots because everyone is asleep but me and I really really want to micrwave this...whatever it is RIGHT NOW but I don't want your noisy staff to wake up my two year old that I put to bed in the living room right near where the microwave is".

I think my IQ is dropping. 10 shifts and counting!

Understanding

I'm starting to understand desperation.

Not the desperation that comes from being in need of something. I'm not starving, or dehydrated. I have a home, and family. Yes, I've had loss this year, but I'm not in want of anything. I have opportunity, and a good work ethic. If I apply myself, I have confidence that I can achieve success in my life.

So what am I desperate about?

I'm desperate, to not be sad anymore.

"Ok, cry-baby, so stop being sad."

It seems like such a simple problem. Find ways to not be sad anymore right? The problem, is being so sad that you don't want to do anything. That even talking to someone you care about, is exhausting. So you don't. It's like being full of sand. You just kind of sit there, and stare at nothing. It's oppressive.

I made a pledge to myself for a while to stop being so sad. It worked a bit. Regular exercise and eating properly and trying to sleep properly helped. What I think was the best part though, was school. It kept me moving forward and forced me to get up and work my ass off. I hid in school work. I know I will next year as well.

HIding only lasts as long as whatever it is your hiding behind lasts though. Then the sadness comes back.

I understand. To anyone who feels sad. More than sad. To anyone who despairs. Despairs about anything, everything, or nothing at all. To anyone who feels like your despair is stupid, unfounded, ridiculous, irrational....it is all those things. Many of us don't have reason to feel it. That doesn't make it any less real though. Your sadness, your despair, the hopelessness. If you feel it, if it paralyzes you, the way it catches me, and holds me and drowns me....it's real.

I understand, the desperation, to be anything but sad. To do anything to escape the sadness. I do. There are ways to help the sadness though. I know I need to take advantage of them. I know that I will. Right now I can't, but I know how you feel.

I understand. Now I need to find some people who understand as well. Who can be patient with me. I hope that the people I love, never KNOW how I feel. I hope they can love me anyway though. Until I can find my way out of this. Even if I struggle to love back. Please understand.

The Great Relationship Fuck Up...Again

Yep. In a relationship. Apparently constantly fucking it up.

I don't like being in relationships. I don't like being told by someone, that I can count on and rely on them, when it turns out that I can't. It's not even that most people mean to be unreliable. We're human. If someone would rather drink beer with friends than deal with a significant others emotional melt downs....well, that's just how it goes. As I was told, people can't drop everything for me.

Ok.

It's wrong of me to share my feelings apparently. I get that too. I'm obviously so judgemental and out of touch with reality. I should really have known better. After all, my dad jumped down my throat any time I got too emotional. Why should anybody else be any different?

It always seems that me trying to say or share anything, just turns into a fight. Maybe I'm really that bad at breaking bad news to people. Maybe I'm much more antagonistic than I thought I was.

Am I really so selfish? I didn't think I was. I was always told by others outside of my relationships, that I was too UNselfish. That I never insisted that my own needs be met. Tried that today. It didn't go very well.

I think I'm destined to be alone. Maybe it's my own issues that contribute to how terrible I am with men. It's my dad and I over and over and over again.

It's a shame too. I really like this guy. I could maybe love him (other than the fact that I don't really believe in love, and I'm not sure what it's supposed to feel like and I'm really really good at walking away and never talking to people again for no particular reason except that I suck at staying attached). I just can't communicate how I feel at any given time. I can't explain my logic or reasonings too him without there being a big misunderstanding.

Oh, and I always overreact. Clearly.

I'm going to be a single mom. I'll just get my mom to move in and help me. Obviously I'm not cut out for this relationship thing. I just ruin them. No point in bringing someone down with me.

*whine whine whine*

I feel like shit.

Two Truths and Countless Lies

I LOVE the show Lie to Me. Love it. Fixated on it. It's one of those shows that makes you feel smarter, at least inside your own head, it makes you feel like you can see the world differently. That you can read people better, and that you've learned something.

