Letter to M: The Darker Time

Social: It was a hard slog after my mother died. My dad turned with full, religious conviction to scotch and mallomars to survive. I drove home every weekend to make sure he didn’t pickle himself. A lot of men get married within a year of losing a spouse, but my dad just seemed to take it harder as every day went by, so I spent a lot of time driving back and forth. I had a boyfriend I will describe as “inexplicable” – everything about the relationship was wrong. I don’t know why we got together; I don’t know how we stayed together; I don’t know how any of it happened, but it did. We loved each other, but we fought and we seemed to be constantly hurting each other in one way or another.

Sports: I ran with religious fervor. I completed 4 marathons before I turned 30 – again, with the sole ambition of finishing and not getting hurt. My last marathon was New York in 2000. After the race, I met my brother, went back to his place and took a cold shower. Then I went to the airport, got a flight home and was at work, pain-free the next morning. I don’t even know my time.

Career: It was pretty much in the bag that I would change careers after the requisite grieving period had passed. I tried, and failed, to tell myself that disaster banking was my fate, but I never believed it. What finally pushed me over the edge was something that had nothing to do with work at all.

That boyfriend I always fought with? He didn’t want me in banking either, and he was always after me to try to change jobs somehow. We were always at odds with each other, always arguing. I broke up with after a year, and it was a dark and stormy break up. Lots of rage and recriminations. A certain amount of stalking and scary highway interceptions. In other words, my basic nightmare.

I put up with this for a few months before I encountered him in my front yard at 7am and yelled at him so loud that my neighbors called the police. He fled before so as not to get arrested.

A few months after the yard incident, he hanged himself. His family blamed me, and to this day, they will not acknowledge me even though I have tried to reach out to them a number of ways. I have sent cards, letters. I didn’t dare go to the funeral.

I don’t blame them. It was my fault, when you consider how unhappy I made him. I made him feel bad about himself. I made him feel as if he were not good enough for me. I made him feel like a loser. Then he died. No wonder they blamed me. Whatever the meaning of his death, I have paid for it over and over again on the wheel of karma.

One result of all this was that Kerry (that was his name) left me money to go to graduate school. I gave it back to his family, of course, but I did apply to graduate school to get an MA in English. I had no clear idea at the time whether I would be able to get teaching work; I just knew I couldn’t do the banking thing anymore. I spent two years getting my MA and instantly got a job – really good luck there – except not, which I will explain next time I sit down to write.

Facebook as a form of therapy

Within twenty minutes of joining Facebook, I received a friend request from the man who holds my V card. It just got weirder from there.

My phone didn't stop all night. Bzzz.. Bzzz... Bzzz... all Facebook notifications from or regarding people I haven't seen or talked to in years - in one case, since I was eight years old. It wasn't merely that people were trying to "friend" me. It was that they were wildly encouraging the befriendment of six or seven other people I am connected to in some tenuous way. Or in some major way, like, oh fuck it, the guy after the guy with the V card.

One of the ways I have always defended myself from too much reality is by compartmentalizing things and people. I don't mix my sports friends with my literature friends. I don't mix my work friends with my drinking friends. And I definitely don't cross eras. NO! If you are from high school, you stay in high school. Stay!

You must be wondering what purpose all this organization serves, how it protects me. I'll tell you: all those people from my past have expectations about what I am supposed to be right now. And all those ideas are different. The one from when I was eight years old is still confused and hurt that I didn't marry her older brother, but mostly she is just shocked that I didn't have the imagination to get out of New York City. And if I wasn't going to marry her brother, couldn't I at least married someone?

My literature friends are all aghast that it has been two and a half years since my dad died, and I haven't submitted a draft of the manuscript for them to read. WAIT. They WOULD be aghast if were not so pissed off that I disappeared into the ether for two and a half years without informing anyone that I hadn't died. Because for while there, I bore all the hallmarks of a suicide risk, and I was not polite enough to let the literature friends or anyone else know I wasn't dead.

My online friends are just in shock that I am on Facebook and revealing my actual name because hello, anonymous blog?! Well not for long, apparently. Anyone with an IQ upwards of 80 who reads this blog could find me, and my true identity, on Facebook in less than 10 minutes.

I am really uncomfortable.

How to continue?

