I am the only person in the universe who knows the right answer and perfect method for everything

Brunch at my parents' house this morning so we could see my ex-uncle's brother's family. My father was in "I will do everything myself and it will be perfect" mode (the factory setting he's been stuck in since birth, I think). His sister's family expects it and lives to a similar standard, but not this branch of demi-family. They live in Cleveland, for God's sake.

I've been doing much better lately seeing my family in smaller doses and being grateful for their positives and the fact they don't beat me. But it seems I can only take so much before it starts translating into physical pain, even with all the changes in diet and lurking off to the bathroom to give myself booster shots of morphine-grade pain killer.

Ultimately, I don't want to lead the sort of life they lead or consider optimal for a person to lead, but I still have the biological urge for my parents to be proud of me. I guess my house will always have to be cleanest when I invite over the family, and sooner or later I'll learn that I can still have friends if my outfits and my plates don't all match.

Thanks Crazy Family

My grandparents graduated together from NYU Medical School and continued to work at Bellvue and do research for them as long as my grandmother lived, so they lived in an incredible NYU-owned apartment right on Washington Square Park. As a teenager my dad worked in a novelty shop around the corner that sold t-shirts with boobs and sarcastic posters and things. If I was lucky I'd get to walk there with my five older cousins, doorman smiling at the gaggle of Singers on the way out and me feeling like the grown-up queen of the world for getting to go on such an adult adventure before my fifth birthday.
When my eldest cousin was closer to her fifth birthday than her fifteenth, she and our mutual grandmother went for a walk in Washington Square Park.
"Dr. Perlman! Dr. Perlman!"
An enormous black man in a pink tutu bounded towards them, calling my grandmother by her maiden and professional name. My cousin stood in horror as Grandma and the Creature in Tule proceeded to have a very friendly chat. Thirty years later, I expect that same cousin in that same situation would have the same reaction, except she might make her desire to leave more pronounced.

My dad's sister's family was raised in Deerfield, Illinois with a very narrow idea of how things are supposed to be. Artistic endeavors exist to get you into a better college. You go to the "best" college you possibly can, get the "best" job you possibly can, do business, make money, get married, make babies, etc. My dad's brother was treated as the token family failure for never living up to these expectations.

My mom's parents never went to college and my mom had to write an essay for her father to explain what she planned on doing with her schooling to prove higher education wouldn't be wasted on a girl. She wasn't expected to marry a nice Jewish doctor, but she did. My maternal grandmother's greatest wish was for blonde grandchildren, and somehow I showed up despite my two dark-haired parents.
My mom has two brothers. One is a lawyer whose salary so astronomical it would make my dad's side of the family cry, but his debt is on par with Iceland and his third marriage is destroying the offspring it produced. The other two siblings are much more like me, with more intelligence and creativity and depression than directional drive. My mom's mom has had a few paranoid psychotic breaks, but only one or two in my lifetime.
On my mom's side there are ten cousins. One cousin had severe OCD (that's doing much better in the last few years, yay!), most of the cousins have been treated for depression and/or anxiety disorders, at least four or five have tattoos, and my brother and sister are two of the only three whose lives aren't primarily driven by something in the fine or performing arts.
My mom and my dad's sister are very civil to one another though they are secretly battling for my father and the entire world's love and affection. Still, my mom makes more sense on my dad's side of the family than she does her own.

I get a sadistic pleasure out of watching the two sides of my family interact, each making caddy comments about the other in the same key but for opposite reasons. I have a cousin on each side with the same name and only two years apart. They are both fundamentally artists and married around the same time and live in Chicago. But one went to an Ivy League school for undergrad, spent time as an investment banker during the boom, graduated Harvard Business School, owns a condo in yuppie-ville, etc. When we were little, he was my favorite cousin. He's goofy and loved to play with me and have fun all the time. The other cousin dropped out of high school and got his GED. He's an artist by profession, makes amazing things and has his work in magazines and people's homes and such, but doesn't self-promote at all and works obscene hours every week for little or no money. He's extremely shy and socially awkward, but he's also very tall and has a lot of tattoos and piercings so people think he's menacing and standoffish instead of nervous and quiet. Both cousins helped when my parents redid their kitchen.

My immediate family has been to Scotland and Switzerland and Tanzania and many other places as tourists. My sister has been to every continent except Antarctica. We travel and we gawk and we try not to be the obnoxious Americans going, "Hey, look at the funny clothes! You call this food? Where's the McDonalds?" My parents, with their exacting perfectionist tendencies for themselves and their children, also instilled in me an openness and acceptance of The Other. We want to see everything the world has to offer. Perhaps my mom, in trying to distinguish herself from her family, has been more severe in keeping her judgments. My dad won't stand for slow service at the drive-thru, but he will go to any religious service in any language if it's beautiful. Then again, we all laughed hysterically at the state fair llama show when the handlers spelled out "LOVE" with the llamas to Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight."

All this and more is why I'm bringing Neighbor Guy to my family's Thanksgiving. We are not Birdie's family, where Neighbor Guy would be par for the course. But whatever my family is or isn't, whatever I want them to have been or be, they are the sum of so many parts and an inescapable part of me that can't be broken by chaos or wild cards or inappropriate dinner guests.

For all this and more, corny though it may be, I am thankful.