Pompous assumptions of course. The science and the vocab may be real, but it's jut a TV show. It's got incredibly charismatic, REAL feeling people who are fabulous at their jobs, do it in the blink of an eye and tackle cases that strike us right where it hurts.

Murder, rape, war, injustice, racism, the loss of hopes and dreams, family, love, crisis. It's got enough action and heart pounding music to satisfy the adrenaline rush, and enough real emotion to bring out a sense of relating to the events and characters.

As I'm watching it today though, I found that I have learned something...

...I am an incredibly poor judge of emotions. Sure, in the show, I can see what's coming. Lines and emotions are set up to play out in a way that allows the audience to follow along. Leave your audience confused or left behind and the show falls apart quicker than my boyfriend will at the NOFX concert we're going to see in June.

In real life though...I tend to see in faces really two emotions. Worry, and anger. People wearing neutral expressions, I tend to associate with feeling something they aren't. Meaning when people are say, listening to a presentation and actually concentrating as opposed to sitting and thinking (which we all know can generate a lot of different emotions). Boredom can be a fairly flat facial expression. I always attribute it to something it's not.

Now, this revelation could be for a lot of reasons. I know I have a lot of social anxiety, so it could come from my own fears that anger/worry/disgust are things that I WILL see in people. So I attribute any facial expression that seems nondescript as fitting what I'm afraid of being judged by.

I could be a mild form of Aspergers Syndrome, which falls on an autism scale at the high functioning end of the continuum. Obviously just having trouble recognizing and correctly identifying facial expressions isn't the only symptom to diagnose, but combined with:

- Social awkwardness / no friends
- Obsessions / focused on one subject
- Lack of eye contact
- Sensitivity to noise / touch (textures/being touched by others/uncomfortable with unexplained/sudden contact / feel of clothing
- Odd speech / extreme logic / very proper speech
- Anger / aggression / hitting others- (when I was younger, I had some trouble controlling small contained physical outbursts. As I got older, my anger turned inwards and I developed a pretty crippling aversion to violence or physical outbursts. Good for society I think.)
- Craves ROUTINE!
- Appears lost / in own world

Is a possibility and one I've suspected for a long time. Not necessarily that I HAVE Aspergers itself, but I certainly show signs (which is what a Syndrome is, a collection of symptoms in varying numbers and degrees that tend to cluster and lead to a more or less singular diagnosis).

I could also be selfish. That's possible too. I'm very inward focused. Maybe I'm just....poorly socialized. I'm like a dog that doesn't understand how other dogs behave because I've spent so little time with others. Though since I haven't started sniffing butts yet, I clearly am not a total lost cause in the human world.

I also have very little control over my own emotions. I think and brood a lot, so that explains a lot of my quick flash expressions that don't ever fully manifest. People catch me a lot, I usually have no idea what the emotion was. I sometimes have inappropriate emotional responses to things. Laughing in places I shouldn't, being overly concerned/saddened by something that really isn't all that important. I've learned to be very conscientious of my behaviour, to think before I formally assign an emotion to something. It's tiring, I tend to be very flat with my facial expressions and emotions. I prefer the stability of not emoting when I can. People don't always like that once they get me alone. I think I throw them off guard. My social face is very expressive.

Anyway, it's 4:45 am and I'm having some Lie to Me guided self-reflections. But I do get concerned sometimes about what it all means.

I plan on getting a psych assessment done as soon as I find a new family doctor who can get me a referral. I'd like some warning before I do something as destructive as my dad, if that capability is in me. Who knows, maybe I'll find out some interesting things.

But for now? I'll just pretend that I'm working with Dr. Lightman. And that I can see your deceptions. Sure would make it easier to see the bad people coming. Unless they come from behind. Guess I also need to start watching something like Alias. Women kicking butt and taking names.

