Somehow, we ended up like this: my mother and I are going to Virginia Beach on Mother’s Day Week-end to “bond”. My mother is seriously, seriously considering divorcing my father.
It started out like this: last week, my mother e-mailed me at work telling me that she was going out to dinner with some girls from work. While unusual, this news was not impossible – my mother’s become very different since I moved out. She goes off on day trips by herself, and is actually starting to have friends. So I didn’t really think anything of it, until the next day, when she mentioned the fact that my father (who was out of town) called the house several times the night she was out, because she’d forgotten to tell him. I didn’t give that much consideration, either. My father worries about her, and she’s in the habit of not really being considerate to him.
It continued like this: she’s started this really-close-to-starvation diet where I doubt she’s even getting a thousand calories a day – I wrote down the menu for this ‘new diet’: 1 banana, 1 container fat-free yogurt, 1 powerbar (the Viactive ones), 1 orange, and 1 large bowl minestrone. She lost ten pounds last week eating this. I’m not 100% sure about the rest, but the minestrone only has about 200 calories in a big bowl. I think the orange is, like, 80, and the yogurt is roughly 100. I can’t even imagine.
It continued like this: my father got home from Seattle on Friday, and I was over at their house on Sunday. While I was talking to my father, he mentioned the fact that my mother disappeared on Tuesday, and he said that she offered him no explanation – he was afraid to ask. Alarms went off in my head and I went down to talk to her, which led to her admitting that she was thinking of divorcing him. And there we are.
I’m mostly worried about my father – it’s about the weight, of course. That’s why divorce is on her mind. She’s gotten tired of waiting for him to get it together and lose weight. I’ve never been able to convince her that she should try being supportive of him instead of mocking him – he eats because of insecurity (amongst other reasons), not just to spite her. And I can’t just go to him and tell him to get his ass in gear or else she’s gone – how would I broach the subject? Why would he listen to me? I’m just following my mother’s advice and leaving them to sort out their relationship.....I can’t do anything else. The only reason I even feel that I should do anything is all the guilt my father laid on me when I was younger: he told me that she’d leave him as soon as I moved out of the house; he used to make me calm her down when she was pissed off at him. I don’t want that guilt anymore. I shouldn’t be involved anymore. I should never have been involved in the first place.
There are other things afoot. We went to Xavi’s birthday party on Sunday. I went mostly to show support for Aaron – I was worried that Sonia and her ass-ugly husband might take this opportunity to humiliate Aaron because he isn’t doing what they want. Dirk, of course, loves his nephew – I am neutral towards the kid, which is how I feel about most children. He’s cute enough, but shouldn’t he be talking like a normal person by the time he’s three? Like sentences and words that are easily understood?
So Dirk and I got Xavi a Furby, mostly to piss off Sonia. Don’t worry, we checked – it’s safe for kids three years and up. You’d have to try awful hard to choke on that sucker, anyway. Sonia is three months pregnant and looks at least six – she’s looking really used-up these days. Aaron told me it was because while this will be her third ‘major’ (that is, carried to term) pregnancy, she’s had numerous miscarriages and such (he didn’t go into details). At 23, that will fuck your body up permanently.
Sonia’s husband, Ken, is ugly. He has a large nose (with a Hitler mustache) and no chin whatsoever. He and his mother kept glaring at us (Aaron, myself, Dirk, Joe & Marie), and Sonia was just sending out bad vibes. The food was good, though, and I don’t think I got any food poisoning. Marie and I walked away from the party for a minute to be catty.
Me: “Goddamn, that man doesn’t have a chin!”
Marie: “ I think Sonia ate it.”
Me: “I feel sorry for the kid she’s carrying – it’s gonna be UGLY.”Sonia’s feelings notwithstanding, she offered Marie and I each a kiddie bag, because she had three extra, and told Marie that her kid would be a girl because of the way she was carrying it. Ih. I love these little pearls of wisdom.
I hate my period. Right now I feel like I’m going to burst, and I’m in a lot of pain, but I don’t dare take the painkillers I brought because I haven’t eaten since yesterday. It wasn’t on purpose – my period’s just making me too tired to eat right now. Anemic, don’t you know?
I didn’t go to work yesterday because of the demonstrations here. I didn’t feel like dealing with the re-routed buses, and the fact that there would be no rides to the Pentagon (or damn few) because of the liberal leave policy in effect. Anyway, I wanted a nap and a break from my stress-filled office. Dirk and I went to Richard Gibson’s place to drop off rent.
I’ve never actually been inside Richard’s house – it’s nice. Packed with musical equipment and fishing stuff with a huge stuffed bear in the corner behind a really nice drum kit. The bear was an ex-black bear, or I miss my guess. He and his wife also have many, many more books than I would have figured – their collection rivals my mother’s. Richard showed us his dream car, parked in the garage – it’s something called a Lotus. It looks like a really expensive toy car, or like that talking car from the cartoons fucked a Mercedes. It’s small, it looks fast, and it looks like it could kill you.
Amazingly, Dirk, who is 6'4", fit in the driver’s side with no problems.
Aaron and Dirk chipped in to buy me another furby – this one is the Valentine’s Day special edition, all bright pink, red, and white. It’s very feminine. Aaron’s been especially nice the past couple of days. I was up late last night playing Monopoly with him, Joe & Marie until nearly 1 in the morning (my bad). He got home from work early and offered to pick Dirk up from work so I could get some more sleep. You bet I took him up on that offer.
Okay, I took my painkillers. Now I just want to take a nap.