*sigh*

Internet, I have decided that compartmentalization is mostly bad. It is not bad in and of itself - but the way I use it is absolutely wrong. I use it to lie to people - passively. To let one group of people think one thing about me and some other group of people think some other thing. I do it to keep people at a distance, and I achieve that by creating a life where no one can ever compare notes. Even as I write this, I am thinking: what's wrong with that? Why isn't it ok to be in-person friends with X person but compartmentalize Z person into the "online" category - and stubbornly refuse to budge?

Answer: Because it's total bullshit. It serves no purpose except to protect myself from some vague idea of disappointing people or not living up to expectations. I don't want my in person friends to know that I have a freaky, post-modern life that I would never share with them. This is the honest truth: the internet is a big part of my life and my in person friends HAVE NO IDEA I HAVE A BLOG.

ALSO: I don't want the online friends to know that, really, seriously? I am 40. I have told you all this, but if you met me you'd all be like, jeez, you really are 40. And you look it.

So I hate Facebook. I hate it. All my compartments are collapsing, and I hate it. However, much as I hate it, I think it'll help me live a more honest life. Who knows: maybe I'll be brave enough to actually meet a blog person in real life this year. Or maybe I'll admit to my sports friends that I have long arguments with other people about how indirect objects work - in Russian. Maybe I'll actually contact all the people I have let believe I have fallen off the face of the earth know I am alive. OH WAIT. Facebook is doing that for me.

Have I mentioned I am uncomfortable? I am. Please comment: does any of this make sense? Or is Facebook really evil and can I please unFacebook myself and get on with my tidy little multi-celled life?

Yes, I care. I care a lot.

I can't get the snippet of code from Google Analytics to stick to the template of my blog. The error message I am getting is something like the XML code is unworthy or some crap like that.

WTF?

Was it always this hard?

The whole problem is enough to make me drink red wine and stuff my face with basmati rice.

And if you don't understand that, we really can't be friends anymore.

Um but honestly can someone help me make this work? Because I am reported to be smart and I am failing. FAIL, FAIL, FAILING.

I do love you though. I can't help myself, and love is all that matters.

(But I fucking want my stats). (Please).

I'm available

No. Not in that way. Stop looking at me like that.

As of eleven days ago, I no longer have a job. Oh wait, I do, but only until August. Then I will be most assuredly available (unless I want to move to North Carolina.) (Which I most assuredly do not.)

Everything but my wallet says I should not go there - that I should stay here and try to make my way, somehow. Any which way.

And y'all know what? I have no idea how to do that.

For starters, I don't think I want to teach anymore. I have been beyond burned out for a long time. People (almost everyone I know) say I should finish my doctorate. Ha! Those people think "getting my doctorate" is something as simple as running out for a jar of peanut butter. (IT"S TOTALLY NOT! IT'S A COMPLETE PAIN IN THE ASS!)

So what should Nina do? (She is open to suggestions.) (But maybe hold off on telling her to get her doctorate.)

Snow, weirdness, pancakes

It snowed about a foot in New York City last night and today it is still... snowing. I wonder how this will impact my move to the new place. (And no, Karl, the drawing was definitely not to scale).

Here are some real pictures for you.




I know these are not very helpful, but it is a small apartment. As much as I am excited, I have an underlying feeling of dread. It has taken some time for me to sort it out, but I now realize the dread comes from having something to lose again, even if it is just furniture and dishes that match. So lately I have to kick myself in the ass about twice a day to remind myself that people do indeed buy furniture and utensils and bath mats and trash cans, and that no, owning these things does not make me frivolous and wasteful. Does it??? I am clearly not a very good consumer.

It's still snowing and I haven't gotten much packing done this morning. So the obvious thing to do is make pancakes. Flip! See you tomorrow.

I am an idiot

I was thinking in the shower today. (Naked! Naked!)

I am an idiot. Here's why:

1) I have a hard time drinking water and breathing at the same time. Seriously. I turn blue.

2) I can make out with a guy and like, have his tongue in my mouth, but I'll break up with him if he expects me to eat off the same fork. That is SO gross.

3) I am afraid of the sound of toilets flushing in the dark. But ONLY when it is dark out.

4) I cry EVERY SINGLE TIME I watch the episode of LOST when Charlie dies.

5) I watch LOST.

6) Oh my God.

7) I am totally fine with how fat I have gotten, yet I won't wash my hair more than twice a week because I don't want it to get "damaged". UH... could I be more damaged... like... everywhere else?

