pg 4: Shades of orange

Selfish as it is, it's hard for me to engage with life when my brother's around. It's stupid, and I should just be able to co-exist or work around, but I find myself just blanking and detaching myself in an effort to cope. I've grown so accustomed to his absence that I simply do not know what to do. It has nothing to do with him as a person, it has to do with me as somebody who craves solitude.

Which is weird, since usually I'm angsting about simply having too much solitude. Well, there's no winning with me. My point is, I can't focus, I'm feeling lame. To cope, we're watching the 90's X-Men cartoon, which I've been buying volume by volume.

I'm not saying I was ever perfect, that I was all that productive before he arrived. I had one good spurt and it was over well before he did. Could be I'm just projecting pre-existing angst onto him. I don't blame him for anything, he is not antagonizing me, I'm just a lamer who has no stability nor consistency in his life. It's my problem, I'm my own problem, shit like this I've said a dozen hundred times.

Nothing happens and I live like a nobody. I work once every few days. No balance -- too much free time I get restless. Too little I get resentful, taking it out on others, most obviously Eric.

I used to write poetry. I used to be able to put things in order with words, make sense out of things with syntax. Not so much lately. The poems gave way to story gave way to nothing. Now I'm back to the old habit of thinking about things I ought to be writing or would like to write someday, although to my credit the last couple days have both seen me cross some longstanding projects off my list.

Complain, complain, complain.

Eric was nearly scammed recently, part of his job search. Not an overly interesting story, but if I'm ever looking back wondering when that happened, here it is. I was actually disappointed when we found out it was a scam, since it seemed like such a convenient real-life deus ex machina.

Mom's getting a new dog. I was pretty against this after Max died. Not so much out of fear of dishonoring Max, but out of practicality. I didn't want to have to teach a new puppy how to poop outside, etc. When mom said she was considering getting a Yorkshire puppy from our cousin (who breeds them) I was very troubled. Then when I found out Grandma had said either mom was going to take the dog, or she was, I was even moreso (who knew my grandma was into coercion?) And then I started to warm up to the idea, just as long as Mom was aware I was not interested in being the dog's caretaker and trainer. And then the way things shook out...

Grandma's getting the dog, the Yorkie. Mom got a different opportunity. A co-worker is moving, or knows someone who's moving, and they can't take their 6-year-old Cockerspaniel-Poodle with them, so we're taking her. Yep, we get the honor of owning our very-own ridiculously-named dog breed: A cock-a-poo. You can't tell me the people naming these things aren't aware of the joke.

Anyway. The dog's all trained and everything, so good. The main problem is her name. We didn't get to name Max either, although it was a fairly acceptable name. We ended up baby-talking the name into the gibberish-sounding nickname "L'ead" (pronounced "Lay-ed," not quite "Lad" but definitely not "led.") Anyway, the new dog is named "Bella," which is irksome because it's either a Twilight reference or an annoying coincidence. Since it already has its name ingrained, however, we'll probably just end up calling it by some meaningless similar-sounding variant like "Belly" or "Bells" or "Bellsy," then "Bell's Palsy" and eventually "Ballsy." That's how these things work, but you can't force them. B. suggested "Hell's Bells" but I told him that's not how it works.

And that's pretty much all the interesting stuff that's been going on with me lately. And how amazing that it's not interesting at all. I'm losing it.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto