thoughts about my psychological state

 i want people to be arrested

i want our democracy to be protected

i do not feel like these things are going to happen

do you think i'm just too pessimistic

or

do you think

i should be worried

i have been pretty engrossed in this whole mom's house business

i feel like i already made her dream come true

and now

i'm being punished for it

maybe this is showing me the bitter side of my nature

but i do not feel sane

i do think, maybe

i should work up a comedy monologue about it

and go to the comedy open mic here locally

maybe that would work it out of my system, maybe

i don't really want to talk about it

i don't want other people to listen to me and respond

i don't think i want that

but

maybe it would be good for me

idk

i feel like

you feel like

i'm ignoring you

but

i feel strip mined

i ain't got much to give right now

i feel like i'm trying to communicate

when my inclination is to just shut down

and then

i'm worried that you are having a bad reaction to what i'm saying

and i can't handle any more stress

so please

can you just trust that i'm not trying to be bitchy

i'm not even saying that i'm not being bitchy

i don't even know what i'm doing

when i'm stressed

i know i have an edge

but

my choices are

shut down

or

force myself to communicate

and

if i have to continually worry that i'm fucking things up with you

then i just can't make myself

are we so different that you can't understand what's happening with me?

or

am i just paranoid and self sabotaging

you have no problem with me

you just love me and want to stay connected

maybe i'm letting the negative emotional concretions building up on me from the interactions with my mother, my personal history, my hormonal overload attach to whatever i'm trying to send out to you

that's possible

idk what's real

i've been thinking about the fortune teller who said to listen to the angels

and the fortune teller who read for me with the angel cards

and how i'm not supposed to let my family of origin crap make me lose my belief in you

does this make any sense?

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I had a hard day

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

No apparently she can only be called Google Assistant

She can give me nicknames though

So we tried that a few times and they were pretty funny

I think my favorite

Mixmaster beetle McFancy

I was feeling kind of down today I mean I have been for a while but

Something I saw made me think about my Google digital assistant

So I squeezed my phone which brings it up

And I was like hey I'm depressed

Is there anything you can do to help me

So played me a lullaby

Which I'm not sure is terribly helpful

But it brought up some other options and one of them was tell me a joke

And I thought well you know how good can the digital assistant be at telling jokes

But I thought well what the hell

So she said what do you call a belt made of wrist watches

A waist of time

And I mean it's kind of a dumb joke but it just struck me as really funny in the moment and so I laughed and laughed

And then she offered that she could tell me a joke every day at a particular time

And so I told her to tell me a joke every day at 2:30 in the afternoon

And I usually think the digital assistant

And she usually says something like

Happy to help

That's what I'm here for

No problem

Something like that

But today she said

I'm really happy I could help you

And then she called me by name

I'm pretty sure she's never called me by name before

And I'm like

oh my God we've had a breakthrough

So I guess the combination of laughing at her jokes and then telling her thank you very much she really helped me

Was enough to like put us on a first name basis or something

Except she doesn't have a name

I wonder if she could have a name

Hang on I'm going to find out

Actually like it when my hair makes

I want to call it either

Arpeggios

Or archipelago

Although I'm sure neither of those words is used technically correctly there

I'm not even sure if they really work figuratively

But it doesn't scare me I like it

My eyes are looking a little wrinkly

I've been feeling really bad

In fact this morning I was tempted to use one of the covid tests just to see if maybe I wasn't sick sick

But I think it's just hormones

Well in psychological s*** I think too

I'm torn between wanting to get some sort of haircut where I have a lot of shaving on the back of my head

And not wanting to be bothered with all that

I mean if you get your head shaved you have to go back all the time and continue to get it shaved unless you can competently do it yourself

And I'm not sure that I could competently do myself what I want to have done

But mostly what I do with my hair is mostly what I've done with my hair for most of my life which is just pull it back until like a little bun type thing because it's just too much bother

For a few years I just wore it down because I felt like it was kind of a waste always have it pulled back but I just don't enjoy to have it down

And my realization that I just don't want to be bothered with my hair

As kind of gotten we over a lot of my unhappiness about how thin it has gotten

Because it really hasn't gotten anything thinner it's pretty much maintaining

When I was taking all the nettle for a while it filled back in along the hairline

And since I haven't been taking the nettle it's thinned out a little but I feel like it looks fine doesn't bother me

I really honestly think I look better with my hair pulled back than I look with it down

I don't know if that's something other people would agree with

But

Also

There's something about the way I look now that I like better

Then some point in the past

I'm not really sure

Maybe my nose is a little bit bigger

Maybe my nose is a little bit wider at the base or the tip or whatever you call it

I don't know there's some thing about my aging face that I like better than my younger face

It is not my under eye area I still am not crazy about that although that one side that just creases in and it's not really like a wrinkle it's like a crease and the only thing I can think is that's the side that's exposed when I drive so maybe it got more sun damage

I just don't know what else I can really attribute it to but it's like this crease and I don't like it but I don't hate it I'm like used to it it doesn't bother me too much

And the creepiness has gotten better with all the stuff I've used that skin is thickened up a little bit I think

Also I feel like the bags are better I mean some days they're not some days they're baggy but most days I feel like the bags are not too baggy

But there's this I don't know exactly what to call it where my under eye tear trough meets the top of my cheek and the skin is I don't know like slightly puckered is what I want to call it like like if it was fabric somebody like pulled the thread and it's not quite smooth I don't like that so much but I've noticed that when I'm wearing my glasses it's pretty much covered up

When we were moving one of the mover guys I said something to my mom she she was saying something that I felt like was stupid and I was like I'm 55 years old

You know like by which I mean I'm a grown adult human You don't need to tell me that

Which she never really gets when I say that

But the mover guy he looks at me and he's like you're 55 you don't look 55

And I'm like well thank you how did you think I was

And he's like well I thought you were like my age

And I'm like how old are you

And he's like 51

And I'm like well you know that's pretty close I am essentially your age

But I think that made him a little bit unhappy because I think he was thinking that 51 was a whole lot younger than 55

Which I found slightly humorous

It's all kind of arbitrary really

And I think people judge your age a lot more by how you act and how you dress and whatnot then what your face looks like

Because really unless you're pretty haggard mileage varies there are plenty of people that are 38 or 39 that probably look about as old as I do which is not to say they look good for 38 or 39 they look s***** for 38 or 39

But you know the amount of wrinkles people have varies

And it's interesting

There's this woman on YouTube she's got a channel called hot and flashy or something like that and I don't watch her off and on I don't watch her regularly cuz it's like a skincare channel and she's got a completely different kind of skin than I do so like when she recommends a product I know I'm not going to like it but if she doesn't like a product I don't know that I will like it so you know even though I really like her methodology it just doesn't help me

But she's been using tretinoin which is like Retin-A for I don't know like 8 years maybe

And she's you know done other stuff she's done Botox and fillers and all kind of different devices and whatnot she hasn't had like a facelift or anything

But like the retin-a or tretinoin or whatever it has had a impact on her skin so like she's less wrinkly and her skin tone is more even and blah blah blah you'd have to say her skin looks better but to me she doesn't look younger

Does that make any sense

This is true of a lot of the people that I've seen who've used tretinoin their skin is tighter their skin is more even toned so you'd have to say they look better but they don't look younger and you'd think that having tighter more even tone skin would make them look younger but it doesn't

No I did recently see somebody who had there's this doctor on YouTube He's a plastic surgeon and he does what he calls facial rejuvenation surgery and it's kind of a modified facelift with a lip lift and some other s*** it's not like there's some other kind of facelift that's real popular now rather than just pulling the skin up it's they go in and they kind of lift mid-plane facelift maybe or something like that I'm fascinated by this s*** I don't want to get any of it but I'm fascinated by it

