I'm getting more and more angry with him. Not about the fact that he won't help me with my trip -- I told him I could do it without financial help, and I can. But I'm pissed off that he's trying to control me! He started out by asking if I was sure I wanted to do this with the "terrorist activity" in Europe; when I said yes he interrogated me about why, and said I shouldn't go alone and that I would be a target. Because apparently anyone walking down the street in London would know and/or care I'm American?

And then when I told him it was what I wanted to do, he said "Then you are as stupid as I thought. Goodbye." Then the next time he started berating me about being irresponsible, and asking why I didn't save the money and be ahead for once.

So basically, he tried to logic me out of it, then he tried to scare me; then to undermine me and convince me I'm too stupid to handle it; and then he moved on to trying to use money as leverage. Wonder what he'll try next.

My father is getting married.

I need my dad to watch my dog while I go to New York to see a-ha, so I had to tell him I was going at all--which I originally didn't intend to. His response was "You need to re-evaluate your life if you really think that's something you need to do."

Wonder what he'd say about my a-ha tattoo!

My dad drives me absolutely nuts sometimes. There was no reason he couldn't have talked to me about what he was calling about last night. No reason for him to stress me out. I even told him that he was stressing me out, and he still wouldn't just tell me what was going on. Gah! Seriously! Gah!

Also, I'm feeling ever so slightly less scummy about the cat situation, since I'm 99% sure he's already listed on the adoption page. There's not a picture, but the description and age match and it's a new listing.

I still feel like crying when I think about him headbutting me and licking my chin; I still want to go and re-adopt him. But I can't. I don't have room, I don't have time, I just can't. Even though I miss him awfully.

He knows that I get stressed out when he says he needs to talk to me, but won't tell me when I'm at work or only have a few minutes. I've been stressed out all night, because when I called him back he was sleeping and insisted I call him tomorrow. Gah! It could be absolutely nothing, he's done that before. But I have this awful feeling he's going to marry his girlfriend and wants to prepare me before he makes an announcement to the family on Sunday.

My dad's girlfriend has moved in with him. That basically means I'll never see him alone, because she has no life--she has no friends and doesn't talk to her own family. Kind of takes the shine off spending time with my dad if most of that time will involve being nauseated by them playing kissy-face.

It doesn't help that I found out she's the one who let our dog out and didn't watch him. Oh, and the same day I found that out, I discovered why my mom was acting so weird a couple of years ago. Turns out her husband has a little problem with crack.

Awesome.

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I got my first tattoo last week. I'm thrilled with it, I love it, but I almost canceled because half an hour before my appointment, my dad called to tell me that our dog is dead. Or at least, he's almost certainly dead, he ran off into the forest a week before and never came home. I didn't want my tattoo associated with finding that out, but I'm glad I went through with it. I spent the next couple of days bursting in to tears at inappropriate moments, unable to stop thinking about all the terrible things that could have happened to our poor puppy. He was originally my mom's dog, so I had to tell her ... but I couldn't tell her the truth. I lied and said he died in his sleep so she wouldn't be as upset as me.

Now, of course, I can't cry to my usual support person about why I'm so upset, so I'm still struggling with it. But I did the right thing, her heart would've been utterly broken. Like my dad's is, he blames himself and he's just miserable. It just fucking sucks all the way around. I still can't really talk about him without crying.

And then I got a cold, just when I was starting to feel emotionally better. I've spent the last two days resting and sucking down juice and tea, and I think I actually feel worse than when I first got sick. Whining will end ... now.

Got a call from my aunt today. She's on the list to get shipped overseas--genius went and joined the military reserves a few years ago.

Her oldest daughter graduates in May; her younger daughter has another three years of high school. Their father is a dick, and she doesn't want to go live with him. My mother has waaaaaay too much going on in her life; my grandmother ... uh ... just no. My uncle is living with my grandmother. That leaves two aunts--one across the country, one out in the boonies in this state. And, of course, me.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure if it's up to the kiddo, she'll be living with me. That part is fine, I love her and love spending time with her. The problem becomes where she'll be living with me. Five years ago, I left school and moved eighty miles away to where they live. Two years ago, I left there and came back to school. I have a year left.

