Vulgaires Machins
Parasites (2010)

Nous sommes la crosse du siècle
Nous sommes l’industrie du disque
Ce qu’on a payé 3,07$
On vous le vend 30,58$

I was all excited because I was getting ahead on the $200,000 grant application I’m writing, and I had a good meeting with the dean yesterday, and my mom and dad were relatively stable, and I had two consecutive good nights of sleep, and…and…

And then I answered the phone.

It was my dad, very upset that my mom continues to be very upset about being “in jail” (a/k/a “in memory care”). I met him for dinner, but didn’t even order any because he’d killed my appetite when he started talking about how we had to “get her out of there this weekend even if we have to bring her home.” I bit my tongue and only hinted at the fact that there would be no “we” involved because I might just stop even answering the phone if he decided to bring her home.

For the 57th time, I gently reminded him how much she’d hated being home (what with all the intruders only she can see, especially that one who pretends to be my dad) and that she was pretty likely to be unhappy anywhere she went at this point, which is heartbreaking but true. And then I gently reminded him that we have probably hit the point where we have to worry less about her being happy than about her being safe. And she’s not safe at home in an insecure environment where he’s not capable of taking care of her and where his own health would suffer quickly if he even tried. I also (still gently) reminded him that we were not the only people impacted here, and that my aunts, not at the peak of health themselves, were only capable of taking so much more–particularly the one who lives next door and bore the brunt of Mom’s problems when she was home.

And speaking (gently) of impacting other people: I can’t live my life in perpetual panic mode anymore, afraid to answer the phone and having to drive thirty miles to their house at all hours every time my mom gets upset about something. I’m barely capable of even managing my own life right now, much less mine and my parents’. While I’ve tried to minimize it as much as I could, the last eighteen months or so have been completely devastating for me, and the worst thing is that I haven’t even had time to work through most of it yet; there’s only so much drama an emotional weakling like me can process in a short time. Thus my ability to simultaneously manage their lives and my own (not strong to begin with) gets a little weaker every time my dad panics and threatens to undo all the work I’ve done.

And you know what? I think, for once, that maybe he got it this time. Or at least I’m going to convince myself of that before I go to bed.

Pardon my vent. My dad is a really good person and he’s in a really bad place right now, too. I understand that and I’d never abandon him or my mom. And I think he’s genuinely concerned about how this is affecting me, or at least my work. He’s trying. He’s lost the love of his life. He’s sad and lonely.

But I’ve essentially lost two of the most important people in my life this year and I’m pretty goddamned sad and lonely too. And it’s the hurt that keeps on giving because, despite the loss, they’re both still parts of my life and there’s always one more thing to deal with (a run-in at the nursing home, a new mortgage to sign, an incoherent verbal attack, a new cell phone plan) to remind me of what the relationships aren’t anymore. I’m just getting weary of minimizing my own feelings in favor of everyone else’s. It’s starting to seem like a running theme and making me feel a little like a doormat. But I’m whining now.

Again, pardon my vent. Back to francophone pop or something tomorrow. Francophone pop makes me happy.

Via Romleys, the Mega Longs is closing.

This was one of my favorite spots in Oakland (which observant readers know yer humble host strongly prefers to San Francisco). By the time my friends and I discovered it as part of our Friday night dinner in the East Bay diversions, it had ceased to be a Payless and was a Longs Drugs. The store was massive–more a discount department store than a drug store–and it provided lots of Friday night entertainment with its odd assortment of merchandise and inexplicably large garden center, toy department, and cheap food zone. Sometimes we’d drive over and eat at the Emil Villa’s barbecue joint in the parking lot and once in a while we’d take BART to Rockridge and walk over.

Despite an early 1990s remodel, it still felt like the late 1960s inside. I liked that. I always managed to get by for a visit on subsequent trips to the Bay Area but I knew its days were numbered when CVS took over. Even the building will be gone in a few months. Pity.

Fleetwood Mac
Tusk (1979)

Tuesday morning at the doctor’s office (my own for a change) and the wifi is not working. The Muzak, inexplicably, is the theme from “The Price Is Right.” I’m not sure how I feel about that.

The LA Times just keeps being my “go to” source for serious journalism with no sensational headlines:

I don’t read the SF Chronicle anymore. Has it gone down this same path? Other papers? My local?

Now would probably be the wrong time to look back with amusement at the wood chipper jokes my former roommate and I used to make to my ex from Minnesota around the time Fargo was released, huh? That said, I think tonight may be a Fargo night. It’s been several years…

My mortgage guy apparently works very late on Saturdays, which is good since we take care of what we needed to do earlier thanks to yet another “Mom crisis.” I sometimes fantasize about what having just one stress-free weekend a month. I vaguely remember when weekends used to help relieve stress rather than add to it.

Some random links for tonight:

• Detroit: A City on the move
• The expressways of Toronto: Built and unbuilt
• What grocery stores used to look like in Toronto (in honor of the project I was working on this afternoon before the day went horribly wrong)
• 10:15 Saturday night

Kids who were born on the day I uploaded the first version of my first website will be getting their driver’s licenses tomorrow.

Damn.

Malajube
Pate Filo (2006)

I really kind of like this band.

…is more nights hanging out in the basement listening to Québécois radio and playing with my databases.