Energize Me Baby

Ahhhhh spring is FINALLY found it's way up to the middle of ass-hat nowhere. There are leaves on the trees, the apple blossoms and lilacs have started blooming, and there are ADORABLE little red squirrel babies scampering away in the remains of what was a nice bbq until HE let it run down to nothing (he was good at that).

The best part? Besides the longer hours of daylight (which of course, I rarely see being relegated to the deepest depths of banality and head-shaking-mind-numbing-soul-searing-homicidal-rage-inducing-human-idiocy of the night shift), the warmth (my semi-permanent blanket toga? NO MORE BABY) and the signs of life? THUNDERSTORMS!!!!!!!!!!

I should preface by saying that I'm a big baby when it comes to bad weather. When I was little (6 or 7 probably), I used to watch Tornado Hunter and all kinds of scary weather shows (yet I wasn't allowed to watch Sailor Moon....) with enough intelligence to understand that these things were BAD but not enough understanding of geography and statistical probability to understand how small the chances were of something like a volcanic eruption or a level 5 tornado were in urban Toronto.

Just like being scared of the dark, the absence of anything bad happening, does little to actually quell the fear of what COULD happen, if the evilness and bogeyman and weather monsters of the world decided to get off their butts and make it happen. Not to mention I get horrible headaches from approaching storms, whether they actually happen or not. Every headache became a very ominous warning sign for me.

Not to mention being trapped in a big open field while a funnel cloud started slowly creeping down from the sky (luckily it sucked itself back up and went to destroy something even further north than us, but it was still scary as hell!) For years, the only praying I ever did, was for whatever force was up there, to keep the thunderstorms away from me. Especially when I couldn't go hide in mommy's bed.

After a particularly brutal thunderstorm my cousin and I sat through (It went from midnight until 6:30am) when we were maybe 11, and didn't die from, I started to appreciate them a bit more. Going off to university and being alone during some of them probably helped too.

We just had a fabulous one today and I realized, that not only am I not afraid anymore? I LOVE them. Even the cat was a bit staticky during this one. I feel energized and alive and free. It reminded me that I've been near death, survived it, and am just as kick ass as ever. It's power and nature and fabulousness that humans can never hope to duplicate (and don't argue, it's just never as good). It's like Cherry Blasters, Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish all got together and had a totally improbable child that tasted like every flavour of the rainbow but didn't have such annoyingly sad commercials of children with trees growing out of their stomachs and the most annoying woman who shows up in EVERY show that needs someone to be saccharinely bitchy.

Considering it's 4:41 am and I can still say that I'm raring to go and on top of the world? I must have needed this storm. Now if I only looked as hot as Halle Berry in a cape.........

A Good News Day

So a little while back, before the incident with my dad, I was worrying about an abnormal cell count that had appeared twice in a row on my regular pap tests. It is almost 9 months later, that I was finally able to get an appointment with the specialist to find out what it could be.

First off, all I can say.....the procedure kind of sucks. It's about 10 times more invasive than a females' normal yearly scan, and depending on what they have to do, a good few times more uncomfortable as well.

Second, although I'm interested in biology and how the human body works, having the powerful microscope their using, also feeding up into a television that is positioned right in front of me....is weird. Not to mention the nurses' rather uncomfortable statement of, "don't worry, the law doesn't let us post anything to YouTube" and the doctors follow up of "Nope. It's just broadcasting through the hospital."

Lucky for them I have a sense of humour. But my anxiety still shot through the roof.

Third, having an over eager med student, who has obviously never undergone the procedure, nattering with overly cheerful concern about how I'm feeling and what things feel like right in my ear? Made me want to find a sharp implement and poke her in the eye with it.

All in all, from parking to leaving the hospital, I was only there 20 minutes, the doctor assured me that I don't have cancer, and I get to follow up in two weeks to see if there's any other treatment plans that become necessary after the biopsy results come back.