Do I put my life on hold, again, and halfway across the state again? Or do I make her leave her friends and her school, and possibly her dog unless I can find a realllllly big house here, uprooting her after her sister leaves for college and her mother leaves the country? I feel selfish even considering it--but god damn, I've only got three freaking semesters left, I'm almost thirty, and I don't think I can take another interruption. I've only just found my groove, how can I ditch it now because ... and this is the root of it ... my aunt keeps making stupid decisions?

My cousin shouldn't suffer for her mother's stupidity; she didn't ask for any of this. But I shouldn't either. Goddammit.

Through a series of random events, I ended up looking through a box of photos as my dad's house. I found a picture of me at about seventeen or eighteen, and I stared at it for a long time. Then I held it up and said, "I can't believe how skinny I was."

"And you should be again," he answered right away, without even a pause.

"That's not the point," I told him. "I thought I was the ugliest most disgusting thing on two legs. I thought I was a whale."

Again, without a pause: "Then what do you think now?"

Ouch. Lucky for him I've developed some perspective, or he'd have had a very upset daughter on his hands. I stared at him and then rolled my eyes.

"Well, you've let yourself go to the point th--"

I cut him off. "That's not the point. The point is that my body image was so screwed up that I thought I was enormous when I wasn't."

He made a comment about that kind of thing can cause anorexia or bulimia, and I just looked at him and said "Yes, it can." He asked what that meant, so I told him I came near that. He just kept saying sort of sarcastically, "I must have missed that" until I told him it's about behaviors, not appearance, and told him about a couple of the more disturbing thoughts I had in the past. At that point he got uncomfortable and decided it was time to cook dinner.

Later, when we were having dinner, he kept trying to shove more steak on to my plate. I finally got exasperated and said, "How did you go from calling me fat to forcing food on me?"

"I never said that!" he said. So I reminded him of the whale comment, and he sort of looked down at his plate and mumbled, "I shouldn't have said that."

Damn right he shouldn't have.

So the woman my dad is currently dating is somebody who he dated before my mother--and while they were married. This weekend, my dear tactless grandmother asked me how I felt about that! I didn't think my mom would get upset about it, I thought she'd think it was funny that my grandmother is so rude sometimes.

She got really upset. So upset that hours later when I called her about something else she brought it up again. She said something like, "I've had to tell you things about your dad that you shouldn't have to know." And I was trying to make her feel better, and said that I was too little to understand it at the time but my dad wasn't exactly discreet with one of his girlfriends. So I've known for a long time that my dad wasn't a good person, and I'm okay with it and she shouldn't be upset for me.

My mom hung up crying. I feel like an asshole.

I had a nice weekend with my family, but they also just make me want to scream sometimes. I'm so glad to be home, home where if I don't feel like smiling nobody slaps me on the shoulder and demands to know what's wrong. Where there are two dogs and four cats, but not eight dogs (more dogs than people) chasing each other around, snarling, fighting, jumping on me, and being a pain in the ass. Where I don't have my grandmother looking pointedly at my fat ass every time I get something to eat, or my aunt glancing sideways at me while she cooks because apparently I should be waiting on the menfolk, not enjoying myself. Where I don't have to see my dad patting his girlfriend's ass, or listen to my grandmother ask me the same question for the fourth time that day, or watch my cousin defer to her douchebag fiancé.

Ah, home. It smells of stale air and cats, and my pilot light went out so it's freezing cold, but it's mine.

