A Happy New Year

I'm still here at my uncle's house where my family came for New Year's Eve. I'm glad we all got together. It felt great to see some family friends I hadn't seen in a while.

I faxed what will hopefully be the last of the documents needed to complete the car purchase. I will be the proud owner of a 2004 BMW M3 by next week of all goes well.

I'm not feeling as emotionally shitty as I was the other day. I went to a friend's house with another friend that night. We all talked, downed 2 bottles of wine and things felt better. I'm going to enjoy this new year or die trying.


-Crash

Depressed again

The past few days have been really shitty. I mean REALLY shitty. Last week I got reprimanded for not going to the office often enough, a 50 mile, 1 hour journey including $8 in tolls. I didn't fucking feel like it after my accident, rental or not. Also, not that it should really matter to them anyway but, I've been babysitting so I was staying home with my cousin to ensure he ate, did his homework, etc.

Today I got reprimanded for not looking busy enough. Apparently when the CEO, COO, CWhateverO walks by and I have my two browser windows open (one for work, one for other stuff like music, etc) it gives the notion that I'm not performing my duties at work. They should be glad I even do jack shit there considering the clusterfuck that place is. My work is done on time and is satisfactorily efficient, what the fuck does it matter how busy I look?

Bryan's been bored out of his mind and I feel so bad because he has absolutely nothing to do here. I should've just stayed at his house and then he'd be able to go out with his friends or something. Too late now, tomorrow is New Year's Eve already. I feel like I've made Thanksgiving and Christmas absolutely miserable for him. He didn't want to spend them with me or my family. He wanted to spend it with his dad and/or his brother. No matter what, it all comes down to the fact that I'm extended family. I don't feel like I could ever make a big enough impact in his life. He may love me but I'm investing far too much of myself in this fruitless crusade. His father needs to be the one to nurture him, not me. I'm just his cousin when all is said and done. The return on investment will never match what I put in and I can't expect it to.

I was at work when all of this came to my mind. I wanted to scream. I wanted to break the keyboard, punch the monitors, cry, curl up in a ball, sleep, and just exist outside of time and space. I wanted to be without being. I wanted to stop feeling, stop everything. I wanted everything to just go away. I started hyperventilating again. I feel like such a failure. A freak, damaged, unable to cope with human emotion. I can't be happy, not for long anyway. My life is just an emotional roller coaster. Up and down, round and round. Who knows how I'll feel tomorrow or the next day. I just want it all to make sense. I want to organize my feelings, my thoughts, my life, but the harder I try the more it resists organization.

I try leave from under my parents' collective wing and what happens? I get rear-ended. I try to help my cousin but the best thing I could've done was probably not have been here. Maybe that would've forced his father to spend time with him. I try to be happy and I'm only miserable.

It's almost as if there is no "good", only "less shitty".

Christmas wishes and lots of food

Hopin you're all having a great Christmas, and if you don't celebrate Christmas then happy holidays!

I'm at a formal dinner with friends of the family. They're very nice people and the food is great. Bryan is, unfortunately, bored out of his mind. Like I said, it's formal so I didn't figure he'd have much to do. He's being a trooper though. He's entertaining the kids but they're 5 and 6.

I'll be going to finish the car stuff tomorrow morning. Let's hope for the best. Thanks for all of your Christmas wishes.


-Crash

Teenagers, Oh Boy...

My cousin got picked up by his brother on Monday night. He was there until last night so that was roughly 48 hours. He absolutely did NOT want to come with me and complained all the way home about how he doesn't know the people we'll be spending Christmas with and that he didn't care to even remember their names and how he wasn't going to have fun. I humored him and told him it would be the most horrible Christmas he would ever have, with all the presents he's getting and what not. How could anybody POSSIBLY enjoy getting presents? Sounds horrible to me too!

It seems to me, regardless of what we'd be doing he would've complained when it came time to come home because he wanted to spend Christmas with his brother. His father gave me very specific instructions that he was not to spend Christmas there because it would be awkward. His brother was going to be at his girlfriend's parents' house. They hardly know him and to have his little brother over as well would be strange.

Oh well. I wonder if I was like this when I was a teenager. The answer is probably yes. Whiney, constantly complaining and questioning authority...the definition of a teenager.

Damn Snow

Friday night my cousin had a sleepover and his friend stayed until last night. They had a lot of fun and I have to say that I did as well. We rented movies, bought junk food, wrestled, and they went outside and had a snowball fight as well. It snowed about 16-18 inches down here. I had no idea it was even going to snow. I have to say, I felt like a kid again when we played made up games and what not.

