Creeva's World 2.0 » Sisters

I Told My Brother How He Was Going To Die

Creeva — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:56:30 +0000

I was the oldest child in my family. I can also say I was a bastard older brother, mostly I think it was because I always wanted to be a single child. So far barring any other additions (extremely unlikely) I’m the oldest of eight. So my dreams of being a single child didn’t really play out as expected. My sisters, well I was always protective of them. My brother on the other hand…. Well we’ll leave it with the fact that we have never gotten along for any length of time.

While there are a few good stories I have about my brother, I’m going to start with one of the ones I was most proud of. It was how I killed my brother. Granted he is still alive and well and in November had his second child. So I didn’t really kill him, but he thought I did.

One day my brother was being extremely annoying, but he was always up for dare (once in high school we managed to convince him to run down the street naked when there was six inches of snow on the ground). Well that day I had a plan. Now I’m sure almost everyone reading this has learned the method to check and see if a nine volt battery is still good. Well in all honesty there are a few methods.

Method 1. – Plug it into something and see if it turns on.

Method 2. – Using a battery tester

Method 3. – Putting a penny across the two terminals and see if it warms up (great for melting crayons).

Method 4. – The old tried and true method of licking the battery terminals and see if you get a shock.

One day I decided to teach my brother method four. I would say I was nine or ten years old, so he would have been four-five years old. At first I explained the procedure, he (smartly) did not believe me. So he wanted me to do it first. I licked the battery, and was assured it was live. I also showed no emotion to the shock of licking the battery (this was key). I then proceeded to hand over the battery to him. He was still sceptical but he proceeded to lick the battery.

His head shot back from the surprise shock ( I think it was a new battery). He was upset at this time. At first he was going to tell on me. I then proceeded to tell him that licking the battery was going to cause him to die within a day. There was no cure and there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t believe and pointed out that I licked the battery first. I told him that I didn’t lick it at all, that I just acted like I did. So I wasn’t going to die at all.

This had him livid and crying, but as he was about to run downstairs and tell my parents, I asked him what they would think if he told my parents that he did something so stupid. He was upset and stayed up in the room for a little while discussing what to do. Eventually he went down and told my parents. I of course got yelled at for that one. I can say that it was worth it though.

I’m going to die?

Looking Back At A Month of Mom

Creeva — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:49:05 +0000

I never truly finished my “Month With Mom Series“, I was working on the novel for NANOWRIMO, and then came back and ran out of steam to finish the blog article series. It’s take me over a month, but I wanted to address a couple comments. The first came from my youngest sister who still lives with my mother and step-father:

Ok well im just going to say what I feel . About the part 2 and part 3 , I feel she should of never ever took him back . He is not a father and doesnt act like one. He does not bother talking to us all the time except for my yonger brother usually. And is mean to the pets . I dont even like him living in the house . And seems like he doenst even try at all . But I still dont get what she see’s in him. When he was in Columbus it was better without him . But thats all im gonna say .

She seems to have some of the same feeling that I do on the issue, at least when it comes to how my mother dealt with my step-father during their separation and the reconciliation. So this is similar feelings coming form someone that is thirty-two and someone that lives in that household and is thirteen. This is also her father, it might be my step-father, but it is her father and this is the treatment she feels that she gets. Don’t forget that I had another sister pipe in on her feelings. My own father has read my series, but thought it would be best to not leave public comments, I guess in some ways he is a wise man.

This next comment was left by Groovymarlin who runs her own blog, but I knew through playing SWG with. This comment was left on part 20 of the series (also the final part I finished).

I’ve been reading these all along and I have to say they’re fascinating, though maybe not for the reasons that you think. I’ll just summarize my thoughts so far:

1. Your mom is obviously a very shallow person. It also sounds like she was a little too selfish and self-centered to be a very good mom.

2. On the other hand, you were all fed, clothed, received medical care, etc., etc, growing up yes? My point being – she may not be a very good mom, but there are much WORSE moms.

3. A lot of your complaints about her sound pretty nit-picky to a third party. I’m sure that to you, just about everything she does is annoying and obnoxious and irritating. But to an outsider, a lot of the things she does sound like…things that middle-aged women do. However…

4. Your opinion and view of her has obviously been colored by the truly negative things she HAS done in the past, and therefore every one of her transgressions is magnified to you.

5. Your mom seems to have a bad habit of using people, but remember: people allow themselves to be used. Your grandparents in particular seem to have no problem allowing her to manipulate them. Is it right? No. Are they adults, and capable of deciding for themselves whether to allow this? Yes (at least as far as we know – if at some point due to age or health they become unable to make these decisions on their own, then there would be a real problem).

I think in general you’re handling the mom situation the right way, which is to just let her do her own thing, as long as it’s not hurting you or your own family. I feel pretty bad about some of the things she said about, to, and in front of your sister. That passive-aggressive shit is not cool, not from anyone, and especially not from a mother. But what can you do about that, other than give your sister your emotional support and help her do her own thing as well? Nothing.

People suck, don’t they?

Ever since I read this comment I thought it would be a good blog post on it’s own for a reply instead of loosing it in the noise of comments that no one would ever read, just like my sister’s comment above. Though she says I’m handling this the right way and can see where I am coming from I wanted to address a couple of the points.

Point number two stated because we were clothed, fed, and had medical care that she couldn’t have been a terrible mom, there are crack addict mothers that can do the same. When I was 16 I had a job where I pulled a muscle in my chest. It kept going for a few days where I didn’t tell anyone that I was having trouble breathing. Everytime I took a deep breath it physically hurt ot breath. Not to the point where I couldn’t breath, but to the point where I thought something was wrong with my heart since it was in that vincinity. Like eveyr male I ignored it as long as possible and finally mentioned to my mother.

My mother thought I was making it up and yelled at me for making her take me to the doctor. Stating she didn’t have the money for it (my parents were divorced by then). I think my grandparents ending up paying for it. It turned out I didn’t have heart problems like i was afraid, but a pulled chest muscle like I said. I had been hyper-ventilating for days, which means taking breaths faster and more shallow then you normally would. I hadn;t noticed since it seems we are taught when you are hyperventilating you are gasping for air. I was proscribed codeine for the pain, every once in awhile to this day the problem will creep back for a week or two and I just deal with it since pain medication is the only thing they can proscribe. My siblings have had similar doctor experiences where my mother only reluctantly took them after we plead the case to my grandparents since my mom thought it was some sort of attention plea.

I never asked for medical attention from my mother. Besides getting teeth pulled for braces the last major medical thing tha tI had done was in elementary school when I got chronic ear aches. So this wasn’t a case of my mother always dragging me ot the doctor and me haivng nothing wrong with me, it was serious to me, I was in tears fearing the worst about my condition and thinking it was my heart.