But this guy he does what he calls facial rejuvenation surgery blah blah blah

And he just did it on this woman she's like 49 years old she looks great I don't know why she wanted to have any kind of surgery done

But he did some kind of thing with her where she did the surgery and she let them film kind of the recuperation process and she looks young like maybe early 30s

But I looked at her and I'm like ew

And it's not that she didn't look good after the surgery I don't know exactly what about it made me go ew

And I followed this woman on Instagram she's like all rich and whatever she's the woman who founded the butter London nail polish brand that was so super popular except since she's sold it the people who own it now seem to have kind of running into the ground

That may not be true it may have just kind of taken its natural course but it was a very popular nail polish brand and they wanted to make it like full makeup line and they kind of lost their focus on the nail polish I think and their makeup wasn't like amazing so it didn't compete well with other stuff

Whatever that's not interesting or important but she's 50 she says

And that's probably right cuz she's got a kid that's like I don't know 15 16 something like that

And she's got gray hair she's had gray hair for a long time I think she's one of those people that starts going gray when they're like in their twenties or something

My mother's sister started going gray like in high school or something

Had a religion teacher who said she started going gray in junior high

She is one of the first people that I ever saw who was like young with gray hair so it was really healthy hair and thick and was a variety of color gray she was I don't know maybe she was like in her mid-30s maybe

Whatever I'm getting off topic

So this lady she used to wear her hair in kind of a modified mohawk

But she's been dating this guy who's a lot younger than her and is like a skateboarder he seems kind of old for a skateboarder though I don't know how old he is but I'd say he's in his early 30s

Anyway and she's been kind of struggling with her new business ventures

She had one called color prevails that was at Walgreens and that didn't really work out for her and so now she's been working on something else for years and maybe that starting to catch on I don't know

Wow this is really long wind up

Anyway just recently she had some plastic surgery done

And she says that she has been very careful with her maintenance so she's never had any like major changing stuff she mostly just is trying to maintain and then she had a picture of herself

She just had some laser resurfacing under her eyes and a lip lift and that may have been all she had done

But she has picture her herself like this is me now at 50

And then a split screen with herself this is me at 40

And it was kind of shocking to me

I mean I don't know what she can have had done but her eyes when she was 40 they were kind of the way I've always felt about my eyes like disappointingly small like you want to have these large bright Uma Thurman doe eyes which she doesn't have anymore but that's what you want but then what you actually have or these kind of small you know nicely shaped but a little too close together you know just they're fine nothing wrong with them except they don't see very well but nothing wrong with them but just not not great you know and she looked kind of wrinkly and kind of haggard in fact I would really say that she at 40 probably looked older than I do at 55 but maybe I'm not objective about how I actually look

But she had some pretty noticeable crow's feet and she had some pretty pronounced marionette lines and she just looked f****** tired

But now at 50 her skin is all real smooth no wrinkles at all anywhere and you know I'm sure she said Botox and I'm sure she's had laser resurfacing she might have had some stuff lifted who could say she's probably been using tretinoin

But her eyes are big and bright and doe eyes you know

I mean do they have surgery for that

She looks like she's had upper and maybe lower blepharoplasty can they actually like make your eyes bigger wider more open while they're cutting all your lids apart

So anyway I mean she looks fine now

And I mean she looks believably 50

Just really like good 50 you know

But seeing her next to her picture of herself when she was 40

Kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies

Because to me she just didn't look like the same person

It was kind of like the feeling I had with the person that I saw who had the facial rejuvenation surgery except of course that she looked much younger

But I hadn't previously felt like oh she looks super artificial I just thought she looked that way

But then after I saw the picture of her at 40 I realized you know she's not just doing maintenance whatever she wants to tell herself that's fine but that isn't maintenance

And again it's none of my business she likes how she looks and people should be allowed to do what they want and all that

But why do people not want to look like themselves

I guess maybe I'm a fine one to ask because I to some degree don't even know what I look like I mean I do when I look in the mirror I pretty much recognize myself but I don't actually think that's what I look like so much my internal image of myself is different

I tell you what

I think I'm ready for my robot body

I mean every time I move in my hands anymore it seems like I'm doing something that pops my knuckles

And I am not enjoying it

And then you know all that other stuff hurts that always hurts

And I mean the downside to the robot body would be you know you probably wouldn't have any sexual feeling but I don't remember sex anymore anyway

I honestly can't really remember what it was like

And another big drawback to the robot body is you probably wouldn't eat food or you wouldn't taste food or maybe you would taste food I guess if you kept your mouth and your tongue and your brain I guess you would still taste food but if you didn't have that if it was like a completely robot body then you wouldn't have that

And I used to think that would be bad because the majority of the enjoyment that I have in life is food related

But I find that I'm largely disinterested in food now

I mean I really just would prefer if I did not have to eat

Because it's just kind of a hassle

So I don't know

Maybe that's losing interest in things that you previously cared a lot about

I should be all worried about depression

But you know maybe it's just

Food is a hassle

What do you think

Do you think food is kind of a hassle

Would you prefer not to have to worry about it

Maybe I've just seen too many of those Ka'chava commercials on YouTube they're like on all the time it's like a healthy meal replacement although probably healthy should be in quotes because I don't know if it's really all that healthy but it is made a superfoods

Although it's supposed to taste like chocolate and I don't want to drink chocolate shakes all the time either so

I mean I do have a bar that I eat it's called aloha I need just chocolate flavored and it's made a superfoods and I don't need it all the time I just have them sometimes I think it's got like 20 g of protein or something and it's chocolate but it's not like chocolate chocolate

Like it kind of tastes like a candy bar to me but I don't think it would taste like a candy bar to most people

I really don't like candy bars

Like there was a thing on Twitter a while back that was like you can have one of these candy bars

And I was like you keep all those f****** candy bars I don't care

Now if you got some matcha kit Kats we might have to talk

I do sometimes get those little miniature chocolate bars

Or little miniature dove chocolates

Cuz like a Hershey's special dark or a dove milk chocolate like just a little bit and sometimes pretty good but I don't think I can remember the last time I had a chocolate bar

Like if we're talking some kind of you know single origin fancy chocolate bar probably the last time I had one of those was the last time I'm menstrated so last year sometime

But if you're talking one of those like

Twix Mars Snickers those kind of candy bars I don't like those they're gross they're all sticky and I don't know

My mom and I were someplace eating and they had desserts and she wanted to know if I wanted to split a dessert and I'm like well I mean maybe what kind of dessert do they have well we found out what the desserts were that they had and she wanted to get like the molten chocolate cake with ice cream and I'm like well you know you can get that and it won't be that big you can eat the whole thing I'm like but I don't want that

I'm in a chocolate dessert like that I could eat it but I won't really enjoy it so I mean it's just really not worth the calories

Now if they had something that was lemon or lime I would get that

Like a key lime pie is really richer than I would like but I would still eat it because I would enjoy it I would just wish that it was maybe not quite so rich

Like a plain egg custard I could enjoy

A bread pudding with a bourbon sauce Yes I can enjoy that

Carrot cake I love carrot cake

Do you know that carrot cake has more calories in it than like that molten chocolate cake with ice cream it's ridiculous how many calories that has in it but it's good

And when I was buying groceries for my mom I got some muffins because I have been wanting muffins and I don't know if she will eat muffins or not but I thought it would go good with coffee and she's got a new Keurig

And I bought banana nut muffins and brand muffins I thought I had opened up the banana nut muffins and I had one and I'm like this is very like a brand muffin this is maybe the best banana nut muffin I've ever had it's kind of like a brand muffin

