Caterwauling

I am now actively trying to find a way to offload the UEOEH. (E-I-E-I-O?). When I thought I could bribe my cousin into taking her for a while (or forever), my heart lifted. I could feel it. There was noticeably the absence of a rock from the pit of my stomach.

Of course, the cousin refused and I sent her the biggest bouquet of autumn flowers known to man yesterday. Just in case she realized that I am a wonderful person who needs a break already.

I am now thinking of one of the UEOEH’s friends in Pittsburgh. Her daughter works in D.C. now. I know they have a bedroom or two to spare. I wonder if I shouldn’t have sent HER the obnoxious floral display instead. …

Right now I’m struggling with whether I’m taking the natural next step in my career, or simply becoming something I’m not. I feel like I’m leaving 85% of what makes me, well, me at the door while heeding the suggestion, “You should learn from the OTHER publisher.” Who is half my age and has been with the firm for half a decade and doesn’t have my experience in other things.

But anyway, I realize now why, when I was a grantwriter, it was so important to ask for money for respite services for caregivers. (I worked for a foster care agency, where we mainly serviced aunts and grandmothers who inherited kids while their mothers were in jail or otherwise deemed unfit to rear their kids.) That night off … or weekend or week … is more precious than any Apple product ever manufactured. (Yes, I said it!)

If I could offload the UEOEH for the holidays … wow. How happy I would be. And if it could turn permanent, well, all the better!

I finally have something to pray for, other than, “God, get me out of this mess.”

Once that’s solved, I can perhaps start in on cleaning up my OWN life. What an original idea.

I’m exhausted. Between the physical labor Saturday, the sitting around Sunday, and the emotional havoc of my home life, I’m at my wits’ end.

Apparently the UEOEH called my cousin — my last bastion of hope — about staying with her. She refused.

Great. Apparently NOBODY wants a dependent for life. Go figure!

I’m so blue, I’m black at this point.

And surprisingly, she says she has a babysitting job tomorrow. And she didn’t ask me for any money for gas. Proving that yesterday’s text was a hoax. Or else Ms. Martyr 2010 is going to run the car on fumes.

My boss told me to buy her a plane ticket to Pittsburgh. Not my problem if nobody picks her up at the airport. And to send a moving van with her car with it. That the few grand I drop now to do this will pay off in spades for the rest of my life.

Is it wrong to block her number when I’m paying the bill?

My beloved Lady L came over today to help me build my dining room set.

It took three hours for us to build the baker’s rack, so we gave up after that and headed out to City Pizza.

You know, back in the day we all helped each other move. Now that we’re grown-ups, we just help each other pack and/or build furniture. And holy shit, we’re still sore!

My asshole mother was here. I had just had a fight with her before Lady L arrived. She asked if she could help and, remembering yesterday’s e-mail, I said she might get tainted by my un-Christian-like-ness, so no thanks.

So she starts insulting me again. I shut her up. She said, “Oh, I see how it is. You can dish it out but you can’t take it.”

I said I can take it when it’s TRUE. And that I haven’t BEGUN to start in on her yet. So there’s the door and I strongly SUGGEST you walk through it.

So when Lady L came, the UEOEH was wandering in and out of the room. And on and off the balcony, using one of the doors in MY BEDROOM.

While I was freshening up before we headed to CityPlace, the UEOEH told Lady L TWICE how “mean” I am to her.

Uh, if you’d seen what the bitch wrote about Lady L in yesterday’s e-mail, it’s a wonder the old lady didn’t get slugged.

And furthermore, how DARE she put me down to my friend!!!

Lady L reported that the UEOEH said she misses her friends back in Pittsburgh. And that she respects how Lady L “does what she has to do” and puts herself first with her job and travels and essentially puts her own needs first.

O RLY? God forbid I ask the bitch to leave the house for a day, and I I’m selfish and MEAN.

