I thought it had been a while since I posted anything, but not a whole year. Turns out I drafted a post and never hit "approve". I'm sorry, imaginary reader, if you spent too long wondering what was up with my life. Facebook was useful for providing this worthless proxy for personal connection; naturally I've deleted mine.
So, yeah, my dad died back in February. I'm kinda permanently sad about it. This is just part of getting old. I read something about boomers living longer, but spending those extra years suffering under American healthcare and end-stage capitalism. My mom just survived Hurricane Milton; I don't use "survived" lightly, it was a storm that was terrifying to meteorologists and she sent me a "here's what I want to happen if this storm kills me" message. She's okay. This is just part of living in climate catastrophe.
Next month I'm going to Florida for her husband's memorial service. He was a dick and I'm glad he's dead. I'm working on euphemisms and dodges for when I am asked about him. "Hopefully the people whose lives he's touched will awaken to a better day" is about as close to "he's dead and everyone is better off" as I can come up with off the top of my head.
Here's the kicker - the service is on November 2nd, so I have to fly down there the day before and fly home the day after. The day after is, of course, my fiftieth birthday. I was laughingly wondering if my family was going to do something for me; quite the opposite.
My state health benefits include six-a-year therapy appointments. I should pull the trigger on that benefit, because fuck, I'm angry and sad all the fuckin' time. I think I might have undiagnosed ADHD, but that's gravy. The main event is depression and living in an unjust end stage capitalist dystopia.
Ingrid left town for a couple days to see her family. I took the day off of work to mind the dog. Ingrid has been gone for less than 24 hours and the dog has peed in the house twice already. I would rather be cleaning up dog piss and listening to the Indigo Girls than commuting on a beautiful Friday. I'll take her to the dog park later today. Four day weekend when you add in Indigenous Peoples Day.
Because fuck Columbus.
--12:53 PM EDT, October 11th, 2024, just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone
I never write anymore. My days are the same, unbroken stretches of yesterday, today and tomorrow where each is indistinguishable from the last. It's probably worth it to record what those days are like, if only to assess what it is that's so banal that it's not worth noting.
I get up at 6 AM, shower, and walk the dog. If the dog is compliant, I can catch the 7:07 train to Center City. If not, I wait for the 7:37. I can take the bus from our new house, which is a nice fallback option. The early train gets me to work half an hour early, the late train gets me there right on time: usually 5 or 10 minutes late, given how reliable SEPTA is.
I work for the commonwealth, doing clerical work for the welfare office. Mailing forms, processing requests. The pay is shit and the neighborhood I work in is awful, but I'm doing work FOR people. I quit being a doc review lawyer because it was just helping billionaires sue each other, or get out of being sued by the government. I feel morally better about my current job, even though I look like an asshole for doing three years of school and six figures of student loan debt, followed by 15 years of work I hated.
I eat fast food or peanut butter crackers for lunch. I waver back and forth on soda -- either I'm only having one a week or one a month, or I'm having one or two a day and justifying it to myself as something I deserve because I'm sad.
I'm sad all the time, so this is not great reasoning.
I work 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM with an hour for lunch. My coworkers are good folks. I am in a union.
My commute to and from work is about an hour each way. I ride the regional rail train for thirty-five minutes, then change to the subway to get out to West Philadelphia. I walk about half a mile on each side of the commute, plus any steps I get at lunchtime or during breaks. I like to pretend this is enough exercise, so I can defend spending the rest of my free time in a recliner. I am conscious of my own bullshit.
At work I spend way too much time staring at my phone. My job requires me to stare at a computer monitor. When I get home, the only thing I like to do with my free time is to play computer games. I'm amazed my eyesight isn't completely fucked yet.
My dad died last month. He hadn't been well, so it wasn't a surprise. You spend a lot of time telling yourself whatever reassures you or supports your course of action. Whenever I would suggest to family members that he might not have much time left, they were shocked. "He's not DYING," they'd say. "He's just got a problem with his foot / heart / circulatory system / etc." Dad reinforced that with his simultaneous "I'm fine, the doctor says" and "I don't know if Mary and I will get another Christmas" statements.
