Love In The Asylum

Heads up: this post includes exercise talk and Stupid Things My Mother Has Said About My Weight.

( cut for my mother )

DONE WITH COOKIES AT LAST. Everything is baked, frosted, dipped in chocolate,wrapped and boxed up to be given out this week. If anyone asks me to bake cookies in the next month, I am going to laugh in their face,and possibly punch them. Pie, however, is still negotiable.

Only a week until Christmas, so of course it is time for some family drama. Once again, it involves my asshat of an uncle. For those of you playing along at home, here's the background of the current wankery: my uncle (my dad's oldest brother), his third wife (who is a wonderful person), and my five-year-old cousin have lived in my grandmother's house since they moved back to the US four year ago - first because my uncle didn't have a job, then because my granddad was terminally ill and my grandma needed a lot of help with care, then because my uncle got sick. Since he moved back here, there's been a bit of tension between him, my dad, and my aunt (their oldest sister) because of the money/living with my grandma issue (my mom has suggested he's probably trying to stay long enough that he'll get the house from my grandma, and she's probably not wrong), my uncle's conservative political views, and his general unpleasantness.

Earlier this summer, my dad and my uncle got into a screaming argument while we were stopping by to say hi to my grandma. I only saw the tail end of the fight, but apparently my uncle was a) saying some Islamophobic things about how all Muslims are evil terrorists and b) saying some derogatory things about Mexican immigrants because he was mad about Tiny Cousin's kindergarten class learning about Mexican holidays. The first is impassably offensive, but the second is just stupid, considering that we live in a predominantly Hispanic southwestern state and, OH YEAH, MY GRANDMOTHER, WHO IS HIS MOTHER, IS A LATINA IMMIGRANT. Also, you know, his wife is a native Pacific Islander and Tiny Cousin is mixed race and visibly non-white, so his bullshit racism is personally offensive to pretty much everyone around him. Anyway, my dad called him out on saying racist crap, he said he wasn't, shouting ensued and then stopped immediately when my grandma came into the room and glared at both of them.

For the record, although I'm usually the one to chew him out for being reactionary and having a short temper, I'm totally on my dad's side in this one. I've heard my uncle say ignorant, racist, homophobic stuff before, and I pretty much refuse to have a conversation with him, or even be in the same room if I don't have to. But my dad did apologize within a few minutes of the argument, and he apologized again a few weeks later when he found out my uncle was still upset about it.

When we had Thanksgiving at our house, he refused to come, because he said he didn't want to be around my dad after this incident. Which was...fine, honestly, since none of us like to be around him anyway. And then today, we got a call from my grandma - apparently my uncle has said that he doesn't want to be a part of any of the family Christmas events if my dad is also going to be there, so he, his wife, and Tiny Cousin are going to...I don't even know. Sit in their room during dinner? Go to a hotel for Christmas? I have no idea. My dad offered to absent himself from the festivities, but my grandma is having none of that (not least because he and I are doing most of the work for the tamales).

I don't know what his goal is with this - never have to talk to my dad again and risk having to acknowledge that he's a bigot? Make everyone pay attention him and admit they could never have Christmas without him, and my dad will be permanently disinvited if he'll just come back? Make a big fuss and lash out because he's tired of being sick? He can get bent, as far as I care, but I'm annoyed that he's making this into a whole big deal when it doesn't need to be, and really pissed off that he's making Tiny Cousin miss doing Christmas with the whole family. And the whole thing is deeply upsetting to my grandma at a time when we should all be as fucking supportive as possible - the anniversary of my granddad's death is on Monday, and this is a hard time in a hard year for her.

Sooo basically all the family events at my grandma's (tamales on Christmas eve, presents on Christmas morning, and Christmas day dinner) are going to be super awkward because my uncle is a dickwad, and I am just glad that I can leave after lunch to go to my Grandpa J's with my mom, where things can be awkward because my aunt's husband doesn't like us and my cousins are fighting over their mutual ex (don't even fucking ask) instead. Oh, my family.