8) Speaking of idiotocity, I put SEVEN different things on my face each day to prevent aging. I am going to be FORTY in ten days. Ten days, people. The bell has rung.

9) I am forty and I still have daddy issues.

10) I am forty and I still count fat grams and calories (note how little good it does me).


Anyone else feel stupid today?

(I love you).

Nina

Welcome to Latvia!

I was in the airport last week for six hours. And while I was there, I had a moment of pure ______________. It occurred to me that I had my passport and enough funds on my person to get out of the country. Options: Casablanca, Lima, Sydney, Riga, Hong Kong, Ulan Bator.

Seriously. I could have been gone. Just gone. Deferring problems so great and terrible that the very wizard himself would have fled the curtain and run screaming from the set. I could have been drinking fermented horse milk (and stuff like that). In Ulan Bator. (Latvia, I hear, is also an excellent option. Someday I will go).

I did not board a flight for some foreign land. I exited the airport and took my passport and my small accumulation of cash (some of which isn't even mine) and went... home.

Instead I am going to try to make my life work. Fix up the broken pieces and toss out that which cannot be fixed. All from right here: New York City.

Latvia will have to wait, but when I do make it there, I sincerely hope that I am wearing a set of raggedy overalls.

And how are you?

Love,

Nina

PS Photo from some recent decade when overalls were fashionable (at least among us Target dwellers). I still wear those sometimes...)

Questions

I have been thinking. (I know. I know. Drink more, think less: happy life). (But I have been thinking anyway).


I have questions for God.

No, the are not questions such as "why have you been so not awesome to me?" and they are not questions like "is there a paradise for Cathead -- even though Cathead was a dirty, dirty sinner (even in his most charming moments)?

My questions are:

1) God, what if the fall angel, Lucifer, the evil one, requested a meeting with you and repented of all his pridefulness and bad behaviors and begged forgiveness? Would you grant it? And if you did, how might that decision impact the whole everything? (I am serious about this question. I really want to know if the fallen angel has ever said to him or herself: gosh... I probably made a serious error, here. Can I fix it?).

2) Catholic theology teaches that if you skip Mass to go bowling with your friends and you get hit by a car on the way home, you are damned just as surely and completely as mass murderers and and child rapists. Are you serious?

3) God, I believe in you. I think you exist and I think you are powerful and probably good looking, too. But love you? I am sorry, but I don't really love you. Don't get me wrong. I want to love you. I am told that I should. But love is something people feel for their friends, their family, their Catheads - maybe even their favorite board game. The fact is, God, I cannot picture you, unless you count the endless images of Jesus stretched out on a cross and looking for all the world like he was of Swiss descent, even though the overwhelming likelihood is that he was short and dark and certainly had brown eyes. Oh wait. Where was I? Love is personal. It is big hearted and faithful and hopeful. However, in your case, my images of you are ephemeral and my understanding of your influence in my life is at best... confusing. Frankly, I am terrified of you. Love? Where do I even start? I mean thanks that I am I fat, white, American person. Thanks that I am not deformed or prohibitively stupid. But I think you know I would rather have had other challenges. More on that later.

I ask these questions well aware that if I die in the next ten minutes I will be pulled to pieces by demons and roasted alive (dead) for the consumption of demon-types who love the taste of fat white girls. But I still have to ask.

Comments: if you have one (or two questions) that you would ask God (assuming you believe in God and assuming you would get an answer), what would it be?)

M15

This post reveals facts I am uncomfortable sharing. OH! My blog is (nominally) anonymous.

Though Cathead died on Saturday morning, I did not dispose of his body until today. Why? Because the humane society closed early, a development I welcomed.

Por Que?

Because I was not ready to let go.

Internet, I did not like my cat very much. I loved him a lot, but like him? No. Herewith, some highlights of Cathead's life:

1) When he was a kitten, he bit my dad so badly that only a trip to the emergency room prevented my dad from losing his right arm. (No lie).

2) The night before my best friend's wedding, Cathead bit said friend so badly that she had to go to the emergency room. And when she got there, the ER doctors put her on anti-biotics so serious that her birth control was rendered ineffective. That's right, people. Condoms on her HONEYMOON.

3) Once, when I was asleep, Cathead chewed off a large hank of my hair. Then he decorated my apartment with it.