A similar issue goes with the getting fed thing, my mother has always chosen not work. Because of this she happily took advantage of the free lunch program for the local schools. I can’t say that my sibling are still on it, yet for two years of my high school I was. It seemed to her better to get her kids free lunches then to get a job. She has worked the welfare system so she could go on buying things from the home shopping network and Longaberger baskets, but send her children into the free lunch program. that is selfish and naive, and if she had been cutting back on other things maybe I would have more sympathy and understanding.

So did she keep clothed, fed, and medical care – only when it suited her, she didn’t have pay, it didn’t effect other people’s appearance of her, or she was forced. I still wonder what school officials thought about me wearing hundred dollar tennis shoes (since she wanted us to look our best) while getting free lunchs.

Number three stated I was pointing out alot of nit picky things – I mentioned earlier that alot fo these were small things, things that eventually broke me and caused me to cut off all communication with her. I don’t deny some of hte things were small, but it is also the small things that shape us. The big things we overcome; my mother didn’t beat me, she was the person that cared about herself first and her children second.

Number four stated that I magnify the issues and focus them on myself. I was the whipping boy, after me it the third in line, then the fourth (my brother second in line didn’t get the whipping boy treatment), now it’s my sister that’s fifth in line. I can say what I felt was slights to me and things that I have a right to complain about. If one day my siblings decide to tell their own stories alot of similarities will line up, since this is what they tell me “off the record”. Eventually maybe I’ll get some of them to talk about their own experiences more.

I’m also however not going to deny that I’m writing about the things she did that annoyed me or set me off. These feelings will seem stronger to me then outside forces. Some of it is truly petty, but I needed material to write and I did leave some bigger things off the record for the moment, writing this piece reminded me of the doctor’s issue I mentioned. I’m not saying I’m done with this series, but for the moment I’m done writing about it. I may do some more pieces in the future, but it will be about the larger things she did when I have the time, energy, and motivation to write about them.

If your interested here are the links to the stories so far:

A Month With Mom – Part 20 – I Want It, So You Can’t Have It

Creeva — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:30:37 +0000

My sister’s email I published yesterday has my stories out of whack now. I was originally going to relate the story of my mother and the cedar chest, but I already did that. If you missed it, here it is:

I will now give you an example I have full memory and first hand knowledge of. It was at a family holiday dinner a few years ago at my grandparents and somehow the morbid subject of what we would like if my grandparents passed on. I stated I would only want one thing, a cedar chest crafted by my grandmother’s cousin. My grandmother chimed in that it was going to be given to her cousins family, well my grandmother has been saying that my whole life, so for thirty years it’s still been sitting there. My mother then said I couldn’t have it because she wanted it. Selfish? Well let’s continue this story.
A few minutes later my mother asked me why I wanted the chest because she thought it was ugly and tacky. I said it was something that would always remind me of my grandparents, their house, and the memories. To me the chest is kind of like a symbol of my grandparents. This prompted me though to ask why did she want it if it was ugly? Her answer? She said she wanted it because I said I wanted it. So I was shocked and called her selfish, I think that was my annual fight that year and I left. It was petty, you would think as adamant as she was when she said she wanted it, that somehow I knew there was a secret stash of money tucked away in it. Nope, she is just worried about someone else getting something she can’t. What a great mother.

I’ll get re-organized through my drafts and getting something new up tomorrow. Even writing about her is aggravating and putting me all out of sorts.

A Month With Mom – Part 19 – My Sisters View

Creeva — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:29:45 +0000

A while back I received the following email from my sister (It’s been mildly edited to protect names and some grammar):

So I just read your blog..

I must add something.. and you make me realize mom doesn’t ever say anything nice about me.. and I’m not writing this to bitch about her either but its true. I went out to eat with her, our sisters, and our youngest brother the other day and she told our youngest she couldn’t get any peircings because “no preppy girls have them” and how they look like trash.
okay, well she was refering to me

Second.

I told summer she should really think about going to EHOVE (the local vocational school – creeva). Mom goes EHOVE is for people that don’t do good in school and our youngest sister doesn’t want to be apart of that (the sister writing this went to EHOVE – creeva). Okay.. diss to me again, which i said something.

Third.. mom asks me if i went to Trip Ohio in 8th grade cus our youngest sister will be going next year. I say, no because she didn’t have the money for me to go so I couldn’t. I told our youngest sister that at the dinner table and mom denied all of that and said i was lieing. Right.. my older sister said the same thing thats why we both didn’t go.

THEN..

mom tells me to shut up, then our youngest brother makes a comment to our youngest sister..

“You know why mom is mad at you? Because you act like [sister writing this email] that’s why she hates you..”

So i wonder what she tells our youngest brother, she hates me?

Nice.

I stormed out of there and left.

Obviously I have replaced my sibling’s names with their rank and order. We don’t refer to our youngest sister as our youngest sister (who by the way is two years older then my younger brother). I just don’t want to be the reason their name shows up in a google search. I did think it was important to show that my views on my mother are not mine alone. I did receive permission from my sister to use this email, so there is no surprises.

A Month With Mom – Part 12 – Gossip Girl

Creeva — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:26:55 +0000

My mother loves to gossip. She loves to spread gossip. She loves to receive gossip. If you are familar with the musical “The Music Man” at all she is one of the “Pick A little, Talk A Little Women”

She would go to the community pool under the pretext of watching my sisters swim. If however there was no one to gossip with she would pack up and either take my sisters home, or get someone else to watch them. I’m sure my mother misses the hey day of the beauty parlor where all the women sat around and gossiped. I’m sure in some areas these still exist, but not really in her neck of the woods. Besides she felt superior becuase she had “her” beautician that she went to.

Her beautician always made sure that her hair came out with that blond color that she was born with. All those pictures I’ve posted of her as a toddler on up that have dark hair? Well I guess my mother believes that those are all bad exposures since she swears the blond she has now is her natural color. Ironically it’s because of her and the lies about her hair color that I refuse to ever dye my hair to hide my gray. I’m not going to tell people my hair is a certain way. Granted I’ve dyed my hair black for a costume, I’ve also done purple and blue – heaven help those that thought those colors were natural. I actually have my mother’s native hair color, I’m just not in denial.

My mother would love to gossip. She would spend hours on the phone talking to friends about who was having marriage issues, who was having works issue, who bought something new, and who was stuck with something old. If she didn’t have any friends at a given time she would either try to get me involved (I never had an interest so I’m sure she bored of me) or she would enlist my grandmother (who had the same enthusiasm as I did).

You would think she would like to discuss something of interest, but the most poignant she ever got to real life events was what new Longaberger baskets were coming out or discussions about Dr. Phil and Oprah – it seems to her these are the messiahs of the new world order. Who knew?

A Month With Mom – Part 9 – Favoritism

Creeva — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:24:51 +0000

I don’t have my child yet, let alone more then one. I do however suspect parents have a favorite child. If not a direct favorite, at least a favorite to do certain things with. My parents were no different. I could pull out favoritism on my father’s side, but that doesn’t matter, when that was evident and apparent I didn’t like him very much. My mother on the other hand is what this piece is really about anyways.

