do you believe you can walk on water?

I used to have a TEMPLATE SET UP which was just the Customise page screencapped for like, changing colours and everything so I knew what this colour and that one corresponded to and could just plonk those down in MS Paint and all that fun shit.

I used to do LAYOUT BANNERS with a matching default icon and a userinfo banner... The entire layout would be THEMED AROUND A SONG.

Would spend hours on it lmao and then change it like two months later.

I would swatch the colours from the banner and use those for the layout colours.

SO TODAY I THOUGHT I could use a different layout because I do get bored and fatigued of it after a while right

( This got rambly and also there are some images under the cut too. )

My old CSM retired.

Now I knew she was going to do so this year because Jeannine told me back in March. No one was quite sure when just "after her birthday" which was end of May.

The FB page for that ShopRite made a post and added some pictures since they threw a party and everything:

We recently celebrated and said goodbye to Katie B. at the ShopRite of Westfall Town Center. Katie has retired, and we would like to say thank you for all of her hard work, dedication, and 44 years of service to our guests and associates!
Congratulations Katie! We will miss you dearly and hope you enjoy a well-deserved retirement that is full of health and happiness. ❤️

The customers were really starting to get to her with how nasty they'd get over the most trivial, insignificant things. So it was time, in her opinion, to go before it got any worse. The upside: she gets to spend time with her granddaughter.

I still miss my old coworkers. Couldn't care less about the customers but the people I worked with? They were the reason for us bothering to come in.

* actually because of the time I'm writing this it's actually more like "bedtime"

We did quite a bit today... We...

• mowed the front lawn and backyard
• swapped out the light switch cover plates in the bathrooms and our bedroom
• sorted through all the extra hardware (screws, nails, etc) in our computer tech toolbox that accidentally became an "all purpose" toolbox catch-all
• put all of that extra hardware into the appropriate drawers of my dad's plano
• took apart my glasses and deep cleaned them (they were disgusting)
• found a spot for the Plano to go and still be accessible

This might not sound like a lot to you, but as someone with chronic fatigue issues this is a lot for me. I am going to pay for this tomorrow! Luckily my to do list for tomorrow is just

• take a shower
• do laundry and
• fold laundry

and even then I might not be able to do all of that... Seeing as we have to do two loads again... Yeah. Thinking about it has me exhausted.

"Why not just continue to do one load?"
Because it ends up being so large it's a pain to dry and...we have to have a completely separate load of just underwear because for our regular load we use those Unstoppables scent bead things you throw in the wash with your clothing and Aleks decided he didn't want to split things up anymore (this was until we discovered the problem I'm about to talk about and the whole "drying takes three or four cycles") so everything went in as one...and he used the scented beads.

well. my skin can be very, very sensitive on the best of days! And like. at first I was okay? Until I wasn't. I started itching so bad in some VERY sensitive places that my skin was rubbed raw. Now I have eczema and I get flare ups in some really awful places at times so I thought that's what this was. But I've never had it this bad. Sometimes when your pH level is off things are itchy and horrible but it's never been this bad.

So we have underwear from before he switched over to just one load of everything... Iiiiit's the scented beads lol it could be the scent, it could be dyes, it could be anything. So yeah. Two loads now. Which is a lot sometimes. So we might have to do one load tomorrow/later (since it's after midnight) and then one load the next day. I hate being like this and the fact that it didn't used to be this bad but then I got Covid and that fucked me up bad so... Yeah. I have to use mobility aids at times now, which I also hate because then I have to remember to bring them and it's just...a mess.

If I do only one load of laundry tomorrow then so be it I guess idk! idk.

Whilst watching a storm chaser livestream on Youtube, I took a nap before dinner, because I was so tired I couldn't even keep my eyes open.

Going down to Port Jervis sucks the energy from me. The drive down is long no matter what way we take, though we've found a better route down that bypasses PA completely (I-86/NY-17 all the way down to exit 104, then NY-17B, then NY-42 aaaaaall the way into Port Jervis) that is only a few minutes longer, maybe. And we get to go through areas of NYS that we wouldn't normally (and lose all cell signal upon entering Orange County from Sullivan County, because that's the sticks, I guess, of Orange County). It's a bit more direct that way and it avoids the Mid-Delaware Bridge (they're doing shit with it so traffic would be a nightmare).

