The Thessaliad Redux

I love my mother, really. But sometimes she really is a bit of a ditz.

Mum: Let's meet up this weekend! I want to see your new flat! So should we meet up in the centre, or closer to here.
Me: Hrm. My area's kind of sparse, but Brixton's close-ish. Let me think on it and email you back?
Mum: Okey-doke. I'll expect your email.

Next Day:
Me: *emails with date and time*

Today:
Mum: Don't forget to tell me date and time!
Me: I emailed yesterday; guess it never went through. *gives date and time again*
Mum: Oh, I wasn't checking my email. Brixton - is there a station? Where is this?
Me: ...... *facepalms and resists urge to say 'read my email or JFGI'* Yes; southernmost stop on the Victoria Line.
Mum: Okey-doke. See you soon.

She's lived in London at least as long as I have. "Is there a station?" - yeesh. Mum, love ya, but this it what becomes of people who think that a ten-year-old encyclopaedia trumps the mighty Google when it comes to info-gathering.

Well, at least I get to take her to The Rest Is Noise now...

To start, FFXI ranting/squee. I promise it won't take long.

( Of suck jobs and dragons. )

So that was my Boxing Day - watching Hamlet (David Tennant! Patrick Stewart! Awesome all around!) while pounding macro buttons and scoffing mitchy's lovely Boxing Day feast - cold cuts and chutneys and gorgeous roast parsnips and roast potatoes and some of the mash leftover from my Christmas dinner. Omnom. It was nice, and there was relaxing and all was well.

Today was dinner with Mum and Stepdad, for more gift exchange and general nommage. Mum made my favourite pasta dish (prawns, sun-dried tomato and peas) and we unwrapped the presents. David liked his new mouse mat and it immediately got pride of place in their study. Mum was very pleased with the DVDs I got her (The Great Escape and The Handmaid's Tale), so I did well and am happy. For myself, I got books (Stephen King's most recent collection of short stories and an Ursula K LeGuin book Mum thought I'd like), CDs (Metric, Shinedown and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs), new clothes (the tops work, but I'm not really sure about the dress and as to the bright purple jeans? Um...) and a new coat. They're trying to pry me out of my old, battered black leather jacket but while the suede-effect tan trenchcoat is nice and all, and very John Constantine? I like my leather jacket and I'm not binning it.

Last but certainly not least, there was the cute Christmas card with the Amazon 'gift tokens' stuck inside, one each from Mum and Stepdad. See, apparently my Amazon wish list was too extensive for them to decide what to get, even with the abbreviated 'All I Want for Christmas' default list. So instead, we went online after dinner and I picked out a couple of things from the list. Those 'couple of things' turned out to be Sims 3 and the World Adventures expansion pack, of course. Though I admit to being a little peeved at EA for not only charging for the only custom content we can really get at the moment, but for also putting out Stuff Packs on top of that. Yay for being the ever-milked cash cow? Still, I have uses for the game regardless (character and set design works even if I'm a little crippled without custom content) and I do think it's fun.

Of course, there were a couple of things that made me want to punt my mother through a waaaaall... But I'm not going to go into that overmuch. Just ... y'know, I'm 32, not 12.

I swear, for everything that works out, there's always something else.

I start work on Monday, that's the good news. I got all the documentation in, for the most part, at least. The rest I have to fill out over the weekend and hand in to HR on Monday. I hate these things, mostly because all that info is on my CV and why the hell I have to keep rewriting this shit every time I turn around is beyond me, but whatever. There's also the matter of my references; the problem with having temped for as long as I have is that there's always so few people that you've worked for more than a few months. They're asking for my agency as a reference, so I guess at least there's that; they can confirm where I've worked and when. Still, it's frustrating. Still, at least the hard part's over and I can more or less relax about the job thing ... well, to the point where I can settle in and do the damn job, anyway.