My mother’s favorite child was either the trophy child or the youngest child. Sometimes they were the same child, other times they weren’t. I’m not going to say I was never the favorite child, I was quite a bit. i was the oldest child of her six, so being the first I’m sure she always had a bit of pride in me (of course now that this web series has ran….). But like most families the youngest child, the baby of the family, was always doted upon quite a bit. As far as i can remember I never minded, so that never bothered me.

The trophy child on the other hand was my brother immediately behind me. He was as spoiled as my youngest brother. He seems to have turned out just find, though a strong sibling rivalry is still there. Now I’m sure the question s why is he the trophy child. Well at one point he decided that he wanted to live with my father. This was all well and good and lasted a few months (year?). Until he started getting disciplined.

On a weekend visit to my mother, my brother just didn’t go back to my fathers. My father didn’t fight custody over the matter, if my brother wanted to live with my mother, so be it. The key is that my brother had hardly any rules placed upon him. He was the biggest wild child of all of us. That doesn’t make him a bad person, he seems to have turned out alright. I don’t care that I had more rules placed upon me, I’m the oldest, it’s my job to take the brunt of everything. I’m perfectly fine with that. Maybe that’s why I’m so accepting of life now.

My brother got away with this because back in my mother’s brain, if she didn’t indulge him, then she would loose him again to my father. My father and brother were very close when he was younger, this was my mother’s way to split a wedge in there. It took years for my brother to talk to my father again, a lot of this is because of the poisoning that my mother had done. He was her trophy over my father and she wasn’t going to let go of that. I’m sure he doesn’t look at it that way, or is even aware of it.

My sisters on the other hand got both the poisoning against my father (it didn’t take) and none of the perks. Even a decade after my brother had left the house, my sister (from the same father) had a much harder time and more rules placed on her then any of hte rest of us had. She was actively disciplined, yelled at, and talked down to. I’m sure my youngest brother won’t ever go through and be treated that way. He’ll be coddled and spoiled, and probably living with my mother until he’s thirty, or at least until he wises up.

In the end it works out though, my brother can do no wrong in my mothers eyes (heck she even drank with him underage). She has the same blinders towards him that her parents have towards her. He gives her love, he doesn’t question her, he doesn’t push her to be a better person. Since they view the world in similar ways and there is no tension between them, he has become her perfect child. During my mother’s latest separation my brother even told my father that she didn’t have to worry because we’d take care of her. I’m not sure where this “we” comes from. Never was I going to financially support my mother, even when we were getting along.

A Month With Mom – Part 8 – In Oregon

Creeva — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:33:22 +0000

While I lived in Oregon, a lot of my life was peaceful on the family front. I only spoke to my mother maybe a dozen times tops while I lived there. I didn’t have to deal with her drama on a weekly or daily basis. I was 2500 miles away and it was easy to avoid. Just don’t pick up the phone. That part is really easy for me, since I hardly notice the phone or pick it up naturally unless I’m on the clock and the phone could be work.

I either had to deal with family emergencies or the occasional holiday call. i didn’t talk to any of the family with regularity until I was traveling for work, at that point I was talking mostly with my father. Occasionally I would call and end up talking to one of my sisters. They would inform me me of what my mother was doing to them. Some of it was exageration, some of what was deserved, but some of it was not.

In the few occasions I thought my mother took it too far, I called my grandmother.and tried to get her to intercede on my sisters behalf. Sometimes she didn’t believe me, seeing how her daughter couldn’t do anything like that. Other times she said she had talked to her about it and couldn’t take it further. Neither of my grandparents are bad people. They both have my love and complete devotion. They are just in denial over what my mother actually does.

Neither of them are callous. They have both earned my respect. My grandmother once even told me that they have enabled my mother to be helpless and rely on other people. She also said it was a mistake and never intentional.

So while in Oregon life was good. The stress of family was at the lowest point ever, I didn’t worry about -I’m almost there again.

A Month With Mom – Part 7 – Respect Is A Two Way Street

Creeva — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:22:40 +0000

My grandfather taught me a thing or two about respect. I’m not going to say we see eye to eye, but I did manage to learn a few things. The largest being that you earn respect. My father taught me that you have to deal with the consequences of your actions. My mother never learned either of those two lessons. Somehow because she had the biological capability of having children that it meant that her children would have to respect her. I however never had such a notion. I also have never claimed that my mother was the sharpest tack in the pile.

My mother complained a lot to me that my seventeen year old sister called her a bitch all the time. I stated that this was normal for seventeen year olds. I also felt that my sister was working 20-30 hours a week, going to school, and planning for her future was better grounded then my mother who worked maybe 4 hours a week. My mother would call my sister a bitch, and wonder why she got the word thrown back at her. I’ve brought this up to her and she denies it. I have witnessed it though. Xie has witnessed it. My sisters can attest to it. However my mother turned my grandparents against my sister over this. They thought was sister was the wild child that no one can control (do we need to go back to school and work compared to my mother?). They thought my mother didn’t deserve that language tossed at her. They also have a strong refusal to believe that my mother would ever call any of her children such language.

HA.

My mother was using that language directed at my sisters before they were even teenagers. My grandparents still think that I (in my thirties mind you) is still just telling stories and making things up about my mother. I don’t know how my grandfather who taught me you have to earn respect ever gained it for my mother. The only thing that comes to mind is the fact that she is a woman. Xie sometimes gets annoyed when my grandfather states that if I die, that I need to make sure that I provide for her. My grandfather is a bit sexist and thinks that women have a hard time to provide for themselves. I don’t completely fault the man, he comes from a different generation and my grandparents fit into very traditional gender roles that younger generations don’t follow any more.

Their daughter has not earned the respect of any of her children. Instead of inspiring her children to do more and be an example, she tries to elicit pity from them. This isn’t anger, my mom generally gets pity to pity her so she can get things. This is her control mechanism. This is why my brother states he will take care of her and my grandparents still do. I want help from people because I need help, not because they pity me. To be pitied is all around just sad, to be truly undeserving of pity because you got yourself into the mess; doubly so.

A Month With Mom – Part 6 – Shop-a-holic

Creeva — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:22:12 +0000

During this time where really my mother was in complete financial distress and squeaking by. However she couldn’t stop buying frivolous things at all. She was glued to the home shopping channel, when she didn’t have the money to buy something out right she would jump on their payment plan. When she was really excited about something she would call my grandmother.

I swear something was being shipped to the house every other day from the home shopping network. If I had to venture a guess during the months between I moved back and when I cut off communication she had to spend the equivalent of a couple mortgage payments. It got to the point that she attempted to hide this purchases from me since she knew that she was going to get a lecture from me.

She continued about how she needed her house modernized so it looked good “for the children”. This was her priority in her life. No job, no income, three children living under her roof, and she’s complaining about the flooring (which was adequate and better then some other people’s flooring).