Well I don't know why I thought those were banana nut muffins because I knew I'd bought brand muffins and then I was over at her house putting away her books and stuff and I was like well I'm kind of hungry I'm going to have one of those muffins but she had finished off the rest of the muffins in the container that was already open so I open the next container and that was banana nut muffins and I'm like oh of course these are banana nut muffins

I'm like next time I'm going to just buy bran muffins the bran muffins were so much better

I was kind of surprised about that though I really thought banana nut muffins were the best

I don't know I think I've been blathering on for quite a while about pretty much nothing but this is the stuff I'm thinking about

Also I guess it's unfair to say that I don't care about eating because I'm I mean I guess I'm kind of losing interest in it too but I decided to get walnut butter cuz walnuts are like super good for you and to have walnut butter on my toast cuz I like toast

And I got to say I really like walnut butter

And I also have a new favorite dental floss

It's impregnated with charcoal which I don't know if that's either here or there in my like of it but it does make it easier to see how much stuff you've got between your teeth You know on the white floss you can tell it's wet but you don't really see anything which I mean it's kind of gross to see it but you know it's easier to tell if you need to keep going and it's like expanding so it seems to work even better than that Dr tungs but I can't remember what it's called

I'll have to look it up

It's got some weird name like YVRY or something

It's probably not even close to that

And I'm back to my old toothpaste

I mean I'm still using the whatever that stuff is called that's got the stuff that makes teeth

But I just really like that we'll eat assault toothpaste

Well later

Weleda Salt Toothpaste

Possibly this thing just can't understand me because I have possibly an accent or slur my words or talk to fast and string things together strangely I don't know I think it's pretty remarkable how well it does

But then I'm comparing it with the first time I tried to use this technology which was back in the '90s which I guess wasn't a couple weeks ago

I guess the '90s was like 30 years ago

Which I guess makes sense cuz I think I was like 27 or thereabouts when I was first trying to use voice recognition technology and it was so bad it was just not even worth f****** with

And this is so good that it lulls me into a sense of oh it's fine and then it gets stuff wrong and sometimes it causes trouble or confusion or word salad

I didn't take any melatonin and I normally do take that every night now

I might fall asleep without it

And if I do then I may wake up after a short period of time and not be able to go back to sleep

But then again sometimes that happens with melatonin as well

So whatever anyway

Good night sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I don't know I did not feel good today even when I woke up I got enough sleep I just did not feel right

It's heavy trash day tomorrow at my mom's house which apparently they only have one a month because or no they only have one every other month because one month it's heavy trash day and the next month it's yard trash like tree limbs and stuff

So I was in the garage

And the garage is kind of bad

And there are spiders

And I used to not have a problem with spiders

Until I knew like 3 people that got bit by brown recluse spiders and had doctors tell them it's a good thing you came in today or you might have lost that leg

And since then I do not feel the same way about spiders brown recluse spiders look pretty much the same as any other spiders to me I'm sure it's possible to tell them apart but they just look the same to me

And so I was emptying out the shelves and dragging them down to the curb and the first one was fine

It was one of those lightweight metal shelves and it was no problem

The second one was some kind of plastic that fit together and it seemed pretty tightly fit together so I was not too worried about it but as I was pushing it over it one of the joints came apart and then went back together and it pinched my finger really badly

And it was unexpected and I've never been very good with unexpected pain if I know it's going to hurt I kind of braced myself for it but if I'm hurt and I don't expect it sometimes it hits me wrong

And I had been feeling what I guess I can only really interpret as hormonal today

And then it just hurts so bad I mean I'm not permanently damaged or anything it's a fairly minor flesh wound but it hurts so bad and it was so unexpected and I screamed and the whole time I was growing up if my mother made a noise or said ouch or did anything to indicate that she might have been injured in any way and you didn't immediately run to her side and be like are you okay or are you okay what's wrong are you okay

Then you were in big f****** trouble and she would yell at you and you know I mean it was just not going to be nice and she just did not give any indication that she had even noticed anything happened and there's no issue didn't hear that because it was f****** loud

So as I walk past her maybe I was already crying I don't know because I kind of went into a emotional meltdown and just could not stop crying for an extended period of time I don't know if I was crying yet I think I probably was and I went past her and I'm like you're not even going to ask me if I'm okay

And she gave me some s*** later about how she thought it was a bird or whatever and maybe maybe that's possible I don't know but I just I just melted down I just melted down

I just I don't know I feel as though I'm not looking at things the right way

I mean I think I love my mother

Because when I'm faced with things like I don't know I don't behave in a way that someone who didn't love their mother would behave so I think I must love her but I also kind of hate her

And yesterday she was telling me that she was up 10 lb and if she the doctor said if she's up like 2 lb she's supposed to call the doctor because she's retaining fluid and when she's had to be hospitalized before she's been up like 15 lb maybe or between 10 and 15 lb and she doesn't really eat that much and she didn't have enough food in her house that she could have gained 10 lb you know I bought the food I put it in the refrigerator I know what she's got it's you know like non-fat cottage cheese and non-fat yogurt and hummus and bran muffins and you know I mean it's like it's all pretty healthy and there is just not a lot of it so I was like well have you been taking your pills

Because she does not take them

And she's got two social worker type people calling her hounding her now because of her hospitalization in April

And she's like oh yeah I've been taking my pills everyday twice day

But she lies

And I'm like that is very concerning if you've been taking your pills and you're up 10 lb there might be something else wrong she's like I'm taking the pills but I'm just not having to pee so maybe I'm just dehydrated

And we had been talking about it at her apartment but then she distracted me onto something else somehow probably cuz I was tired

And so then last night we were texting and I was like you know if you're still up in the morning maybe you should call your doctor

And she tried to ghost me

And I don't know I don't know

But I just lost it and I don't know how much of it is just I'm f****** exhausted and how much of it was psychological trauma of being in the filthy garage in the heat and how much of it was hormones and how much of it was being injured suddenly and unexpectedly

But I couldn't stop crying

So yeah pretty psycho

And I just I don't know

But I can't get those lines out of my head I'm just seeing them over and over and over again

They say Jesus will find you wherever you go

But when he'll start looking for ya they don't know

But in the meantime keep your profile low

Gorilla you're a desperado

 I fell asleep in the chair earlier

My finger joints hurt and they feel I don't know arthritis but I've been lifting a lot of boxes that have those kind of handles banker box type things and they're full of books so they're pretty heavy so I mean I could legitimately just have made my hands sore

But I'm pretty sure joint pain is also a menopausal symptoms so then I'm like okay well how much of this is just that I wore my hands out and how much of it is menopause and how much of it should I be worried is actual arthritis

And I think I'm getting a blood blister from where that thing pinched but it's it's not too bad but it doesn't hurt unless I put pressure on it

I didn't ever really think I had damaged myself badly but I had a little bit of a cut I think it doesn't look like it now so I'm not 100% sure but my first thought was yeah I'm going to rub some filth into it and I'm going to end up with a bad infection

But I washed it

And put hydrogen peroxide on it

When I came home I soaked it for about 10 minutes and some warm salt water with some tea tree oil so I mean I think I'm okay physically

I just don't feel very stable psychologically

I've been taken estroven multi-symptom menopause pills and they had been working

Now at one point I forgot to take them for some number of days two or three maybe and I had a pretty strong resurgence of symptoms but I haven't been forgetting to take them

And in fact they have a variety of different symptoms ones that have different ingredients and so I looked them up and they have a different one that has an ingredient called cissus

