whoops, HI! it's been so long!
Mar. 18th, 2012 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katekatI finished a four day whirlwind spring break visit with my family. Then spent the other three days kind of farting around at home procrastinating (well, sorta). Welcome home to me ;) It was really good to see them, all three parents. and all three sisters too. This all started because my eldest sister wanted to do a family picture of my stepmom and her daughters.
The sad part was that when I got there my stepmom was shaken up because she'd had a massive fight with my littlest sister/adopted cousin. The tough part is that it stresses my stepmom out so much she just can't calm down.
And ok, my littlest sister is a bit of a train wreck in the 'i'm showing up to family holidays hung over or stinking of drugs, can't keep a job for more than a couple of months, haven't lived in the same place for more than a couple of months in the last couple of years, have a misspelled tattoo of determination' kind of phase. Her facebook pictures are a study in hairspray, eyeliner, spandex and girls with drinks in their hands. She moved out of my parents' house when she turned 18 because they didn't think it was a good idea she move in with her highschool boyfriend. I think these are problems that many people go through, but she's also had my stepmom and dad bail her out of her expensive life choices (parking tickets, rent payments, car registration, insurance, etc.) a couple of times a year since she moved out of the house.
*sigh*
the thing is that i look at relationships now in the context of my own codependance, so i see the ways in which it's not emotionally healthy for either of them, and how that just is not good. OTOH, she's a mom, Frankie (littlest sister person) is a daughter, and honestly parental relationships ARE a little codependent. It's a matter of constantly shifting and drawing lines, then redrawing them.
We went out to lunch after and i found once again that i don't know my sisters terribly well. Not too big a surprise since we're all six years apart, but funny in that I know the eldest the best (and she's *almost* old enough to be my mom). She's also the one I think of as most sane? the other two are self involved in interesting ways? sorry, that's overly critical. I realized I made a couple of gaffs though, twice, in part because I'm not that familiar with two of them - two mentions of higher education as being a given for their kids, which, from what I can tell, it's not. I just ... well ... sometimes I'm a little slow, ok? I also get a little narrow focus. As I was listening to my one sister talk about her son planning on taking his GED next week just so he can start working soon I just didn't *quite* compute the whole thing. My other sister (the one who literally never talks about herself, even when you ask her, "how are YOU doing?") has a son who just graduated highschool too, and he doesn't know what he wants to do. He was in military school (because he wanted to go, really, which, also headshaking) and was planning on going to West Point, but then changed his mind and possibly wanted to go to Texas A&M, and then now wants to possibly go into the music business with help from his dad. Hey, all well and good right? but i said something about 'who wouldn't want to go to college' an then realized that, um, possibly he doesn't?
The other sister, the one who separated from her second hubby just about the same time turd-pants and I were breaking up, is now embarking on a new phase in her life aided by a spiritual energy cleanser. Yep, that's right, she's going to someone who once a week (or, I thnk about that often) helps her clean up her energy so she can set herself on the right path. And I'm happy for her? But also a little skeptical about it? I don't think it's any better or worse than seeing a shrink though, since they basically are encouraging her to look at her relationships, fix or get rid of unhealthy ones and invests in healthy ones. Which means she's moving to England with her new beau, leaving her 17 year old son who just took his GED behind to get a job, and her 23 year old son (who still needs a job, but lives with his girlfriend - they're getting married) behind. I guess you gotta go live your life, right?
It's funny how priorities change though. Neil used to talk about wanting to live in another country, and so I did too for a while, and it scared the living shit out of my dad. Having lived in TX though, even for just a couple of years, I realize that I like living in the same state as my family, like getting to do stuff with them and *be* there in their lives and have them in mine. And I don't want to give that up.
Now that being said, I am trying to get to Japan to study for a year. But I know it's going to be a difficult year, and also not a lifetime.
Anyway, after that was two days with my mom in the foothills. Also good, though she's stressed because she's working on a big case and doesn't have enough time to actually do that and all the other cases. When her business is up, it's up, when it's down, it's down, unfortunately.
She also wanted me to teach her how to use the note-taking portions of acrobat (don't know if you guys know/use the comment functions, but they're handy if you're constantly reading PDFs and needing to underline). My problem is that my teaching style is to give someone a bunch of options and then allow them to choose their own most convenient style of using a program .... which stresses Mom out because I think she's possibly thinking she has to use every option I showed her. We made it through though.
Even if I am getting tech support calls from her on a daily basis :) At least that's something I can actually, you know, do with reasonable confidence.
She also, because she's a goddess, bought me a kindle fire. So yep, I'm now on that bandwagon! I'm super excited to use it for class stuff, especially now that so many books can be bought in digital formats. I'm a bit sad about joining the amazon empire - it seems more evil than google, though I'm pretty sure they're both equally evil and I just can't tell. But I figure even if I'm part of the empire, I haven't, like, taken a contract job to work on the death star yet or anything, so you know, I have only a bit of tarnish on my soul.