Wow, did not expect a weekend with my family to be quite this exhausting. In a fun way, of course. My aunt from Vancouver was in town for a short visit and I wanted to see her, so I went over to my grandma's yesterday and we spent the whole afternoon in the kitchen. I have now graduated in my potsticker technique to making my own wrappers - it is kind of a pain in the ass to roll it out and I wouldn't do it every time, but it was really fun doing it with my aunt and my grandma. And the chicken-shrimp-lemongrass dumplings turned out sooo good. Then they dropped me off at my mom's and I spent the night there cuddling the kitties and the rabbit and talking about serial killers with my mom. It's so nice to share interests with your family, isn't it?

This afternoon we went with my grandpa over to my aunt's house to hang out and have lunch - not a big family event like it usually is, just the four of us. We discussed aircraft carriers and canned meat products, fed charcoal bricks to the pigs, and it was once again affirmed that I am by far the most mature person in this family. Also, I learned that my great-grandma used to work for the Pentagon and my grandma worked for the CIA.

Possibly related to the above, I spent most of the drive home plotting out a story based on "The Bagman's Gambit" where a Secret Agent and a Spy are in love, and the Secret Agent is trading information (mostly useless stuff or things they would inevitably find out anyway, so he doesn't feel like a traitor) to the Spy because if he fails or tries to defect his people will have him killed. The Secret Agent finally gets caught by his people, and he promises to tell them everything as long as they swear to keep Spy safe and not arrest him or send him home or let him be killed. I love a good tragic love story.

colourofsaying introduced me to Scandinavia and the World on Friday, and I now ship Norway/Denmark to a completely stupid degree. It is just so sweet and fond and full of cuddling and affectionate make-outs and hand-holding, right up until Norway picks Denmark up and fucks him through the wall.

On the football front, I am so insanely proud of Arsenal right now, I can't even say. They are still struggling, and there is a lot of work to be done, but I am starting to see some faint signs of hope for their season, and I'm really glad they are starting to turn it around. I love my Vantastic captain so much. I'm slightly less happy with Barcelona this week (what was that match against Sevilla, lads?). But I still have a lot of opinions about Pep Guardiola's sex life.

masterofmidgets: (sometimes he wonders if he's the only coach who is this close to his players. And then he has to go scrub his brain until he stops thinking about Mou and Cristiano making out)
masterofmidgets: that's when he has to call Figo
colourofsaying: Figo talks him down.
masterofmidgets: "come over and fuck me until I can't see it in my head anymore"
colourofsaying: you owed me a nice image for that horrible one.
masterofmidgets: Figo's one of the only ones who can really take him out of his head
masterofmidgets: with Xavi or Cesc, it's fun, but in the back of his mind he's still thinking about making sure he doesn't do anything to make them not match-fit
colourofsaying: and with Leo he's thinking about fucking him so stupid he'll stop thinking about football long enough to sleep
masterofmidgets: and with Raul there were a lot of complicated emotions
colourofsaying: so many emotions
masterofmidgets: but with Figo, everything is so intense and in the moment that most of the time he can't even talk
masterofmidgets: he's just getting properly /fucked/
masterofmidgets: (which is fascinating, because Figo is probably the closest to a romance/friendship out of the people he sleeps with. I picture them spending a lot of time hanging out after sex and talking about clothes.)
colourofsaying: they go shopping together!
masterofmidgets: Pep has better taste, but Figo is a bit more adventurous

Not the most relaxing of weekends ever, to be honest. Nothing catastrophic, just careening around between minor crises while I was staying at my mom's.

On Saturday night the power cord to my laptop, which has been increasingly tetchy the last few weeks, decided it hated all outlets and refused to work no matter what I did. Which of course immediately sent me into a flail - I handled Apartment Roommate setting the toaster on fire way better than I handle computer problems I don't know how to fix. We ended up making an emergency run to Best Buy at 9.30pm to get a new cord. So problem resolved, aside from the part where I feel guilty for making my mom spend the money on me (even though we decided just to count it as my birthday present, since she hadn't given me one yet). Oh well.