But we did have our good times, too. The night my dad died he slept in my arms and patted my crumpled face with his tiny paw. The day we moved into Bob and Kate's asylum for middle aged refugees, he did a charming rendition of "The Sun will Come Out Tomorrow" on the pool table. He scattered about 50 puzzle pieces onto the floor, but the sentiment was genuine. And as Julie notes, back in his happier days, nothing pleased him more than to steal my rosary beads and entangle himself in their sparkly goodness. In the floor of my shower. Where (I assume) he prayed all day that I might turn my heart and mind back to God - or at least get some compassion skills. (It did not work).

I am trying to get to the comedy of today. The segue is just not happening, so sloppy segue. Here it is.

This morning, I had to take Cathead to the Humane Society for cremation. I put him in his cat carrier (please, oh please don't ask me how I kept him cold all night. Use your imagination. Or check Twitter). I was composed during the loading process and I was numb during the walk to the M15 bus station. It was the activity on the bus that did me in.

Cathead died with his eyes open. Therefore, people could see his eyes, and because lots of people who ride the public bus are not very bright, many of them wanted to stick their hands into my cat carrier and pet my deceased cat.

I kid you not.

Please note, internet: cats who do not blink are DEAD. Cute they may be, but they are DEAD.

I managed to keep the hands of my fellow metro riders out of the box of death by explaining (lying). I told them Cathead was sedated, you know, since he had just been to the vet. It worked. (Have I mentioned that some people, while children of God and possessing excellent hearts, are stupid?)

I arrived at the Humane Society, I stood in line for a few minutes. That was ok.

Until the woman behind me spotted the dead cat in my carrier and started sobbing. For my loss.

"Oh, I know you are grieving," she said. (Have I mentioned crying is contagious)?

"Yeah," I sobbed.

"How old was he?" she said.

"Seventeen," I sniffled.

"OH! Mine is seventeen. It could be any time!" she sobbed.

So we cried and we made asses of ourselves at the Humane Society. I cried for Cathead and she cried because she knew very soon she would be just like me, standing in line in an animal shelter carrying a box of DEAD.

Here is my last living picture of Cathead. I like it because it captures both his repose and his restlessness. He is chillin' because he is in his favorite chair. But his ears are up because he is about to smack the shit out of an unsuspecting spider.



I think about justice all the time. It is the only thing that offers hope that we live in a world with meaning. If my hope is not in vain, Cathead is at peace, praying the rosary, and beating the ever loving shit out of whatever displeases him. That's what he loved to do, and though he was... challenging... he was my kind of challenge. He was my first, my last, my only. My Cathead.

Waiting, part two

My cat is on my bed exactly where I placed him last night. The food and water is untouched. And my cat is dead.

I feel surprisingly emotionless about it... so far. I keep telling myself that I have cleaned up my last sand dollar of cat puke. I keep telling myself that he will never scream at me again and again and again for no reason. I keep telling myself that he was old and that he was tired. (He was). Also it had to happen someday. And he was (obviously) suffering (last night, anyway). But I still feel like shit.

Should I have taken him to the vet last night when I realized he wasn't breathing right? Should I have gotten on the cat boards and hoped that cat fanatics on the west coast had an answer? Should I have been done something other than shove food and water at him? What could have saved him?

Well, whatever the case may be, he is not saved. I have stressed tested him and he is most assuredly not living.

As I write this, he is just where I left him on my bed last night, and yes, I know that is a violation of something or other. I'll have to take him to be cremated today (isn't that what I am supposed to do)? But right this minute, I am just waiting until I feel up to putting him in a duffle bag and taking him to the vet. Let's hope I get that going before the flies arrive.



Bon Voyage, Cathead. I loved you. I liked you. I wanted to feed you to other, foul-tempered animals.

But mostly I loved you. (You were darn cute).

Love,

Nina

Waiting

Today I walked into my bathroom to find my cat curled up behind the sink. He was not moving and he appeared short of breath. I watched him for a few minutes and then I came back half an hour later. Same thing. Labored breathing. Glassy-eyed. And not liking me at all. (He has always hated me, so... whatever).

I decided to pick him up and move him to a more comfortable section of my apartment.

Uh oh.

He hissed when I picked him up and placed him on my bed. When I placed a clean bowl of water under his chin, his face sank into the water until her snarfed it up his nose. Then he drank a little and glared at me as if I were the Worst Person in the World.