Now it's the computer issue that's really pissing me off. Every day, something else goes wrong with my poor Eshu. Today, it seems to be that iTunes won't work. I tried to get it started but not only would it not load, I can't use the task manager to shut it down so I can properly reload it, either. It's just sitting there frozen and it's a royal pain in the arse. So my computer is probably steps away from a total meltdown and the promise that I'll get a new one as an early Christmas present has conditions that I hadn't even considered. Mostly is the issue that my Mum and stepdad want to wait until I've moved into a new place of my own before they actually get me the computer so there won't be extra to lug around. What they don't seem to realise is that the computer I'm looking at is actually smaller than Eshu, so it'll be easier to transport. That and the fact that my stepdad, who used to work as an Information Services person before he got made redundant maybe ten years ago or something, is turning around and saying, "The one you picked looks okay but tell me what you want in a computer so I can see if I can find something better". Read: "Let me second-guess your choices, okay?" Look, it's supposed to be an early Chistmas present; what on earth is the point of having a Christmas present if it's not the thing you want? Honestly, I'm trying to find a polite way to reply to his email that involves the sentiment, "I want that one, okay? It has everything I need and frankly, what I really want is a computer that works as soon as possible!"

Then there's the preachifying that followed the second-guessing in the email I got last night. My stepdad launched into this thing about how I needed to hold onto this opportunity (I KNOW, okay? I know the unemployment figures, I know how much I need this job; please stop rubbing it in) and how I need to remember my place and moderate my behaviour in the workplace to suit said place. This really galls me; he has absolutely no idea how I behave in a work environment. He's never seen me in a professional capacity, and he's just assumed that I behave the same way in my family, social and professional lives. He might do so, but most people, as far as I've been able to see, don't. I know how to behave at work, thank you, and for him to suggest otherwise is truly insulting. Particularly when he assumes that it's my behaviour, and not lack of opportunity and years of temping NHS hospitals that won't hold onto staff because of staffing regulations, that's led to my lack of permanent jobs. I want to be able to tell him all of this but I don't really want to get into it with him. I don't even think I can tell him that I know how to behave in a workplace without him using that statement as a comment on how I would behave in a workplace.

There's a lot of history here, I suppose. Since I was 15 years old or so (long before he was my stepdad, when he was just my mother's lover), my stepdad has told me that he was not going to treat me like I was his daughter. He has two children of his own and I have a father, however much I refuse to talk to him. Except the problem is that he has, in a way. I have received from my stepfather all the discipline that a child can expect from her father but none of the affection, at least not openly. I know he cares and all, but the discipline far outweighs the caring. Bit of a story: when I was a teenager, Mum attempted to force me to keep my weight under control by enforcing a half-hour on a stationary bike every day. I resented the hell out of this and lied about doing it when the parental units were out. My stepdad decided to catch me out in this lie by putting a sprinkling of talcum powder on the bike seat. I got really offended, as teenagers do, at this entire mess, took a bit of a tone when I apologised for the lying, and he slapped me. Mum didn't do or say anything about it and the fact that he had no right to do that was obviously going to get no sympathy. Mum then left on a business trip and my stepdad ordered me to write an essay on why lying was wrong. I protested this and he slapped me again. I don't think he's raised a hand to me since (I don't remember it, anyway, and I probably would if he had) but that's the sort of thing I only barely condone in a blood parent. In a step-parent who insisted that he wasn't going to be a parent? Noooooooononono. I never really liked my stepdad; I think he's an uptight, controlling prick at times. Mum loves him and they get on well and that earns him kudos, but he's not my father and he needs to stop trying to control me.

I seem to have the worst luck in the world with father figures.

Kitty's on crack. Kitty's currently having a 'time out' in the box the food processor came in.