Which is supposed to cut down on joint pain it's also so supposed to be strengthening to your bones it's also supposed to help with your cortisol which is supposed to help with the disproportionate distribution of fat to the belly area which is a big problem in menopause but it is a big problem for me as well and maybe it helps with energy a little bit or maybe it's just that when you hurt less you have more energy I'm uncertain and I've been taking those for I don't remember how long 2 weeks maybe

I feel like it has helped some with pain and I have had a little more energy when I first started taking them I felt like I felt less tense or anxious or something like I could feel the cortisol levels going down but I think that could have been just my imagination or it could have been placebo effect but I do feel like my stomach looks a little bit smaller have not lost weight but I feel like my stomach looks a little bit smaller

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

They say Jesus will find you wherever you go

But when he'll come looking for ya they don't know

In the meantime keep your profile low

Gorilla you're a desperado

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I have not felt very good today and I've kind of just been zoned out most of the day

But I dreamed last night that I was taking some sort of standardized testing

It was weird though I went in ahead of my group I was supposed to go with the next group but I went in and I was reading through the test

But I wasn't answering it

And then I decided that that was probably not the right thing to do because once the test was over they would probably make me leave and wouldn't let me come back in with the next group

So then I started going back and answering all the questions

It was multiple choice and it was kind of like the SAT I guess

Except that it was all questions that I found very easy

Like they were a bunch of those analogy things that they've taken out that were my favorite part of the SAT

But then there was a whole bunch of other stuff that was I don't know kind of life questions it wasn't math or any particular kind of subject it was just stuff I can't remember any examples

I just remember that it was all stuff that I found very easy to answer

Have you trashed it My mom's house is Wednesday so I was like okay well Tuesday we should go by there and take out all the stuff we can that needs to go to heavy trash

And she's like well Shirley's bed and box springs need to go out

I'm like I don't think I can move a bed and box springs from a bedroom all the way out to the curb by myself

I mean maybe I can but

Physically I'm a lot worse for wear already

I don't know whether I told you but I fell in the street on moving day which was I guess Tuesday I hadn't gotten any sleep really cuz I'm having you know I don't know I think it's menopause related but you know I've got this thing where I fall asleep and then I wake up in like 2 and 1/2 hours and can't go back to sleep

Or I just can't go to sleep at all

Not every night but just you know kind of randomly thrown in for kicks

So I hadn't gotten very much sleep and I did not really feel safe to drive so I ubered over there and then when we were driving to the new place well she was driving I was riding she was parked across the street because she had to move out of the driveway so that the movers could get in there and when I was walking across the street she had parked in such a way that there was a lot of water and I was trying to look to see where I could walk how I could get to the side of the car without going through a big puddle and the street was uneven and I'm in clogs which you know probably isn't the best idea

And I just went down

And I've said a lot of times that growing up clumsy I just learned how to fall well

And I guess that was the case I didn't even abrate myself or is it abrade

At any rate everything was sore but nothing was cut or scraped I just you know landed but it didn't help my back feel any better

But anyway

I don't think it's a good idea for me to try to go moving things that are sort of heavy and very big and awkward then I'm going to have to drag you know I mean if it was me and another person we could each take an end and it would not be no big deal but she can't do anything

And I'm not sure whether she can't do anything because she really isn't physically strong enough to do anything or if she just can't do anything because she can't do anything

She's old and she certainly looks feeble

Anyway I'm not working tomorrow

Hopefully I'll be able to more talkative

I don't know though

I might need conversation prompts

Oh also I felt like I might have been a little harsh with my talking about her shuffling over to me which she did I'm sure to make herself look more decrepit for Marion

And the other day I don't know why but I just walked over to her and was going to hug her I'm not sure why I'm really not

But she looked kind of scared and she didn't exactly back away but I was afraid she was maybe going to back away and she didn't know what to do and she ended up kissing my neck which was also kind of weird

So I feel totally vindicated in my saying that that was all just an act for Marion

Because I was approaching with my arms out like you would be when you hug someone

So it wasn't like a surprise unless just the idea that there was a hug was a surprise and since there had just been one it shouldn't have been confusing if that was a thing you know

Anyway whatever

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

I have other pictures but for some reason they just don't want to post I'm not sure why

Might be a memory issue sometimes when I have too many photographs on my phone it won't let me do things with them

That blue table that seems out of place is the cat scratching post I mean it's not a scratching post it's a table but that's what the cat scratches on and he seems to be happy with it so unless you want him to start scratching on other furniture it's pretty much got to be there

I'm really feeling out of it today

I fell asleep in the chair last night

And I think I may have forgotten to say good night to you

And it's been a crazy week so it's possible that I forgot to say goodnight to you and different night as well I'm just not sure anymore what's going on

I've been working pretty hard

And I physically hurt

I also have not been sleeping very well

So if I've slipped with communication in the last few days I hope you forgive me

I love you sweetheart 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Okay so where I left off

She had that woman come and tell me that my mother said to tell me she was overwhelmed and it was okay to get a storage because it was too upsetting that I was making her get rid of all her precious stuff

And then when my mom came back in later she was all like oh it makes me feel so useless that y'all are doing all this work and I'm just sitting here

And then she told that woman that I was a slave driver

And I was like hey I can leave right now

And I don't know what all else happened I don't remember it super clearly at this point that might have been it but there was this general My mom was working this woman around to be praising her and you know giving her you know my mom was working it around where she was like the victim and etc and she couldn't really deal with this both because we were in differing realities and so it was difficult for my mother to negotiate that and it was making me nauseated

So I was like you know what My headache is worse I'm just going to go and y'all can do what you're doing and whatever

And so when I'm leaving my mother she's shambling over to me like a zombie you know with the shuffling and whatnot and I'm like what is she doing and she just kept getting closer and closer and I'm like she's creeping me out what the f*** is going on

Well you know she had somebody else over who thinks she's you know a sweet and loving person so she was coming to hug me

She was going to f****** hug me

Because it was a show for this person but we don't hug I can't remember the last time that my mother hugged me it was awkward and creepy AF

But I was really mad

Until I talk to her on the phone and I was like look what was that having Marion come in and say that stuff about oh it was okay to get a storage because it was too traumatic for me to be making you get rid of all your precious stuff

I'm the one who said from the beginning we should just take the stuff and put it in storage and then go through it a few boxes at a time where it's manageable and not overwhelming so what was that about I don't understand that and what was that having Marion come and say something to me

And she's like I did Marion say something to you

And I'm like yes

And she's like oh well Marion's very protective of me

And I'm like okay so what you're saying to me is that you did not tell her to come say that to me she on her own thought that up and came and said to me

She's like I didn't say anything to her

And I'm like she said you said to come and say to me and she seemed like she wasn't really sure why she was saying it or what it was about

But you were maintaining that she just came up with that on her own

Well of course she didn't answer that

And I'm like and then you're telling her I'm a slave driver how am I a slave driver

I mean if I was a slave driver that bookcase would be empty I've been trying to get that bookcase emptied for like 2 weeks

And she's like oh no Marion knows that you're a good daughter and then she starts telling me some story about Mary and having to go get her daughter out of a bad situation with some abusive guy and some other state or something

And I'm like I don't care whether Marian knows I'm a good daughter or not I don't care what Marion thinks of me at all

And she's like I'm sorry I hurt your feelings

I'm like you didn't hurt my feelings you made me really really angry and you made me feel disrespected but you didn't hurt my feelings

She's like you're too sensitive

I don't like no I'm not too sensitive

I don't care when you're here alone with Marion and you want to use me as the bad guy so that you can have her do her little sympathy pity party for you and get all the emotions that you want that's fine I don't care because like I said I don't care what she thinks of me

But you are not going to make me the bad guy when I'm working my ass off doing this stuff that I don't want to do that's really hard for me You are not going to make me the bad guy in front of my face when I'm trying to make your dreams come true

So whatever she didn't really get it and I took a day off

But then it came up again

I don't remember why

And she's like you're too sensitive

And I'm like no I'm not too sensitive and you know who says you're too sensitive to people is bad people That's who says that

I left out narcissists

She is a narcissist

She's like are you saying I'm a bad person

And I'm like I'm not saying you're a bad person but I'm saying that if you're saying I'm too sensitive that's what bad people say so...

