| profile entries archives refresh |
 �what is Man? a miserable little pile of secrets.� - andr� malraux "i desire to live in peace and to continue the life i have begun under the motto, to live well you must live unseen." - rene descartes note random entry image credit design by : ilazarn ikmal powered by : diaryland |
ranty bitch today.
2014-07-14 @ 11:49 a.m.
boy's mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend are all up here for the week. i feel fucking miserable! i have my period, of course, and of course was the only one cleaning the entire house by myself at the last minute because of course boy couldn't fit it into his busy schedule despite knowing that they were coming since christmas, and despite having a very nicely organized list of things to do in preparation. like, it's one thing for me to be the one solely responsible for literally every single household task. but it's another when i have done ALL of those household tasks, and ask only that he pick up/put away/throw away/whatever HIS own things, and he doesn't even do that. i cannot go through his mail. i do not know what is important and what is not. and even if i could, if i were willing to take on yet another thing, he has - again, literally, this is not an exaggeration - 3 years worth of mail and paper trash that he still has not taken care of. it drives me absolutely nuts. papers come in to the house, he looks at them, sets them down on the counter in the kitchen. i need counter space in the kitchen to, you know, cook and stuff. i didn't buy a house with a really big kitchen and a lot of counter space to hold garbage papers. so when i'm cleaning the house, i take the mail that he has gone through and put it on his spot on the living room coffee table. "please do something with these. go through them and throw out what you don't need." this never happens, and the papers get moved to the corner of the coffee table. repeat for a couple of weeks until the pile is as large as the adjacent stack of magazines. then i take the tall stack and place it back on his side of the coffee table. "please do something with this huge stack of paper!" that never happens, the huge stack of paper is then placed on the floor under the table, which the kitten destroys at every opportunity. tired of a mess of papers under the table, i put them in a box. then, i put the box on his side of the coffee table. "please go through this box so we can get rid of this stuff!" then that never happens, the box fills up, and i now have to take the box downstairs out of sight because who the fuck wants a huge crate of random papers in the corner of their living room every day. i ask for another several months if he will go through the box(es, at this point, because we are steadily acquiring more paper trash each day), and that never happens. then suddenly, someone will be coming over, and he decides omg we (which really means, YOU, tinea) need to clean the house! ok. so i go through and tidy up the kitchen and bathrooms and stuff for the guests, then come to the basement, and find the boxes of papers that have never been gone through. what do? so i empty the boxes of papers into garbage bags and tuck them into the corners, and say, "the entire house is clean except for your stuff. please do something with those giant garbage bags of paper." and of course, this is never just the night before. there is always at least a week of lead time where we know our guests are coming. so what do you think happens to the paper? he moves the bags into a spot that's somewhat out of sight. that's it. when company leaves, i bring the bags back out and say, "okay, can you FINALLY go through these please???" sure, sure. never happens. every day, the mail keeps being delivered. and so it goes. then, the inevitable cherry on top: "[tinea], where did you put that little tiny gas station receipt that had been sitting RIGHT HERE!? it had [some super important thing!] written on it!!!" fin. anyway, it's super weird that boy's sister is NOTHING like him. you would never know that they were siblings if you met them together. i can't even appropriately comment on it, or come up with a good example to help illustrate. it's just like watching two people interacting who barely know each other but have a common childhood. like when you see a cousin for the first time in years, someone you were always around (not even necessarily friendly or tight with them, but just constantly around) until you were a teenager, and then you meet again at 30. it feels weird. they are supposed to take little A back with them to KY for the rest of the summer. god, i hope they do. boy was all gung ho about it at first, then in the days just before they got here, he seemed to be waffling on it. don't even think about it, just do it. this kid is a total asshole and if he grows up and makes it to 13-14 without ever having the experience of going somewhere else alone, being in a totally foreign environment (to him), away from the same exact 7 people that he is constantly around, he's going to be out of control. he already is out of control. but to allow his behavior to continue unmitigated - in my opinion - will really damage his development. he is already a 10 year old who has no respect for his own parents or any adult for that matter, no idea how to behave publicly, no idea how to do anything on his own. and what i think is the worst - no sense of shame. i know that you have to take a kid places and model proper behavior and all of that stuff, but he is so embarrassing to take out in public that we barely ever do it except in very short bursts. it's so frustrating that he's not rude and obnoxious because he's just a dick, he is that way because no one ever taught him the right way to behave. his mother never taught him to shut his mouth and pay attention. inside/outside voices. flush the toilet after using it (yeah, i'm sure i've mentioned this one 1,000,000 times because it is so fucking disgusting). basic human stuff. so for him to be around OTHER PEOPLE, other CIVILIZED people who know how to act? it must be done. he goes over to his mother's almost every weekend, and as soon as he returns here we see that he has been de-programmed. he needs to be away from her for an extended period of time. his entire experience of life has been: 8 years, do whatever i want, act however i want. 2 years, kind of behave 5 days of the week because that is what my dad and [tinea] are telling me to do (not because it is the RIGHT thing to do, but because i just don't want to get in trouble), and then i can go back to doing whatever i want on the weekends. there is never a chance for the habits to form, for the lessons to sink in. his normal mode has already been established over 8 years. he just fakes it til he makes it over here and then goes back to doing exactly what he is used to. let grandma and strict preschool teacher auntie have a shot at this kid, where he can't just call mom and get picked up to get out of being grounded for the weekend (because she never enforces his groundings, it will inconvenience her). where, after a week or so, he try to slip back into his old behavior and find that NO ONE else is willing to tolerate it. that yes, everyone else in the world except your legally unfit mother is going to call you on it and make you take responsibility. yes, yes, this is what he truly needs. if he has fun down there, awesome. if he doesn't, guess what. you're going back next summer, too. ALL SUMMER. i know i say this so much, but if you're about to get into a relationship with someone with a kid, scope that shit out thoroughly before you commit. seriously. best friend said to me once that it sucks and is not fair to me to have to clean up someone else's messes. it was a long time ago, and at the time i was like, ew, what a way to put it. but she sure as hell was right. call it what you will. it is not fun. so, off to the grocery store. i'm super happy that the inlaws are awesome and gracious about us letting them crash here for the week, so they are trying really hard to "stay out of my hair." i hugely appreciate it because i really didn't feel like entertaining people i haven't seen in 10 years for a full week. it's cool guys, go enjoy nj. i do every day. |