Funerals are expensive.
Earlier in the job-related part of this post, I mentioned that my pay is shit. When someone had to go to New York and sign with the funeral home, I tried to keep my brother and sister informed. They got mad over the cost, and I certainly didn't have $17,000 lying around. But it was what Dad wanted, so we did it. I didn't let myself get worked up over the cost because 1) credit cards exist, 2) my sister is basically a millionaire, and 3) we would eventually be paid back by Dad's estate.
No one wanted to pay the lump sum to the funeral home and there was a lot of "that guy gouged us, fuck him and his bill" talk. I asked Ingrid to put it on her credit card because mine wasn't large enough. As soon as my siblings heard that Ingrid paid it, they switched gears and got very generous and "oh money is no object." That made me madder than the initial $17,000 bill. If money was no object, why did I have to do all the decision making and heavy lifting while you all bitched and moaned?
It's over with now, and I hope we'll see that money back from the estate. It'll take time, and as stated earlier my time is just grinding along.
I feel like this was real whiny and self-pitying, but that's nothing new for this blog. I don't care much because no one's reading it. If you want to hear something nice, I've been buying computer parts and I'm building my first PC once I have the nerve to spend $500 on stuff I literally don't need. Again, credit cards exist (I got a new one so I could balance-transfer the funeral debt off Ingrid's card), and better to do something nice for yourself than wait for someone to do it for you.
Happy roll back the rock day, primitive hunter gatherers. If Jesus sees his shadow it's six more weeks of Lent.
--10:57 AM EDT, Philadelphia, PA, 3/31/2024, Whoa no, Guadalajara won't do
I'm still alive.
It's Christmas time in 2023. My dad's wife has dementia. It sucks. I spent half of Christmas day at the psych ward of Doylestown Hospital.
I still work for the Commonwealth. The job is trash but it is hard to get fired from and union benefits are not bad. (They're not perfect, though, and you can see where we got fucked by Republican bullshit at some point over the last X years.)
We got a pit - basset hound mix named Orla. That means "golden princess," but our golden princess farts and smears butt gland oils on my shirts. She's a pretty good girl and we like her.
Thank you to icculus for fixing this site. I know I don't use it much, and if he let it disappear into the internet's drain, nothing of value would be lost. I'm grateful regardless.
It's been 40-50 degrees all week. I'm losing my affinity for winter to global warming. You can't glory in subzero temps if there are no subzero temps.
I'm trying to convince Ingrid to marry me for tax reasons, procedural reasons and convenience. No dice so far. I'll let you know if anything changes.
--8:24 PM EST, December 26th, 2023, any major dude would tell you
It's been forever.
I got a job with a large governmental entity. It is a severe case of underemployment but it's a union job and includes a pension. If I decide that I can put up with being an office drone for nineteen more years I get a lifetime salary. I got the job just after my last post, so it'll be a year this September. I'm still waiting to hear if I get a raise or what. C'mon union!
Ingrid is shopping for houses, to buy instead of rent this time. She likes the neighborhood, likes her job, likes the city. I'm all for it, though I'm sure I'm going to catch flak from my privilege-bearing cohort for "you're just NOW buying a house?" and whatever other heteronormative judgments they want to levy.
Lennie died. It's a Tuesday morning as I write this, and she died Sunday morning. I'm still hurting over it. She was a bad dog, but such a good dog. We lucked out when the pound suggested we take a look at this little Chihuahua looking murderer, and she lucked out too. I don't know who would have put up with her the way we did. Rest easy, angry pooch. We love you.
I'm noticing that my post about complaining about my mom is two posts ago, in my infrequent chronicling. Lennie had the best day, that day. I was mad about it in the moment, but I bet she dreamed of that chicken cheesesteak forever after. "I had it, man, I had it in my JAWS."
Everyone deserves a win, once in a while.
