New Eyes Coming Soon.

I’ve had these glasses since August 2001. I didn’t even realize how faded they were getting. Let’s compare.

September 2001

January 29, 2006

Okay, maybe it doesn’t show up well in picture, but take my word for it.

Karen’s been helping me pick out glasses since I was eleven. I like having plastic frames, so I’m going to get another one. These are red in the front and sort of black/blue in the back. She had a bunch that were red and green. She had one that was black and red striped. I ended up picking out the first one she showed me. I was a little turned off by the more square shapes they’re selling, as opposed to how oval my current pair is. It’s redder than mine. There was a red and pink one, but it was too red, even for me. Would really have brought out my lips, though.

I do have rather red lips. *giggles*

Will post pictures when I get them next week. I’ve gotten so used to seeing myself in these frames. They’re.. me. They’re Timmy™!

So Karen happened to say something about how there aren’t any careers anymore. It was just lighthearted conversation, talking about how markets are changing, demands in optometry and pharmacy.

Get back to the car, and Dad started going off. “What’s all this bullshit she’s talking about? She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

I know his mannerisms, when he starts getting all self-righteous. He’ll start pointing his finger in at about a 20 degree angle to himself and say things pointedly. It’s the “…I am right!” speech.

I’m trying to recall what it is he was saying. I remember my poised reaction. OH. “We were never raised to think like that! I was never raised like that, my father was never raised like that, your uncle, your aunt, they don’t think like that…”

Like what?

It’s the attitude that you have to have some sort of successful job. He said, “Oh, you want to dig ditches? You want to mop floors? Go right ahead, but we are not like them.”

I know too many people that struggle to make ends meet, that resent their jobs, that wish they could have better. So to hear him say this, well, I suppose I have a different perspective. I know everyone that wishes they could have better would want to just smack him across the face.

At some point I said rather neutrally, “All I care is that I’m happy.” Because I have no investment in proving some virtue of some non-career related life. Instead, I tried seeing what he was on about.

Putting down “everyone else” is rather insulting. I told him that he has the good life, he has a good lifestyle, most people do not have his job, he does not appreciate what he has; he is the higher class, why does he care?

Excuse my disjointedness.

My dad enjoys pointing out how there are lots of jobs people simply don’t know about. “Go be a doctor, or a lawyer, or an engineer! They’ll have the same job in ten years!” He doesn’t realize what a small segment of society he’s talking about. Of course, he’s also subtly saying, “Hey, don’t be a fuck-up.”

I’d love to say that I wasn’t raised to believe what he believes, but somewhere in my mind, it echoes. It’s clearly what’s inside him. Something saying, “You have to show that you’re on top! Don’t be a fuck-up!” Obviously I know better. I see through it.

Critical thing he said, “I am responsible for you.” Ah ha. Basing his worth as a person through the perceived “success” of his children. It’s like Wendi used to say, he’s ashamed of us. He wishes he could talk about us and boast about us. Mmmhmm.

I said to him, the amateur therapist, “Don’t put so much pressure on yourself, I’m well aware of what I’m doing, even when it seems like I don’t.”

I give myself credit for staying calm and just letting him go off on his immature rant. And we wonder where I get it from. *points* That same, “OMG! LISTEN TO ME! EVERYBODY ELSE IS WRONG!” *smiles*

Except I don’t point my fingers like that. ; )

Something I’ve noticed over the course of many arguments is that people only get upset or bend out of shape if they’re afraid of being wrong. A world where circumcision for absolutely no reason is somehow justified via parent’s right to mutilate their children is simply not a world I’m willing to live with. So I fight it rather passionately. I see in my dad a fear of us, well, not being able to take care of ourselves. (So to speak, he has said those words before.) He sees himself as part of a 1337 class, and he doesn’t want to be anything less.

I know there are “careers” out there. But he doesn’t recognize that compared to fifty years ago, there aren’t as many “careers” anymore. This is a simple fact, but instead he’s bent on denying the lack of careers and emphasising the few careers left.

I’m probably distorting his position and what he said, but it’s what my empathetic abilities tell me. Shouldn’t everybody want a career? Probably, but it’s not realistic anymore, in my opinion. In my dad’s eyes, he doesn’t believe anybody in Our Family who believes what We Believe should “Settle”. *rolls eyes* He pulls that, “When I was growing up..!” Heh. I’m sure I will, too. Damn kids with their Playstation 33 1/3s.

I digress.

(Excuse the vagueness and abstraction, it’s all I can get out of my memories at this time. NEXT ENTRY!)