Thursday, March 27, 2003

k this one isn't going to be pretty, but I know I'll feel better afterwards, so here goes.

Dinner with my dad last night --- just the two of us.  90 minutes with the man whose genes I inherited, and he never asked how I was.  Although maybe to his credit, I only ever answer him with a "fine" cuz he seems so disinterested in anything deeper.  Maybe he made an executive decision and bypassed the "fine."  Or maybe he truly doesn't care.  It doesn't bother me as much today.  I got cranky last night, but today I'm "fine".  Laugh.  I slay myself.

At the end of dinner (which he paid for, thanks), he gave me a hug goodnight, and remarked in a very concerned tone of voice that I was too thin.  Gee thanks.  Then, he inquired if I was eating and couldn't I gain 10-20 pounds.  Mother fucker!  Who does he think I got my skinny genes from??  Then he says my sister has lost some weight, and she's almost as skinny as I am.  Grrrrr.....  I've been the same weight (give or take 5 pounds) for about 15 years,  Well, except when I went through my bodybuilding phase and gained 10 pounds of muscle.  Omg, that was so hard to maintain.  I was drinking protein shakes a few times a day.  I literally brought food with me to the gym and ate while I was working out.  Lol, that used to piss off a lot of people, watching me scarf down McDonald's fries.  But I digress.

So, he completely lived up to our family motto.  I heard all about his trip to L.A. and the smog there.  I heard about the contractor who's remodeling his kitchen.  I heard about the contractor's wife & dogs & new house.  I heard that he refers to this contractor as "son".  Wtf???  Seven kids weren't enough?  I stayed pretty quiet throughout dinner because I didn't want to be bothered dredging all this up again.  It obviously has no lasting effects.  But he's home alone (his new wife is still in L.A.), so he's bored and wants to be kept company.

On the drive home, I kept repeating to myself how lucky I am in life and this is all superficial shit, so I shouldn't let it bother me.  Most of the world seems to be in the midst of a tragedy, and I'm whining about hurt feelings.  I'm 30-something -- I don't need parents.  [Hehe, good, cuz I don't have any.  ;)]    I was driving Galahad's car and tried to cheer myself up with how cool it is.  I was almost smiling when I turned onto our street.

I pulled into our driveway, shut the engine off, and the fucking car kept running.  I sat there in disbelief listening to a hum and telling myself that it wasn't coming from the car.  I started it up and turned it off again.  There it was.  I got out and put my hand on the hood to verify that it was indeed emanating from the cool car that had just cheered me up.  Fuck!  It was.   :(   So I dialed my Galahad's cellphone --- got voicemail.  I ran inside the house and called his karate school.  How embarrassing.  I asked the man who answered to interrupt and get him.  I was weighing in my mind which was worse, embarrassing & bothering him at class or letting his car do something fucked up.  I hope I made the right call.  He says he's leaving then and I tell him I'm just going to drive around the block and switch through some gears or something.  Fuck, my answer to everything is to reboot.  That didn't help somehow.  :(  You guessed it, driving around the block and switching through gears did absolutely nothing except make me feel all yummy for driving a cool car again.  ;)  So, I came inside and changed and waited for him to come home.

He comes in and tells me about this horrible accident that just happened on the turn into our street -- same color car as his that he caught out of the corner of his eye at night.  His heart did a little flip, and he had to give himself a little talk saying he would turn the corner and see his car sitting in the driveway and know his girl wasn't the one lying in the street on a stretcher.  So that kind of helped again with the perspective thing. 

He started fiddling with his car, and I of course was already cranky.  Uh oh.  I had my feelings hurt in about 3 minutes, so I said screw this and retreated upstairs to my library and my book.  I read about one page before I gained perspective and went back down to apologize and to help in any way I could.  We (meaning him) managed to figure some temporary workaround until it could be properly fixed.  I orchestrated the flashlight and didn't rant about my night until later, after he had eaten.

So, the moral of the story is.... sushi dinners are still good even if the company is deprecatory towards me.  And cool cars do indeed cheer me up but it's only a temporary yumminess.  =)