My mother's family finally got together for a holiday on Thursday--for the first time in a long time. Usually everybody's working or going in opposite directions, or there was nowhere big enough to get together. This year, somehow, something was pulled together. My mom had to work; her brother let his wife tell him what to do and keep him away; and her youngest sister lives in another state. But my grandma, me, my other two aunts, and my cousins had a freakin' ball! We played dominoes, and a couple other games; we laughed until we couldn't breathe; we talked and goofed around.

It was just so nice to relax and be around people I'm really comfortable with. I'm always slightly tense around my dad's side of my family--they're a lot more stodgy and judgmental. I could never fling a turtle finger puppet at my dad's sister when she takes too long to take her turn in dominoes. My other cousins don't like to do mock interpretive dance to a blues song about being hit with a "ignant stick." When I'm with my dad's family, I also feel like the big fat round peg that doesn't fit in the square hole. With my mom's family, I feel like I fit. I feel like I'm included.

I love both sides of my family; and I have fun with both sides of my family. I guess it's just different types of fun. Oh, who am I kidding. I have fun with my dad's family sometimes, but my mom's family is always amusing. I feel like a horrible, horrible person for saying that, but it's just the truth.

And she has no personality! She didn't talk. We're both servers, so I tried to commiserate over shitty customers with her. My grandma and aunt and I invited her to play cards with us. We all ate at the dinner table.

But she just didn't talk. She stared at the television; she played with the dogs; she and my dad kept kissing. But overall, it was just kind of creepy. She seemed afraid to make eye contact with me, god only knows why. I admit I did go in determined to be ... well, not intimidating, but self-assured. I even dressed up a little more than I usually would--a button-down shirt and jewelry instead of the first t-shirt I saw. Maybe me not being a shy slob was off-putting to her, and that's why she clammed up? But she's met my aunt and grandma before, and she didn't talk to them either.

She also doesn't look a thing like I expected. Her sister was a friend of my mom's when I was little, and I remember her; Tonya is her opposite. Shorter than me, so skinny I think I could break her over my leg, and dressed like an uptight soccer mom.

Really? This is the woman my dad says he loves? My crazy, fox-feeding, Crown-drinking, inappropriate joke-making, rambunctious, sarcastic father thinks he's in love with somebody with all the personality of a wet dish rag? How the hell does that happen?

(A little holiday cheer, I mean sponsored post. But it's the best kind, chock-full of family insanity.)

As anyone who reads my blog would know, I am terminally strapped for cash. It's not as bad right now as it has been in the past, though. About five years ago I was actually completely unemployed for the first time since I started working--I got fired from Wal-Mart the day after quitting my old job. I'm actually still a little bitter about that; I was sick, and had documentation from my physician of two separate visits; I was told by HR that I wouldn't get fired; and then the bitch pharmacy manager canned me. This was less than a month after my parents had split up, too.

Anyway, the point is I was jobless and freaked out about it. A few days after this I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, and my sarcastic, shitty answer was "Food." Little did I know that my aunt would take that literally. Christmas Day, she sat in front of me a giant box of random food. I don't even remember what all was in it, other than some cheese, I think a salami, and a box of macaroni and cheese--and I only remember the box of Velveeta Shells & Cheese because it was a month past its expiration date, and my ex and I had a fight about if it was safe to eat. He's got a thing about expiration dates. I basically ate it out of spite--healthy, right?

But the funny thing about that box of food, you know, my "Christmas present"? ..... everything in it was expired. Yes, my aunt gave me a big fat box of expired crap she'd just cleaned out of her pantry and freezer. I think that box of mac and cheese was the only thing I ate.

I should've been more specific, I suppose, and said I wanted a prepaid debit card or something. Not that I could've predicted a pantry-cleaning-comme-Christmas-present. But it would've been a lot more useful--and, uh, less miserly--to give me a card like that. Then I could've just tromped off to the grocery store with my prepaid Mastercard and bought food that a) wasn't two years out of date and b) I actually liked.

So if somebody you know is unemployed and depressed, and you think about giving them a box of food .... seriously, take the prepaid credit card route instead. Please.

