Procrastinating
i hate my job.
therefore, i’m going to not do my job for a while, and do this instead.
so we went to my parents’ house for my li’l sister’s birthday – my mom and her sister were alreading drinking when i got there. my mom and dad were the nicest to each other i’ve seen for months. it was sort of unnerving, actually … not because i didn’t want it to be so, but because i’m so used to my dad snarling about something and my mom just goading him on (whether she’s conciously intending to or not …) laura was even pleasent (or at least, she didn’t say much) to Jon when he got there after work.
i don’t know … just the nervous anticipation, waiting for a shoe to drop and someone to start arguing … it’s torture watching my family disintigrate because both my parents are so fucking stubborn that neither will acknowledge the other’s complaints, let alone work together to find a middle ground.
i know much of the fault lies with my dad, because he’s a control-freak and has very few interpersonal skills. he thinks the best way to get things done is to yell the first time and escalate from there. mom’s not much better though; she just lets him drag her down to his level of communication, then cries about how he interacts with her later. i keep telling her "if he’s not willing to change the way he talks to you (and you can’t MAKE him change), then you have to change the way you respond. lay down rules for yourself, tell him that you’ve made rules about how you’re willing to be spoken to and that if he stops communicating with you like an adult instead of like how he communicates with the kids, you’re going to stop participating in the conversation!"
"oh, that’s a great idea, i really should do that, you’d have been a great candidate for a degree in psychology …"
and nothing changes.
my sister internalizes everything, and consequently i’m just waiting for another incident like the vanilla extract episode. the older of my two little brothers has pretty much no respect for either of my parents, i think … he’s smarter than hell, too, and i think that just makes things worse. zeffy … i’m not sure what’s going on with him. he’s the baby, and he’s a really good kid, so i think he’s pretty much under the radar still. but i haven’t lived there for going on 3 years now, so i don’t have much time to see what’s going on. … heh – other than the fact that he’s always doing crazy shit on his bike and other sports stuff … i wonder if that’s a symptom … accident-prone for a purpose. it pisses my dad off cuz he’s more worried about the doctor’s fees …
anyway, on a more cheerful note, Jon got a part-time job to suplement Matco. he’s working at a little computer supply & tech store here in kent, 8 – 11 am M-F. he’s all excited about it, and insists that it’s just to help pay off his credit cards, but he keeps adding things like, "and i can start putting something back in the savings for the wedding" and, when i asked him to try and cover groceries for next week: "oh, this new job’ll be able to help with things like that, too!"
i can’t help feeling a little bit like he took this job because there’s so little i can help with monitarily. i’m dreading the day we get into a tiff about something and he brings up the fact that i STILL don’t have a better job and he covers practically everything and … etc. he’ll probably appologize later (he always appologizes after we fight; one of the reasons i think we’ll be a "forever" story), but still …
God please let Davey Tree want me … please please please please please …