Yesterday afternoon we had a cat crisis. That one was actually kind of scary. My mom and I were lying on the bed watching a movie together, and we noticed that the Oliver-cat, who was lying at the end of the bed, was breathing really heavy, panting like a dog, with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out. My mom tried to calm him down, but he was really twitchy - rolling on the bed, shaking his head, licking himself all over, like he knew hurt somewhere but couldn't figure out where or why. Really frightening, especially since they don't have easy access to a vet down there, let alone on a Sunday. He's a semi-outdoor cat (theoretically he has access to the outdoors whenever he wants, but he's not crazy about the horses and now that he's older and moved several times he likes to stick really close to my mom), so best we can figure out, he got bitten or stung by something nasty while he was outside. Poor kitty. But my mom's been keeping me up to date and he seems to be alright today, so no permanent harm done, I guess. Just a bit of worry on our part.

*sigh* At least I got some kick-ass new boots at the thrift store. And it was good to see my mom (for the first time since my birthday), even if she did spend a lot of time telling me how I should be handling my job hunting. We got some nice couch time, and she showed me the glasses case she's making for me, because she's awesome that way. And since I don't have internet down there, I had more time to plan out ridiculous football related fanfic ideas and Softer World Remixes.

Happy Gregorian New Year! I have tamales!

It's been interesting reading everyone's New Year's posts all day and seeing what kind of rituals people come up to ensure that the coming year goes smoothly - not taking out the trash, eating certain foods, changing the calendars, getting drunk at midnight, whatever. So many fascinating personal/family/cultural superstitions tied up in the day. Oddly enough, although I'm usually big into rituals and magical thinking, all of my winter holiday energy gets devoted to Solstice and Christmas. My family's never been big on New Year's. When I lived with my mom we made donuts, and my dad and I usually do Dim Sum Day, but that's just because we like food and wanted something to do. We never invested a lot of deeper significance in it. So I'm not really bothered that this year is all wonky.

Anyway, even if we're supposed to make them for Christmas Eve, I would be pretty sad if I didn't get any tamales at all this year. I'm willing to be pretty flexible for my grandma's tamales.

I still don't know how I feel about 2010. Lots of good things happened! I got my academic life back on track, and got my GPA back up to something not too embarrassing. I embraced my fate as an English major. I wrote some awesome stuff. I fell in love with some new fandoms and rediscovered some old fandoms. I made awesome friends, here and in meatspace. The last few months have been rocky, and I'm still grieving for M and my grandfather, but I'm not going to lose sight of all the good that I had in my life as well. I'm optimistic about 2011. We'll see how it goes.

Here's to hoping that 2011 brings all of you health and happiness, good times and awesome porn. Happy New Year!

Thank you very much to everyone who replied to my last entry - I'm doing my best to get caught up on replying to comments, but in the meantime it just means a lot to me to know that other people are thinking of me and my family right now.

I'm doing okay, I think. It's hard for me to tell - I lost my maternal grandmother and my cousin when I was in high school, but I didn't really know either of them well. This is the first time I've lost someone close to me. And this was something that was both expected and unexpected; he's been sick for a long time, and gradually getting worse, and I think we all knew that and had been preparing ourselves for it, but none of us really expected it to happen now. I'm having a hard time convincing myself that this is really happening, that it's not just another crisis for him to get through like he has before. But I'm dealing, I guess. And trying my best to be there as much as I can for my dad and my grandmother, especially my grandmother, because I know how much more difficult this has to be for her.