I don't know if I'm posting because I have all this free time, or if I'm feeling introspective about the dog, or what. Some social scientist could probably tell you why based on the frequency and length and content of these things. I don't have an opinion. I just writes them.
Maybe more again sometime.
--6:25 AM, EDT, 8/16/2022, Philadelphia PA, you seemed so close but yet so cool
I never hit send on that last entry until just now.
It's likely because I didn't want anyone reading mean things about my mommy.
--7:57 PM, Sunday night, EDT, trois navires de ble
Well, I've had a week. A month? A forever? I don't know, it sucked though.
So, last month, my mom tells me she's coming to visit for a family function. I tell her that I'd like to come visit her in Vermont, since she's moving soon to Florida, fulltime. I have personal objections to ever visiting Florida, so it would be nice to see her in elevated climes and non-lunatic surroundings.
She agrees and we plan to drive up north in one car after the family event. I clear it with Ingrid and I'm all set. Having the decade-plus of "I can't travel I have work" and "I can't travel I need to stay available to work" I figured I should take advantage of not working and having paid off my loans.
My sister calls me up out of the blue to complain about our mother. She does this all the time, despite the fact that she won't allow Mom to spend much time with anyone but her. She has this weird psychological construction of "Mom has to stay with me" and "Ugh I hate it when Mom stays with me" and "Mom spent time with you last time she has to spend all her time with me" and "Christ I wish Mom would go somewhere else", all present and true simultaneously. It's pretty fucked up.
My sister complains that they went to Vermont for the long weekend of July Fourth, and Mom took her everywhere and paid for everything and it was so awful. I listened because my sister expects it, and it costs me little. (It does have a cost, mind you.) But she bitches up and down about spending this time with our mother, and then says I have to come visit while Mom is staying with her around the family event. I roll my eyes and I believe she can hear it over the phone.
I hang up with her, and then my Mom calls. She bitches about my sister for all the same things and reverses all the stories so she's the one aggrieved. I ask her if she's staying with my sister when she comes down and she says yes, for a week.
Mind you, she and I are supposed to drive to Vermont to spend a couple days together in her soon-to-be former house. I realize I've been bumped, and I'm not sure my septuagenarian mother's memory is all that good. Maybe she just forgot...? I quietly assent to her new plans without raising any objection. One of the things she angrily railed against my sister was my sister's claim that she is growing senile. She is NOT, she declaims.
I ask her why she would spend a week in Vermont, a week in Pennsylvania, and then a week in California (part of the plan that got my plans canceled) with someone who makes her this angry. She pauses to consider this fact. She says maybe she won't come to PA. I laugh mirthlessly to myself that I've managed to convince her to spend two weeks with my sister and no weeks with me. Ha. Ha.
She does come to PA and she stays with my sister and we all go to this family picnic. I have some weird facial paralysis from Bell's palsy, and this part of the family is MAGA as fuck, so I mask up for the whole day. I don't tell either of them about this because they're overreacting bitches and if I can keep it on the downlow for two weeks, no one has to get their panties in a bunch. I make a mistake and tell my niece who probably waited all of twelve seconds before telling every relative we have. Like mother, like daughter.
So my mom tells me she will spend one lunch with me the following week. This is my reward for telling her I didn't feel like she valued my time after a visit where she spent all week with my sister and zero time with me. She comes over and demands to know what's wrong with my face. "Your sister says you had a stroke" or some other gossip-fueled bullshit. I explain what Bell's palsy is and we get into the "you need to see a doctor" vs. "American healthcare is fucking bullshit" argument. My mom and my sister both married money, so they don't know that not having health insurance is a thing.
After this I buy her lunch, which makes her angry. She yells at me during lunch to be more considerate of Ingrid, which, man, have you met me? She leaves her chicken cheesesteak on the table where the dog can get it and makes me go show her where the alley is (amazingly, it's in the middle of the side of the block!) so I can unload some shelves she wanted out of the Vermont house. I come back in to close up the doors and find chicken cheesesteak all over the floor and the dog promising a slow death to anyone who tries to deny her this prize.