There was no one parked on the street. I don't think anyone was home at #3 or #7 (the houses on either side). The house looks virtually the same as it always does. There were two pieces of mail in the mailbox, both addressed to my wife lol. One was a credit card offer (junk mail basically) and the other was from Bon Secours/Westchester Medical, notifying her that our doctor was leaving the WMC medical group and all of our medical shit would be transferred to the doctor they'd listed, or whatever one we opted for if we didn't want that one. Which we wouldn't, because we try to avoid male doctors when we can, and also, we no longer live in the area, so it doesn't matter. Up here we can choose between Guthrie Clinic and Arnot Health. Down there...you're stuck with Westchester Medical. We would've been fucked.

Luckily we're not, because we no longer live down there. We were on the "Just Visiting" side of the JAIL space on a Monopoly board.

So in we went. Reluctantly.

( Read more... )

No, I don't feel sad.
I don't feel remotely melancholy.
It's an anger that's tinged with resentment over you,
burned out husk of a creature
black leathery wings that smell of gasoline and fire
everything you touch burns and melts to the ground
some sort of sludgy substance.

happy mother's day in hell
enjoy the fire and brimstone
as the ash and soot consumes your body
to match the darkness of your soul.

I know tomorrow might not be easy for you...considering you lost your mother...

This is actually my second Mother's Day without her. I did nothing last year after she refused to acknowledge my birthday with anything more than a hastily scribbled note on the fridge white board. No card, no gift (like cheap chocolate or something else cheap), nothing. Said everything without even opening her mouth what she thought about me.

So, to pay her back in kind, I did nothing for Mother's Day. I'd thought about getting her a card but when they all talk about sacrifices made and cherished memories and love all wrapped up in some grotesquely saccharine mass-produced Hallmark card, I wanted to fucking vomit. To watch people bring these cards to self check or one of the lanes I was at caused bile to rise. Most people have good mothers who deserve flowers and a card, but not mine.

It would be one gigantic farcical lie in a too expensive card if I bought one. So I didn't. I didn't buy chocolates or any gift either. I was in my villain era now, beyond the "I should be a good kid and do nice things for Mommy" thoughts that were tied up in fear and obligation and guilt. Not to mention it was Serena's first one without Eileen (her mother). So neither of us felt like doing anything.

I'm sure Egg was sore about it. I wish I could say I cared. None of the cards or the gifts meant anything except obligation anyway. Emptiness.

( Read more... )

Going through old LJ entries I clicked a link leading to an old friend's deviantArt account and she's...been using it. Or had been using it up until I guess 2021?

I decided to shoot her a message on devArt because why the fuck not. At this point in my life, where you never know if this hour is your last, life is too short to wonder, "Should I do the thing?" What's the worst thing to happen, I get no response? Or I get a response that's more or less, "wtf don't talk to me ever again you weirdo"?

Anyway, this is the message I sent:

Hey, it's been a while. A long, long while. I don't even know when the last time we talked was but it was...some time ago in practically another lifetime. It's funny how life works sometimes. Someone pops up in your head and you end up wondering, "I wonder how they're doing?"

We were once best friends and unfortunately lost contact over the years. I moved a bunch and you probably have too since we last talked. I changed computers and AIM shut down (rip) so if I didn't have alternate means of contacting the people in my buddy list, I fell out of touch. I don't even know if this account of yours is active anymore, if you still check it or get notified for things here.

It's okay if this just goes out into the void that is the world wide web. At least I can say I tried, right? It's also okay if you do receive it and you don't want to write me back. You and I have undoubtedly changed since we last spoke in what, 2005? 2006? 19-20 years ago? We're two completely different people compared to how we both were back then.

If you want to catch up that's cool. My email is still the same (roysmyboy217 at gmail) if you wanna do it that way.

If you don't, that's okay too. The ball is in your court. Maybe you think I'm a weirdo for saying something after all this time. If that's the case, I hope you're doing alright and that life's been okay for you.

—Evu

(Remember the nicknames we had for each other? You called me Evu and I called you Bigu.)

We're both in our 30s now like we've had time to grow and mature and change, you know?

full disclosure I am not expecting to hear ANYTHING I will be completely shocked if I do! this is literally the only way I can contact her, I don't have an email or anything like that anymore sooooooo.

Did she do awful shit to me when I was a kid? Yeah. Yeah, she did. There is no excuse for what she did or the things that she'd said. But like. I understand things better now than I ever did back then. It all came from a place of hurt and a fucked up family dynamic and I get that. Having a fucked up parent completely wrecks a person.

I don't know what I'm expecting. Nothing, I guess.