I’m done. I’m SO done. I wish I had a sibling to ship her to. I wish SHE had a sibling I can ship her to.

I brought her home a pizza. She’s locked up in her room, probably bitching to her friends about me. I will eat the pizza, then. Fuck her.

God, I’m sorry I failed You on this one. I give up. I can’t take it anymore. I have to give this problem back to You. Her apathy and delusions are no match for me. I’m good but apparently not as good as You thought.

Still praying for a solution.

So, I sent the UEOEH an e-mail this morning. A simple paragraph, really. I said that I’m having a guest for Thanksgiving. And that she can have a ticket to Pennsylvania or Ohio if she wants it.

I also said, in no uncertain terms, that I’m over the way things are here. That she let every man in her life walk all over her with no complaint. But here I am, her daughter, crying uncle and needing out. And it’s like a joke or like I’d never spoken at all.

I get this diatribe back that other people are spending Thanksgiving with their families. And that her own flesh and blood is disowning her. And that nobody loves her and everybody hates her and she’s going to go eat worms. Blah blah self-pity-cakes.

My reply was acerbic, that I want her to take a photo from atop the cross so I can see this view that she CAN’T LET GO OF. And if it makes me a bad person to want to spent Thanksgiving the way I want, with whom I want … withOUT whom I want — and, for that matter, my life in general — then so be it.

As I drove to work this morning, I wondered whether I was going to hell for wanting a few peaceful years on earth — that I will be denied my chance to go to heaven for eternity all because I wanted to enjoy my brief stay as a mortal.

This is the shit that keeps me up at night.

I said I gave her two years. It’s four now. And no signs of improvement. That the guilt trips are no longer effective. That she can’t take me down with her. That she needs help and I don’t think she wants it. Never met anybody who resisted help more.

OK, so maybe I offended her in the first note that a friend wants to donate some of her furniture to me, and I thought it would be a lovely idea to re-do the master suite into a smaller version of my friend’s place so that she can stay here when she comes to town. Oh well!

The whole thing that’s bugged me about my stupid family is that everyone HAD to take care of everyone else. I remember when my great-uncle Joe threw my great-grandmother Anastasia out of her own house so he could live there with his obnoxious second wife. Anastasia came to live with my grandparents and mom (and cousin and her infant daughter) and me.

Yep, seven of us in a two-bedroom rowhouse in the ghetto. I ran away at every opportunity. I hated it. I shared a room with my mom and grandfather. My grandmother slept on the couch. I don’t remember the rest of the arrangement. But it was embarrassing and it sucked.

As I also told the UEOEH in my reply, she chose to live with my grandparents when they were still well. Then she got trapped when they weren’t. That’s not the life I want. She might not have chosen it but if I have the chance to choose otherwise, I want to take it. Again, does it make me a bad person?

No, really — I am asking you, O Holy Internet Pulpit. Am I the asshole in this? I’m sure in God’s eyes, I am. In the UEOEH’s eyes, I am as “mean and nasty” as it gets.

But I look at this dysfunctional mother-daughter dynamic as exactly that — we are not good for each other. This is a relationship that is dying on the vine. It’s not about money; it’s about space.

My colleague’s mom lives in Paris. She is here in Florida. She says that’s how their relationship works best — when they are on different continents. They have dinner occasionally, and go shopping now and then. Another colleague’s mom lives in India. He sees her when he’s out that way. I don’t know the relationship but I love that she’s doing her own thing and he’s here doing his.

The way the UEOEH always positions this is that I “don’t want” her. I could see me being evil if I were trying to get rid of, say, a CHILD. Momma got knocked up and it’s been a good five years, but she’s kind of over you. Please take the next train out of here, yes?

(That would be me, BTW. Hence, no kids … and not because I pinned a $50 to them and dropped them at Amtrak!)

What I had to point out to the UEOEH is that this is the millionth time I’ve said something. And the millionth that she’s pretended it never happened. So, she’s always shocked when I erupt — AGAIN.