So I put some food near the water. On my bed. Next to the water on my bed. And he is still motionless, breathing. And hating me, I am sure.

I sincerely do not expect him to live until morning. He is 17, which is probably about right for a pure bred cat, but I don't know. I do know that if he does go, I will have an ocean of guilt to wallow in. He is a pain in the ass, but he is my pain in the ass.

Anyone else had a cat behave... like this and magically be ok in the end?

It's going to be a long, long night.

Love,

Nina

PS: By the way, he has faked dying before... just never this convincingly. Last time it was swaying and drooling for about three hours - and then eating two pounds of cat food. (I don't see that happening this time).

More Again?

My family continues to shrink. My sister's husband has abandoned their marriage after 9 years. They dated 5 years before they married in 2000. I would post a picture if it were not a violation of their privacy. And I have to say that although my sister is her own special snowflake, I couldn't be married to her for ten minutes. This post is not about blame. It is about grief.

Regardless of my feelings or opinions about Chiara and her marriage and her spouse, I am heartbroken.

Is it normal to feel heartbroken when a marriage fails? A marriage that is not your own?

I suspect I am suffering from transference; am I making all the sad I won't let myself feel about the loss of my mother and my father come out through this seemingly ordinary civic event.

So much loss. So much regret. So much sadness. So little to hold onto. My sister's husband was (is) just a regular guy, but once the gates of my family corral close behind you, they close behind you forever - or so I thought. It breaks my heart to think that anyone would want to get out, to no longer be one of us.

Time again

What happens next?

Seven months after moving into Bob and Kate's Asylum, I have been thinking a lot - probably more than is healthy for a girl like me.

Everything I assumed would happen in my life did not happen, and a whole lot of other things happened instead. Let me assure you that this is not whining; it is a simple statement of facts.

I wanted to graduate from college without having learned anything temporally relevant, and for the most part, I succeeded. Byron, Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath - cool. I even composed a performance art piece during which I extinguished candles on various parts of my body. (I got an A on in that class).

I am not constituted to solve world famine, genocide, dirty terrible people of other cultures were the jurisdiction of other young idealists. I just wanted peace. Green grass. Leafy trees, waterfalls, smiling babies. This makes me a lightweight. Morally speaking, of course.

And of course, because on the very best of days, God thinks I am fit for... what? a spittoon? I find that I am the person my family and my therapist believe is responsible for confronting the evil of Erika. Why? Because of everyone in my family, I was the one most injured. Also, because no one else in my family wants to explain it to her because it's all so very untidy and Gosh, what to say? So Nina should just do it.

Normally I am up for a writing project, especially if I can be vituperative and profane.

But this time? This time... internet, I confess that I simply would not know where to start. I just want her to die. But before she does, I want her to know perhaps for the first time, what she did to me, my family, and my father, the love of my life.

Crazy train? I'll be at the bar.

Love,
Nina

Attendance

If you are still reading (bless you), please comment so I know who you are.  Include also any recommendations regarding content, style, design, polish color - whatever.   Rethinking things and I need some ideas.   Help Nina out, por favor.  

I love you more than ever.  

.... in Translation

I had a post almost ready to go about how happy I am that things are settling down and how glad I am that I can live my life free from all interference from the recent abhorrent and improbable events characterizing the last three years of my life. The first three sentences feature the word "happy" in multiple usages.

Too bad I am not going to publish that one.

Herewith, an email received from Erika, the woman I introduced to my father, the woman my father married, the woman my father lost all interest in his children over, the woman who gained power of attorney over my father, transferred all of his assets into her own name, and finally, drafted a will (she got the template from http://www.wills.com/!) calling herself sole beneficiary and executor of this will. (The part where she took control of his assets beforehand was just good planning).

