Oh beautiful day: part two

The Polish and African neighbors were all in it together. You wouldn't want to be talking too loudly, because then they'll hear we would be leaving. The manic paranoia crushes your a heart a bit as it stares you into the face. Am I really going to do this with the mum and the dad? The sun's out, warm and comforting, oh glorious Sunday, but there's a nagging chill inside. One could say it is fear and trepidation.

Dad's all ready for it, with sturdy walking shoes, and a backpack for the books. Mum and dad chat away about the places they used to live long before I was born. About people they used to know, but oh how they can't remember their names. They share some comforting cliches about old age and the memory going. Mum asks whether we're being followed by a car. That's a conversation stopper right there, mum.

We walk into the tent, get our bearings. They both get a pull cart for the books, and off they are, dad towards the science and life books, mum towards the English section. Dad bunkers down solidly. Mum's looking slightly panicked, not really looking at titles or covers, just breezing past, one eye looking for the exit.

I ground her. Together we do the English section. The urge to flee is right under her skin, groping for excuses. Shouldn't you look out for your dad, where is he? But dad's only five meters further down the isle he started by the time we're finished. His cart is filled to the brim though. All books of science, very interesting! We need to check out and come back for more! I drag up the zen mothers all over the world find somewhere deep in their bellies when talking to wayward children. We're not doing that, dad. Don't you have plenty of books already? Besides, my car isn't big enough. But some of these books are only 2 euros! The manic desire to own everything that's on cheap offer staring brazenly into my face. They start chatting, hoorah, and mum forgets she wants to flee and dad forgets he wants to by the world for a penny.

The chill nags, like a sleepy cat repositioning on my lap.
I come from these two broken people.
Am I like this?
If not now, than later?

And upon this burden gets heaped the praise for their prodigal sons, who are not here to drive them to bookfairs on their only free Sunday this month. Not here to face their demons. Their amazing first born. Their amazing second born.

And by the time we're home, and they can rest from this formidable excursion, the world has gone grey to me, again, and tasteless. No matter how well the sun shines.

Oh beautiful day: part 1

The sun shines bone warming rays. The air still got that brittle cold from a spring night with clear open skies. Today we go on an expedition, me mum, me dad, and me. But first, what comes before...

Mother
Me mum threw everything out, old clothes, old books, old friends. There are walls around her. Within she is alone. All alone. Nothing but strangers around her, and new things she doesn't always remember buying. New stuff that isn't as good as the old stuff, but the envious and petty people took all that stuff away. She doesn't remember throwing everything out. I've learned not to point that out, because she's a proud woman, and she forgets many things but things like that. She's not crazy, I'm a snotnosed brat that always knows better, is what it is.

So there, I shrug, and frown a bit, and make noncommittal sounds and just let her explain the strange world she lives in, when I'm not around. Everyday I fight silently, to get her past her own walls. Small steps, little sips. I visit every day. When I don't I call. Everyday five minutes or more to break the monologue in her mind with which she builds those walls and mans them with envious neighbors that live in the ceiling and make noise just to spite her.

Father
Me dad's a hoarder. Discounts are his addiction. Five for the price of six makes him buy two packs of something he does not need. The amount of stuff a person can buy in case per chance one day one might need such a handy two-penny piece of plastic crap is amazing. We should go back to his house one of these days to get a few bobs and bits he still needs, and then he can sell the house.

Me dad, like my mother, forgets. Since the brain clot, not a lot gets written down in long term memory. He manages, with little notes. He adapts. He's a good little soldier like that. But what he doesn't remember is: things change. At first it's maddening, having to explain again that the clothes he has in the apartment are all the clothes he has, and no, there is no closet in the old house filled with clothes. Then it becomes maddening, because every time again I have to explain how come all his cameras are gone, all his flashlight, all his clothes, anything of value, and every time again it breaks his heart. And I wonder if he's ever going to remember once we do sell the house?

Events leading up to the expedition
Dad saw a notice for a bookfair in the paper. He's never been to one. He lies, because he thinks it will get him what he wants. In this way parents become like little children. But yes, I'll gladly spend a few hours of those hard to come by free days, to visit this bookfair with him. I'll be having to break his heart about the amount of  books I'm willing to stow away in my car. He might not be able to cope with it when there's too many people around and than he'll want to go home before have laid eyes on a first title. But I'm thinking maybe I can get me mum along, out from behind her walls? I'll sell it as like I don't know if I can cope with dad if he gets funny. I know it makes her feel strong, when she thinks she's in better shape than dad. So of course she will come; she won't tell me it's because she really needs to get out of the house but is too afraid of the world, but says she'll help me with dad. So in the end we all lie in preparation of the great expedition.

The Valley

Goddamn, and it's hot and dry here. For as far as they eye can see. Wish I had a smoke now.

I dared God didn't I? Said next time I would hold up my goddamned dead cat as the accusation it was meant to be.