There was an extreme lack of food in the house. There was tons of dry cereal and maybe if you were lucky bread and peanut butter. She ordered out more then cooked anything meaningful, she would also go grocery shopping every day so she could get out of the house. Ironically she didn’t buy much of anything.

My seventeen year old sister who was working had to buy her own food for lunch’s and mostly dinners also since “supper” conflicted with her work schedule. Now for some people this would seem like a fine thing to do, but my mother was getting hundreds of dollars a month in child support for my sister. Yet my sister never seemed to benefit from it. Instead I would have hear about my seventeen year old sister using my mother’s make-up or wearing my 12 year old sisters shirts (yes my sister was almost that small, but also liked tight fitting clothes). Never once did I hear her say anything good about my sister, it was more complaints on how much she cost or the attitude she gave.

To my chagrin my grandparents paid to have new flooring done for Christmas. Sometimes I think my mother is as spoiled as my youngest brother.

A Month of Mom – Part 2 – The End is the Beginning

Creeva — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:03:48 +0000

Rather building up to the explosive end, I figured it better to start at the end and show how it built up to that. Hopefully this will allow me to end this journey with something nice to say. Since we’re not finished yet I guess I won’t know. My family is screwed up, tht’s not a lie. I don’t think however it’s any more unique or screwed then anyone else’s. So I guess as I go through this journey I will classify us as normal. Some scenes may seem absurd. Some will seem strange. I however grew up with a better life with then some people I know so she would be responsible for that. However i can’t go home again. She told me so, I have no home except my own.

Tomorrow I’ll give more background leading up to the last day I talked to my mother face to face, however we’re looking at that day first. Time to go back 2.5 years ago. I arrived over to my mother’s house to help my sister out. My sister had special juice my father had purchased for her (i don’t remember why), and it was being drank by my other siblings (not my fathers children). My youngest brother, was actively allowed to enter her room at all time and she wasn’t allowed to lock her doors. My mother was actively looking to drive her out, though she was waiting until she graduated.

I came over to come to my sisters rescue. The first thing my mother does is deny any of this happening. Then she comes and admits it, but comes up with excuses on how the different things happen. At this point trying to maintain the peace all around I offered to bring in a mini fridge for my sister and buy a lock for her door since my mother can’t maintain boundaries for my youngest sister from both my biological parents. Since my sister was the last one of the four of us in the house, she got it hte worst. All the problems that the rest of us went through kept compounding on her (why my sister talks to her now I can’t fathom).

The first excuse is that my mother won’t have a locking door in her house because my sister doesn’t need privacy that no one would invade her space. Secondly she said she wasn’t going to pay the electric bill a mini fridge would cost, my step father at this point came down the stairs and started to chime in. I told him to shut the hell up (ok I used stronger language), the man who had abandoned my mother for over a year had no say in this dicussion in my book, he had been back less then month.

I had heard my mom cry about how much she hated him. The main reason they got back together? The noble thing would be to say it was love, maybe it will be again for them. However my mother’s excuse to me over the previous month of deciding if she was going ot take him back was two-fold the first is that she didn’t want to die alone – fair enough. The second was the part that disgusted me, she didn’t feel she had to work. She complained that this was her time to enjoy with grandchildren and she shouldn’t have to work. She told me how she was going to pay all the bills with her inheritance and be happy. That was the life she always envisioned and she was upset she wasn’t going to get it. She sounded like the preppy girl complaining that she came in second place in a beauty pagent, and if she cried and screamed loud enough someone else would fix it.

She got back together with him, not for love, but live a more comfortable life. Why I won’t explicitly say that, someone who lies in bed with someone else for money as the primary reason…….

I knew this, my siblings knew this, my wife knew this. He held no power over me and I wasn’t going to have any of it. He had put my mother through months of pain, helping my mother out because of this was part of the reason I moved back to Ohio from Oregon. I had been a part of that house and family for many years. At this point he asked me to leave. As I’m walking out I’m still arguing on my way to the car. My mother told me the words that are opposite of what I’ve been told that a mother is supposed to say – she told me that it wasn’t my home anymore.

I had grown up my whole life with my mother telling me that it would always be my home. She however would choose to be with her part time husband and choose his side over mine. It wasn’t the first time she did that though. My step father told me to never come back and I wasn’t welcome there anymore. So be it. My mother has relinquished what she wants or believes in for her comfort. She tries now to deny what she said (like she always denies what she says) but my wife heard it also and her jar dropped. My wife had seen the drag out fights amongst my family, and this wasn’t the worst. This was my mother clinging to safety and the fear of being alone. If I thought she did it because she wanted to, because love made her do strange things, then I would forgive. My mother is more calculating in protecting herself though. She will protect herself over the expense of others.

For the record if my step father ever shows up on my door step, the first thing I’m doing is calling the police.

This is the incident that is the proverbial straw. Does it sound stupid? I’m sure it does. I won’t deny it. Starting tomorrow we’ll be working on how we got to here.

Read Part 1 Here

Daddy, Why Did You Blog About Me?

Creeva — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:48:02 +0000

Original From parentphobia.com: Daddy, Why Did You Blog About Me?

This is a letter to my future child.

Dear Little One,

Though by the time you read this you will be old enough, hopefully, to comprehend it. Who knows you may even have brothers and sisters by this time. I’m writing this because I know that your mother and I will make mistakes. Contrary to what we may teach you we are just human and not super-human. We possess no special abilities beyond judgment that is tempered with wisdom that we have arrived at through age. We will screw you up. That is an unfortunate fact. Like your grandparents we will think about ways we can do things better with you then they did with us. It is highly likely that we, like them, will screw you up and make you less then perfect the same way they did it to us. The only thing you get to look forward to is when you screw up your own children by teaching them in ways that you perceive were the wrong ways to handle you.

We will always love you in an unconditional way. We may get angry at you, and I’m positive you will get angry at us. I hope it is not lasting. Our home will always be a home with a place for you in it and a place that you can come back to. If you sixty and I’m ninety-three you will always be welcome to live with me. Though expect me to drive you up the wall like I do to your mother sometimes. Your mother and I may fight, that’s because we are very strong in our ideals. You will learn that a lot of what your mother and I fight about is much different then other parents. This is because we are strange, please see the section where I said that we will screw you up and our parents screwed us up.

I write this to you now to give you something to read that is just for you and your siblings. An understanding in case I’m not perfect. A message if I’m not vocal enough in expressing my feelings. A hope that you can learn and grow from the things I write down and give you a moment in time to grasp across and to see if in the future you have the same feeling and problems as I do now. Not everything is time period specific, something transcend human time to give you an emotional connection with what you feel is important.