My phone rang while I was at work yesterday, and it was an area code from a couple of towns over. I thought it might be my dad's friend who's setting up most of his birthday party, but I didn't have time then to answer it anyway. When I had a moment to check my voicemail, I got a nice shock. My dad's girlfriend, who I've never met, has my phone number and was wanting me to get together with her.

Let's see here. You used to screw my dad while he was married to my mom, I didn't even know of your existence until a week ago, you're pretty much no-one to me .... so why are you calling me again?

I haven't called her back. I'll have to, or it'll hurt my dad's feelings, but god damn, I do not want to talk to this woman.

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to get a a tattoo "someday". I used to think I'd get one when I hit 18--and I probably would have, but my ex was tremendously bothered by tattoos, and since I hadn't found something that really seemed like something I wanted, I didn't go ahead with it. I still haven't figured out what I want, although I'm pretty sure that at some point I'll get one. I've thought about a Sagittarius symbol of some kind, but I haven't found one that was perfect yet. Although this one is pretty cool--not quite my style though.

I'm not sure why a Sag symbol seems appropriate; I'm not really all that in to astrology. Maybe it's because of the centaur--since I love horses and mythical stuff. I also like Celtic designs--I love the triquetra, but I'd kind of feel stupid getting a triquetra tattoo since I first saw it on "Charmed"! But maybe if it were worked into a different design.

I guess it's strange that I know that I want a tattoo, but I don't know what I want. I think it's because it's a sort of family tradition. My mom and her siblings and her mother all have tattoos, and I've always thought they were just beautiful.

Oh wow. I was just browsing around through different sites, and came across some about tattoo removal. I never really thought much about it--just like you shouldn't get married thinking you'll get divorced, you shouldn't get a tat thinking you'll have it removed. But I didn't realize how amazing the laser removal technology has gotten. I've seen some people with big shiny scars from old-school tattoo removals, but I guess it can be almost totally removed now with no marks left.

I guess I was thinking of dermabrasion, with the big shiny scars, as opposed to that new-fangled laser removal. I found the picture on the right at the website for a Los Angeles dermatology clinic called Celibre--you can still see a very faint outline, but there's no scarring or anything, it's crazy how complete the removal is. (As an aside, it looks like they do good work at that place, so if you're looking for tattoo removal Los Angeles, there you go.)

Of course, I don't plan to ever have a tattoo removed, but it's interesting anyway. And has reminded me of a post I wrote last year about the perception of women with tattoos as tramps.

I had dinner with my dad tonight, even though I really just wanted to stay home.

A month earlier, he'd said he didn't need or want a girlfriend--that women and cars just caused him problems and cost him money. So I was surprised when he told me he had a new girlfriend the last time I was at her house. Or rather, he rhapsodized about her. It was rather sickening, actually, and upsetting. This woman is somebody he dated before my mother; it's also somebody he continued seeing after he married my mother. It's also the younger sister of someone who was a good friend of my mom's. It's very similar to the woman he was engaged to after my parents split up--kind of creepy, really.

Anyway, the last time I was there he was going on and on about this woman. Apparently he's loved her for thirty years, and she's his true love, and she the love of his life, and by the end of the night I wanted to tell him high school wanted its drama back. It was rather upsetting, actually--he implied that he never loved my mother, than he always wanted to be with this other woman, and he was completely oblivious to how upsetting that was to me. I've known my entire life that I wasn't planned, and that my parents would probably have never gotten married if I hadn't been conceived. But before, I always sort of felt like that was okay, because they loved each other even though things went spectacularly wrong in the end. The things he was saying, though, just seemed to negate all that, and I couldn't find the words to explain it to him--especially when he started in with the "Don't you want me to be happy?" crap.

I was almost sure this woman would be there tonight, but she wasn't. But he talked about her all night--Tonya this, Tonya that, Tonya Tonya Tonya. When he started telling me how they discovered while talking that they'd both kept track of each other for the last thirty years, I just burst in to tears. It was just to much, to think he'd spent my entire life wishing he'd been with someone else, which would've meant I was never born. He didn't mean it that way; he's a very face-value type of person. He was utterly confused when I started crying and when I finally managed to explain it to him, because in his mind it had nothing to do with me and it was ridiculous I'd even take it that way.

I don't know that he quite believed me when I explained why I was upset; I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm jealous or afraid he's going to abandon me like my mom sort of did for a while after she re-married. Because he decided to go in to that and start trashing me mother, we got into an entire different line of conversation, which is where the possible progress comes in.

Ever since they split up, he's insisted that he won't ever be in the same room with my mother again, for any reason, no matter what. When I had sinus surgery last year, I begged him to put their issues aside so that when I went under I could have both my parents there, and he refused. He's been saying for a few years that he can forgive her for what she did to him, but not what she did to me. I've tried and tried to tell him that I've talked to her, I've cleared the air with her, and she and I are fine--so why can't he let it go?

Tonight, I think I finally managed to get through to him, and he said that for me, on certain occasions like when I graduate, he might be able to deal with. It's more than I thought I'd get from him. I've got at least another year and a half to work on the graduation thing, so hopefully I won't have a) forgo walking in my own graduation ceremony or b) chose a family to exclude.

He also told me tonight that Tonya is terrified of meeting me, which I find rather hilarious, actually. I guess he told her about how he dumped his ex-fiancée partially because of her attitude toward me--I didn't know it until later, but she'd given him an ultimatum and said he had to cut me off and never help me again with money, or my car, or anything, because she had to come first.

So Tonya has extrapolated from this, I guess, that if I don't like her she might be out on her ass. Too bad that's not true--I freaking hated the 21 year old brat he was dating a couple of years ago, and all I got was "don't you want me to be happy?" But I have nothing against Tonya. I don't know her, after all, and the reasons I'm upset aren't really about her. I just hope that if my dad follows through on his hints about running off to Vegas, that they do exactly that. I hate weddings anyway, and I think I'd sob through the entire ceremony if I had to watch either of my parents marry someone else. My mom got married without any of her family there and didn't tell me until a month later; I almost hope my dad does the same. Never thought I'd say that.

For the last year or so, I've felt rather down about myself. I'm a decent waitress; but my continual failures in school and suckitude at things like keeping my house clean made me feel rather crappy about myself. Not all the time; and it's not like I think I suck in general, just that I'm not good at anything in particular. Which isn't really true; I was just trying to do the wrong things.

I've made it through my first round of exams. I've yet to get grades back for the two history exams, but I'm sure I did well on them. I have gotten my French exam back, with a score of 89.5%. Would've been above ninety if I'd remembered how to spell paresseux. Anyway, the exact moment when I realized how much better this is happened in my French teacher's office (she's a resident instructor, so not a prof).

There were two other people there also looking at their tests; one is a girl I sort of feel sorry for, because she just can't seem to wrap her head around any of this stuff. She sits next to me most class periods, and I try to help her, but she just doesn't follow. Because of that, she was pretty much monopoloizing our teacher's time. The other guy, whose name I can't remember, was looking over his test. I don't know if he saw my grade, or if he just noticed how I rarely shut up in class, but he started asking me questions about the things he got wrong on his test. I knew the answers, and at one point our teacher looked over sort of smiled and winked at me.

I got the same feeling I get when I help someone at work with some random bit of knowledge, or when I got called at my retail job to run across the aisle to my other retail job to help them with their computer. It's not just about being needed; it's about feeling that I'm capable. Maybe being capable and knowledgable about history and/or French isn't the most practical, useful, concrete skill--but it's better than trying to do something I'm not capable or interested in.

