Back From the Brink of Death With No New Knowledge to Show For It

It won't be apparent to you, dear reader, but it has been exactly two weeks since I wrote my last post. Thankfully, I had planned ahead and the staggering release of posts worked as planned so there will not be a week without a post. Why have I not written in two weeks? Have I done nothing new lately? Was I slacking and losing devotion to this blog again? How did Medea like her present? As the post title indicates, was I on the brink of death? And, most importantly, have I gotten a haircut yet? All of these answers, and more, shall be discussed on today's entry. Stay tuned.

So many things to talk about and yet I have so little space. I have already had people complain that my posts are too long, and by people I mean the BF, but brevity is not, has never been, and will never be my strong suit. Point in case, the previous sentence was unnecessarily lengthy and this sentence, which is doing nothing more than pointing out the obvious by focusing on the length of its predecessor, is not helping cut down my word count at all. In fact, that second sentence may have been longer than the first and thus it is definitely not helping me be more concise. I should end this paragraph right now. I think this paragraph is complete as it is. Yes, I quite like how pointless it is while at the same time making a point of the pointlessness of my writing.

Speaking of my writing, and more explicitly, of my editing, I feel I should apologize. As I said before, I wrote the last post over two weeks ago. Usually, I will write a post and revise, tweak, clean, and edit it a few days letter. Unfortunately, I was not able to do so with the last post and, upon reading it, found many simple mistakes that I cannot forgive myself for. However, I did enjoy reading the post. I know it is gross to be self-congratulatory but I thought it was a funny and entertaining post. Also, I got a comment from Anonymous and that is the first time I have gotten a comment on one of the posts since I started writing again. Getting that comment felt really good so I will overlook the mistakes this time. Especially since the reason I did not get a chance to edit it was because I was... on the brink of death.

Well, not really. I have been sick for about nine days now. I am feeling better so you can save your concern for people that really matter and that really need it. I appreciate if you were trying to be concerned but there is really no need. Thanks, though. After all, I don't think I was that ill.  It was just a cold/flu/allergies/strep throat kind of thing. What was it exactly? I don't know. I know that for the first 5 days I tried to get over it with just over the counter medication. I also know that over the counter medication was not enough. Luckily, right before I made my mind up about going to the doctor, I found some old antibiotics. Now, I am not going to admit online to self-prescribing old antibiotics in order to cure myself because I know better than that as I have been told the evils of self-medication and I am unclear on how legal it is. However, I feel better today than I did last week so praise whichever deity deigned do throw me a solid (that's still an expression, right? Because I am not sure where I picked that up from). Irregardless (I am unsure if "irregardless" is a word or not but I felt like using it) of why I am feeling better, I am just thankful that I am.  However, illness, and not a lack of devotion, did stop me from writing, or even editing, any posts so now I find myself needing to write a few posts in order to buck up my reserves once more in case of some unforeseen obstacle rearing its head in the future.

I had forgotten all about Medea's birthday until I read the stellar post (please allow me to indulge in self-adulation once more) I wrote about it. If I know you at all, which I probably don't as evidenced by the fact that the only person to ever comment since I started writing again was anonymous, you are dying to hear how the whole birthday celebration went down. Well, my sister bought a cake and I bought some wings and we had dinner. I, at one point which may or may not have been while singing Happy Birthday, uttered the words "happy birthday Medea." I am also happy to report that the hug situation was avoided and that my arms have not embraced my mother since December of last year after our fight when she stood there with her arms hanging listlessly at her side while I awkwardly clasped my arms around her bidding her adieu. So, all in all, it was a fairly successful evening. I feel I must point out, whether for the sake of the reader or for my own sanity or for posterity, that no acknowledgement was made of my gift and no thanks were given either verbally, orally or kinesically (by gesture or movement). However, this was expected so I am not too bitter about it. I would say I am just bitter enough.

The last two weeks have not been all bad though. I did go to my first bachelorette party ever. It was nothing to write home about. Fortunately, this is not home so I can write about it here. I feel I should have known it wouldn't be a good experience as I have a low tolerance for drunken women. This was exacerbated by the fact that I was wearing new shoes. Now, don't get me wrong, I love new shoes. I just wasn't expecting to be doing much walking and they are not quite broken-in yet. At the rate the breaking-in process is going, I am starting to think that shoes break-in feet instead of the other way around. I am not saying the night did not have its moments. Dancing was fun and my shoes were not killing me at all at that moment. The maid of honor fell while we were walking on the sidewalk and that provided me with a few minutes of hilarity after which my sadistic shoes reminded me of the painful reality that was walking in them. I also had the chance to have a drink with a leaf on it. Don't believe me. Fine, take a look for yourself.