Unfortunately the snow messed with my plans for the weekend. I was supposed to have run the errands to get the ball rolling on purchasing the car but unfortunately due to ridiculous amounts of snow, I wasn't going to drive 400 miles. I tried to get it done yesterday but unfortunately we didn't have time to get to the bank. I got there and they had already closed. I had planned on signing all the paperwork there since they had a notary available, and who else would have a notary working on a Sunday? I drove 8 hours, ~400 miles yesterday for nothing. The kids weren't thrilled. They were basically just along for the ride. I felt bad. I left them at my parents' house while I drove around and then came back for them when it was time to leave. They were bored out of their minds.

I hope we can get this car thing over with soon, though. It's annoying to have to wait this long but the upside is that I get to look over all the paperwork and make sure we're not missing anything. Here's to hoping.

Drama

A little backstory, I went Christmas shopping with my uncle and cousin and he got to pick out whatever he wanted in Hollister. We got him about $300 worth of stuff. I told him all of it was for Christmas so he couldn't wear it until then with the exception of picking one outfit that he could wear on Christmas. His father let him put on a sweater/shirt thing last week which I didn't agree with but whatever, he's his father. I found out he put on one of the hoodies last week as well, without asking anybody. When I asked him, he then lied to me about it and made up some story. In some way I'm glad he's afraid of me enough or respects me enough to lie to me. On the other hand, he lied to me. I finally got him to admit he wore it and made it clear that lying would not be tolerated. No sense punishing him the week before Christmas though.

Now for the drama! His mother called me this morning. When this woman calls you, it's never a good thing. Through all her badmouthing of my uncle and his wife I saw her motive. She tried to make me feel bad about how his cousins had gotten all worked up about seeing him for Christmas and that his dad "abandoned him" during the holidays and that he'll spend them alone ("not that you don't count but what if you weren't there! What would my baby have done!?") and so on. In passing she asked if my uncle had left my cousin's passport anywhere. In my mind I'm going "Oh, hell no. I'm not sending him without his father's permission". Plus, I didn't want him going in the first place. I don't know where his passport is and I'm not going to look for it. Apparently she's going to drive over to where my uncle is and is going to tell them both off. This ought to be fun, especially because I tried calling him to warn him but they're not answering the number they left me. Why leave me an "emergency contact number" if you're not going to answer it?

I also go reprimanded by my boss for not being in the office the past few days while I'm babysitting. Whatever. If I cared any less about this job I'd quit. I wonder what they'll say when I have no more rental car next week and CAN'T make it to the office. Hopefully this other job will pan out. It pays far better and isn't a 100 mile daily commute plus $8 in tolls.

Further Explanation

So I told you guys I'd update you today after my interview. It didn't go particularly well. I did fine on the PHP and HTML/CSS/JS portions of the 3 person interview but the SQL didn't go so well. Oh well. If I get it, great. If I don't, no skin off my nose. I went to visit some of my former co-workers after my interview. It was good times. It's nice to see your friends after a long time.

I also said I'd update you guys on the family situation. It's fairly amusing, really. I've been grooming my uncle to become the father he's failed to be so far. Out of a cosmic twist of fate (and some luck) the airline didn't allow my cousin to fly alone. This meant here was no way his mom could keep him if he wasn't there! Now he's spending Christmas here, I'm taking him to my house and we'll spend Christmas with my family.

My uncle is very lax with just about everything, from dealing with his kids to dealing with his wife. As I've told you guys before she's very Type-A so she's very bossy and controlling. After my outburst, my uncle saw the need to curb her attitude and set limits to how she deals with his son, mainly after his oldest son and I sat him down and talked to him. I'm also teaching him to say no to his son. He needs to learn both responsibility and accountability. He has things he's charged with doing around the house and he needs to do them before he can go out with his friends and such. The alternative is staying home until he completes those chores. My uncle has never put his foot down so I'm surprised my cousin is actually dealing with it fairly well. I'm also surprised he accepted me putting my foot down considering I'm not his father and he could easily dismiss me.

Hopefully everything I've tried to instill in my uncle will stick after he comes back from his trip to Colombia (again) only when he comes back he'll be with his wife so we'll see if somehow she can nullify everything I've done. As a people-watcher, I'm fascinated by this situation and the way it plays out. As a human being I'm appalled by the goings-on. As a family member I'm drawn to fix it.

You can't fix the world...