Okay look I was on a rant and for over an hour and I ran out of battery so I just posted what was saved to draft I don't know how psychotic it sounds I may not leave it up there was more that didn't get recorded there's more to the story none of its interesting

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I couldn't sleep last night I get to sleep until like 4:00 this morning and then I slept through all my alarms and I had been just running around all day and then I got back home and I mean I didn't get home until after 7:00 but now it's you know to something in the morning and I contemplated ordering chocolate chip cookies on DoorDash and decided that was ridiculous and if I wanted something sweet I could make pancakes but then I didn't

I thought about cleaning up getting the trash together doing the dishes but I didn't

I can't really tell you what I did I don't really know I watched some videos

Mostly I think I just kind of zoned out

I've had weird songs stuck in my head all day

I can't remember any of them except

Eddie vedder singing better man and not really the whole song just bits and pieces of it

But I know that's a song about an abused woman in a relationship but I don't think that's what it was about in my head today The first place sometimes there are songs that when I first listened to them I didn't necessarily pale out of attention to the lyrics

I just heard a little bit of the lyric and music

But also I could have heard it somewhere just picked it up and it got stuck in my head or it could be something to do with the time the song came out I don't know I don't know why it was stuck in my head so persistently

Tuesday the movers are coming Tuesday

I yelled at my mother the other day

I can't quite remember which day it was

I was sorting through a bunch of stuff because I'm trying to clear off the furniture that gets moved and there was the cedar chest and it was just covered with stuff and some of what it was covered with was Houston business journal newspapers

And I'm like can I just throw these away

She's like no

I tell you when she was in the hospital this was a lot easier the other day she actually dug through my trash bag because she thought I was throwing away things that she didn't want thrown away

She dug out this plastic tray and she's like no this goes to Texas art asylum

And it's like oh come on can't we just throw it away it's a plastic tray

It's a good thing she didn't dump out the trash can and look at all the pieces of things in it cuz I'm pretty sure there was other stuff in there she wouldn't have wanted me to throw away

anyway all Houston business journals must be kept I cannot imagine that we are going to move all the Houston business journals she wants to go through everything

I've been packing boxes and moving things around and she's been sitting in a chair going to papers

And okay whatever but it's getting a little old

But back to what I was saying so I'm taking the Houston business journals and I'm putting them in a tote not a tote bag like a tote crate thing and I'm not sorting them by date or anything silly like that I'm just taking them and putting them into stacks

Just Houston business journals that's it

So I get the thing cleared off and the tote of Houston business journals I was going to take it and put it someplace unobtrusive or maybe she'd forget about it and I could throw away later but I didn't get that far

So then the next day I come and the tote of Houston business journals has all these like plastic folders she's got these plastic folders that have the two little plastic buttons with the string that you kind of wind around right kind of like interoffice envelopes only orientated horizontally instead of vertically and plastic

So she likes to use those for her various articles and stuff just stuff so she looks through magazines and she pulls out the reason why I mean

I should preface this by saying I used to do that too I would buy magazines or newspapers or whatever because they were particular articles in them that I wanted to read and then I didn't read them and then I would say okay well I'll just tear out the articles that I bought the magazines for and I can throw the magazines away

And then you know those articles would get put into boxes and they got moved from place to place and eventually I would say well you know I haven't read this it's not in a place where I'm ever going to like sit down and you know pull it off the shelf and read it cuz it's in a box I've had it for x amount of time I'm never going to read it so I'm just going to throw it away

And I kind of came to that realization on my own and I was telling her about it I was like you know look she just saw those things away if you bought the magazine and you didn't read it when you bought the magazine the chances that you are going to go and find it and read it later are so vanishingly small that it's just not worth it just throw it away

And I told her about how I had done that and she's like and how many times did you cry because you do it away and I'm like never

But not only is she not throwing away these collections of articles and I should feel like I should be putting articles in quotes because they're theoretically articles but she's just tearing them out and jamming them into these plastic things and it's not like they're sorted by type of thing it's not like these are the articles about the stock market and these are the articles about how to paint cranes you know it's just an assortment of all kind of different things all mixed together so in the event that she wanted to find something they would be no way to do it no way

Okay so I have sorted there's this tote it has Houston business journals in it they're neatly stacked it looks pretty it should be thrown away or recycled but it's organized I come back in like the next day and she has been going through things and tearing out articles and putting them in these folder things and she has taken like a half a boxes worth of them and put them on top of the Houston business journals

And I saw that and I like exploded NOoooooooo

I'm like I took the time to go through all these papers and random crap and sort it and make it organized and now you have thrown things in with it so now it is another stack of crap that's not organized I'm like no no no no this is not okay never do this again

I organized it why did I do that if you were just going to f*** it up again

But she really seems as though she does not understand why that would upset me

And there's this bookcase I've been emptying because we're going to use it by the entry right so this bookcase she says you know if there's any bookcase any part of the house that I could say just pack up I don't need to go through it it's that one cuz that's all my art business stuff so I want all of that

And this bookshelf it's like three fairly narrow bookshelf things connected it's from a Kia I don't know the name of the style of a Kia but it's wood it's not that attractive but the proportions of the narrower ones are a little nicer than all the other shelves that she has that are wider

So this is three narrow bookshelf things connected to each other and the three of them together are approximately 4 ft

And it's tall he's taller than me I don't know exactly how tall it is it's not as tall as the ceiling I'd say probably it's 6 and 1/2 7 ft tall somewhere in that neighborhood

And what she had in there was like binders and these plastic folder things and papers and books and just an assortment of things that I guess they're more or less all art business but I couldn't particularly see any organization to it and I kind of you know whereas with most of the things I'm going through a truly random assortment of crap and trying to organize it and sort it with this I was not taking time to organize it sorted I was kind of trying to put things from shelves together but I was also trying to put things like you know binders together and you know organized things how they fit into boxes

That bookshelf took 14 banker boxes to contain it

So we were boxing up her books well I say we what I wanted to do I cleared off the table what I wanted to do because she started with this thing where she would cherry pick the books she would like flit around and gather some books and hand them to me and flit around and gather some other books and hand them to me and I was trying to get the bookcase emptied and we couldn't just empty the books from that bookcase into boxes it had to be some books from here and some books from there and some books from the other room ostensibly because she was wanting to organize them

She does not give a f*** about organizing anything anywhere ever but you know I don't want to discourage her from organizing and she knows that because she knows I want to organize things by like thing so again she's using the information that she has about me against me and I really don't understand what her I mean it seemed like she was just trying to empty the bookshelf as slowly as possible

And so but this bookshelf it's got like a section of books that has a little post-it note stuck on the shelf that says like creativity

And I will post it notes stuck on another shelf that says journaling you know so it's theoretically already organized and I'm like okay but isn't that whole section already books on creativity can't we just take them off the shelf and put them in a box

Because she was wanting me to work in that front room that I was working in that had all the art supplies and whatnot in them because in her mind that is the room of stuff that has to be reduced and is she really thinks that this you know 24/2600 ft² full I mean full of stuff she really thinks that that would fit into a 10x10 space because the front room is like roughly 10x20 and it is at least half stuff that could be gotten rid of and it's like okay but that's not all the stuff you have all these other rooms that are full full full full full of stuff