I believe this drink qualifies as one of the 5 daily fruits and vegetables nutritionists recommend.

Boom, baby. You thought that it was gonna be a small leaf, didn't you? You were wrong. That is a... darn I forgot the name. The point is that is a martini made with cucumber vodka with chili powder on the rim and with, what I learned later was not a lettuce leaf, a big basil leaf in it. I must say that the leaf threw me off at first. That is until I realized that you did not have to eat it and could just drink the martini through the two straws without bothering with the leaf at all and everything was better. I must say that this was probably the highlight of the night. Other than that, driving a bunch of drunk women around, though I do it often enough, is not my idea of fun.

Lastly, because I have managed to answer all the questions I asked at the beginning of this post but this one, I will just say that I have gotten my haircut already. The reception has been lukewarm. The usual people have told me that they like my hair short and the BF told me that he liked my hair better when it was longer. When I accused him of not liking my haircut he stated, begrudgingly methinks, that he liked it but that he preferred it longer (insert "That's what she said!" joke in here). That was when I stopped talking to him for two minutes. I figured that was sufficient punishment for such a slight, and maybe even imaginary, transgression. You may be wondering, I will not assume to know you anymore since I established earlier that I didn't, why I haven't taken a recent picture then. Well, I have been sick and that is hardly the time to take a photograph of oneself. I have good news on that front though. I will be attending a wedding this weekend, yes it's the same bride from the bachelorette party so stop asking, and I hope to take at least one decent photograph so that I can update you on the continuing deterioration of my youth and looks. Thankfully, you don't read this for my looks or I would be screwed.

Mission accomplished. You are all caught up now. Feel free to commend me on how my picture-taking has improved as the picture of that drink up there is way better than the one of my mom's flowers. On top of that, I do believe this is a shorter post than some so maybe I am learning some brevity after all. I guess we'll have to wait and see what the future brings.

Fear and Loathing in a Target

Today is Medea's birthday. Not today as when you will be reading this but today as of when I am writing this. You probably won't read this for a few weeks. I am staggering the publishing of posts doing only one a week so that I can hopefully keep a constant stream of posts in the future. Anyway, per usual and as it is accustomed, me and Medea are not in the best of terms. She is still mad at me for the fight we had in Mexico. On top of that, she is now also mad at me for a recent fight her and my sister had and in which I dared stick my nose in. As I stated before, since she came back from Mexico in February she has been saying that she has "divorced" me and that she was no longer my mother. As of the second fight, we have apparently become even more disenfranchised. Now, I am supposed to think of her as is she were dead. These are her words, by the way. I have never said that she is dead to me. She is instructing me to think of her as being dead because I obviously don't care about her. Ironically, these instructions were given to me during the last fight we had which started with me offering to drive the ten hours to El Paso so that she wouldn't have to. The irony of that is lost to her. My dad had informed me a few days before the fight that they were planning to go back to Mexico on May eleventh and that they were planning on taking both the truck and the jeep. This meant that my mom would have to drive one of the cars for the whole trip. That's when I decided to offer to drive to El Paso in one car so they could ride together in the other. I like driving long distances and I figured this would work better for them. It was when I made my plans public to Medea that she let me know, in no uncertain terms, that she was dead to me and then went on to tell me how much I have hurt her in the past and how much I don't care about her. She kept trying to drag me into an argument but I just kept reiterating that I was just offering to help. All in all I would say that it was a good talk. It could have gone worse although I am not sure what is worse than finding out that your mother is supposed to be dead. I am also worrying what she will say next time we have a fight. I mean, if she is supposed to already be dead to me, is the next step pretending that she never existed? And, if that's so and I am supposed to pretend she never existed, wouldn't that bring my whole existence into question? If she is not supposed to exist, how did I come to be? I am telling you she is deeper than even she realizes.