We're off to dinner at Mum and Stepdad's place in a couple of hours. Oh, yay. I mean, it shouldn't be so bad really, but I didn't sleep all that well and don't feel particularly fantastic. Still, I suppose it won't be a whole lot of effort on my part, except for the travelling and such - we're going to sit and have a drink or two and open presents, and then there will be dinner and coffee, and then we go home. Somewhere in there will be Mum showing off her new kitchen and us sitting down and getting me registered for Phoenix Rising. 'Cos, of course, I'm not missing this one.

Speaking of getting things organised, I also made some agency calls to remind them that I exist and would like work. Why is it that they only call when I'm either working or swamped with hospital appointments? Anyway, they said I'd hear from them, so here's hoping that I hear a) soon and b) about a really good long-term temp job, or a good series of short-term temp jobs.

It occurs to me that it would be nice if life were more like FFXI. Stuck for money? Go out and kill monsters! Or go fishing or grow things in your garden or something. ( Cut for FFXI news. )

And now I need to consider what I'm going to wear and then go get some cash so I can top up my Oyster card and get smokes. Really all I want to do is crawl back into bed, though...

Hooray for me - I just spent pretty much the entire day in bed. And I'm still feeling terribly dragged out, which is the most annoying part. Okay, I'm sure it didn't help that my sleep has been a series of naps rather than an actual proper good night's sleep, but seriously...

I emailed Michael on Monday morning asking what the hell was going on with my pay from the old job - basically, I would kind of like to know if I'm getting paid on Thursday, seeing as it's going to be very hard to manage things like contribution to the household finances and Christmas shopping and everything else if I'm not. Has he responded yet? Has he bollocks. Even an email saying "I don't know yet but we're working on it" would make me feel better. I know he's probably busy and everything and that the charity that actually pays the bills is probably being a pain about it or something, but it's still frustrating and stress I don't need. Me being me, I'm considering all possible horror stories on this vein, mostly involving having to take a charity to court for the pay they promised. At least my mother knows lawyers.

Speaking of that, I haven't exactly let her know what's going on yet. I know she's just going to ask me why the hell I didn't tell her sooner, but I'm still waiting on it for at least a little while longer for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I'm really not in the mental place where I want to have to explain the situation to my mother - it may not be my fault, but this kind of thing is still not easy. Secondly, I know she's going to offer to help. This is a good thing, but it also means that I need to know more about the situation before I know whether I need her help at all and if so, what that would entail. Which I'm sure I'll find out on Thursday, when I find out whether the old job has decided to just stick with paying me monthly until my redundancy officially kicks in. That would be the sensible option, you know...

Anyway. Bridges to burn when I come to them. All today's reminder of how sick I actually am has meant is that I had to reschedule today's agency interview - the lady at the agency was very nice and arranged it for the same time tomorrow. At least something's going right.

I survived drinks with my mother predominantly unscathed. We talked, she showed me the wedding photos, I told her all the major stuff she's missed since I broke off contact a year and a half ago, that kind of thing. We also exchanged Christmas presents. Do not open 'til Christmas, obviously.

The fact that one is now unwrapped is entirely my mother's fault.

I come to this conclusion for two reasons: a) she was the one who suggested putting it in my rucksack so I'd have fewer bags to carry, and b) she cannot giftwrap to save her life. Therefore, the fact that the wrapping paper caught on my rucksack zipper, tore and revealed the present within is entirely her fault. Once it was open, there didn't seem much point in just letting it sit there in the plastic. Besides, I already knew what it was by size, shape and weight, so it's not exactly spoiling the surprise.

Complete Buffy DVD box set! *squee*

Anyway, I'm supposed to ring on Christmas day, which I suppose I can do, and we'll probably meet up again, which I think I can handle, particularly if it went as well as it did today. I wore the DoomBoots, and all she said was, "They look ... very ... sturdy" -- a positive sign if you know that she generally makes it well known how much she hates it that I wear big clompy shoes and boots. Only other comment she made on my appearance was the burn-hole in the arm of my blue cricket jumper. Either she's learning or this is only a temporary reprieve, and I won't know which unless I take the risk of renewing contact. I think I can handle that, though I'm just grateful that they can't do the "Come to dinner and bring dodgyhoodoo" thing for awhile because my stepdad's redoing the kitchen so they won't have one for months. That also frees me of the worry about being invited over for Christmas dinner this year. Yay!

