Improper use of the english language

I'd truely forgotten how much fun and what a total rush it is to get someone fired.
The guy I used to have to work with that slept most of the shift was fired last night. There was lots of fun for everyone to have and just all around a great time was had. I'd never seen a big black man like that whine so much in my life. Then, on his way out, he decided to call me a, "pussy-assed faggot." I guess I should have felt insulted, but the only thing that went through my head was "isn't that an oxymoron?"

After that, he also called me a bitch. Well, at least he got that part right. I guess he forgot that one should never fuck with a bitch. Maybe he'll remember the next time.

Involuntary response

So, I'm on the local gay chat room, looking for "someone" who I won't name because I like my ears where they are and I'd rather not have them blown off by someone screaming.

Anyway, so, I get to talking to someone (who's a whore and thinks I'm on there to get laid) and when I'm explaining to them that I'm looking for someone, and they ask who, I tell them. First thing they ask is "are you two together?"

I don't know why I reacted the way I did, but it kind of surprised me. Not because I think it's a bad way of reacting, just very unexpected.

I started to laugh. As in, uncontrolable, hysterical, oh-my-gods-I'm-gonna-pee-myself laughter. Weird.

Far too cute to pass up

You Are Dasher

You're an independent minded reindeer who never plays by the rules. Why You're Naughty: That little coup you tried to stage against Santa last year Why You're Nice: You secretly give naughty children presents.

Which'>http://www.blogthings.com/whichofsantasreindeerareyouquiz/">Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

Laura, I'm sorry if this hurts to read, but I promise it hurts just as much to write it.

So, this is going to be the very final entry into this blog about my father. Not that I imagine any of you are tired of hearing about him or anything like that, but as things go, he's gotten more air time on here than time he's put into my life.

For the record, my dad was cremated shortly after the funeral. So, he's beyond gone. We couldn't even add water to him and get something close to what he used to be.

Now, the title of this post is an advance appology to my sister because she and my dad were particularly close and so his passing has affected her a lot more than it has me. I'm not entirely sure that I can put all my emotions into one post and make it clear to people what that man put me through when I was growing up.

This shouldn't be a time for me to drag out issues of the past and use them to flog a dead horse (bad choice of words, but there it is) but there comes a time when you have to get it out of the super secret place you've been hiding those feelings and set them free, because if you don't, there's no guarentee that you'll be able to move on.

First off, I'm just going to put this down as a fact and I'll let people bitch and moan and do whatever they feel like doing and/or saying because they feel one way or another. However, I'll let you know right now that this is a fact, not an opinion or an observation. There is fact and precident to back up this statement. So, here goes. Look away if you feel that things are going to suddenly get messy.

My father never loved me.

I was raised in a family split in two. My parents were divorced when I was 3. So, I have no real memories of them together when I was younger.

No, scratch that. I have one. I remember, as a small child, crawling into the kitchen, seeing my dad shove my mom into the counter. It was definately violent, and even today, I can close my eyes and see it clear as day. I remember looking back into the family room, seeing my older brother and sister watching TV, wondering why no one really cares that daddy is hurting mommy. That's a really old memory, and surprisingly one that I purposely never used as a means to pass judgement on my parents.

But, let's face it. My dad was a prick. When I was growing up, it was every other weekend at his house and one entire month during the summer. I remember going to his house with his new wife and her kid. I remember how much I dredded it. How it hurt when I was basically told that I wasn't important to him. Oh, he never said it, really. But I've always been one to interpret people from their actions. I know how I stand with people by their actions not by what they say. So, my dad could have told me he loved me until the cows came home, but it wouldn't have matter at all because he never showed it. Those months in the summer when he was supposed to take me and my siblings? He did once. I don't even thing it lasted a whole month. Only took him a week or so before he dumped me back off at my mom's with my sibs. Too much of a bother, I guess.

I spent about 13% of my entire childhood (I just did the math) in his home. Never once did I feel welcome, wanted, or appreciated. Any good memories I may have from those days were due to someone else other than him. He was never there for me when I needed him. Literally. I remember when I was in high school and I big into the theater. My grandmother usually picked me up from the high school when I needed a ride. Mind you, this was a drive of about 20 miles for her to and from which she did with no complaint. The ONE time she wasn't available, I HAD to call my dad and ask him to pick me up. When I called and told him, he made me feel like shit for simply calling him and asking him. Can I properly convey what I felt that night? I remember feeling like shit. I remember wondering why I'm even alive when my own father thinks I'm just someone who's in his way. I remember trying desperately to stand outside quietly and wait for him to come get me. And, I remember Andy Driscoll. Who was the star of the damn show I was working in who stopped on his way to his car and asked me if I was ok and, "do you need a ride home? I can give you a ride home if you want." No. I'm fine. My dad's coming to get me. My dad who made it sound like I was a total inconvience for asking to drive the whole 3 miles from his house to the school to get me when I'm his own flesh and blood and some practical stranger offers me the same thing with no grief and no guilt. And, of course, who came to get me? My step mother. Who made me feel even worse because now only could he be bothered to come get me, but delegated me to his wife who he knows doesn't like me. Thanks, dad.

That's how my dad made me feel when I was growing up. That's just one of many instances that happened when I grew up dealing with him. The thing I remember most from that one moment was going home and crying my eyes out, mom coming home, hugging and me wailing, asking her why my dad doesn't love me. What did I do to him that made him hate me so much that I didn't even really exist in his world? Was it because I was different? Was it because I'd said something when I was youger that I shouldn't have? Was it because I wasn't my sister? I know I shouldn't feel any resentment towards her because it wasn't her fault. She didn't make him decide to give her the world and leave me out in the cold. It was his choice. He chose to treat me like a non entity up until I was 19. And by then, what? You suddenly want a second son?

That's exactly how I felt that night when he took me for a drive to express his concern for me and my well being. "A little late now, isn't it dad? You could have helped me stay out of the trouble I got myself in but you were too interested in your own life to care." That's what I should have said, but I was always too chicken shit to stand up to him. 13% of my life was spent with him as a child. But, I can remember every spanking he gave me. I remember each one because there was no discussion beforehand. I just remember him grabbing me, holding me down and spanking me until I pissed myself. I was never told why I was spanked. I was never told what to do to avoid it. It was like trying to navigate a mine field in my mind. No, more like a game. Because games with him were always the same. Each time he always cheated so he'd win. When he and I played chess, I remember him moving one of his pieces when he thought I wasn't looking so he could win. Playing gin rummy and him doing the same thing so he'd win every time. How it seemed like I wasn't allowed anything, not even to win when I deserved to. Always changing the rules so that no matter what, he'd always end up on top.

So, should I miss this person? No. Definately not. Oh, I'll admit, towards the end, he started to improve a lot. I've had a lot of people mention to me that he was always so concerned about me. I heard that a lot at the visitation and the funeral. I had to bite my lip to stay civil. I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to blurt out, "Well, gee, ya think it might have been that overwhelming sense of guilt he felt for treating me like shit my entire life?"

But, I honestly felt that he was changing. That he honestly cared about me towards the end and wanted to spend time with me. This is of course, if I overlook the two years when I only saw one day out of each of those years and never heard from him with any phone calls. I'm betting Laura heard from him a lot those years. But, I looked past that. Until after he died. And I found out that he left my brother, my sister and me in his will.

That being nothing.

Nothing.