Was I about to show you an email? Oh yeah. Here it is along with my translations in the interleaves:

Hello,

As we hurtle toward "the" are the quotation marks supposed to denote the date of my father's death as superlative? Because guess what? In terms of the agony his death caused my family, the actual dying part ranks pretty low. The death march out onto the deck to have our "last" ever conversation with him probably wins the prize)  anniversary, things here are pretty raw are you fucking kidding me? It's raw sitting on your ass in the million dollar house that you did nothing to earn -- in your windsock of nightgown, all day -- because you don't need a job because you are literally drowning in cash - ie, all the money my father made while he was married to my mother? THAT is raw? You want to know what's raw, sister? Raw is living in someone else's attic because you can't afford to support yourself.... because your credit card bills for all those visits to the ICU were stratospheric. Raw??? here. THERE??? You mean out on the deck overlooking the lake, shoveling food into your mouth that you didn't pay for? Maybe it's the same where you are. I wish. I would vastly prefer to lay on my ass and do nothing -- except for the really challenging part of the week when I had to go visit my grief counsellor. Must be nice. There's a really bad stretch up ahead, but some of those memories are of us sticking together and helping each other. You want to know what I remember about that "stretch"? I remember paying $1200 for a plane ticket, $400 for a rental car, and $120 for a hotel room in order to see my dad, and I remember, as I walked into my father's house, you, Erika, putting your arms around my father and saying, "You never have to talk to her again" before you pushed him, against his will into the bedroom for a "nap." A superlative one, you betcha. Was that the "sticking together" you were thinking of? Or was it the part where you fled my father's funeral because one person from my mother's family dared to show up and wreck your delusion that my father actually loved someone, ever, other than you? As hard as this anniversary is, maybe we can bring something good out of it, something that Harry would want. OMG I can hardly wait. How many buckets of blood do you want to bet that the really special and virtuous and right thing my father would supposedly want is actually something YOU want for yourself? So I will say to you all please forgive me for anything you feel I did or did not do. Never, ever, ever. Now go put a bag over your head and drown yourself. If you look into your heart and can't quite find that forgiveness, I looked. Nope! then look inside Harry's heart and things may look different to you. Well, well, well. There it is. My father would want us to forgive you... for alienating him from us, appropriating all of his assets, and making us strangers in our own house. Except to be technical, it wasn't our house anymore anyway. Bitch, for you to invoke the love and respect we have for our father and then endeavor to manipulate us into forgiving you for dismantling my family, taking what you wanted, and going out for a latte, illustrates in hi-def that you know nothing about forgiveness. You don't know what it is, what it is for, or what it means. My father was a man - not Jesus Christ himself. And you, dirty pirate whore, don't get to drop a bomb on someone else's life and then say "if you could only see this from your father's perspective, you would see that he really did want to destroy you. And who are we to question his will? Or is it His? I get so confused between Jesus and my husband. But I know they both wanted you to get fucked over, so none of this is my fault." He was the most forgiving person anyone of us will ever know, As far as I know, the only crime I committed against my father in the last years of his life was loving him so much my hair fell out - that and "bothering him" by visiting him while he had cancer. But whatever, dad. Since forgiveness is such a strong attribute of yours, sorry. I really regret having that much faith in you. If Erika got you a little confused with God, I got you a lot confused with God. 100%, actually, which is why a nine months later, I still can't believe you abandoned me, all for a piece of ass. So yeah, I am sorry. A lot. I should never have made that mistake and we all learned more about God from watching him the last couple years of his life than we'll ever learn anywhere else. If that was supposed to teach us about God, no thanks. I think I'll just be secular humanist or something. I hear those people are at least nice to each other and believe in justice. I could use a little of both of those, or a lot. Whatever is available.

We can't fix the world, but we can fix our little part of it. Solve my problem for me by saying you are cool with with what I did to you. Then we'll go to work on what? Gaza?

I love you all.

(... translation: I love that you were all foolish enough to trust me. That makes you good people.)


Yeah, I know. I know. I know. But if I can't do this here, where can I do it?

Thank you for reading.

Explanations

Hi!

I have complained a lot lately, and I should (perhaps) explain myself. Or at least elaborate on certain circumstances that (sometimes, but not always) threaten my equanimity.


Issue the first: Living situation.

After my dad died and the final round of bills associated with his illness and death hit my mailbox, I realized there was about 25 cents worth of financial cushion between me and total ruin. Many people, including you, helped me avoid actually presenting myself at the courthouse for judgment with my remaining one (or two) quarters. Instead, I moved in with a couple in their 70s who needed help cleaning out their house so they could move to a smaller one. Result: Nina starts getting financially better off, and the couple has someone around to do basically whatever they can dream up for her to do. Go ahead and notice that "help cleaning out their house" was about the last thing they actually wanted Nina to do, and forgive Nina for not elaborating on what they really wanted. Use your imagination. (Stop that! Don't be so gross). Result: frustration. But also a fair amount of comedy, because whenever you move in with new people who are absolutely nothing like you, funny things happen. Like the day when I brought Liam over and Bob refused to believe Liam was boy because Liam is so pretty. And so for the entirety of the visit, Bob called Liam "girlfriend" - which offended Liam so much he just sat down and cried. Awesome.