'xcept, cat didn't die. Just got that damned luxury hoe disease: diabetes. Yup, right when I finally thought I got my life back where I wanted, with dad living in his own place, crazy mom in the other, 'social' brother somewhere where everybody can see the pics and nobody ever question whether dude has his very own mom and pop alive yet besides mom-in-law in the pics.

It's in the little big things, isn't it? Seriously, I'm so happy it ain't the kidneys that went kaphloey. Slightly gnnnignni at the vet for not wanting to check his blood earlier because something's been wrong for a while, and no it's not a sudden flea allergy but hey in the meanwhile he lost all his ballast and more.

Happy happy. But this is me, getting up at least 7h30 to feed a cat and jab him with insulin, for the next ten years or more. Being home at 19u30 to 20h to do the same. Shit bastards were supposed to be my freedom in comparison with kids.

I hear you say, digiblips, that's where and when one learns not to dare God and shit.

You're using my cat against me, bitch? I'm going to find the nastiest chthonic bastard and team up to bring that fuck down, yeah.

Spring

There's no fresh eyes like your own after taking a break from writing for whatever reason.

Existence of flow, and happiness, proven when you encounter well written scenes that you don't remember writing. Might look like modesty failing, saying such, but imagining some other genius writer hacked my computer to patch up my stories might be more than modesty fail alone.

All that was planned is either filtered and crystallized or erased.  In this time has a no nonsense, firm and patient hand.Choices I hesitated to make, now obvious.

Starving the Cow Watcher may have shriveled my language skills, but it seems I came out of the dark tunnel with a map in hand. Places I needed to go if only I knew the route lay waiting.

Let's go.

Oh hay.

Am back.
Stuff happened.
Let's make this a new beginning,
but mind, easy does it.
Slow steps.
& small sips.

Oh.

Probably I was.


Not so much reading now. Kill Tinkerbell on sight, daft idiot twinkling firefly.


If I survive this shit with my soul intact, I'll be able to log this filth as "research" for a book or two.

It's probably gonna be Man of Mercury and the full rewrite of the Barynn trilogy or quadrilogy (when/whatever I make my mind up about the amount of human ugliness the average reader will shovel).



I'm losing my writing muscle, dear old digiplips, and it makes me thoroughly unhappy.

Because nothing matters *that* much.

Marker

"Kevin liked to say, 'On judgment day when I'm brought up before the great judge I'm going to say, "Hold on a second," and then I'm going to whip out my dead cat from inside my coat. "How do you explain *this*?" I'm going to ask.' By then, Kevin used to say, the cat would be as stiff as a frying pan; he would hold out the cat by its handle, its tail, and wait for a satisfactory answer."

~Valis, Philip K. Dick


I've got a feeling I'll be reading Valis again, because I need something of substance. Something tougher, sharper, more naked underneath the escapist magic tricks.

Life's a bitch, and my life's been a particular bitch for a while now. Not to be bitching about the bitch, and unlike David Byrne, I'm not wondering where the beautiful car is. I'm simply wondering where every-fucking-thing went. 

So here we are, more than a year after the hubby and me took in dad, because he could not return to his old place and live alone there, and we were all that was left, for a myriad of reasons that will get me spitting bitter foam as it is, so no need to go into that. Sucks to be the idiot that believes there's something as an honest draw with one short straw in the stack, hah.

Anyways, in the meantime my mom's boyfriend passed away, leaving a shadow of the strong and independent woman that raised me, and on top she'd been actin' funny too for a while and it ain't really passing even now she's finding herself again. Unless I personally visit her every day. Capisce?

See, in the life I had planned, there was a hole for one parent to take care of daily, and my dad wasn't it. He's sleeping in the guest bed reserved for mom years ago, imagine how that goes for a gall whose parents divorced 35 years ago. Things are just peachy!

Meanwhile I had a great job except for the idiots I had to deal with in the workplace. Luckily it was a substitute thing, so when the substituting was done and they offered me a real position I bowed out, and found THE JOB OF MY LIFE, except I'm not allowed to continue doing the job, because I don't have a bachelor degree, which the Flemish authority of sports federations thinks I should have. *Any* bachelor degree is better than someone who's been gathering directory secretary competences by doing for over 10 years the job of the better qualified and better paid person over head ("over-head" got it? I made a joke there, see?)

And just when you think: ah, well, when the going gets tough, the tough get going (*eyeroll* I know), GOD KILLS MY GODDAMNED CAT!

There. I just needed a marker for just this day, see. Because I've got plenty of dead cats stowed away in my coat. But Pipsqueek, right here right now, is where this crap stops, okay? Next big thing that happens better be ME WINNING THE EFFING LOTTERY ARRIGHT?

Jeez, fuck karma, man, what was I supposed to be in my former life? The guy who butt fucked Charlie Manson when he was 5?