Mostly I'm just trying to keep myself busy. I'm still working on my Yuletide, although I got enough of a story thrown together by Monday night that I didn't have to default. If I manage to get in all the scenes I want it's going to be a lot longer than I planned for. And a lot more full of old blues references. Monday and yesterday I baked all the cookies in the world. Triple batches of cranberry-pistachio biscotti, chocolate-peppermint sandwich cookies, and pumpkin chocolate chip. Double batches of vanilla-almond sugar cookies and oatmeal cranberry cookies. You can't even see our kitchen table right now, it is nothing but baked goods. Tonight we are icing, and tomorrow taking things to the girlfriend's apartment so she can box them up as gifts. There may be emergency additional baking required at that point, although I'm really hoping not, because 30 dozen cookies is more than enough baking for me.

Some Highlights From This Week (or why the Midget may be scarce around these parts for a while)

1. Finaaaaaals. I have been having this ongoing thing with my Religions prof where she promises to email me things and then doesn't because she's super flaky and then I freak out because without the resources she's supposed to send me I can't do my project. Last night she sent me an email telling me she thought I should completely revamp the focus of my project (from an emphasis on book stuff/techical details to an emphasis on music clips and subjective experience). Doable, and not outside of the range of what I'd planned, but OMG THIS PROJECT IS DUE ON THURSDAY. I am spending the rest of tonight watching music clips on youtube, I guess. I also have a ten-page paper draft for my poetry class due on Friday. Luckily, since it's a draft it can really suck. Unluckily, it's on due on Friday. Those of you who've been playing the game for awhile may remember this poetry class as the one that caused me to have a nervous breakdown sophomore year and get put on academic probation. I'm doing much better this time around (As on everything except the second paper, which was a respectable B+), but still, stressing out.

2. My grandfather is back in the hospital. Again. He had a coughing fit in the middle of the night on Thanksgiving and cracked some ribs, and when they went to x-ray the ribs they found a bunch more compression fractures along his ribcage and spine. He really did a number on himself. But right now he's...as well as can be expected, I guess? They are preparing to put a feeding tube in because he can't swallow, but today he was able to get up and walk around for the first time. He'll probably be there for at least a few more days, maybe longer, and then they want to get him set up with physical therapy. In any case, I'm glad I'll be home next week.

3. In a desperate attempt to avoid thinking about either 1 or 2, my brain has decided that it needs to revisit my high school obsession with Kingdom Hearts. I DO NOT EVEN KNOW, YOU GUYS. I've been completely out of KH fandom for years (and was never all that into it in the first place), and all of a sudden my brain is like WE MUST READ ALL THE AXEL/ROXAS FIC IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW DO IT DO IT DOOOOO IT. It's really baffling. I've also been revisiting some of the sunnier corners of Naruto fandom, which is how I ended up staying up until 4am last night. Clearly I have serious problems.

On the bright side, EL CLASICO WHAT. I love my beautiful, beautiful Barça boys more than I could possibly convey. (and I love Sergio Ramos too, even when his temper gets the better of him)

So, let's start Monday off with a signal boost!

RubyFoxCreations is an awesome person and a RL family friend (I've mentioned her here as L at least a few times) who has had a really rough time of it this year, trying to get settled and get her life together after a divorce. She's been working really hard to make the best of a bad situation, but she's got a bit of a set-back - her car really needs repairs, but she doesn't have the money right now. So, since she is also creative and crafty in addition to being generally awesome, she is opening up her Etsy shop: RubyFoxCreations.

Right now she's got a hand-crocheted afghan up for sale, and is also offering commissions for special items by request. I'm hoping she'll put some of her jewelry up soon as well - my mom and I both have several pairs of earrings and necklaces she's made, and I have a couple of crocheted hair accessories, and she does some really neat work. I know a lot of people on my flist are not swimming in cash themselves at the moment, but if you have a chance (and since it's November, if you are maybe starting to think about holiday gifts for people), you should really check her shop out.

I am still alive! More or less. This week and the next week are my big awful midterm crunch weeks: I had a presentation this week, and a paper due Monday, a long creative essay due Tuesday, and another paper due Thursday. I AM NEVER GOING TO SLEEP AGAIN.