When I feel compelled to do things in this way I see it as the universe saying that I should act on it. Any time I have it's worked out (got married, rescued Bitty, reached out to my brother, ended up with our two Tinys, moved to Elmira, etc). So. idk.

hello from my bed, the one i've only left periodically today for reasons like needing the bathroom or going downstairs to the kitchen to scrounge for food only to just grab a banana and reluctantly scarf it down. my back hurts so I have to type this on my Chromebook from some really weird angle and I doubt downward dog is good for my neck in this situation but it's all we have

I have things I want to do like write and exercise and maybe actually have food but I have a big fat zero for motivation to actually do anything. we have leftovers but I would have to figure out what to do with said leftovers and yes, I realise I am awful at remembering things like eating more than just one medium sized banana and two bars of chocolate.

I tried writing fic because I have ideas for things, you know, but after two sentences my inspiration and motivation both die at the same time and though I try to keep going, it doesn't work and just ends up being word vomit and though Heero would be the type to have moments of just vomiting letters onto a page, I doubt that would be most of his writing. Heero in a lot of aspects is a lot more concise than me. I want him to talk about all the death in his life but the words dry up faster than I can write them, the pool completely gone leaving cracks in the clay leftover.

maybe I need a change in how I express myself. I used to use all sorts of media for this, not just words but also pictures. I used to use paint. I used to do watercolour. I wrote music composed on the keys of my piano where I would write down all the notes and the octaves before writing it on staff paper. and then tweak it and tweak it. I used to do collage but I left most of my magazine clippings behind because I didn't feel they were necessary. I can print pictures off the internet if I really want to.

grief sucks.

my wife's workplace knows nothing and I prefer it that way. I don't need her to tell me, "Alice and Susan wanted me to tell you they're sorry for your loss" and I don't know how to accurately describe how something like that makes me feel because did I really even lose anything? Is it a loss if I never had it? My mother died but I never had a mother, this archetypal figure who cradles babies to her bosom and sings sweet lullabies when you're a baby and is always there for comfort no matter how old you get is not what I was given.

one comment I read described losing your parents as a "rite of passage" that happens when you're older. define "older". I was 10 when I lost my father and 32 when I lost my mother. Is that "older"? Most people are in their 50s and 60s with both parents still. Is this something I'm supposed to check off Life's Checklist? Like how I was supposed to be married before 25 and have a house by 30?

another waxed poetic about how losing a mother is such an awful thing and mothers are a blessing and I have to resist the urge to laugh and say, "You've never met mine."

the assumption is that every mother is a good one.
the assumption is that I was just a bad kid somehow.
"I bet you miss her." No, I don't.
"I bet you regret not re-establishing contact with her." No, I don't.
Even if I did and even if I wanted to...what would that even accomplish?

I think one of the eerie things for me yesterday was the fact that I lived in that house for six years and was gone for four months, and I remembered nothing about where basic things could be found, like the toilet paper holder in the first floor bathroom, for instance. I went through the hallway and saw that the door to the bathroom was wide open. It was weird since I always had it closed. Going through my old office was surreal. The solid pine wood folding door had been removed and replaced with the door that came before it, complete with the decal stickers I'd placed on it before swapping the doors out. My old office still had the wall decal and the butterfly stick on mirrors. The only piece of furniture there was an end table with the modem connecting the phone and the cable, and the main phone base.

Part of me I guess was looking to see if there were any traces left of the life I lived here for six and a half years. Outside of a Hot Pocket cooking sleeve with a dead fly in it, and an Amazon package label permanently sealed into the flooring (and the thing I mentioned in the previous paragraph), there wasn't any. Even the tension rod in the shower was gone.

It's almost like it wasn't the same house, but it was. And everything felt weird and looked weird. My brother said it was like a "funhouse" attraction at a carnival.

The stairs to the second floor aren't level. At all. There are strange dips in the floor that weren't there before, and the flooring in the laundry room felt "spongey". Michael said that that's a sign of moisture seeping into places it shouldn't and considering there is a moisture issue in the basement, I wouldn't be surprised if that's infiltrating the first floor.

I don't regret moving to and living in Port Jervis. There is history there and natural beauty. But the city itself looks so bad. I wouldn't want to stay there. It didn't look like this when we moved in.

That house wasn't as fucked up back then either.

Maybe it's because the house I picked out with my wife is so much better it's easier to see where things are wrong or slipshod. And maybe Port Jervis looks even worse now because we moved somewhere better; the worst of Elmira looks like the best parts of Port.

I don't know. I don't have the answers for that either except time, and perspective shifts, change things.