So it was all right, all things considered. Now I consider dinner and decide which season of Buffy I want to start on while waiting for dodgyhoodoo to come home.

Back at work and once again, James did next to nothing that could be called "cover". He actually seems rather proud of this, because now at least I know what needs to be done ... namely everything. I'm still not 100%, I'm still kind of draggy and run-down, and yet I wind up having to play catch-up on three days' worth of work because bloody James didn't think to at least take note of any referees' comments received unless they were absolutely urgent and requested by our associate editor. I don't have the energy for this, but am going to wind up doing it anyway. Then I go home and cook dinner, because I know that dodgyhoodoo a) was on earlies today and b) has a meeting at the end of the day that he's not allowed to skip out on despite being on earlies. We really can't justify the cost of eating out, what with the holidays and the Affils launch expenses, given that it's over a week until payday for both of us. And frankly, given the day we'll both have had by the time this day is over, we'll both need something more substantial than just a bowl of soup, which is our current non-cook, non-eating-out option. So I go home and cook dinner, and then I collapse in a little heap somewhere. Bleh.

It's not so bad. Two weeks until the holidays, after all. The office essentially shuts down for that week between Christmas and New Year, which is a novelty for me. After all, I've spent the past few years working in hospitals in offices that insisted on at least minimal cover over the holiday period, only drawing the line at bank holidays. Of course, you could book annual leave at that time, but only if you acted really fast (last year I only heard that there was a minimum number of people who could book time off over that week when everyone else had been given a shot at booking those days, so it was "People can book time off over the holidays but not you, because it's already been booked", which kind of defeated the purpose -- I hated St Barts sometimes). This year, it's not expected and the whole office shuts. Huzzah.

Counting my blessings over the holiday period: I get that week off, no questions asked. I'm spending it with a loved one without having to worry about not being able to travel because of shut-down public transport (a novelty this year). I get to cook in my own kitchen and not carry the fruits of my labours around with the possibility of dropping the whole mess all over a rental car or flight of stairs ... and, given that I won't be doing the pudding this year, I also won't have to worry about destroying surfaces, floor and oven interior with flour, icing sugar, cake batter or whatever. And at some point I'll get to watch White Christmas, my favourite piece of Christmas shmaltz ever ... that's if I can take the half-amused, half-pained "I don't believe you want to watch that but okay" look on dodgyhoodoo's face every time the subject comes up. (It's not so bad, really; it's almost funny, and I'm not as defensive about it as I seem.)

And I will not have to deal with the family for another year. Mum ... well, it might be all right, but I won't know about that until I see her on Saturday afternoon. David ... I still haven't forgotten him basically asking me to be understanding of the fact that Mum pinned all her expectations on me and I let her down; who says that to their stepkid? And then there's David's relatives, who are nice enough but I've never really got used to them -- David's dad and Auntie Vi are both sweet people and I like them but I've never dealt with people who are quite that old (both in their 90s) before and it's difficult. It's drawing the line between talking loud enough to be heard by the hard of hearing and yelling, and having to repeat myself, and reminding myself over and over and over that they have very different social context than I do so some of the things I might talk about or be interested in or whatever might be incomprehensible and / or downright offensive to them. Having to put the checkreins on my personality to prevent family arguments is hard enough without having to redouble my efforts in the face of a huge generation gap. I don't consider myself ageist or anything (at least I hope I don't come across that way), but it's a consideration. I don't think devout Christian Auntie Vi would be particularly impressed to hear me talking about Mithras rituals or what have you. I can't even talk about what I write half the time, just in case. It's a pain, but there you go.

*sigh* You gotta love my Mum.