Stop for a moment and think about it. Your parent dies and they leave everything to someone not related to you. Suddenly that part of your life not only isn't there anymore, but any trace of that life is completely ripped from you because they decided it was better to appease someone's annoyance than doing the right thing. When I was informed this, I was shocked. For about two seconds. Then, the voice of reason in my head said to me, "What did you expect, really? For him to honestly care? Please. He never cared when he was alive, why should he suddenly start now when he's dead?" So, the last few years, I feel like I was lied to by him. Again. And I feel like an idiot to believe him. He was always a near pathalogical liar when I was a child. I remember all the piss poor excuses he always came up with that I saw right through. I guess, in a way, I wanted to believe him these last ten years. So, I turned a blind eye. Even though, I knew even then that it was nothing but a lie.

I remember how I got my car. Yeah, he bought it for me. But not before my grandmother called him. MY MOTHER'S MOM CALLED MY FATHER AND BEGGED AND PLEADED FOR HIM TO HELP ME WHEN I NEEDED HIM! FOR HOURS SHE PLEADED WITH HIM! And the very next day, he calls up acting like he's going to do it out of the kindness of his heart. Bullshit, dad. Grandma guilt tripped you into it. "Dennis. You've never done anything for him his entire life. This one time, please do this one thing for him." I remember hearing her tell him that. I can almost imagine the reluctant sigh he gave her before agreeing to it. For all I know she gave him half the money for the car, knowing her.

So, that's the real father that I grew up with. When I was first told of his death. I wasn't so much shocked because I'd lost a father or because I felt a sense of overwhelming loss. What I felt was an overwhelming sense of having lost an opportunity to set the record straight between us so that, while we would have never been close, at least we could have respected each other. I'm sorry that he never could see past his own nose. I'm sorry that he could never tell me what he really felt. Hell, I all but dared him to ask me The Question. But, he chicken shitted himself out of it.

I guess, in that respect, I was a chicken shit, just like him. To bad he never saw it.

Another notch on the resume

Had a meeting at work today.

At 4 pm. The usual time that I am deep in torpor.

Normally, these meetings are worthless to me because, well, I do my job great and I don't make mistakes enough to warrant a meeting being held.

Imagine my surprise then when a half hour before the meeting started (Yes, I am chronically early to everything there) my GM comes up to me and say, "Jon, I need to speak to you."

Oh, shit. They found the bodies.

Of course, that was my first thought. My second thought being that I've done nothing wrong so there's no reason for him to take me out to the woodshed, so to speak. (the resting place of the aforementioned bodies) Turns out, though, that this was a good talk. About how appreciated I am there and how well I do my job to the extent that they never really need to fix anything because most of the time, I fix the problems that occur on my shift before they're even aware of them. So, in recognition of that fact, and plus the fact that they need someone reliable to keep people in line while they're not around they're promoting me (sort of) to Night Audit Supervisor.

Are you afraid yet? You should be.

I have to say that, there is not going to be any increase of pay with this promotion (yet). Mainly because the company is slowly being bought out by another company and the new company, if they buy our property, will more than likely raise wages all the way around. Regardless, at my one year evaluation, I'll be getting the maximum pay increase since I'm taking this job.

Granted, I really don't plan on being there long enough for it to matter (unless they make it worth my while) but the title will go well in my resume so that when I go looking around for any management job (read: whore myself out) it will go a bit father than just your run of the mill Night Auditor.

So, good news there. The death thing is pretty much played itself out. Now, I'm just giving it a few more weeks before I go looking for a lawyer (read: renting a whore) to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the person responsible. If I'm lucky, that'll be a decent settlement since my father. in his infinant wisdom, decided to leave nothing for my or my siblings.

Yeah. I know. Just another reason why he never won a father of the year award.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot

And, I just realized, that tomorrow is my birthday. The 20's are officially coming to an end.

I expect Zach will be calling every so often to give me an update on the countdown.

And they say gay people are drama queens...

The Goddess Hath Spoken

To those who offered their sympathies and condolences, I give you my thanks for your help small as it may be through this last week. It has been hard at times to say the right words or find any words at all to give my feelings a voice. To fully articulate what it is that I'm feeling and why because I want people to understand. If anything, I've created this site as I created others before it, to help those who may be going through the same thing just to let them know that it's going to be ok and that there are people out there who know how you feel.

I realize that in the last two posts to this site, I never once wrote the words, "My Father is dead." Strange, but true. It's partly due to the fact that, even now, I don't want to believe it. I want to cling to some fantasy that it's all a big mix up and that he's going to show up and this whole nightmare is going to just go away. But, it's not. It never will. This is the new reality I'm living in. I didn't want to write those words because it would give credence to that reality and I just wasn't ready to live there yet. But now the funeral is over and life has to go on. That's what I've told other people and now that's what I have to do.

The visitation was, in a word, amazing. Four hours standing in the recieving line listening to hundreds (yes, hundreds, plural) tell me what a great, wonderful, caring, loving person he is. At first, I couldn't help but wonder, "Are they talking about my dad?" To say he was distant, would be an understatement. And it wasn't just to me, it was towards most of his family. I think it's just some kind of ingrained thing in our little clan that you pretty much take your relatives for granted, including children, siblings and parents. It creates this kind of barrier where sometimes you don't really know what's going on in each other's lives. I could tell you how I went literally a full year between hearing anything from my father. No calls, no stops by the house, nothing. Right around my birthday, I'd get a call and we would set up a time for us to exchange gifts before he went home from work someday in the future. That would be it until the next year. But, the last two years, I think I heard from him and saw him more often than since I was at his house every other weekend growing up. I slowly got back in touch with him with a new level of understanding where we could talk to each other as adults. It was oddly refreshing and at the same time sad, because there was so much wasted time behind us. What I learned at the visitation was how loved he was by his neighbors, friends, co-workers, and fellow church members and how profound a loss they felt by his sudden and tragic death. How sorry they felt for us to lose such a wonderful person and how their prayers were with us. I held my shit together because everyone else was holding their shit together and I was not going to be the first one to start turning into a puddle of goo on the floor. It was also an odd event, something akin to seeing the planets align themselves. All three of my fathers wives were present, in the same room. I can only say that this happened, though I have no proof other than witnesses. No pictures of the event were taken since all three of them never came together. In fact, my mom went out of her way to not say anything to Vickie (the current wife). But, she also surprised me when she told me that she wasn't going to go up to see the body because, and I quote, "I want to remember him the way he was when I last saw him." I will however admit to how I almost lost my shit when, while standing in the recieving line, an elderly woman who was a member of the church's congregation was coming through the line and spoke to all three of us (my brother, my sister and myself) and when she got to me, she looked up, smiled and with a small, gentle voice said, "You have your father's eyes." She said it as if to mean more than just similar eye color. I blinked a few times and thanked her before she moved on. It was a good night for the most part. Stories were shared and old relations were revived. I got to see a cousin I hadn't seen in years which was a good thing too, because if I'd met him on the street, I'd have SO hit on him because he looked nothing like the blonde geek I remember from growing up. The visitation lasted an hour past the scheduled time due to the large number of people that just kept coming and coming.

The next day was something entirely different. We got up early and went up to the funeral early, so we could get a jump on the agenda and prepare ourselves for the day. Knowing now what I knew then, I wouldn't have bothered. About twenty minutes before the services stared, the pastor came to us and told us there would be a private family prayer before we started and one last viewing before the casket was closed. I just nodded and went on, hoping it would all be over soon. Not the service, but the constant numb feeling that had plagued me since Monday morning. I honestly haven't felt much of anything the past few days and it's felt like I'm a computer trying to process so much information at once, it's taking longer than usual to do certain tasks. When we got to the back room with the casket, we stood there for a few minutes, waiting for a few people before we started. I looked over and saw my aunt Marilyn walk in and the pastor coming up to her, whispering about the last viewing. The entire night beforehand, she had been a pillar, totally unwavering and smiling and offering condolences to me and my brother and sister. I guess she had kind of put her own feelings on hold for everyone else (not unlike some people I know) and when the pastor told her that, she took one step towards the casket and I watched her as her face seemed to crumble and time stood still at that instant. In a flash, I was seeing through her eyes. How those words, "last viewing" had taken on a life of their own. It was saying to her how it was the last time she would ever see her little brother and never again. Never. The thought of an actual "never" was almost crippling and at that moment, when she touched the side of the casket and looked down at him, she momentarilly lost her shit. In the process of watching that play out, I totally lost my shit.

Jason, I'm sorry man, but I totally lied. And I didn't realize I was lying until that moment. I suddenly realized I was never going to see his mischievous smile ever again or hear his voice and his laugh. How empty it felt to know that there would be things that would happen to me in the future. Good things that will happen that he won't get to find out about and share with his friends. How lonely it suddenly felt without his presence. How empty my heart felt because someone I loved was taken from me, not by disease or time, but by some twist of fate that none of us could have ever hoped to prepare ourselves for. The impact of the loss hit me full force right then and there, and I had to use every trick I knew to keep my shit together because I will never cry in public. I refuse. In the wee hours of the morning when no one else is around, that's fine. In a crowded bar when I'm going out of my way to be ignored, that's acceptable to a degree as well, but I will not cry when I'm standing in a circle of people. It's a deal breaker and I won't do it. So, there I stood, with my head to the floor, desperately clinging to the ragged remains of what was my shit through the entire service. I couldn't look up because I knew if I did, it would start all over again. I'd been feeling like a shell shock victim all week long because I just couldn't find all the emotions and all the words to express myself. Suddenly, I had too much and I was close to overload. But, eventually, I managed to get through it. We took the casket and put it in the herse for the short trip to the funeral home. A few hours after that, he would be cremated and that would be the real end of the entire episode. We stayed for lunch and talked about unimportant things. I managed to take a few pictures and maybe soon, I'll put them up here somewhere for everyone to see.

My brother and I got back to the house and he got ready to leave to go back to Arkansas. I got ready to go take the camera back to my uncle before going downtown for a few drinks, because if you think I was going back home to the madness there, YOU ARE HIGHER THAN A KITE. Besides, I had to get away because I just needed time alone to put everything in perspective. I had to turn to my faith because, in the end, that was the only thing that was going to get me through this hell I found myself in. Last night after I got home, I sat down in the basement, staring at the computer and I slowly got it all back into perpective.

Sometimes, things happen for reasons we can't hope to see or fully understand. Sometimes opportunities are found in the worse of circumstances. And, yes, the shiniest gems are found in the darkest caves. It never helps to sit and just try to find all the answers. Sometimes the answers aren't for us and they were never meant to be. It's ok to hurt. And it's ok to be angry. It's ok to laugh out loud at a funeral or a visitation. It's an affirmation of life. It's how we know that things are going to go on no matter what. A man died, but that doesn't mean we all die. We just have to hold onto what we have left around us because the next time could be sooner than we think. I miss him and I'm always going to miss him, just like I miss all the other people who have stepped on into another life somewhere beyond my limited sight. Someday, it's going to make more sense. Right now, just concentrate on what you have left and the memories you do have. Enjoy them, cherish them and keep on going because you're life still has many moments left. And, you know what? It's ok that I think about the money. I know, because, if he were hear right now, he'd be telling me that this is something that's going to help me get my life back in order and get out from everyone elses shadow. To live my life to my best, no matter where that may take me.

The last thing Vickie said to me before I left Thursday was that he loved me. And, I told her, "I know. It was the last thing he said to me before he left. And it's the last thing I told him too." So, there, I did it again. I ended a relationship with someone on a good note again. I can let him go, because I know that all that needed to be said was said between us. no regrets, no goodbyes.

The curious epilogue to this tale came this evening before going to work. Mom came home and she was coming up the stairs. She paused for a moment and started to cry. She didn't know why, but I do. Too many regrets. Too many missed chances. She will just have to deal with that in time.