I blog about you so you will always have a sense of who I am. How I experienced things. What I believed in. It may not be the same as you feel in the future, but hopefully you will the struggles I overcame to get to the place you know me. I’m sure there will be many stories I tell you over the years that won’t be recorded. These hopefully you will be able to keep forever so you can have a piece of me with you always and something to pass down to your own children.

I can’t wait to meet you for the first time, to read to you, to cuddle with you. These are going to be the experiences I will cherish even when you have far outgrown them. I hope you gain the same in return from your own children. I will write you more in the coming future. See you in a few months.

Love,

Your Father

Original From parentphobia.com: Daddy, Why Did You Blog About Me?

I’m Going to Be A Father

Creeva — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:17:02 +0000

In the picture above is my maternal grandfather and my great grandfather, it seems I am going to be joining on them on the ability to reproduce and pass down genetic material to the next generation. Yes I am going to be a father, Xie want and annouced the pregnancy on Twitter just a few hours ago with the following message:

As of yesterday I am 7 weeks pregnant – coming from the person who would never in a million years want kids, I am very excited & happy :D

I sent the follow up:

@xielanthia congratulations who is the father……nm :P

Then I sent this:

As of yesterday @xielanthia is 7 weeks pregnant and I’m going to be a father – wish us luck – we’ll need it.

So we have announced to the Web 2.0 World (WTW? W2W?) that we are having a baby and doing it in true web fashion. We have known for about 3 weeks and over that time eeked the information out to family and friends. The first person I told was the IPS guys I played SWG with that I have constant e-mail communication with. The first family that knew was my in-laws and followed by Xie’s grandmother (I wish she had a blog i could link to). Then it was ghoulishcharm. From there I told my father and my brother who was also there. I went and told my grandparents last Sunday and drove over to tell my sister, but she already knew it seems that she found out from my father who knew the week before.

I did find out from my sisters that my grandparents had already known about the pregnancy (having heard it through her) but yet they acted like they didn’t know anything. Welcome to my family, we can act surprise even if we have known something for months. I know I used to unwrap my Christmas presents before hand and rewrap them – I got that trick from my godmother.

My Ex-Girlfriend Looks Ancient

Creeva — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:18:31 +0000

Picture taken from here

Last night I we had our community band practice moved to a church for the night. Ironically it was the church of the girl I lived with before I was with my wife (over a decade ago). I wish I could tell you that we broke up over a mutual disagreement where we went our own separate ways but it didn’t work out like that. Since at one point of time she was once a huge point of my life I thought I would document her, at that point the facts will be recorded and I’ll put the past behind me.

When I was a freshmen in high school I met Kim the night of the High School Homecoming dance (back in 1990 – cripes this memory is of legal age). I had friends in marching band (this was the year before I started playing trumpet at all) and I was hanging out with them some girl was just wandering around a circle of people crying on the shoulders of those around her. I was one of those people, this girl was Kim. She had just been dumped by some guy and the marching band members were taking the pity circle approach. She started crying on me and I didn’t know who the hell she was. Eventually she moved on to the next person. A few weeks later she started dating my best friend, fortunately I didn’t go out with them to do anything so I saw very little of her the rest of the school year. She popped up occasionally but for the most part she was a non issue.

Picture of me and my best friend that brought Kim into my life – bastard.

The next summer I got conned into joining marching band (ironically I didn’t play an instrument at the time) and I was there around the time my friend dumped Kim (who graduated the previous year) so he could have a shot at chasing after another girl. Kim hung around the marching band practices like graduated seniors with nothing better to do occasionally do. One day it was raining and I asked her for a ride home – curse her. This started to be a regular thing, she was still upset with my friend leaving her so she would talk to me about him, and other things. After a couple months of becoming good friends we started dating. On a cool fall day down the road from house at her friend’s house I had my first kiss sitting on the hood of her 1991 powder blue Topaz.

I started sneaking out a lot at night to see her, I think this was the start of my 4 hours a night sleeping routine. I had sneaking out of my house down to the science. Sometimes I wonder which was greater, the nights I did sneak out or the nights I didn’t. My parents were not too ecstatic with their 15 year old son dating an 18 year old. I’ll also be kind enough to leave out details and allow you to read between the lines when it comes to intimate details.

This was also the year I started writing. I started with poetry and found I had a knack for it. I did the silly love letters and so did she. I think I still have a few of them. Almost all of my poetry is already is already on this blog but I’m sure there are some journal pages (folks that was analog blogging) I’ve left out. I’m sure reading them today would sound very Emo-ish. If I can find them and read through my chicken scratch hand writing I’ll put them up.

The summer that followed we spent most of our time with one another, we went to movies, to Cedar Point, and other related activities. One thing I can remember sticking out in my mind was when we left Cedar Point because the weather was picking up. As we were driving back there was a Tornado siting in our town. We watched the skies carefully and made it back to her parent’s house. We found out later that a tornado did touch down about 2 miles from us. It was very crazy and stupid to be driving out in that.

We dated for 9-10 months and the following year in marching band I took my friends lead and dumped her. I started dating another girl Mari. About 3 months later that relationship didn’t work out and I left Mari. We’ll discuss more on Mari another day. At this point Kim was going with Nate, some guy ahead of me in school.

Mari from back when I dated her.

Well Kim and I started talking again since we had always been good friends. On December 31st, 1992 I was having a New Years Eve party at my house (with a fair amount of people as I recall) and I get a phone call from Kim. She wasn’t going to stop by because some of the people there didn’t like her, which was fine. She was at her friend’s house at another party just a couple streets over. What ever was going through her mind, because though we had been talking again off an on, she wanted me to stop over and talk for a few minutes. So like a good friend (fool) I wander over to talk to her. What I don’t remember if she told me was that her boyfriend Nate was there.

We were talking (and sitting on that damn Topaz again) and someone started yelling inside the house. Out of this house busts this big guy. All he said was “Nate wanted me to mess you up.” and I got punched in the face. Since I was on the edge of the car he caught me in a spin and knocked me down a few feet from where I was standing. This was the second time in my life I have been punched (in a true fight and haven’t been punched since). I think he may have gotten in a couple more shots, it’s been so long ago it’s a blur. This guy’s girlfriend and Kim dragged him off an pulled him back into the house, Kim apologized and I wandered back home.

When I got there I was fuming, I grabbed a baseball bat from my bedroom and started back towards the front door. Luckily from a police record stand point I was talked down by the people at my party. Granted half the guys wanted to go over there and start something, but the girls at the party and some of the other guys cooled down the situation. I never went over. Since that night was one of the few times I have been punched it’s etched into my brain.

Things calmed down and Kim and I continued talking. A few months later things didn’t work out between her and Nate and they broke up. We dated a little bit for a few weeks, but just kind of maintained a friendship point of view. After that we went our separate ways for awhile. In spring of 1994 my girlfriend at the time dumped me right before prom (today we have different takes on how this went down). Shortly after that (somehow I don’t remember) Kim and I started talking again. Talking lead to dating. This was the road that it always was with Kim. Being friends and trying to keep it platonic always lead to something more.