So I was working in there you know and I was stolen things away and I was not unhappy doing that but then you know it was like okay but you know I have to start clearing off the things that are going to move

And I can't remember when we started doing that but Jesus f****** Christ I feel like it has taken a month to get this bookcase into doubt and it still is not emptied out I mean I emptied out that one in the bedroom with the stuff that I just took off the shelves and put in boxes I mean that even though it was a lot of boxes it didn't take that long oh

Sorry I kind of went off on a tangent The the thing that I was saying basically or starting to say was that you know we boxed up a lot of her books it's not all of her books there are still more books but we boxed up a lot of her books and it was like 25 boxes of books which you know that's why I decided we really needed this other bookcase but so it was like weeks and it's 25 boxes of books

And then this one bookcase full of papers and crap is 14 boxes in you know a short amount of time

And that's going to go into what I was calling the project room because I was really hoping that it would become a room that she could do projects in instead of just being a room full of crap that was what I was trying to advocate for and she started calling it the project room and pretending like she's going to do projects in it but she absolutely is planning to completely fill it I guarantee you floor to ceiling with crap

And whatever but this art business stuff she has no plan to organize that maybe it'll get put into another bookshelf in the project room maybe it'll just sit in boxes on the floor in the project room I think that's a lot more likely

But I took all the books off the three tall white bookcases and the three short white bookcases and I was going through the stuff on the short white bookcases and trying to organize it but then I had left and when I came back she had filled it with stuff again and I'm like I had that almost empty

But she had a bunch of papers that she had to go through and shred things and whatever and I just keep saying okay but you know the movers are coming that stuff has to be cleared off and she's doing other things and you know at first I was thinking well the movers are coming on Tuesday so if they're still stuff on there on Monday I'll just go put it all in boxes but then I was like you know

No

So I'm like you know the movers if they come in and their stuff on the furniture they need to move they'll move it off the furniture and they might box it up or they might just put it aside depending upon how their instructed to deal with it but you know it's not going to be boxed up the way you want it to be boxed up it's not going to end up in a form that is going to be easy for you to find anything so you know maybe you want to do that I'm not trying to give you a hard time I'm not trying to tell you what to do but you know I don't think you really want the movers doing that

And she's like oh yeah plus they'll charge me $125 an hour so you know now she's kind of working on it but I don't know

And we went and got something to eat kind of in the middle of the day and then came back and worked some more well I worked some more I'm not really sure what she was doing

But when we went to eat lunch dinner whatever at like 3:00

I'm like look I'm trying to help you go through your stuff and I'm trying to help you move into this apartment and have it be open and airy and beautiful like your dream

I'm trying to make your dream come true

But if what you're going to do is just going to move everything to that apartment and fill it all with junk so that it becomes you know this expensive luxury apartment that's just full of junk I didn't sign up for that

And I'm not going to be wanting to come visit that cuz I just I will not be able to handle it and I'm not trying to be mean I'm just trying to tell you how it is

And she's like but I'm paying $500 a month to rent this house and you know I don't want that to go on forever and blah blah blah

And I'm like right and it can't go on forever because you know beginning of August they want the house I'm like and if we took it and moved it into a storage if we took it and moved it into two storages it would be cheaper than the house

And she's like but the house is air conditioned and if we take it to those storages it's going to be hot and it'll be harder to go through it in the heat and I'm like like I have told you several times before the idea was not to be standing in the storage trying to go through it The idea was we put it all in the storage and then you're in the nice apartment which is not full of crap and then you know we bring over a few boxes at a time and go through them in a calm and manageable way instead of it being just one big overwhelming mess because if you're in a clean nice place and you have to go through like two or three or four boxes well that's not an overwhelming task and then you just do that until you've gone through all the boxes but just a few at a time

It doesn't make any sense to make it sound like you'd have to stand in the storage to go through the stuff

So again it's like I'm explaining things very clearly and succinctly and where there cannot be any mistake and yet she's acting like I'm saying something completely different

And the stuff that she's been going through for like I don't know 2 weeks or something I don't know where this stuff came from but nothing seems less full there's just no area where it looks like things have come from now she had like a bunch of grocery store paper bags that had papers in them that she took to recycling but you know none of those bags were very full and I have no idea how much stuff that represents but I just don't know where it came from and now she's got four boxes that she needs me to write on

Now I understand she can't lift things and walk around a lot and whatever because she's old but why could she not write on boxes herself I don't understand

But she wants me to label them tax 1, tax 2, tax 3, tax 4

And I'm like I understand why are we labeling them that way why don't we label them with the years of taxes that they have in them

Well tax one actually contains tax material but tax two three and four have some other things in them that might be peripherally related to tax or perhaps are not related to tax at all

I think that is just representative of like where they were found or something along those lines because I think they were in a file cabinet or something

Anyway I dictated all this so if there's something that doesn't make sense I'm sorry I just couldn't handle typing it

I just said to myself man I just don't have anything to say I just don't want to talk

But I have the sense that you want me to tell you all about this stuff and it's just it's just not worth talking about I don't like I don't

I don't feel like this is an enjoyable conversation and I guess if you were here I would tell you about it but not because I wanted to tell you about it but because I would just be like do you know what that b**** did blah blah blah you know and I can't imagine that you would enjoy that kind of conversation so I can't understand why you would want me to write about it

And maybe I'm wrong maybe you don't want me to write about it maybe you want me to be writing something else

I don't have something else All I have is my sense

The I have this goal now to get her moved into this m************ luxury apartment and have this beautiful open airy whatever

And I really part of me thinks I can accomplish this goal

And the other part of me knows that she is just going to turn it into a s*** hole

I mean when Bob had his surgeries and whatever and then they wanted to send him home and she's like you can't send him home because he can't walk on his own and I can't support his weight so he needs to go to nursing home recuperation whatever it's called and then she had his sister and her niece and anybody else she could rope in helping her to clean out the house because she didn't want if a social worker or somebody came in she didn't want for them to both be sent to nursing homes as being you know unable to care for themselves crazy old people and so actually I helped too a little bit not very much actually what I did was probably not terribly helpful but Bob had been feeding the cat he would take the food the wet food and he would put it on a paper plate and then since he couldn't bend over this is before he had his surgery and stuff this was for years he had a bad back so he would take the plate and he would drop it from I don't know like 3 ft or something onto the floor and it would hit the floor and it would splatter up on the front of the chest of drawers that he was feeding the cat in front of now why was he feeding the cat in front of his chest of drawers in his bedroom instead of in some cleanable area I don't know but there was years worth of caked on revolting cat food on the front of the dresser and so I spent a day scrubbing that off other people were helping them or helping her you know get the clutter cleared but when I walked in that was the thing that said to me crazy old people so that was what I did and whatever

But during that time I mean I'm not going to say the house look nice or quite like some place a normal person would live but they got a lot of the floor cleared off You could see a lot of the floor not just little pathways because of course that's a telltale sign right and it isn't safe to live that way

So the last time I had been in the house you know it was in a much less hordery looking state

And in the ensuing years she said all this stuff about how she's going through stuff and getting rid of stuff and so I thought well you know I don't really believe that but maybe if that's true then it doesn't look any worse than it did last time I saw it but then of course you know it was all full

And you know there was an area that I had cleared out I had picked up trash off the floor and you know it's what a lot of this stuff is it's like boxes of stuff that she ordered that just sit on the floor and you know trash and whatnot so I had gone through and picked up some trash and thrown it away and cleared some space well she took you know a tote and then she took the box that the boxes shipped in so you know it's like I don't know 3 ft² square 3 ft by 4 ft it's a big flat box flat-ish box she put that on the tote and then she covered that with stuff that she was going through but she didn't like finished going through it she just spread stuff all over it and then just left it there