So in summary, discomfort, awkwardness, excruciating embarssement, a male doctor, over eager female med student, super sarcastic nurse, stirrups, microscopes and a tv play by play later....No Cancer, is always a good news day.

Now it's just the two week wait for the results to see if it's "something else". Don't you hate when doctors get all ominous?

To Forage? Or to Hibernate. That is the question.

I've hit my spring drearyness. Either that or I'm dying. I'd like to think it's the former. For the past little while, with the beginning of this warm weather, I've felt pretty darn lethargic. If I'm not up and actively doing something, I'm falling asleep.

I've been worried that maybe I'm sick. Maybe this is a flare up of the dreaded Epstein-Barr that's been plaguing me since February of 2010. The symptoms don't quite match up, but the fatigue does. Of course, I've also been under a lot of stress lately. So maybe it's a stress tired?

Maybe it's all the coughing from being around smokers. It seems to give me a sore throat way down at the base of my throat too.

All these symptoms seem to have coincided with the introduction of the beautiful warm weather though. Allergies maybe? Or maybe it's working graveyard shifts all night. My body seems to be stuck between wanting to get up, get out and forage in the sunlight.....and to go back to winter and hibernate until I feel better.

At this point, I'm not really sure what to do about it. When I'm occupied with work, or talking with someone, or whatever, I feel fine. It's just when I'm on my own that I feel like I have trouble staying awake.

Bah. I would just like to feel better. *shakes her fist at the unknown ailment* screw you whatever it is.

A High Toned and Fancy To Do

So despite all my previous plans and intentions, I find myself currently sitting in front of a CNN live streaming of the Royal Wedding, wondering a little bit why I'm here....and perversely happy to be watching something as frivolous and hyped up as this is.

Thus far, my first impression is "HOLY HATS!" How do these women see? Or not repeatedly bash other people in the face? My second, is that I know less about England's famous figures, than I do Canada's. So all of these people they're tracking? Unless they've got a crown on, or a wonderfully accented introductory jive, I have no flipping clue who they are.

Which really, is just making this better and better.

There's been a lot of hype about this wedding. Both positive, and negative. I think that people need to relax....just a little bit. I don't know who else has noticed, but we as humans, tend to focus A LOT on the negative things going on in the world. Probably because they instill negative emotions, which are painful to deal with, and therefore create struggle and conflict within us and so we can remember them more easily.

So I think it's safe to say that NOBODY has forgotten all of the horrific things that are currently plaguing so much of our world. I think it's also safe to say, that sometimes? We just want to sit in front of the TV, and watch two beautiful (if not trivial to our lives) people, get married with thousands of other people not only cheering, but literally lining the streets to celebrate. Those bad things? Won't go away. But 11pm tonight we'll be bombarded with more horrific stories about how everything we touch, breathe, smell, look upon and live with is slowly and horrifically weakening/maiming/mutating or killing us. We'll also be reminded, that we are a hoplessly selfish, self indulgent first world country that sits on our fat asses and laughs or overlooks the plight of the less fortunate.

So now, at 4:45 am, watching people all done up in their best get up, smiling like lunatics and feeling part of something that is frivolous and ridiculous and way too high falootin to be considered a serious or world changing matter....I refuse to do anything but enjoy the spectacle.

And the hats. Lets not forget the hats. Because seriously, some of these hats are actually kind of mind boggling.

With my Royal Wedding cherry officially popped, I say: lighten up. It's just a few hours. The bad stuff will return. Of that you have my word. Plus: Elton John looks FABULOUS on live feed. :)

Peace and happy Royal Wedding day.

I am the Worm-Saviour. Koo koo kachoo.

You know those days, where you can smell the rain? Even when it's still a few days away? It's been like that for the past week here. It finally rained today, and it was amazing. And I mean, REALLY rained. The kind of rain that brings all the worms up onto the sidewalk like some kind of armageddon of the creatures beneath the earth.