I was telling this to my mom today, and she was as always happy and supportive. I still haven't told my dad about my change of major .... I'm just going to wait on that until the end of the semester. Then I'll show him my final grades, which I anticipate will be great, and hopefully seeing that end result will temper his immediate reaction of "well that's a useless degree!"

Originally, I was thinking I wouldn't tell him until I was nearly done, but that's not going to work. I'm going to slip and mention one of my classes at some point, and then have to explain; or he'll pick up on the fact that I'm being all vague and weird, and then I'll have to explain. Plus I don't really like keeping secrets.

I wandered a bit there, didn't I.

I hadn't seen my dad in a few weeks, between him being out of town and me being sick. I went up to have dinner with him tonight, and at first everything was fine. Unfortunately, he brought up some crazy family drama that happened last week. Apparently my grandfather, who's always been a big jackass, decided to go for broke and cross the line into being a total asshole. He showed up at my dad's work and got in his face and was pushing him around and apparently saying some really terrible nasty things ... to the point where my dad punched him. So now my dad isn't speaking to his dad; his brother likely isn't either; god knows what my aunt will do, considering the man basically said that all his children and grand-children were worthless.

It wasn't the most pleasant topic of conversation, and probably is why my dad had a bunch of whiskey. I haven't seen him actually staggering drunk in a long time, and I was okay with that. After choking down my dinner as fast as I could, I left his house in tears because it brought up all my old childhood feelings of being helpless and at the mercy of someone who was completely out of control. Not that he ever did anything to hurt me or put me in danger, but for a little kid to see their parent incapacitated in that way ... well, it's upsetting, and I didn't need that flashback.

On a positive note, it must be my lucky day--I wasn't feeling well after coming down the winding mountain road, and I went flying by a parked cop doing 70 in a 45 zone. Oops. Strangely, he didn't pull me over, even though that's where they always sit to do speed traps. So that was super lucky.

I went to my dad's for dinner this week. A while after I got there, we were sitting on the desk just listening to the winds in the trees, talking about nothing.

Suddenly my dad squints at me and says, "Why does it look like you've dumped a few pounds?"

Here we go again, I thought, but just shrugged and said "I don't know."

Right away he got all tense. "Well, have you?" Again, I said I didn't know, and his nostrils flared. "Well who the hell would know then!"

I laughed a little and told him (again), "Dad, I don't weigh myself."

He looked me for a minute; I could practically see his brain failing to understand a woman not obsessed with her weight. "Well, do your pants fit different, do you feel better, anything?"

"Nope."

He looked at me again and then sighed and said okay and let it drop. I doubt I actually look any different; I think he was just hoping to prod me in to dieting by "complimenting" me. He just can't seem to wrap his head around the fact that I don't monitor every ounce I weigh and every bite I take. Or rather, he can't believe that it's not because I'm "giving up", or that I'm not in denial about it being "a problem".

Later, I mentioned going to the physical therapist on campus about the fact that I walk funny. I always have, a little; but waitressing and working retail has exacerbated it. Specifically, I pronate inward and walk duck-footed, my right foot terribly so. So I tell my dad I went to this appointment, and right away he says "Well isn't the problem obvious?"

I played dumb; I made him make the ignorant statement that it's because of my weight. When I asked why the medical professional didn't say a word about my weight then, he said "She just didn't want to hurt your feelings." Right, because doctors are SO concerned about not upsetting fat people. I told him I've always walked weird, and he snapped at me, "Right, so lets not do something about the problem and see if maybe it enhances your life!"

I repeated that I remembered kids making fun of me in kindergarten for walking goofy, and continued telling him about the things the therapist said and how we were approaching it. I basically didn't give him a chance to throw any more fat blaming crap at me, because I'm just weary of it. I could understand him going directly to that if I hadn't always walked like this. But I didn't start getting chubby until I was about eight, and I obviously had started walking, and walking oddly, way before that. Even at that age, I struggled to keep up with other kids walking or running.

But of course, I'm fat now, so that's got to be the problem.