We dated through the summer and she even went to my Mother’s wedding. My step-father and I never really saw eye to eye, he came into the house trying to be an alpha male. It wasn’t happening though. We never got along though for time periods we could fake it and even be civil to one another. Why is this relevant? Well right after the wedding took place ( I played trumpet so I was part of the service) I guess my step father made a lot of derogatory remarks to her about her and about me. Then and there I didn’t know this. She told me as we were driving back to my mother’s house for a wedding reception.

I was fuming. I arrived to the house just a couple minutes before my mother and my new step father. I happily started a screaming match on the front lawn. Luckily Kim was house sitting at her sister’s place for a couple of weeks I went inside and grabbed a couple changes of clothes and left for a few weeks, never even calling. Sometime during this time frame being an young fool I asked Kim to marry me and she said yes. I was just a couple weeks past eighteen and I was engaged.

I came home and stayed for a couple weeks before I was to leave for college. The big day arrived and I was supposed to use my mother’s mini van to haul all my stuff an hour south to school. Originally my mother was going to drive me down to school and Kim and my friend Tim were supposed to come and help move stuff. My mother said she would go but my step father also had to come. I didn’t want him there and asked if we could just take the van and Kim would bring it back afterward. Well this escalated into a screaming match that rivaled the wedding reception just a month or so earlier.

I hadn’t been on speaking terms really with my father at this point, and there was a lot of animosity between my mother and him. My step-father helped fuel this by mocking me and saying my father should take me down (I literally had to be at the school the next day for college marching band camp). Time was dragging on and the fighting escalated, I ended up kicking the mini van in the front passenger side fender and leaving a huge dent that stayed there for a few years until my step father pounded it out. For a little FYI the mini van was already packed and filled with all my stuff. Even if I had compromised and capitulated and had him go there literally was no room for a fifth person in that van. My mother had enough at this point and handed us the keys.

I think I cried the whole way down to college this was the second time my mother chose my step father over her child in what was an important day in his life. We made it to school and I settled in. We were going to do the long distance relationship. There was a phone on campus where i used to make collect calls to her (or I had a huge roll of quarters sometimes). When I called collect I used a fake name so her parents wouldn’t know it was me and think it was a wrong number if she didn’t answer the phone. She came down and visited once (which looking back for a 40 minute drive really is pathetic – that’s less then one way in my daily commute). After three of four weeks I had enough and broke it off with her. I started dating someone at college and I called it a day.

Christmas break rolled around and I was kind of in between girlfriends at the time (another post for another time) and Kim and I managed to get back together. We spent most the month with each other and when it came time to go back to school, I took a side trip to see my grandfather who was in the hospital. We drove down to the Dayton area about 4 hours away and stayed at my my grandfather’s house since no one else was there. That night Kim went to bed and I stayed up and wrote a letter to my grandmother. The next day we headed to the hospital but stopped at my grandmother’s grave and I left the note for her there. We went and visited my grandfather who had suffered and stroke and lost 60% of his body mass. She was there for me and I appreciated it.

School rolled around and I reconciled with my girlfriend from the previous semester. Now for some reason this should have been a straight break up with Kim moment. I held off for a couple days and Kim came down to visit. The situation was not a surprise to my college girlfriend, she knew what was happening. I took Kim to the local mall and we walked and talked, but my college girlfriend stalked us and was obvious about following us. After getting back to the car Kim asked what it all was about, I explained and broke up with her. She dropped me off at my dorm room and I thought then that she left. I went up and spent time with my college girlfriend, while this was happening Kim proceeded to make out with my roommate’s best friend. That’s the kind of rebound girl she was.

At this point you would think that the Kim college years era was over, well not quite. I get a phone that she is pregnant and needs to talk. I arrange it that I come home that weekend to talk to her. Problem was college girlfriend insisted on going and I had not told her about the pregnancy. I manage to get up north and slip away for a little bit to talk to Kim. This leads me back home and my college girlfriend is upset. She tells me she is pregnant (I had not told her Kim was pregnant yet). So I’m 18 years old and I find out in less then seven days that I have two girls pregnant. To add to the top of the tower here, college girlfriend and I break up.

A few weeks later I’m dating someone else and I find out both college girlfriend and Kim have miscarriages within a week of each other. I don’t tell anyone and did not tell either one of them, so it’s coincidence that they both told me, and today I think they were both lying to me over the incident. Around this time period my grandfather died and I was dealing with that also. College progressed mostly Kim until summer rolled around. I was not going back to school the following year, so two weeks after moving back I moved out of my mothers house and moved in with Kim who had taken over her sisters apartment.

Kim managed to get me a job at the local Speedway, which at the time was about the size of two of the cubicles I have at work now. I enjoyed working there, I enjoyed the night shift. One day however I got in a disagreement with the manager and just up and quit. After that my high school friend that originally dated Kim secured me a job at a local marina. I did that for a year paying the bills until I secured my first computer job. All through this Kim and I stayed together. One day a girl saw us at a restaurant and told me (a year or so later) that she felt so bad for me she wished there was something she could do for me. I used to go out and hang out with friends until early morning hours and around this time I finally got my drivers license (I was twenty).

One night Kim went out and didn’t come home, she stayed at a friends house – a single male friends house – after a night of drinking. from all accounts nothing happened, I don’t happen to believe that. The reason I didn’t believe it was that my high school friend kept saying she came on to him when I wasn’t around. I believe him, not her. Things were getting worse and worse over the next year, I would go out more and she would do her own thing. She criticized my friends, or say they were too young. or into the wrong things. Though we did manage to go camping twice while we lived together.

The first time we drove to somewhere in the backwoods of Pennsylvania with her parents. Her parents treated me even worse then she did, so for the week we were there I hated it the whole time. It’s hard to get me to go camping as it is now (ask Xie) let alone with people I don’t really like. The second time we went camping I took a friend with me, in the middle of the trip Kim went storming off and said she was taking off and going home leaving use 300 miles away from home with no way back. While she was so confident and storming off to her car I told her to “Screw off, ” I then laughed at her and told her I had her keys which she asked me to hold. My friend and I left her at the camp and went off hiking. Things reconciled and at this point we are at July 1997.

At this point I was hanging out in a different crowd with people with which I’m still friends with some of them until this day. There was a girl who caught my eye and I was interested in. My friend from the camping trip and were talking and I asked him if this girl would be interested in me if I was single. He said she probably would be (he had no clue). This is a Tuesday night. I went over and talked to my mother and asked her if I could move my stuff back home. I then showed up at the apartment with at least 10 people with 3-4 vehicles and I told Kim I was moving out and the group then paraded through the apartment and had me moved out in about 20 minutes. I told Kim I would come back and we could talk about it after I got everything unloaded.