Those worms always make me sad. They're in the middle of the pavement, lost, drying out or drowning. I save the worms. If they're still alive, I try and toss them back towards the dirt. Someone stopped me and asked what I was doing, and then laughed at me when I told him.

That makes me sad too. When it's funny not to want to kill things. When I express sadness during a movie when an animal dies, or about hunting methods that end up doing more harm than the good it's said regulated hunting does. Animals that are run to death without a chance to eat or drink. Hunters who shoot anything and everything.

Like mourning doves. Who mate for life. And literally mourn the loss of their partners. Forever. Now THAT'S devotion. Though I guess it goes against the evolutionary idea that the only real goal is to Survive, Thrive and Reproduce. It's kind of sweet. We usually don't think of birds doing something so......well, I was going to say human, but these days we hardly stay with each other for long do we?

I digress. I love animals. From big to small to creepy crawly inbetween. Even the bugs I hate like centipedes, I won't kill them myself. When I was 8, I trapped an earwig under the arm of a picture frame to kill it because it was crawling around inside the house. As it was struggling to either free itself, or die, I was struck by such overwhelming sadness that I ended up running away and getting my dad to kill it more humanely. I then spent the next few months worrying that I would reincarnate as a bug and somebody would kill me just as terribly.

I am distinctly pacifist. I don't believe that anything should die, and if it's a necessity (like killing mice who live in the house and could bring in disease), it should be quick and painless.

Today a coworker and I, spent a good 20 minutes listening to a pair of pigeons cooing to each other and watching them move around. It was....peaceful.

I don't really know what my point is. I'm rambling. I'm floating somewhere a third of the way down in a bottle of gin and tonic. But somewhere in there, is simply the belief that everything deserves respect and care. That being kind or gentle isn't something the deserves ridicule. It should be respected once in a while. Looked up to.

Because if we lose our ability to care for the things that don't come at us with maliciousness and spite....then it doesn't look good for how we treat each other.

I am the worm-saviour. Koo koo kachoo. See you outside the bottle.

Something is Rotten in the New Generation

Has anyone else noticed something amiss with the coming generations? No? Then you might be part of the problem (no offence). This isn't a new problem. I wrote a post about how humanity was doomed, and other posts commenting on parents who shouldn't have been parents and how ridiculous we as people generally are.

But as my job as a front desk representative continues, I'm starting to realize that the rotten core not only runs deeper than I thought, but starts much younger as well. Now, this isn't meant to be a diatribe on the "good old days" of taking a strap to your kids when they misbehaved. Nor is it a "woe is the world" tale of how we are all going to hell.

You know what though? There's something WRONG with the way we as a generation are growing up. I not only work days at the hotels I'm in right now, but also nights. I get to see and hear the FILTH and disrespect spewed out by young adults who are part of one of the most highly educated generations yet. I've watched drunk girls in stilettos and what might as well be duct tape, hike up their skirts and try to piss outside and then bad mouth the security guards who tell them to stop. I've seen guy after guy coming running into a hotel with security guards and police not far behind him, because he picked a fit with a staff member or another guest. I've heard adults asking other adults to please put out their cigarettes outside in the communal hot tub because there were children around, and heard the smokers cry "FUCK YOU."

In my own experience, I've watched my mother beg for more time, for compassion for what happened to us, for AID from my fathers brother, and watched her be turned away. Kids bash on doors they don't even know to accuse people of breaking the things THEY leave laying around in other peoples driveways (if that had been me as a kid leaving something in a driveway that got broken, my dad would have had my proverbial hide).

Guests come up to the desk and yell and scream and vent all over us from everything from rooms not facing a particular direction, to being angry at us because we can't have a security guard on every floor to stop the noise of people going into their rooms for the night, or the noise of snowplows outside that kind of HAVE to do their job, otherwise we'd be yelled at for not plowing out our parking lots.