Issue the second: Bob's untimely exit.

Death finds me. Bob and Kate were on vacation in Montenegro, Bob came down with a little itty bitty infection and as sometimes happens when people are 76, the infection got really big, and Bob died. If you read the preceding paragraph, you know that "cleaning out the house" was low on Bob and Kate's list of things for me to do for them. In fact, it never made the list. So you can infer that a good portion of the preparations for getting Bob properly memorialized and publicly adored were left to me. Now, to be fair, I didn't do that much because there was a mountain of things to do. I only did what a person could do in twelve hours a day for the 10 days leading up to the funeral. Did my job get done? Oh, sure. But only because I skipped the heavenly sleep inducing medicine and crammed it all in - or because I snuck upstairs for 10 minutes here or there to grade a test or a paper. In the end, we buried Bob a month after he was repatriated - an event that turned out to be just about as dramatic and emotionally wrenching as the funeral. Here's another picture for you:



Issue the third: My sister.

Since my father died, I have removed my step mother and every other person associated with her from my life with surgical finality and precision. My sister called me last week, and she was hysterical because she had just found out that my dad stopped contributing money to her IRA when he got married. When she told me this, I said, "Duh. You didn't know that?" And then I carefully and tactfully explained to her that our dad really did disinherit us and that I thought she might really might be able to get her brain around it if she simply read the will, of which I have a copy. Then suddenly she said, "I am less and less ok with the will." To which I said "Then perhaps you should remove your nose from that bitch's ass crack and join the rest of your family -- you know, the other forty or so odd people who are united in their hatred of the bitch dad married. And then my sister said, without a trace of irony "If I do that she won't leave me any of dad's money when she dies."

DUH. SHE IS NOT GOING TO LEAVE YOU ANY MONEY, NO MATTER HOW DEEP YOUR BURY YOU NOSE IN HER ASS CRACK. GROW UP.

And then I had to carefully and tactfully explain to my sister why I can have no further contact with her as long as she continues to betray her entire family all for a chance at getting dad's money. Her response was "Well, you and I have never had much in common anyway. Bye."


Issue the fourth: my job.

I had a great meeting with my boss this week. Awesomely good. It turns out that despite all my fears to the contrary, I am not on the short list to be laid off. And they are not even that annoyed with me because I live in New York. Whee! Except not. For those of you unaware of the history, my dad met the woman he eventually chucked us in the wood chipper for because I introduced him to her. She was my boss at the job I still have. Think about that for a minute. Ok that is enough; you can stop now. After my current boss gave me all this good news about my job security, she told me that I have a new supervisor (which in this case is a mini-boss). And guess who it is? It is the only person at Sweet Little College who still keeps in touch with my step mother. So it's clear: I have surgically removed everyone connected to that bitch from my life - even my sister. And now, because God is apparently not done shredding me yet, I am FORCED to have professional contact with one of my step mother's best friends. And I can't do anything about it. Not one thing.


And so that is why lately I am dramatic and self pitying. I guess you didn't need all this explanation and I suppose I could have written more stuff about being attracted to inappropriate people, but hey, at least now you know why I still require big piles of sedating drugs to sleep at night. The fun just keeps on coming.


Oh but in case it is not clear: I am fine. Those meds really work.

Love,

Nina

Oh Dear Jesus God have Mercy

I will explain later why many families had made the last 3 weeks of my life... challenging. For now, I leave you only this:




A preamble to the photograph I mean to post about the burial.


More on that later.

Nina says more about death and stuff

We have just concluded the interminable living room cheese eating event that characterizes the days between the moment of death and the detailing of the body. Now we are detailing ourselves to go to the funeral parlor, which is just around the corner. And this makes me happy. And this fact, that of my happiness, I do not have to keep a secret from the People's Republic of Blogistan: Of all the death events common to most American households, my absolute favorite is the Viewing or even better, the Wake.