So, this brings me to Medea's birthday. Now, this is not the first time I have a hard time deciding what to do for her birthday. Her birthdays are always tricky. More often than not, we are either not talking or not completely happy with each other. Also, her birthday is only five weeks away from mine and that is never enough time to forget that she does nothing for my birthday, up to and including simply saying "happy birthday." Now, I know the Bible says to honor your parents (hell, it's even one of the commandments and the first one with the promise of a long life) which she is too fond of reminding me. But, what am I as an atheist to do? I mean, I don't know how long I want my days to be since there is a history of stroke and Alzheimer's in my family and I also have no land that my parents' Lord God hath given me. Still, I always feel like I have to do something. She did give birth to me and all, which coincidentally is another fact that she enjoys reminding me of constantly. Fortunately, this time things seem to have fallen into place serendipitously. This morning she woke up to this:

Do not focus on the very Mexican apples tablecloth or the plastic cover as that is all Medea's doing and does not reflect my decorating style at all.

Please forgive the picture quality but I was using the camera in my phone and I am a lousy picture taker, otherwise knows as photographer but I did not want to insult real photographers by inviting the comparison. What you see is a bad picture of some flowers in a vase and a card on top of a wireless keyboard and mouse. Except for the vase, which I borrowed from home, I bought all that for her birthday. As I said, it all just kind of happened and fell together of its own accord. I had decided a while back that my parents needed a wireless keyboard. They like watching their soaps online so they plug their laptop to their TV, but then they had to get up every time they needed to do a new search. I had looked it up online before and had found a cheap one, my parents cannot be trusted with expensive electronics, at Fry's. Well, I went out to dinner with BF yesterday at a very delicious Chinese restaurant. Seriously, it was very good. After dinner we had nothing to do so we decided to go to Fry's to get the keyboard, not thinking that today was Medea's birthday but because I wanted to get it for them before they went back to Mexico. On my way back from dropping BF at his place, I decided to stop by Target because they had Pepsi for sale and I usually stock up when soda goes on sale. When I walked in, I saw the flowers near the entrance and I thought that it would be nice for me to get Medea some flowers. I must point out that Medea is not a big fan of flowers, or chocolate, or jewelry. I figured that I could get the flowers since she did not like anything anyway. Then I made the mistake of deciding to get her a card. I had no idea that choosing a card would be such a herculean task. There was a section that was dedicated to birthday cards for mothers. I have never seen a stack of such sappy bullshit. It was downright disgusting. They all said stuff like "to the most wonderful person" or "you deserve the best" or "I love and cherish the time we spend together" and I knew I couldn't get those because it would not be fair to lie to Medea in writing on her birthday. Obviously, she is not the most wonderful person and she may not deserve the best. I can tell you that there is an untapped market of birthday cards for people that have tepid relationships with their mothers. I went over to the funny card section and there was one that I liked but figured it might be inappropriate. It featured a horsie piñata in a therapist's couch saying something along the lines of "and the worst part is that I kind of enjoy it when they hit me." The inside said something boring like "go out and have a punchingly good time on your birthday" or something like that. To be honest, the inside sucked. I liked the card though because of how much abuse Medea says she always takes from me. I wanted to write something inside along the lines of "thanks for always being there for me, even if it's just as a punching bag or piñata." See what I did there? This would turn the piñata in the cover into Medea and that is fitting because of two things. First, she is always saying that we just abuse her. But, secondly, and most importantly, Medea is way overdue for a visit with a therapist. I figured the card might give her some ideas and she may seek out professional counseling on her own. I decided that, as great as that idea was and the fact that it depicted her idea of our relationship perfectly, she may be offended by it. All this to say that I did not buy it. I ended up buying a generic card that just said something like "best wishes" or whatever on it. Yes, I was that thrilled about it.