Don't get me wrong, I've had some hilarious experiences with guests who were angry enough to bite my head off. Usually because the only thing to do after a horrible experience with someone really, is to laugh (of course only once they're well out of ear shot and whatever problem they DID have, rational or not, has been addressed). But story after story from security guard, desk agent and various other staff.....just depress me.

It's no wonder that people HATE us young adults (19-25 lets say for arguments). We're belligerent, drunk, defiant, rude, disrespectful, crass, loud, obnoxious and sometimes downright nasty. We talk back, fuck the world and destroy whatever we think we can get away with destroying. Don't get me wrong, I know some WONDERFUL human beings in this age category. Beautiful people with caring hearts, respect, dignity and a drive to succeed in life not only for themselves but to help others. I try to be one of those good people. But when someone much older than me, looks at me or treats me with disdain? It's not hard to understand why. It's funny how the numbers of us that are terrible, make so many of us decent ones seem terrible too.

I think when I first realized this, I was 15, heading into an apartment building when I caught sight of an older woman heading towards the side door. Chatting with my friend at the time, I leaned against the door to hold it open. It was a warm day, and I wasn't in a rush. But the old woman, started to run for the door, her face contorted into a sort of pleading dismay, as though she was waiting for me to just step inside and shut the door in her face. In her hurry, she fell and cut her shin and hand. I helped her up to her apartment, and the woman taking care of her - after she heard the story - looked at me like it was MY fault this had happened. I realize it wasn't MY fault...but I knew my age had played a factor.

This is what we've become in the eyes of so many. Spoiled young adults who know nothing about being on our own with so little respect that they act as though we're incapable of kind or thoughtful gestures.

I can't tell anymore if this is something wrong just with our generation, or if it's a problem with the world itself. All I know, is that the good ones of us, will eventually get tired of being treated with a lack of respect, generated in others because of the bad ones of us. In turn, we'll stop giving the respect that the adults claim they aren't getting from ANY of us.

It's not the dog eat dog world out there anymore. It's the humans who are the new problem.

Triumphant if not Damaged Return

Wow. I forgot this blog existed to be honest. Blasphemy, I know. I create a place that I mean to try and get my thoughts down, and then abandon...well....really myself for over 6 months. In all fairness though, I have a legitimate excuse.

7 days after my last post (which would make it September 8th), at 9:30 in the morning, my dad attacked first my mother and then myself with a 2 foot long socket wrench, hitting us both twice over the head. Through a scuffle that resulted in two broken cell phones, a lot of screaming and more details that I will bore you with, I managed to get the wrench from him, get my mom and I out of the house, and then call 9-1-1 to get us to a hospital. Mom needed 15 stitches and a night of observation, I got released with 7 and got to go back to the house of horror with my aunt, who drove up from Toronto to be with us.

He was arrested and taken to a mental hospital for observation for 6 weeks, and now he's serving a 9 month sentence for two counts of assault causing bodily harm, a lesser sentence than the police at the scene wanted, but in Canada if you've got a clean criminal record, you get a wrist slap for bludgeoning your family. Go figure. He'll be out end of June. So that's about 9 months total. Anyway, turns out he did it because he had not only BANKRUPTED us, but had wracked up almost 1 million in debt including a second mortgage against the house.

So for the last 6 months, my mom and I have tried to keep shit together while the bank breathed down our necks and we struggled to try and find the money to even just live day to day paying bills, buying food and gas. Dealing with constant car problems. We survived the winter, to all of our surprise. We may finally have an offer on our house, which would be a godsend.

It's been stressful. I had to take a year off of school and find work up here. It sucks.

We're doing ok though. I mean, it's terrible, and I still have nightmares, but we're surviving. I'M surviving. Despite all of my beliefs that I wouldn't, or that maybe it would have been better if I hadn't, I'm surviving.

And so here I am. I return. Triumphant, alive, if not a little damaged.

Ha ha.