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Animalia
I'm too lazy to have a dog of my own, but I like having animals around. So this week I'm hosting a coworker's dog. I like this creature very much -- he's just the right size, well-trained, well-behaved, good company on walks. He has a sleek lab look but he's a mutt so he doesn't have the neurotic high-maintenance behaviors of a pedigreed ( Read more... ) -
The Bears
Rob Brezny recently told the Virgos of the world that processes we thought had been resolved are in fact still in play, and that the Collective Virgo will have to wait until August to see the final resolution of whatever the hell our problem is. I am in love with the idea of final resolution. I try to get to the end sometimes before I even start ( Read more... ) -
Codependance Day
I spent the holiday in Richmond helping my family deal with medical horrors. My father -- really through no fault of his own, since he has always eaten a textbook-perfect Mediterrean diet -- has insulin-dependent type II diabetes. His pancreas might as well be a paperweight. I fear he'll have to be placed in an "Assisted Living" facility because ( Read more... ) -
Strike
My dad is out of the hospital. I talked to him on the phone today -- he was slurring his words a little bit but otherwise he seems like himself --- in Tina's words, "He's back to being an asshole." I'm going home to Richmond for the holiday to take a couple shifts with him at his house. -
One process to rule them all
Equitable turned off my gas yesterday. They did this because I haven't paid my bill in two months. I have dozens of bills, most of them paid on time, and enough money to meet my expenses, but Equitable is the only company I do business with that has no facility for online billpaying. So it's the only bill whose payment I have to craft the old- ( Read more... ) -
Words and Rules
My father had a stroke on Friday morning.
He was having breakfast with Albert Biddle, a friend of our family for thirty years. Albert asked a question, and my father leaned forward and opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped in the booth. Tank carried him out to the car.
He's in the ( Read more... ) -
A Room of One's Own
Gwen left for Miami today. She spends her summers there with her father. I have eight weeks to myself.
I look forward to this time alone all year. I crave it like a drug. I do not think this makes me a bad mother.
In the formative years of my feminism, before I was a parent, I used to agree with Virginia Woolfe that women needed space and time ( Read more... ) -
Belated Father's Day meditations
My father's Five Rules:
- Never eat a seafood salad made with mayonnaise from a restaurant buffet.
- If you regularly carry paper bags full of money at night, always take a different route home.
- No matter what you do in life, no matter how rich or strong or powerful you become, you can never satisfy a woman.
- A cup of coffee is worth a dollar. ( Read more... ) -
Bad Mothering 101: Busted on Xanga
Today I told Gwen that I've been secretly reading her online journal for almost a year.
I had no idea what would happen when I confessed this. Would a chasm open under my feet? Would I be dragged down to Hell with all the other privacy-invading bad mothers? Would I meet my own mother down there?
I first found her blog last summer, about five ( Read more... )