I went back and spent the night at the apartment (nothing happened) and we talked most the night. She borrowed 100.00 from me so she could pay rent. The next day I asked the girl I was interested in out on a date. Kim called me on Thursday night to see if I wanted to do something on Friday. I told her I had a date. The next morning there was books and items strewn across my mothers lawn. Things that I had forgotten to take with me. The date went off without a hitch and the girl told me that a year or so earlier she had seen me at the restaurant broken and wished she could have helped me. This girl was Xie and I married her.

You would think this is where it ends, but there is an addendum. Xie had recently broken up with her boyfriend. For some reason it was in her boyfriend’s head and Kim’s head that we mutually dumped both of them to be together. It was a matter of circumstance, but to them they felt the logical thing was to date each other. Xie and I laughed and let them be on there way. Kim degenerated more and more, she slept around a lot, somehow everyone thought I wanted to here and know about the stories so they filtered in. After trying to make me jealous didn’t work she dated a couple people and then one day a couple years later I get a note on the windshield of my car outside the apartment Xie and I had. It said she missed me and really jsut wanted to be friends. Well we’ve seen how being friends worked out in the past, I never called her.

I did have to deal with her for a few years at the High School Alumni Band every year, but I guess while I was in Oregon she got in a big huff with someone and said she was never coming back. Yay me! That was a treat to hear when I came back. Other news that passed through the grape vine while I was in Oregon was that she worked as a lunch lady for a little bit, my sisters told me they saw her working at the school. She was married, but the marriage only lasted a few months. Now it seems that I hear that she is single and can’t find anyone that wants to settle down with her (I don’t blame them).

The last year we were together she was working for my father, and still worked for him a little ways after the break up. She borrowed 100.00 dollars from him and never paid it back. So she owes him and I each 100.00 dollars, it’s definitely worth eating the loss to have to not deal with her again.

The last couple years she has been at the sidelines with Tim who helped me move to college all those years ago (as friends they always have been) during the Vermilion Woolybear Festival while the whole band is on the float. She kept her head down, pulled a hood over her head and wore sunglasses, but it was her. I think she was hiding from teh band in general then just me since Tim looked shocked my first year back from Oregon seeing me on the float so I’m sure she had no idea I was up there before hand.

I started this off by saying I had practice in her old church. While on break I wandered around a little bit and saw a K Pearce in the member mail box area with a pamphlet in it. I then found a board that had pictures of all the members and who they were. There was her picture. She looks a good 10 years old then she she should and who knows if the picture is recent. I thought for a minute to put my initials in an art style she would recognize as knowing where they came from on the pamphlet in her mail box. I thought about putting my email address, or just typing in “Google Creeva”. I then realized I might find it funny or humorous at that moment, but it wasn’t worth it. The humor did not out weigh the pain of maybe actually having to hear from her or deal with her in any way.

If you know her and see her, you can happily tell her about this. I’m happily married and in January it will be my tenth wedding anniversary. I’ve managed to sum up most the highlights in the relationship in a few paragraphs. If she wants to meet in public and talk about them I’ll be happy to…….as long as she has the 200.00 she owes me and my father. I’ll give her time to finish a coffee at the very least. I’d even bring the coffee, all conditional on the back debt being paid. Otherwise I just look at the life she has, where she has gone, and what she has brought upon herself. Do you know what I do when I do that? I laugh.

N810 – Day 3 and Counting

Creeva — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:42:32 +0000

So last night was a work in progress/real world scenario time. I was going to be out with a few hours to kill, and I didn’t take my Mac Book with me. During my hour commute to work I listened to a couple episodes of “Cranky Geeks” with John Dvorak. In the afternoon I had to go onto the lab and do some testing with users. While waiting for the users to show up I decided to take my N810 onto the guest wifi. While doing that I installed Vim and the GPE suite. I’m going to be working on getting GPE calender to sync with Google Calender. I should have realized that vim was a command line only utility since it was a port. I don’t think I’m going to stay usingit though, I know vim is the more friendly vi, but I have a severe hatred of vi. I think it’s the difference of growing up with the extremely easy to use Microsoft Edit in DOS that vi seems so hackneyed to me.

One thing that was an issue for me yesterday was I installed the “Camera” application from the repositories. I installed and saw how a picture would look, then I clicked the folderesque button on the lower right hand side and that locked up my N810. I tried to hold the power button down that didn’t do anything, after about 5 minutes of waiting I yanked the battery. In that 5 minutes I went from 75% of my battery to 25%, so whatever happened taxed the hell out of the CPU and storage space. Needless to say that application is not staying around.

I then went up to Vermilion and met with my sisters and had some pizza, after that I wandered to the local library and decided I was going to attempt to get some work done. I managed to login to my work’s exchange webmail, I wrote a full blog using maemo-wordpy, and used it happily as an MP3 player listening to my podcasts. Writing a longer length blog post took some time compared to what it would take with a normal keyboard. However, I managed to get it done and my typing skills are definetly improving on the N810 keyboard as a whole.

The annoying things I found out yesterday.

The Vermilion Public Library’s Public Wifi doesn’t allow IMAP – grrrr no Gmail via Claws for me at that time
Canola won’t “save” songs to scrobble at a later time, if it doesn’t have a network connection you are SOL – grrrr – does anyone know if maemo scrobbler will save before submittal?

Sometimes Obsolete Operating Systems Aren’t Obvious

Creeva — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:38:55 +0000

Sometimes things aren’t obvious for being obsolete in the world of computers. If you a Windows user it’s compeltely obvious that you are using an older version of windows immediately when you start using it. Whether the signs are when you sit down and see Windows 98 striped across the start menu or the older version of Internet Explorer 5.0 that starts up, you catch these things and it is noticeable. The same thing also holds true for Linux, but this is more of aesthetic issues that become apparent, usually graphic issues that are sorted out on newer versions you catch on the older ones.

But what about OS X?

My sister has been having a problem with her ipod nano she got for christmas. Itunes wouldn’t recognize it, she would have to upgrade itunes. Fair enough. Well itunes won’t load on her Operating System, which was OS X 10.3.2. Ironically the latest version of Itunes works on windows 98 and will work with the Nano. 10.3.2 is newer then Windows 98, but yet still is forcing the upgrade on the OS X users. Normally I wouldn’t really have a problem with this, I’m also not a nuanced Mac user. I can’t however tell graphically an immediate difference (once the machine is booted) between my sisters 10.3.2 desktop and my 10.5.1 desktop on my Mac Air.

Do people just one day stop writing code that should graphically look the same from OSX desktop to the OSX desktop?

I’m just confused I guess. Mac is supposed to just work, then please just work.

I’m upgrading my sister’s computer to 10.4, then she should be able to the load the proper itunes and be able to sync her ipod. It’s just annoying. I’m not scared of other operating systems, I fixed a networking problem she had for months that my “computer genius” step-father had tried to correct but couldn’t do anything “because it’s a mac”. I knew there was a reason I don’t talk to that side of the family. Currently my “regular” computing devices include – XP Desktop for work, Mac Air Book 10.5 for work, Hardy Heron Laptop for myself, XP desktop for home games and movies, Windows 2k3 server for home. My micro OS’s include Maemo on my soon to be delivered n810 and Palm OS and my TX.