I know that, so far, it doesn't seem like I had such a bad time at Target and that I misled you on the title.  Fear not for I have yet to lie to you. Although the piñata card was enjoyable and made the card experience bearable, that was only about two minutes of the whole hour I probably spent at the card display area. All of that wasted time to get a crappy generic card whose only advantage was that it was cheaper than all the other ones and it did not make me want to puke while reading it. Yes, I may have issues. Moving on, I went back to the flowers after that. I know enough about Medea to know what her favorite flower is. I am not telling you though because it is the same as my favorite flower and I don't want to share that because I am not an open book. I may be an open window on a computer screen, but I am not an open book. Needless to say, but I will say it nevertheless, they did not have her favorite type of flower. They had tulips for six bucks, some flowers I did not know for fifteen bucks, and some roses for twenty. I naturally wanted to go for the tulips because; a)she does not like flowers, b)I did not want to spend so much, c)if I spent too much money and she found out she would berate me for not being careful with my money. I could not make up my mind so I decided to go looking for a vase to see if that would help me make a decision. I don't know if Target sells many vases or if there is a vase section. I only found one aisle with some less than stellar vases. I picked one that I thought would work and then headed back to the flowers. I still couldn't make up my mind but decided against the tulips because I did not want people to think I was cheap. I ended up picking up one of the fifteen dollar flowers and headed straight to the register before I could change my mind. By this time there was only one register open and there was a lady in front of me that had a full cart. She was not even done unloading her cart when I decided that the vase did not work anymore. I left the checkout line, there were already two people behind me and I hated losing my spot. I walked all the way back to the aisle with the vases and put it back. I looked around a bit more but could not find something that looked appropriate so I decided to just buy the flowers sans vase. I headed back to the register. By this time I had already been in the store for about ninety minutes. I was pushing a cart with a squeaky wheel, I had to have a cart for the soda which was the whole reason I went to Target in the first place, and with every step and every squeak of the wheel I hated myself a little more. The whole endeavor was torturous. I was afraid she would not like what I had. I hated being so indecisive. I hated that the cards were all tacky and disgusting. Mostly, I hated myself for taking so much time to do something which I kept pretending I didn't care for and which, even though it took me very long to put together, would look like a last minute afterthought.

While I was driving home, I decided to incorporate the keyboard and mouse as part of her present. I must say once I got home everything went a lot smoother. I found a vase I cut the flowers and poured most of the little packet of powder into the vase (some of it may have inadvertently ended up on my bed). I translated the card and signed it and I set everything on the table for her to find in the morning. Today, everything had been moved to make room for people to eat, I guess. I don't know if she will acknowledge it or what will happen. I still have to say "happy birthday" to her but, with luck, I will not have to give her a hug as the thought of it makes me cringe inwardly. Not a big cringe, mind you, but enough for me to be dreading the situation. We are not a very touchy-feely type of people. At least Medea is not and I learned from the best.

Happy Birthday, Medea!

Today was the birthday of that special, and by "special" I intend all meanings including the good and the bad, lady who gave birth to me. I know you were all aware of that since I wrote that long post about the dilemma of what to do for her birthday. The day has passed and I have to report what happened so that you'll know that I listen to you.

My whole weekend, at least the days, revolved around her. The nights were fun. Let's talk about that first.

Friday night started with happy hour with some co-workers after work. From then on I joined some friends at another restaurant for another happy hour. The rest of the night was spent with those friends and a very opportune bottle of tequila. Good times were had by all and some very random conversations. I am not one to usually like tequila as I consider myself a vodka person. I do have a very soft spot in my heart for margaritas though. Well, after several of those, and about a liter and a half of tequila, I invited my friends to do a guest post. I figured I should tell you in advance so you won't be surprised. Especially since I just received one of them and I will be posting it soon. Anyway, it was a fun night.

Saturday night I went to see Death at a Funeral with some guy I met online. After that was over, the movie was good but the company left something to be desired, I ventured on my own to Mabel's to see a benefit drag show and hoping to meet up with some friends. Unfortunately, my friends were a no show. Fortunately, there was this cute, nerdy guy who I kind of talked to and, had I not been too much of a chicken, whose phone number I should have asked for. He is working on his dissertation to get his math PhD. That is enough for me to like him right there. I mean, what else could I possibly ask for, right? Talking to him was fun and the drag show was interesting, so despite the fact that my friends were a no show, it was a good night. (The guy's name was Max and this is a long shot but if anyone knows him you know where to find me.)

Those were my nights this weekend. My days, however, were consumed by Medea. On Saturday I was at my sister's house. She planned a cook-out to celebrate mother's birthday. I spent most of the day there and, despite wanting to leave before Medea got there, I stayed because my sister kept saying that Medea really wanted me to be there. So I stayed and the long ice was broken and me and Medea exchanged our first words in months. Then today my dad cooked liver and onions and the whole family got together again. Another all day ordeal. As you can see, especially by how much of this post was dedicated to her, Medea monopolized my weekend and I have now eaten enough cake to make my search for a soul mate near pointless. At least the family rift is closed now and we can let the healing begin.

As a last note, since this is supposed to be a short post and it is late already, I figured I would tell you all what I ended up getting her for her birthday. I thought of all your great suggestions: a card, flowers, gift card, perfume, etc. I have decided that no material thing could compare to the greatest gift I could bestow upon Medea. The one thing that I knew she wanted and that no one else could give her. I realized that the one thing that would really make her day and that she should count herself lucky to have was... the joy of being able to converse with me once again. I mean, I am awesome and I know she was dying to have me talk to her and to enjoy the wonderful conversation that no one but yours truly could provide. Great gift, huh?