Ok, speaking of evil google, just had an exciting gmail moment - I actually don't mind that they have little bots scanning the text of my email before I send it if that bot asks me "hey, did you want to attach something because you wrote 'attached are' in the text of your email" .... because 1/2 the time I send emails with attachments I forget to actually attach the suckers.
To work, perchance to read!
The sad part was that when I got there my stepmom was shaken up because she'd had a massive fight with my littlest sister/adopted cousin. The tough part is that it stresses my stepmom out so much she just can't calm down.
And ok, my littlest sister is a bit of a train wreck in the 'i'm showing up to family holidays hung over or stinking of drugs, can't keep a job for more than a couple of months, haven't lived in the same place for more than a couple of months in the last couple of years, have a misspelled tattoo of determination' kind of phase. Her facebook pictures are a study in hairspray, eyeliner, spandex and girls with drinks in their hands. She moved out of my parents' house when she turned 18 because they didn't think it was a good idea she move in with her highschool boyfriend. I think these are problems that many people go through, but she's also had my stepmom and dad bail her out of her expensive life choices (parking tickets, rent payments, car registration, insurance, etc.) a couple of times a year since she moved out of the house.
*sigh*
the thing is that i look at relationships now in the context of my own codependance, so i see the ways in which it's not emotionally healthy for either of them, and how that just is not good. OTOH, she's a mom, Frankie (littlest sister person) is a daughter, and honestly parental relationships ARE a little codependent. It's a matter of constantly shifting and drawing lines, then redrawing them.
We went out to lunch after and i found once again that i don't know my sisters terribly well. Not too big a surprise since we're all six years apart, but funny in that I know the eldest the best (and she's *almost* old enough to be my mom). She's also the one I think of as most sane? the other two are self involved in interesting ways? sorry, that's overly critical. I realized I made a couple of gaffs though, twice, in part because I'm not that familiar with two of them - two mentions of higher education as being a given for their kids, which, from what I can tell, it's not. I just ... well ... sometimes I'm a little slow, ok? I also get a little narrow focus. As I was listening to my one sister talk about her son planning on taking his GED next week just so he can start working soon I just didn't *quite* compute the whole thing. My other sister (the one who literally never talks about herself, even when you ask her, "how are YOU doing?") has a son who just graduated highschool too, and he doesn't know what he wants to do. He was in military school (because he wanted to go, really, which, also headshaking) and was planning on going to West Point, but then changed his mind and possibly wanted to go to Texas A&M, and then now wants to possibly go into the music business with help from his dad. Hey, all well and good right? but i said something about 'who wouldn't want to go to college' an then realized that, um, possibly he doesn't?
The other sister, the one who separated from her second hubby just about the same time turd-pants and I were breaking up, is now embarking on a new phase in her life aided by a spiritual energy cleanser. Yep, that's right, she's going to someone who once a week (or, I thnk about that often) helps her clean up her energy so she can set herself on the right path. And I'm happy for her? But also a little skeptical about it? I don't think it's any better or worse than seeing a shrink though, since they basically are encouraging her to look at her relationships, fix or get rid of unhealthy ones and invests in healthy ones. Which means she's moving to England with her new beau, leaving her 17 year old son who just took his GED behind to get a job, and her 23 year old son (who still needs a job, but lives with his girlfriend - they're getting married) behind. I guess you gotta go live your life, right?
It's funny how priorities change though. Neil used to talk about wanting to live in another country, and so I did too for a while, and it scared the living shit out of my dad. Having lived in TX though, even for just a couple of years, I realize that I like living in the same state as my family, like getting to do stuff with them and *be* there in their lives and have them in mine. And I don't want to give that up.
Now that being said, I am trying to get to Japan to study for a year. But I know it's going to be a difficult year, and also not a lifetime.
Anyway, after that was two days with my mom in the foothills. Also good, though she's stressed because she's working on a big case and doesn't have enough time to actually do that and all the other cases. When her business is up, it's up, when it's down, it's down, unfortunately.
She also wanted me to teach her how to use the note-taking portions of acrobat (don't know if you guys know/use the comment functions, but they're handy if you're constantly reading PDFs and needing to underline). My problem is that my teaching style is to give someone a bunch of options and then allow them to choose their own most convenient style of using a program .... which stresses Mom out because I think she's possibly thinking she has to use every option I showed her. We made it through though.
Even if I am getting tech support calls from her on a daily basis :) At least that's something I can actually, you know, do with reasonable confidence.
She also, because she's a goddess, bought me a kindle fire. So yep, I'm now on that bandwagon! I'm super excited to use it for class stuff, especially now that so many books can be bought in digital formats. I'm a bit sad about joining the amazon empire - it seems more evil than google, though I'm pretty sure they're both equally evil and I just can't tell. But I figure even if I'm part of the empire, I haven't, like, taken a contract job to work on the death star yet or anything, so you know, I have only a bit of tarnish on my soul.
Ok, speaking of evil google, just had an exciting gmail moment - I actually don't mind that they have little bots scanning the text of my email before I send it if that bot asks me "hey, did you want to attach something because you wrote 'attached are' in the text of your email" .... because 1/2 the time I send emails with attachments I forget to actually attach the suckers.
To work, perchance to read!