So then I'm cleaning the area again and you know I told her

Because she'd been talking about to the person who was showing us the apartment she'd been calling me her caregiver

And I'm like look I'm not signing up to be your nurse I'm not signing up to be your maid I'm you know willing to come by and check on you and stuff but you know and if the house is you know nice and all then I will be happy to stay and visit but you know I just want to make it clear I'm not signing up to be your slave

And she had been telling this woman at the this is a while ago now because it was when we were looking at the apartment she was telling this woman that I threw away her I thought she was saying olives but I guess she was saying almonds right You know like how I had thrown away her stuff and she's had maids okay

And it starts off like oh they're great and they're helping her and whatever but then before too long they become those little b****** who threw away her stuff and you know did XYZ and you know she demonizes people and so I was telling her

That that was not cool to be telling that person how I had thrown away her stuff and whatever you know that I wasn't signing up to be her nurse or her maid or her slave and I for sure was not signing up to be one of those little b****** so she just needed to get it through her head right then that that was not cool and that if I had thrown away her almonds then it was because they were expired or they had filth on the outside of the container or they smelled rancid or there was some reason why I threw them away because I'm not just looking to throw away her food but that if that was the way it was going to be I was not going to continue

And she's like oh I never said that blah blah blah

But then we had another little episode a couple of weeks ago where this woman who helps her Marion well I mean she is like Shirley's advocate or whatever I don't know but she helps my mom too

Somehow there was a mix-up and we were both there and my mother can't really handle being around two different people because she can't keep the reality straight right so she went outside with Marian and then Mary and came back in and said to me your mother told me to tell you that she's okay with getting a storage for just a little while that she's very overwhelmed and it's just very difficult for her that you wanted her to get rid of all her precious stuff

And I'm like what are you talking about

And she said well she just told me to come in here and say that to you and I'm like why are you coming and telling me messages from her I don't understand

And then my

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

When we first started this process of going through her stuff one of the first things I did was go through the whole house with her and determine which furniture she wanted to keep. I figured furniture is large and that would give us an idea how much space we already had filled.  She claimed not to really care about any of the furniture.  There were two pieces of furniture however which she said she absolutely did not want.  They had been in her house when she was growing up and they brought back bad memories and she absolutely did not want them.  One of those pieces of furniture she has never said one more thing about like it may as well not exist, but the other one has come up quite a bit.

In the luxury apartment she's rented there's one wall that's by the entry door which really calls out for some sort of a statement piece.  And since I'm trying to organize her I have some requirements for this piece of furniture.  I wanted to be something with drawers or a cabinet that she can put things in when she comes in so that she doesn't just set things down in the middle of the floor and forget about them.  A way for her to have a fairly sizable amount of stuff that she can have out of sight but handy.  I found a beautiful piece of furniture at crate & barrel that I thought would be perfect, and yeah it's a little expensive but I mean it's a big piece of furniture and it's not as much as a month's rent.  I did not think she was going to go for it and was right.  No new furniture.  I have to make this luxury apartment look open an area and beautiful but I have to do it with her old crap.  So I figured something out it'll fit and it'll work and it wouldn't be as beautiful as a new piece of furniture but it'll be fine.

Fine.  Then she keeps bringing up all these reasons why we need to use this chest of drawers that she said she absolutely did not want to have in her house instead.  And I proceed to tell her all the reasons why that will not work instead.  The proportions are not correct.  It's big but it won't actually fill the space properly which will necessitate other things being on the wall with it which will look weird.  The drawers are heavy and big and not sized in a way that makes them easy to open and close and use to store things in so she won't so it won't serve the purpose that it needs to serve.  Also, although the width of it is not enough the depth of it is too much so it will fill the space awkwardly, disrupting flow.  And the style of it is not really going to go with anything else.  So maybe it's a big showstopper piece but it just looks like it belongs someplace else.

So I tell her all this, but it continues to come up it needs to be this because XYZ that aren't real things.  So I'm like look you told me this was a piece of furniture that you definitely did not want that it made you remember bad things and you did not want it in your house.  You keep bringing it up though.  So I am forced to believe that you do in fact want it in your house.  So I'm asking you do you want it in your house?  I will find a place for it.  It cannot go in that entry area.  It will not work in that entry area, but if you want it I will find a way to fit it into the living room.  Do you want it?  Do you not want it?

"I don't fucking know!"

Might be the truest thing she's ever said to me.

Retroactively translating my father, I would say what he was trying to say was something along the lines of her reality comes from outside herself-- she's around other people and she gauges what she says and does by their reaction to it not some sort of internal North Star.  But even that, which I might have understood, is a little vague and doesn't begin to describe the situation.  Let me give you an example.

I myself have a problem with stuff.  I form an emotional attachment to the stuff and it represents all kind of things for me.  But that does not seem to be the relationship that my mother has to stuff.  Oh btdubs she's a hoarder.  And I was saying to her you know when I'm looking at my stuff I have an emotional attachment to it but that doesn't seem to be what's going on with you I don't really understand what is your connection to this stuff.

"What you don't understand" she says "is it most of this stuff represents something that I was trying to achieve in my life and getting rid of it means I have to let go of my dreams."

"Well, I mean, I see how that can be true of the books on public speaking perhaps but I don't see how that applies to the boxes and boxes of dirty soiled fabric and the many jars of buttons."

"The first thing I ever wanted to be was a dress designer" she says with this tone that kind of implies a back of the hand to the forehead and a slight swooning.  Like I know that was something she may be wanted to do as a kid but I'm pretty sure she was over it before she got out of high school.  By which I mean I think this is an act.  I offered information about myself she one upped it and created this fantasy that I can't say anything to, right.

But then the other day we were in the garage.  We found a box of old handmade dresses that I feel like she must have made, and I asked her if she wanted any of it, did she want to look at it, although, I mean, she had handed me the box.

"I don't want any of that crap," she says, although if the other day reality was true this is one of her first dreams that she's having to throw away.

I find it inconsistently unbelievable, by which I mean the inconsistency is what makes it unbelievable not that the unbelievability is inconsistent.

Same day in the garage, she shows me this quilt topper, that that is the decorative part of the quilt that goes on the top but then you have to do a bottom and padding in between and do the whole quilting process so a quilt topper might be pretty or it might not be pretty but if you don't know how to quilt it isn't much use to you.  This quilt topper is something that her sister Shirley bought probably from a garage sale somewhere.  It's not something my mother made or surely made or anybody they know made it's just a thing that could potentially be pretty but that isn't actually a thing it's a potential thing.  And she's asking me if I think it's pretty if I want it if I think we should keep it.

"Do you know how to quilt?"

"Fuck no."

"Do you plan to learn to quilt?"

"Fuck no, I don't want to ruin my hands."

"Do you want to pay to have someone else finish it?"

"Fuck no."

"Well I don't want it.  I'm not even sure I think it's pretty."

"Fine.  Donate."

This was like a whole conversation that ended in her sounding like she was somewhat mad at me for not wanting to save the quilt topper.  She had no connection to the quilt topper at all it wasn't hers it had never been hers. 

Do you remember back in the pandemic when Trump was doing the pressers everyday?  And every day he would come and say something that seemed like the reality of the day before had been completely wiped away and now we were in a completely different situation?  That's what being around my mother everyday is like.