So what is my hometown going to look like when I go back there in the coming weeks? The last time we were there was 2017, and my wife has never been. A town can change in 8 years.

Then again a city can change in two years and a house can change in four months.

Sorry to be this introspective on main but... A lot can change in a short amount of time. But I think the biggest change has been me.

22 and a half years ago I lost my father. I was 10 years old. I didn't know what I felt except "big sadness" and though I knew what death was, that that person wouldn't be coming home again, I didn't really understand what death *actually* meant. What 10 year old does? I cried alone in my room most nights the first year. I didn't know what to do with the sadness. What grief meant. How to properly deal with that. All I knew was I missed my dad and I'd never see him again in this life, and I was very sad.

As an adult now turning 33... I have a clearer understanding of death and what it means and, more importantly, what grief means. It's really fucking complicated. The grief I felt (and still feel) for my dad is different from what I felt when Pop-Pop died and that was way different than when Nana died. And that was different from how I felt when my mother-in-law died... And, you guessed it, that was all different from how I felt when Sadie died.

This time around, this loss, the grief is different from all those times, because it comes with very complicated, very complex emotions. It fits because I feel that my mother was a very complicated person emotionally. She was abusive to two of her kids and her one daughter-in-law and there is no excuse for that. Reasons due to some sort of mental complications, yes, but doesn't excuse it. Nothing does. So I should be angry, and mad, and pissed. She drove me away.

I never wanted to go no contact. But I wasn't going to deal with someone who treated my wife and I so badly. And no matter how hard or how much I tried I couldn't get her to see she needed so much help that I couldn't give her. You can't help those who won't help themselves. You can't convince the alcoholic he has a problem, he has to realise it himself and seek help. I said I would leave if she didn't get help. She went to one session and that was it. So I held my bottom line.

As much as I may have hated her at times because of what she became, I still had some kind of love for her. Maybe not love but some kind of compassion. As someone who struggled for years plagued by demons known as depression and suicidal thoughts and self harm, I know how awful this is. I've been there and done that. I resisted help when I was younger because I didn't think things could get better.

When my wife said I needed to get help for my depression I didn't resist because at that time I was done with simply existing. It was like I'd learned how to breathe for the first time. I've gotten better, life is good, all that great shit that comes with recovery and healing.

But I could not lead the horse to water and make her drink. And I got treated like I was the mental case for thinking water was edible.

How do you grieve someone who hurt you and others in your family so bad that you had to cut them out of your life? She was the tumor I had to excise to save myself.

It's complicated. It's going to be complicated. Always. We don't know how things happened but they did and now she is no longer here. I ended up having a breakdown at 1am because my god that is not the way anyone should ever go. If you've been following along with everything from the past year or so then you know one of the things she did was try to goad God into choosing whether she would die a natural death or die in some other way.

If this is how the divine being in the sky chose her to go, he is a sadist.

I find myself questioning him a lot and have been for 22 and a half years.

My life is just one big grief cycle I suppose. I'm tired of it tbh but it's going to continue. We have cats. We have loved ones. Death is part of the natural cycle, everything from plants to animals and everything in between and who are we but animals in this huge circle called Life?

Maybe it's the same thing with cities and towns and houses where there is a life and a death.
I feel like I've died a thousand deaths over almost 23 years but the difference between this kind of death and the permanent sleep sort of death is...rebirth. I've always risen again from the ashes and dust and I will do that again.

Maybe these cities and towns and houses will too.

That is the natural ebb and flow of things.

As of 17:48 today my mother is gone.

Whatever demons were in her head are now no more. Whatever fucked up reality she'd constructed is gone. I wish I could say that I didn't see this coming, because I did. I saw how it would happen coming like a freight train speeding down the tracks. A crash, a derailment, all inevitable.
I did not see the method by which she left this earth coming, and I am going to always have questions about that. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

How am I coping? Like I did when I lost my dad—lost in some kind of fog I can somehow still see through, like condensation on glass. Because as awful as she was towards me and my wife, especially towards the end, it's still a life lost and a life that didn't necessarily have to come to an end—especially the way it did. I never saw myself being an adult orphan before the age of 35 but here I am. I guess if we want to be really honest, one could say I never saw myself being fatherless at 10 either.

Because yes, I've seen the news articles. I've seen the social media group posts and shares. I've read the comments where people have put laughing with tears emojis in response to the news. Says a lot about you 😂ing about how someone's loved one was on fire. May you have the life you deserve!

I don't really know what to say. There aren't any answers as to how anything happened. Hopefully there will be answers when we go to the house.