At work I’m a main person to say that Mac is not built for the enterprise, they have poorly designed business software when it comes to managing a mixed environment. Now the argument back is that Microsoft should make tools to manage Macs, I believe for acceptance in the full enterprise that needs to be reversed. Apple needs to roll over backwards fitting itself in, I mean I have an easier time working with Linux in an enterprise environment then Mac. The ironic thing is I never heard anyone ever say “Linux just works”.

For my stepfather that is scared of alternative Operating Systems, like the big scary Mac. It took my wife and I a total of 15 minutes in which she used her N810 tethered via bluetooth to her phone to google the questions I asked her. She fed me back the information after she filtered it and bang – working networking.

If your not willing to work out of your comfort zone and approach new things, you will never grow. This means no matter how you look on the outside and what your resume says about you, like sitting down at the 10.3.2 desktop and not noticing anything different, you still need to be upgraded or replaced. At this point you are no longer truly useful except for some obscure things and can not compete in modern thought.

Getting to Know My Sister All Over Again

Creeva — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:17:52 +0000

I’ll start this with saying I have 3 sisters and 4 brothers, each unique from one another, each I have a different relationship with. I am the oldest in my family and ironically I’m closest with the fourth in line – one of my sisters. My sisters that is third in line I have really talked to that often. Basically there is no tension of family issues there, talking about it last night we’re just kind of nuetral towards each other. There isn’t the tension that I have with my brother directly behind me or she has with my sister directly behind her.

We had dinner last night and had a moment we haven’t had in a long time. We discussed my relationship with my mother, which is strained since I have refused to talk to her for 14-15 months now. My sister did her dutiful job of trying to keep the peace and I brought it up to get it out of the way in the beginning of the night and not let it be the 900 lb. gorilla in the room. She stated that I should give my mother a chance and I relayed my side of the story and thoughts on the issue. After we got that out of the way she seemed more at ease.

It took a good 30-45 minutes for her to be comfortable talking with me. Before she was I asked the simple question if she was happy. She said yes. I told her that’s all I want for, just like any of my family. We caught up on all the problems and mundanity of normal life, the things you would mention in passing to a friend but you don’t get out when it’s someone you don’t talk with too often. We discussed her finally getting online and options so we could keep in touch more often and readily. Both of us haven’t gone out of our way to spend time together.

We discussed the problems and triumphs in our individual relationships and the things we had been through the last few years. I pointed out to her that we hadn’t had time or availability to talk alone in eleven years. The last time we hung out for more then a couple minutes without significant others or family around was the family vacation to Florida we took. I had allowed her to tag along with me for the day at Universal Studios. To put this in perspective she was ten years old at the time and if I had asked her if she was happy then it wouldn’t have the broad implications that asking it today does.

At the end of the night we had to part ways. She was called into work and I had community band practice. We discussed trying to do this once a month for the days that I manage to make it up north specifically for community band. My current monthly schedule works out as thus:

Once a month with my grandparents
Once a month with my second in line sister
Once a month with my third in line sister
Once a month with friends in that area of the world.

So I’ve added a bit more meaning and family into my life as part of my stint into community band. I’m glad to be getting to know my sister again. I’m grateful she is happy. Hopefully we’ll gain some of the closeness that I have with my other sister as time goes on.

My Mural

Creeva — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:12:46 +0000

This was my bedroom wall back in high school – one day the summer before my senior year I started by painting my initials on the wall. It grew over time. Friends came over they signed the wall, I painted the names of my closest friends and girlfriends of different eras on the wall. It was a work of art, and epic time of my life. It was a living diary that shared information with those who entered and those who embraced it.

Every time someone came over something was added or removed from the wall. It went so far that even some parents signed it. It was a moment at time which I lived and breathed inside my mural, it was an extension of myself that I didn’t have for years.

When I moved out to go to college my brother inherited my room. Out when the mural, lost under paint was the soul that previously breathed into that room. After my brother, two of my sisters inherited that room. None of them kept up the mural tradition. Part of me had hoped my siblings would have taken up the torch, either taking their own wall or painting over the areas I had painted and made it their own.

Now it’s a plain painted wall and the pictures above are all that exists of the soul that lies beneath the current paint.

My blog now is my modern mural. Granted my friends don’t participate here like they did back then, but the blog I think is more ethereal to them as the wall was all those years ago. It doesn’t give them a chance to leave their mark the way the tangible wall allowed them to exist. The picture was take a week or two before I left for college. I lost myself after that. Lost was my childhood and the friendships I left behind. Moving on from the past and onto the next stage of my life. I am myself and no other. I have parts of myself that have been painted over and will never again emerge. Still for those that know, part of myself will always shine through because they know what exists beneath paint.

Breaking the TV Habit

Creeva — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:05:00 +0000

Lifehacker posed the question how did you break the TV habit? Since I can’t post on the lifehacker comments due to their screening process that I haven’t yet passed and I’m too lazy to go through I thought i would place my answer here.

I was a creature of habit that even when I wasn’t watching TV it was on and would watch TV “settling” for shows – I mean there are very few people that watch the Magic Johnson Show or Becker before they went to bed just because it was on and something to watch.

One of the major changes has been technology, both the advancement of it and the lack there of. When we purchased our new house about a year and a half ago we picked up cable immediately and the gluttony of television kicked. After the introductory period of 29.99 a month ended and the bill went up to 59.99 a month we sat and questioned if we really needed it.

It seemed that we were only watching law and order 99% of the time – since it was always on. Since I was a big DVD purchaser I looked at this as being 1-2 box sets of other DVDs that I cuold buy that month instead of cable. At that point we ditched cable. Our house is far enough from the major cities that we get one stations and even that is 75% snow. This meant no more live television for us. We started watching the shows we liked via streaming media on the computer we have hooked up to the television or via our laptops.

Slowly I got out of hte buying a girth of DVD’s and subscribed to netflix – this saved my money since in the 5 months I’ve had netflix I have only purchased 3-4 DVDs that I really want compared to the 10-15 I would have purchased otherwise.

Netflix and streaming mean that there are no more late nights watching Becker or Sisters because nothing else is on. I no longer have to settle and the process of going to a website and multitasking is a little bit more active then traditional TV viewing.

So by using streaming and netflix I watch more shows that I want to watch when I want to watch them. I also save money. Netflix is 16.99 a month compared to the 59.99 for cable and the other 100.00 a month I would have spent in DVDs. My quality of life has actually improved since I don’t waste time on shows like the Magic Johnson talk show any more (yes I realize that was canceled long ago but I wanted and apt comparison to the bottom rung of television I was on).