Those days of endless cheese calories are necessary, to be sure, but they provide only distraction, not closure.

As for funerals, I have been to my share, and the results, at least for me, are always the same. It is a public display of the mourning family members, who get to sit in the front row and try not to make complete asses of themselves while the rest of the people in the church do whatever letting go they have to do - while, of course, watching the family lest someone come totally unglued and require their laces cut. (No one ever admits that they secretly want to see at least one person lose all composure, because hey, it's the FUNERAL - the LAST GOODBYE to whomever it is everyone put on all the itchy and uncomfortable clothing for. Somebody, anybody be in pain. Show some hurt, please. Otherwise we could have stayed in our sweatpants and watched Antiques Roadshow.

No, funerals are just not good.

I like wakes. Viewings. At a funeral parlor, the deceased is actually in the room, open casket or no, and I still believe that human beings are just enough percentage of monkey to actually need to let go of the bodies of our dead. At a wake, it takes a special kind of selfishness to lose track of the point of the event: someone is dead, and that someone is not you, and though you might be missing Antiques Roadshow right now... it's not about you. And if you are having trouble not thinking about yourself, there is a dead person in the room to remind you to cut it out.

And then by the time the funeral happens, any residual letting go can and does happen, and maybe someone freaks out and requires smelling salts, which is at least sort of interesting. And then everyone goes home and wonders how long they have to wait before it is acceptable to do something normal, like go to a movie.

I saw my mother's body, and the funeral was just an afterthought -- expect that everyone was staring at me and waiting for me to wail and throw myself into the aisle and have a seizure.

I did not see my father's body. I would like to have seen it but I was not allowed to. And truth be told, by the time of his death, I had not really seen the man who raised me and was married to my mother in a very long time. My presence at my father's funeral felt more like an imposition on my step mother than anything else. I could have happily skipped it.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find funerals as useless as I do? Go ahead and disagree - I am pretty sure I am in the minority here.

Love,
Nina

Mixed News

Three nights ago, the boiler (sort of) exploded and silty water spewed all over the basement floor. By the time I caught it, the flood was an inch high. (I would have photographed this disaster for you had I clearance to violate the privacy of Bob and Kate's basement). (I don't).

So Bob and Kate's daughter and I spent some uncalculated number of hours doing the hazmat dance in her parents' basement. Then we got tired of hazmatting around and left the rest to be dealt with later this week.

Only later this week, as in right now, got exciting and busy is a way that no one wanted it to. Somewhere in the Monday time frame, we learned that Bob was not feeling well and that he and Kate would be returning from their vacation early so that he could see his own doctors. At the time I thought this an odd choice. Why fly all the way back to the U S of A just to get some antibiotics and a blood culture? Don't they have that stuff over yonder?

Well, duh. Leave it to me to miss the main point, which was, of course, that his condition was so serious that they did not think he would survive without the aid of his own team of doctors.

The "duh" factor was of course the main obstacle to me fully comprehending what all was said to me two days later, when my friend called me to tell me that her father had died. Of an infection. While awaiting medical evacuation.

Folks, I still don't have my head wrapped around this, but I have just enough brain damage to remember what today is like for people who loved Bob, in particular his daughter. So I am doing what I can: answering phones, taking messages, running the vacuum cleaner, sweeping up the crumbs, and hoping I can do something, anything right for the many family and friends who are grieving.

If you consider how often we, the friends of the deceased, feel like we just wish desperately that there were something we could do, I feel incredibly grateful to be in a position to do something for the family, even if it is just answering the phone and putting fresh flowers in the all the vases. Oh and casseroles. Making a lot of those, too.

Now that I am at the bottom of this post, I realize that the title makes no sense. There is nothing "mixed" about death. So the mixed part, if there is one, is that for at least right now, I don't feel helpless and ineffective. This feeling is not likely to persist, but I will take it for now.

Rest in peace, Bob. You are deeply loved.

Done and Done

If I get a chance to write tomorrow, the story will feature my doormen sneering at me, the porters sitting on their asses watching me move everything all by myself, me breaking down crying every time no one was looking, several things I care about getting stolen as I unloaded the car, and finally my cat biting the bejeezus out of my hand because he was afraid to get in the cat-carrier at 10 o'clock tonight when I finally got back up there to pick him up.

I don't even blame him. I'd bite too if I had a ready victim.

Love,

Nina