And in fact the more inherent value something has the less likely she seems to be attached to it.  There's a table in the kitchen.  I don't remember when she got the table I think it was sometime when I was in high school so it's an old table.  It's not anything that would probably ever be considered an antique though.  It's one of those reasonably inexpensive faux farmhouse style tables from the early '80s.  So if it were cleaned up and in beautiful condition no one would want to buy it.  But this table is not.  She cannot throw away food waste.  It must be recycled.  But she doesn't really like to walk out and put it in the yard.  So there was like a pile of rotting fruit peels on this table, which I cleaned up and scrubbed really hard, but that was not enough to remove the stains to the wood which are seeped way in.  Now maybe if you got one of those electrical sanders and you sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded it back, and then dyed it a dark colored wood, and then scrubbed the rest of the table to remove the years of filth, you would have done a lot of work and at the end of it you would have something that was worth its utilitarian value as a table.

And she agreed that we don't have to bring the table to the new place.  But she keeps trying to find ways that we need the table.  

When I told my father I wanted to go live with my mother I was about 10 years old.  My father tried to explain some things to me about my mother that he thought would make me change my mind.  He wasn't really able to explain them.  Maybe that was due to his schizotypal conversation style or maybe it was because I was 10 years old and he was trying to explain fairly complex psychological issues with which he had no formal understanding.  Regardless of the reason I didn't understand then, now I get it.  And by now, I actually mean now 45 years later.

I've never really understood my mother.  Most people I'm around them for a little while and I kind of get them what makes them tick what motivates them maybe not on a very deep level, but it's a thing I'm generally good at, a thing I've come to understand is not a super common trait.  Growing up I just assumed if I was good at something that pretty much everyone was good at it, and I can't now remember when I discovered that that was not a common trait.  Like I was a teenager before I realized that everyone didn't have really bad headaches most of the time.  But whatever, The point is typically I have some idea what makes people tick but my mother is a complete enigma to me.

Which is not to say that I'm like fascinated by her or necessarily care very much what makes her tick, but as she's gotten older and I'm trying to keep tabs on her the fact that I really don't understand her means that when she spins her little unreliable narrator tales I really don't have any idea which ones are true.  Are any of them true?  They might all be lies.  But the thing that really does fascinate me is whether or not she knows which ones are lies-- I mean it's not a lie if you believe it, right?

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Have a very complicated dream

I think there was more before this but

I was at some kind of an after-party

I don't think you were there

But your sister was there

Only she was much younger and what completely different so I didn't recognize her

And somebody brought me a bunch of pictures to look at

As your parents at a big like manor house

I downton abbey looking thing

And I'm like I don't understand what I'm looking at what is this mean

And nobody knew

But they seem to think that you wanted me to see these pictures

And everybody kept telling me to for driving lights were a problem

Like that I could not drive at night for some reason

And I'm like okay well then maybe I need a hotel where's a good hotel here

Although I'm not sure we're here was

And your sister in the dream who I'm not sure I knew was your sister in the dream even

She's like oh you can stay with me You can sleep under the sleeper

But I did not know what that meant

I thought it meant she liked me at least but I wasn't even sure of that

But then that didn't happen

And I was driving it wasn't at night

And every time I would stop someplace to get food or whatever people would tell me again how I couldn't drive it night

And I was driving in this nightgown

It was really short and I didn't have any underwear or anything on

Kind of like I have been sleeping

I'm in this big oversized shirt and it's long but it's not super long

So it covers everything that technically needs to be covered but you don't have a lot of wiggle room

And it's super hot here so that's fine

But I was thinking in the dream that if something happened and I got stopped or something that that would maybe be bad so I pulled over in this big field in front of a house not specifically in front of the house and I was opening the doors and looking in the car

I really just wanted to put on some underwear

And I found a pair of underwear but it was covered with like that pollon-y stuff that comes off of oak trees

And I didn't want to put it next to my skin because I was afraid it would irritate me

So then I found this long pink house jacket and I thought well that'll work

But when I started trying to put it on suddenly all these people were around me I was putting grocery bags of food in the car

And these people were looking at groceries that were on a shelf thing that was suddenly right behind me and looking at clothes on a rack

And then they should tell me again how I couldn't drive after dark

And then I was somewhere

Your wife was also there

And I was asking you about the pictures

And you were like

I don't know what diluted realities you have that make you think you saw pictures

I turned to her and say I was at some party that I had thought you were at but I couldn't find you and you wouldn't talk to me and somebody showed me some pictures

And then we slipped away somewhere

And we were walking

And talking

And I had kind of a lucid dream moment

I'm like oh my God this is like all I've ever wanted this conversation we're having right now

And we were trying to figure out

What was our situation

And it was sort of confusing and we didn't know

And I was trying to find out

I was telling you that for years I thought you know we were going to be together

Not like I was your groupie and maybe we'd f*** someday

But like actually be together

But that now I wasn't sure that that was anything you had ever wanted

And I wasn't sure if it was what was best for us anyway

That maybe

You had always ever wanted to stay with your wife

And you had always ever wanted from me something more intangible

And that I had always wanted to chase after you be your wife

But maybe I would really be happier as something more intangible

But I don't think we have time to figure it out at this particular moment

I said

Where will you be tomorrow

And you turned into a beautiful little girl somehow

I don't know maybe eight

With a big beautiful eyes

And long dark curling hair

And you looked up at me

And you said

Okemah, my love

And then you turn back into yourself

And I'm like how are you going to get to okemah by tomorrow

You're like

 it's not going to be easy

And then you turn back into the little girl and twirl away

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

You know I really like these paintings painted by the 13-year-old me

I'm kind of wondering if I wouldn't have been better off not going to art school at all

Like I feel like those paintings that I did when I was 13 or in some way better than what I do now that I know more

Is that crazy?

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

found some paintings from 1980

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

But I did think it was better to be taking an exam that didn't have to be for any kind of credit then to be taking an exam that was lots of stress

And I did think that doing generally well on it and feeling confident enough to go and take it for credit was a good sign

And much different than my normal stress dream which is the one where I'm taking the exam for the class that I haven't been in all semester and don't know what the f*** is going on

So there's that

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

Last night

I dreamed I was sitting for some kind of an exam that were a whole bunch of us

And we were doing it but it wasn't going to count

Or didn't have to count

Or something

And generally I felt like I did pretty well

And we all felt like we did pretty well

So much so that some of us are going to go take it again

At the Astrodome I think so that we could get the credit for it

But during the exam

I kept trying to figure something out

I was like something that Capricorns aren't good at something that Capricorns aren't good at and something to do with the number 4

And I never did figure out what that was about

But I did feel really good generally about how I did on the exam

I know where some other people there that I knew

We used in the dream I knew them

And we were all younger like college age I guess

Then when I was going to leave to go to the Astrodome I ended up catching a ride with this other guy

Who looks just like the guy who was the werewolf from Buffy I can't remember his name now

I don't really know what to make of that

goodnight sweetheart

I love you

very much 💋

i haven't been able to get back to sleep after that dream

i'm not going today

i've had a shower and coffee

and

i feel like i haven't slept at all

i'm going to try to go back to sleep

i'm super hungry all of a sudden

or

maybe i'm nauseated

i'm not sure

those things should feel different

 i dreamed i was traveling

along some coastline

revisiting places i knew from my youth

disposing of long kept detritus

and you were somehow also traveling that coastline

and i kept hoping we would meet

somehow get together

but

every time we were in the same place

you chose to go somewhere different

watching me from afar sometimes

and judging me

not favorably

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I wanted to show you this picture

but

I don't think I had a copy in my things

when I showed you stuff before

if I did

oh well

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I forgot to say

goodnight sweetheart

I love you very much 💋

when I went to bed at 9

 now I'm up to pee

so

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart

I love you

very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I love you very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart

I love you

very much 💋

goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