Not being all that sarcastic, really. For one thing, she (unlike David) didn't press me for my land-line number after yesterday's fiasco. Just said, "Glad you're okay and that you got in contact, I let your father and great-uncles etc know we were all okay, talk to you soon". Hooray for the new perspective thing from Mum.

However, e-mail from her this morning was amusing, once you got past the whole "stepmother in palliative care, Dad really low" part. Frankly, I'm not in the best of moods either, between being in pain from the inflammation (although that does seem a bit better), ill from the anti-inflammatories (bleeeeeeegh) and people blowing up London yesterday, so I'm not sure I'm keen to get in contact with a man who ignores me until he needs me, dismisses my dreams and ambitions utterly and has the socio-political acumen of a Backstreet Boys CD, just because he's blood-related to me and it's the 'nice thing to do'. Though, gods help me, I'm probably going to do it anyway. Just not right now. Random people tried to kill my city for no good reason, and there are people who actually give a shit about me even when it's inconvenient who need my support right here, right now. And there's only so much me, y'know?

In any case, she signed off with "Off to do the marriage thing. I'll be in touch when we get back."

My response was: "Blessings to you and David on your wedding day. 'The marriage thing'; heh. Way to be blasé about it, Mum. :)" Seriously; they've only been working towards getting married for, what, twelve years? Sheesh.

And another must-read metaquotes moment for dodgyhoodoo and any of my other friends who sensibly avoid communities because of the sheer weight they add to friends lists.

I am home with boxen. I have decided to do nothing with the boxen tonight. This is at least partly to do with the fact that cholten99 is in and I don't really want to do the packing thing when he's in and trying to sleep, since I kept him up on Sunday with Buffy S7, apparently. I would require entertainment of a more noisy nature to keep me interested in shoving my personal possessions in various-sized boxes, and I want to be nice to him anyway because he's going to be helping both dodgyhoodoo and I move in a few days.

Speaking of people being nice and hauling my shit to Finchley, communication has begun anew with my mother. Partly this was her informing me that she and her SO are finally getting married in July. In New York. No, I'm still not going. At that point, though, I figured it'd be best to let her know what-all's going on with where I'm going to be living at the very least -- in case of emergency, you understand. From there, she told me that she'd send my soon-to-be-stepfather over to the flat with the stuff I left in Tooting lo these many moons ago, which is nice. She's also telling me she's fine with communication going at my own pace, including e-mail for the duration. The reasonable nature of her last mail makes me want to mount a scouting expedition to her end of London to hunt for the pod, but never mind.

Right. I probably should go to bed either now or soon, but I'm not really sleepy so I will turn off the sound on my computer and play Sims 2 or something.

And so, to put the finishing touch on this particular weekend, there is more e-mail from my mother. I can't even bring myself to read it; I've just marked-as-read and stuck it in the folder I reserve for parental e-mail that I don't feel equipped to deal with. And yet it sits there, and I know it sits there, and thinking what it might say is likely worse than what reading what it does say. Still, can't cope with that right now. Head hurts too damn much to be having with that.

Instead I'm going to do the should-do stuff -- tidy my room a bit, go grocery shopping, lie down and try to relax so the headache doesn't eat me alive, that sort of thing. The room thing will be good because I really shouldn't have this much of my wardrobe lying on the floor. Besides, I have the "keep-it-toss-it" thing to do. You know, sort out what I own that I actually want to keep, what goes to the local charity shop and what is really only fit for the bin. No sense in moving things I don't actually want.

So ... yeah. Apparently people shooting me doesn't work because there is the "buzzing dodgyhoodoo resurrecty zap thing" after the shooting. Therefore I must apologise for virtual bullet waste. Which I suppose is somewhat less surreal than the conversation we had recently about being able to do touching Rememberance Day pastorals of Flanders Field on one's hamburger with the otherwise pointless-seeming green ketchup, the more standard red ketchup and mayonnaise (for the crosses, o'course).