Then she leaves, complaining about how everything has to be difficult with me. I explain that she let the dog get at her very messy lunch, and she canceled on our plans to go to Vermont. And she says "yeah I know, you don't get along with my husband". She had not forgotten, she just unilaterally decided what our plans were and that I was no longer a part of them, without consulting me or apologizing or what have you.
Then she says I should come up and visit some time. Like, as though there was no context, or that she JUST SAID "don't come visit, my spouse hates you".
I used to respect my mom's willingness to buck the system; she left home when I was a young teenager and never came back. She said "fuck this marriage" as it wasn't doing anything for her, and regretfully walked out on her kids. She was around, it's not like she went out for cigarettes. But she wasn't in our home any longer.
But I think it taught her to just do what she wants and damn the consequences. When she disregards my sister's mental illness, it has an air of "she has to get help, I can't do it for her". When she decides it would be easier to just not have me visit, she makes other plans and leaves me to figure out what that meant. I'm not saying she is hateful or spiteful, just self-taught at being careless and neglectful.
Those are not great traits in your mom.
--6:59 PM, EST, Philadelphia, PA, and I dash upstairs to take cover
So, we got our dog, Lennie, six years ago, when Ingrid was freshly overcome with grief from losing her previous dog, Abby.
Lennie was a shelter dog, who had been taken out of a home with "too many animals". She is a little Chihuahua mutt, she is mean, and she is responsible for one of the few scars I have. She took some getting used to, but we love her and we put up with her periodic violence and psychosis.
We've had some trouble with her vet care this last year - I might have written about it elsewhere on this page. Basically, she had an infection near her eye, we figured it was dental, the vet said she'd look at it but only after a cardiologist okayed her for anaesthesia, we got the cardiogram, the vet forgot about us, made us go to another cardiogram, checked her teeth, didn't find anything. That sentence took eight months to play out, and her face is still swollen.
We were pretty salty because the vet made us jump through hoops for six months to accomplish sweet fuck all. We took her in again today to remind them that her face is swollen and we'd like some goddamn vet care. The vet's response was to the tune of "What Do You Want Me To Do About It?" from the hit musical "Bad Veterinary Bedside Manner". She basically said we could look into some good expensive dental or cardiological care, not from her, from a specialist, or we can just accept that our dog has a swollen face and a bum ticker. The subtext was "how much money are you really trying to spend on this dog?"
She's not wrong, I acknowledge she got a degree in veterinary science. I just wish she'd minored in Not Being A Bitch To Your Clients Studies.
I admit, my go-to response to "your dog is sick" is just "give the dog everything she wants and love her and hug her and squeeze her" and not "make hard decisions about your budget and her lifespan". I frequently remind Lennie she cost us $52 in fees at the shelter. I'm a monster, I acknowledge, and a hypocrite.
I don't want Ingrid sad about our dog for the rest of Lennie's life. I don't want Ingrid mad at me for doing or not doing whatever it is she thinks the dog needs. My inclination is to do nothing and try and give Lennie her best life, and when she goes, she goes.
I have not had income for over a year, so I also feel a little unqualified to make decisions that have substantial price tags associated with them.
--5:07 PM EST, 5/18/21, Philadelphia, PA, lean in close to the little record player on the floor
Ingrid is all vaccinated, which is good.
I drove her across the city to the pharmacy where her work made vaccine appointments for all their employees. There was an accident on the one road we always use to get to Center City, so we had to U-turn and get out into North Philly and cross the entire city. Philadelphia drivers are self-obsessed assholes, so you have to account for that in your driving. Example: while stopped at a red light, third or fourth in line, the driver behind us began laying on his horn immediately after the light turned green. Like, there was no forward progress yet. I was stationary, because the car in front of me was stationary. Just, HOOOOONNNNNNKKKK HONNNNNNNK HOOONNNNNNKKKKKKK.
Baffling.