But all hope is not lost! Aside from the soul-crushing amount of work I've got going on, this was actually a pretty good week. I was really worried about my presentation (which was on the role of the police in detective fiction, using Peter Wimsey and Philip Marlowe as examples) because I didn't think I was prepared enough for the actual talking part, but it went fine, and the professor complimented me on my thesis. The first paper I have due next week is a write-up of that presentation, and my notes are pretty thorough, so I should be able to bang it out easily enough.

I am slowly getting my tiny, triangular room to the point that it looks like an actual person lives in it, and not just a mobile library. Current step: posters! It's kind of a slow process, since I'm buying posters on Amazon with the money I get paid for participating in psych experiments, but yesterday I got my first new poster put up. It was nice to wake up this morning and see Cesc Fabregas being gorgeous on the wall beside my bed. And soon I will have an Amy Pond poster for the other wall.

Since the performative aspect is such a big part of the music class I'm taking right now, it shouldn't really be shocking that we're expected/encouraged to go to concerts. Which is pretty neat, even if it does play hell with my work schedule. On Wednesday night I went to see Shubha Mudgal (a Hindustani classical, khayal, and occasionally pop singer of great awesomeness) perform on campus, and then yesterday she and her accompanists did a Q&A for our class and did a few more songs. They were all really interesting, and really incredible musicians, I don't know how to talk about it at all. I really, really love the tabla. This upcoming Wednesday, we're taking a class trip into San Francisco to see Ravi Shankar perform. I considered not going, because it will make it hard as hell to get all my work done for Thursday, but DUDE. RAVI FUCKING SHANKAR.

I am right now in the process of dyeing my hair purple. Yay purple! I kind of wish I could have done it for Spirit Day, but I just couldn't get to store to buy dye until yesterday. But at least I've be properly interesting looking for Yaoi-Con! Tomorrow my aunt is coming up from Sacramento and we're going to, I don't know, do lunch or something. And then it is into the trenches for the foreseeable future of writing, writing, more writing, and some reading. And then writing! Ah, the glamourous life of an English major.

Yesterday: Got to campus about 10, found my apartment, got my stuff unpacked from the car. Tracked down Freshman Guy (who I guess is now Sophomore Guy) at his dorm and got all the rest of my stuff back from him, which only took two hours. Went grocery shopping, which was monetarily painful but now my fridge is full of fresh veggies and my cabinets are full of baking stuff. Then my dad went to pick up his girlfriend at the airport and I stayed behind and moved all my furniture around so I could fit my bed into a corner. And worked on unpacking, of course, not that I got very far. I love my new bookcase - it gives me some separate shelf space just for my paperback fiction and manga, so my big school-issue bookcase is mostly just reference books, school books, and cookbooks, and the top of it makes a nice space for my little make-shift altar. The room itself - I'm in the corner bedroom, off to the side from the main room of the apartment - is bigger than I was expecting for a single, definitely plenty of room for me, and it has a lovely view out the window. Lots of trees and plants, not too much traffic because it's the back side of the building. I really like the apartment a lot, even if I don't have as much counter space or cabinet space as I'd like in the kitchen. I love having my very own bathroom. And it was so nice to come home from dinner with everyone and just...be in my space. I think this was a very good idea.

Today: Got dragged out the door at 8.30 by my dad and the girlfriend to go into San Francisco. Did the standard tourist loop. Started out in Chinatown, walked around Fisherman's Wharf for a few hours and got lunch, drove down Haight Street to check out all the painted Victorian houses. Went through Golden Gate Park. Wandered around the Sunset District trying to find a place to eat dinner. I was sore and exhausted, but I tried to be a good sport, since the girlfriend has never been to SF before. All the touristy stuff is probably not how I'd choose to spend my time in the city, but it's all neat stuff still and it was pretty fun. I want to be more articulate about this, but what can I say? I was riding through Golden Gate Park with my dad in the misty rain listening to a Yankees game on the radio. Some times I can't imagine ever feeling happy living in San Francisco and other times I think it's the only real city I'd ever want to live in. So it was a good day, my sore feet notwithstanding.

Man, I am going to bed and sleeping for a week.