I hate feeling this way, you know? I miss loving my mother. I miss wanting to see her. To buy her dinners and get her away from my grandparents for a day. To bring her presents. To gossip and confide and have her tell me how special I am. To look forward to her amazing cooking and unforgettable baked goods, because there was always extra love in it for me. To listen to the same stupid stories about the same stupid employers and same stupid boys. And never judge me or tell me anything other than how wrong they all are and how much better I deserve.

Yeah, that doesn’t happen anymore.

Is it all my fault? Sure. Let’s go with that.

She says I make her feel like shit and that she can’t rise up out of it. But what I can’t convey to her — and maybe it’s because I’m selfish and mean and nasty like she says — is that she weighs on me, too. I’m drugged to the goddamned gills. I spend money I don’t have on shit I don’t need so I don’t have to come home.

I remember telling Lady L that when I first arrived here, in the rehab capital of the world, I simply could not understand why there were so many people boozed or cracked out of their minds here. It’s beautiful, the pace is slow and there isn’t a care in the world. Now, I see why everyone’s got a weakness for Jack ‘n Coke, or plain old Coke. It’s boring. There isn’t a damn thing to engage your mind. And a tropical environment doesn’t solve a stressful work or home life.

Anyway, I worry about my mom. She hasn’t been the same since we lost my grandfather. She is very sensitive and misses all the dead, actually. I am a foreign being to her. I am not very emotional unless I’m angry. I do miss the dead but crying won’t bring them back. I miss my friends but I don’t call them EVERY NIGHT like she does. If I hate my job or relationship or life situation, I LEAVE IT.

Felix and Oscar, I say.

I miss my mom. God, I miss her. I want her back. I don’t know what to do with this sad sack. I just wish that telling her to get her shit together and make a life for herself would make her DO it. I pray that she meets a rich man. I pray that she wakes up and feels better. I pray that she finds the superhuman strength she needs to get out of this funk. I pray that she understands why I’m so angry. I pray that I don’t become her. I pray that God doesn’t punish me because I have to answer to Him, and my answer is, “I give up.” I pray that she’s stronger than she thinks. I pray that the magical solution comes to me and that it’s easy and quick. I pray that I don’t run out of time to fix our relationship.

God answered one of my friend’s prayers in just 10 months. Makes four years seem a bit excessive, no?

From the Porch at DaDa

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

So, I was taking a very important personal phone call this evening. And because you can hear everything in the apartment that I pay for, and because Miss Muffett is always parked on her pudgy-pork-roast tuffett in the master suite, I took my call outside.

I was sitting with my feet in the pool, SEVERAL floors down, and Miss Thang texted me that she could HEAR me.

GAH.

I wasn’t talking about her. But man, was I annoyed. I seriously CANNOT escape her. I was at sea level, yo — I could easily have jumped into the Intracoastal and let the Muck Monster devour me!

Like, bitch, MOVE OUT so I can make/take my calls in my space, OK?

This actually tops a story from the other night. My room is a fishbowl — it’s tiny, it’s on a corner and it has two sliding-glass doors. And Princess is always waddling from one end of the balcony to the other.

So, I was asleep, and my cat Kadie was curled up at the foot of the bed, facing north, as she likes to do. (That’s where the dock is — lovely view at night.)

Apparently the UEOEH decided to enter my room from the one sliding-glass door, kidnap Kadie, and take the cat to HER room.

WTF? I mean, really. Kadie is a loud cat when she’s disturbed. (Read: She’s quiet for/with me but goes apeshit with the UEOEH.) I’m shocked that I slept through this.

But who the hell goes into someone’s room when they’re asleep? For fuck’s sake. Isn’t it bad enough that I can’t fucking blog without her finding reasons to stand near me and pet the kitty, who’s surgically attached to my side?

Grr, I hate her so much. Go away. Go away. GO AWAY.