Anyway, Ingrid got her shot and decided she wanted lobster rolls for lunch. She is to be commended for her civic responsibility and should get all the lobster rolls. Unfortunately, she picked a place in Center City, while we had got her shot all the way over in Fishtown. So I start recrossing the city, only to discover that over by 95 some of the roads are one way, but not the way I was expecting, and we wound up having to nearly go all the way up north past 676. Also, Center City is well back into its crowded and busy phase (pandemic? What pandemic?) so there were double-parked delivery guys and trucks with their hazards on just blocking all the traffic.
I was dodging around stationary cars and pedestrians and making slow progress and completely missed my turn. (Except I couldn't because it was a one way street. Ah, Philly.) About a block later, Ingrid asks me where I think I'm going, and I obviously respond that I'm going to hell, and expected the traffic would be lighter.
I circle Rittenhouse and go up two blocks (one way streets) and over one (one way street) to come back down a block and a half (one way fucking street) and get her to the one place in Philadelphia where you can get a lobster roll. I illegally park and spend five minutes watching for meter maids. Ingrid gets back in the car and asks me what I want for lunch.
"To be home and out of this godforsaken traffic nightmare."
--3:12 PM, EST, May 4th, 2021, I find your lack of faith disturbing
Not much going on these days. Unemployed, only one snowfall this winter, the dog needs to see the dentist. Trump lost, thank G-d, but Biden is a Democrat to the core, and Democrats are experts in fucking up unfuckable situations.
John Fetterman is going to run for Senate again. I'll knock on doors for that guy.
--3:52 PM, EST, Philadelphia, PA, and talk about everything
I haven't had a job for months. This means I haven't had a commute, haven't had a work routine, haven't had office banter, haven't had any lunch trips or takeout or pleasant Center City walks, haven't had anything going on.
When you don't have anything going on, what little you do have going on takes on unnecessary weight. Yesterday I got McDonalds, and they fucked up the curbside delivery deal and I had to wait over half an hour to get cold food which they also didn't make correctly. It's no big deal, it's McDonalds, who gives a shit. But it was the only thing I did yesterday. Having it wind up a shitshow was real fucking downer.
I went last week to help my dad with his computer, his printer and his phone. The usual "can you help me with this" family IT stuff. It was nice, because it got me out of the house, it was a chance to see my dad despite the quarantine, and it was something I could be good at. But then, a couple of days later, he needed me to look at his phone again. He offered to take Ingrid and I out to a Mexican place he likes to thank me for the help. I told him I wasn't going to a restaurant while the commonwealth is still COVID-heavy, but I'd come by and fix his phone. But Ingrid reminded me we had to go look at furniture in three hours, so I had to drive fast up to Bucks, do the work, return trip just as fast, and go shopping for furniture (Ingrid's, not mine).
So while I was at my dad's, I was keyed up. This was a timed trip now, and it was the second one I'd made in two days, and I apparently hadn't done enough or done it right the first time, necessitating this second trip. And my dad thinks going out to a restaurant is okay?! What the fuck is that about?
I guess he could tell I was worked up, but I wasn't going to blame him for my edginess, so I told him about the furniture and this appointment we had to make, and the last appointment got unexpectedly cancelled when we got a flat tire the day of. And people are dying everyday and there's no response from the goddamn government. And every 24 hours the president does some stupid shit to keep his name trending. And, and, and.
Keep in mind, this is some piddly shit in the grand scheme of things. I had to make two car trips instead of one. I still got to see my dad, which was nice, except now I was worried he was going to internalize me being anxious with him asking me to drive over there.
(Self-centered sidenote: my sister lives 15 minutes from my dad. My brother is five minutes from him. I live two counties away and an hour's drive on a bad day for traffic.)
It's just hard, when you only have one or two things to do in a given week, and you can't do much else because of income, or travel restrictions, or mental health, and those one or two things go south for whatever reason. And afterward you have to admit you're disappointed while still knowing it's a stupid thing to be disappointed over.
I don't know who's still reading this. My birthday is in a month. Buy me presents on Amazon. I'm listed under Finbar MacSwiney.
--1:59 PM EST, Philadelphia, PA, sick and tired of being sick and tired
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