P.S. Please check back soon as I will be posting the first guest post from one of my friends.
P.P.S. Shout out to the G-Man whose voyeuristic tendencies allow me one more reader if not one more commenter. I did not want to use your real name but you know who you are.

My Mother Medea*

*No, this is not a reference to Tyler Perry. Look further back in literature.

I know it is unusual for me to be posting two days in a row but I have a conundrum that I need assistance with. Now, I know I cannot count on my readers to provide any feedback judging from the lack of comments about the picture dilemma, but I suspect that just merely rambling on about it may help me make a decision. Let me start with a story...

Suppose you had family in El Paso. Also suppose your grandfather passed away so you have to go to the funeral. This means that you have to travel about 1200 miles with your parents round-trip. Now, offhand, you know you are obnoxious and that such close quarters are just not going to provide a good environment for family growth. Well, everything seems to go well and you are on your way back. Halfway through the trek back your mother, which we will call Medea, starts making ludicrous demands. This makes you waste about 2 hours of travel in a dull city we shall call Odessa. After two pointless hours, tempers escalate and you lose your cool and end up calling Medea, your mother, "ignorant". After this, things go horribly awry. First you refuse to listen to them so you put on earphones and drive around erratically till you find the place Medea was looking for and park. She proceeds to get out of the vehicle, slamming the door behind her. You drive off in search of something to eat while they tend to their business and try calling their phones to tell them to call you when they have concluded their business. You realize then that your dad left his cell phone on the car and Medea is not answering. So you turn around and find Medea bawling in the parking lot and your dad comes to you and tells you to just leave and drive home leaving them there. Remember home is about 300 miles away and your parents are older and not feeling well so you get out of the car and walk away telling them to take the car expecting them to cool down while they tend to their business and to call you to pick you up and have a silent, cold drive home.

Two hours later, while sitting at a park watching Kathy Griffin's TV show "My Life on the D-List" season 5 on your iPod (wow, look at all the plugs in one single sentence), you have the grim realization that they are not calling and that you are stuck about 300 miles from home with two days before you have to be at work. Also, the car they drove off in is your car. It is a grim realization indeed. End of story.

Now, since you are all experts at pretending now, let's pretend that this happened to someone you all might know. Someone like, let's say, yours truly. Now if this were yours truly's story, it would not end there. I would go on to say that, with the help of a good friend, I managed to get home 24 hours later. When I get home, I find Medea and my dad in the kitchen with visitors so I head straight into my bedroom and fall to bed exhausted as I have work in the a.m. It is later that I realize that my parents are still mad at me and are not talking to me. Now, I was expecting their anger to become subdued in a couple of days, two weeks at most. I was surprised that after a month they, and especially Medea, were not speaking to me. My birthday came and went and I got a phone call from my dad and a text message from Medea saying, "Feliz Cumpleanos y que Dios te bendiga." For those of you unfortunate enough not to know Spanish, that means "Happy Birthday and God bless you." (Well, almost. I could not figure out how to type the special "n" letter for the word year in Spanish). I felt that was a gutsy move, you know, mentioning God when she was not speaking to me. So far, the freeze is still on. My dad is talking to me more but Medea's attitude remains unaltered.

Finally, we arrive at the conundrum that prompted this whole post. Medea's birthday is coming up this week. Now, I now I should be respectful because she is my mother, and I probably should start by not calling her Medea but I am not about to go back and make all those changes in the post, but I am also still a bit hurt for being left behind and getting nothing for my birthday. What to do? Should I buy her a gift? Should I just let her birthday pass unnoticed? Should I just send her a text saying "Happy Birthday and may Nature bless you with health"? On that last one, I refuse to use God's name as she did since I don't really believe he exists and if he does, I do not want to incur his wrath by using his name in vain during a petty act of revenge against my mother.

All this just to say, what should I do? I was hoping writing all this would help me decide. I still am clueless. I will say this though. I have learned a valuable lesson. No, it is not "don't ever call your parents ignorant". It is, "don't ever call your parents ignorant when you are about 300 miles from home and they are likely to drive off in your car leaving you with no way home and freezing you out for months to the extent that they forget your birthday and then you have to make a difficult decision about how to act on their birthday because it is coming up." Yes, it is not a very widespread lesson. In fact, it is very specific. But I have learned it nonetheless.