XIX: Her tears are dust

Life is a claustrofuck.

I just made that word up. It's a portmanteau of sorts. It seems accurate. Nothing's simple. Nothing's right. I'm just a hair out of synch with reality and it's driving me batty.

I kinda dropped outta sight for a couple of days. I had meant to write a big post on Monday night, but something caught me and ripped my mood to tatters and I didn't want to. Then I didn't want to write for the next couple of nights until at last here we are. I don't even know where to begin.

Mom is going away for two weeks... sorta... starting this weekend. She'll still be around occasionally, but she'll also be away. I don't get it either. Anyway, this seeming reprieve from her daily grind is also kind of an anathema for her, as she is obsessively obsessive. She just needs to obsess, which is a trait, I fear, she has passed to me. But this is temporarily not about me. This is about her demanding (!!) that we relinquish our bedsheets and pillowcases because this week is the only opportunity she'd have to get them clean. Never mind that she hasn't even mentioned cleaning them in, like, forever... knowing she won't be able to for two weeks was enough to inspire her to put it to the top of her list. Mom can be difficult, but that's home.

Nothing's as it should be. I was at Grandma's today, and while I usually try to provide her with some degree of company for the duration of time I am there, I could not bring myself to hang around too much. She asked me to run an errand - pick up some bottles of water water - which I gladly did, but I couldn't sit there. My stomach tied itself in a knot, churning and twisting with some strange anxiety as far removed from Grandma's place as I could get. So I had to excuse myself perhaps earlier than I otherwise would have and get my bearings. It's nuts, or at least I am.

I checked my Sheridan e-mail account for the first time in month today. I was shocked to find a letter from the school with the word "Urgent" in the subject. I was immediately scared that I had missed something important, as this letter was numerous weeks old. So I opened it forthwith, and the content was merely a notice that my grades were good and thus, "congratulations." No official business, jsut a congrats. well, tha'ts very sweet of them, but a bit of a stretch as to the definition of "urgent." I was hardly in such need of a stroking of the ego.

The other letter I found amusing, if someone inflammitory was one fromt the "Summer Jobs Program" people just checking in, hoping my summer's going well, asking if I've gotten a job yet.

My response? "What do you think you wankers?! Have I got a job yet?! Isn't that supposed to be your job, you collossal dickweeds?" This, I yelled at my monitor whilst quietly typing a polite equivalent.

Eric came with me to Kerr St. yesterday, with the intention of combing the used bookstores for obscurities in general and Jim Thompson books in particular. He didn't find that one, but he did manage to find an old printing of a book by Camus, whose work he adores. Me, after being told by Alyssa of her encounter with the Dharma Bums, was set to find myself some Kerouac. And find Kerouac I did, in the form of his earlier novel, "On The Road," but the pricetag was prohibitive for my legendary cheapness. However, Eric noticed my procurement of "On The Road" and, fully intending to make a purchase, bought both books. Now, impressed as I was that we were able to walk out with the book without my having to pay for it, and pleased as I am that I'll eventually be able to read it, I have to cry foul at the obvious gimmick infringement here. Between the two of us, Eric may fancy himself the philosophial and psychoanalytical, but I'm the poetically-minded beat kid here. But that's a small wrinkle. He'll read it, probably be impressed, then move on to whatever else he's got in store (such as the Camus.)

Anyway, this post is getting quite long, as it is really a blend of two entries that I could've written since Monday... at least two, that is... and I'm starting to get tired.

See you tomorrow kids. Hope all is serene.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto