down times

The last three weeks have been sort of down times.

Everytime we think that Steven is over his concussion, he gets another headache and we have to pick him up from school. Dan took him to the family practitioner this morning, and now we have to take him to a neurologist. So that has had us worried.

The anniversary of my father's death came and went, and that makes me think about how screwed up his life was, and that has made me very sad. Poor man spent more than fifty years being abused in a terrible marriage that he could never leave. Never let is be said that men abuse women but that women do not abuse men. Women are every bit as capable of cruelty and harm as men are.

And of course, all of that makes me remember the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse I received from my mother when I was a child.

How many lives did that woman wreck??????

And I have been thinking about Mr. Grinch, and how I ended up losing not only a beloved friend, but also any and all respect and trust I had for him. Ah, the long lasting damage secrets, lies, insults, and cruelty can do. Especially coming from someone you adore. The anniversary of all of that badness starting has recently come and gone as well. I mourn not only the relationship, but the good impression and feelings I had for someone I once thought was wonderful and once thought was a friend.

And we have all been sick, too. there is this awful thing going around Ann Arbor/Detroit (and, as it turns out, Muncie/Indianapolis, too!) where your  whole body aches like you have been beaten and your head and chest fill up with very nasty thick mucous about the same consistency of 2% viscous lidocaine. So you can't cough it up, and it makes your head ache and ache and ache. Nasty nasty nasty germ.

Bill came home for Martin Luther King Day weekend, and he has decided to transfer to a local university for next year and live at home. I have mixed feelings about this, and perhaps will find it within myself to talk about them tomorrow.

I had to put in my vacation requests for the whole next year, and maybe I can bring myself to talk about that, as well.

And, as is so often the case these days, I came home tonight to a huge poop and pee mess from the elderly dog to clean up. Nothing like turds all over the floor to make a bad blue day even worse.