Maybe next year I'll show up topless.

thankfully home

Sunday I was feeling much better. My parents came and we went to brunch and I ordered a frittata containing spinach on purpose. We went grocery shopping and my mom tried putting things away in my kitchen because she doesn't like having things out or that I still have things in boxes. I prefer it that way for now because I only use the dishes I need and they don't pile up, plus having some of my food things on the counter makes it so I know what I have without having to dig through my deep cupboards. The eternal battle continues. We then tried to jump my car and failed, so my parents called their auto club and the guy came and got it going but said the starter was shot so we should get it to where it could stay until we had it towed and fixed. Since I am getting New Car as soon as I am physically capable of going and dealing with the license plates, we figured it made the most sense to drive my car back to my parents' house and I'd get the New Car Tuesdayish. Lots of driving and a chili cheese dog from Gold Coast Dogs later, I was dropped back at my apartment sans car.

Monday I woke up dead. Tuesday, too. Dead dead dead. Wednesday I still felt like crap but the original plan was that I would drive to my parents' Wednesday night to see my siblings (returning from LA and college in Iowa) and help with Thanksgiving prep. Instead, my mom picked up my corpse and my dog on the way back from getting my sister from the airport.

Wednesday night through yesterday is a blur of pain and my mom's leftover hydrocodone and noise and people and my brother's massage chair. For Thanksgiving itself I drugged the living hell out of myself (hydrocodone and Aleve at maximum doses) so I could be social and enjoy the food. I apparently did very well, though mostly I remember staring at my cousin-in-law's very shiny diamond rings (and I always thought the shiny stoner thing was a joke!) and rattling off things I was thankful for every time the general conversation got too far into the gutter. I think I was the only person to do the "I'm thankful for..." thing at all.

The best thing about all those days at my parents' house was how happy it made my dog. He got spoiled like crazy between my dad and my sister, and even my mom fed him bits of leftovers when she felt too bad staring at his "orphan eyes." He got to run around in the yard whenever he felt like it, and by day 3 didn't even try to wake me, going instead to scratch at my parents' door until someone came and let him out. He even started snuggling with my dad after over three years of my dad trying to win his affection.
My brother's massage chair was also excellent. I spent at least 3 hours in it over the four days, digging through my unbelievably tight shoulder and neck muscle knots. I really want to steal it from him, but he spent his bar mitzvah money on it, so that wouldn't be fair. My parents are talking about getting me my own, anyway, I just have to try out the different models to figure out which would be the most helpful.

I wish my parents' house didn't stress me out quite so much, because it would be an easy and obvious solution to Incapacitated Annabell. But it never gets completely quiet and the concerned looks on my parents faces tend to worry me more than my own afflictions, and not even a massage chair is better than good sleep in the dark and quiet. I feel bad for my dog, but otherwise it's good to be back in my own hole, listening to free audiobooks (LibriVox is awesome and brilliant and you should check it out) and working on things I can try to sell on etsy.com (my username is my real name equivalent to AnnabellJo, as in FirstnameMiddlename). This is my new life.

Ungratefulness and Thanksgiven

From the Department of What's Wrong With This Picture: after my whole talk with my mom about how it's ok for me to be unhappy, tonight she declared that I'm not allowed to tell her that I'm unhappy without including a "look on the bright side"statement because it stresses her out too much. Ok. So I can't complain to my mother about things in my life because it makes her unhappy? I'm right that this is ridiculous, no? That between her being the mom (not to mention a professional therapist) and it being my life we're talking about, I'm not being completely selfish and narcissistic in wanting to react to it in the way that is natural and honest to me? I remember when I first came out of the depression closet, my mom told me that I didn't need to be so protective of her feelings and that she wasn't as fragile as I thought she was. Bullshit. At the time she said it, I believed her, but Sweet Mother of Pearl was I ever right in the first place. I was glad to have NBF there for perspective and support. In retrospect I feel a bit bad I wasn't concerned with him having a decent time, but he can hold his own and I suppose, like my mother, my ThoughtfulVision substantially narrows when I'm under stress.

Dear God, please don't let me turn into my mother

Otherwise, Thanksgiving was fine. Lots of good food and a few drinks to take the edge off (yeesh, I sound like an alcoholic) and everything turned out just dandy.

HDS is coming tomorrow! Yay! It's been far too long since I've seen her. I don't know what we're going to do or where or when, but things will work themselves out, I am sure.

Dear Dog,

I love you but you smell. Get in the fucking bath. No, do not nip at me when I try to pick you up because you can sense my ulterior motives. You need to be clean and handsome and presentable for Thanksgiving.

Love,
Mommy.

a little ramble

It is very hot in my apartment. I seem to be able to digest solid foods, now, though my stomach is still sore from its earlier retching.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Just like every year, I will spend it at my parents' house. My sister is in from school in California and brought a friend, and NBF is coming, too, for lack of anyplace else to spend the holiday. He asked me the other day what my family does for Christmas, but we are Jews, so I imagine he will have to spend December 25th crying alone under the mistletoe. Poor NBF. As for tomorrow's other guests, this year will be very small. Just my immediate family, my aunt, and two of her three children. One of them is among my most favoritest cousins, but the other is kind of shallow and super JAPpy, and this is my aunt I frequently find difficult. NBF wanted to bring his dog, but with my dog there, it would be a disaster of barking and growling. Still, I feel a bit guilty because his dog is much friendlier than mine (my sister suggested I leave my dog and only bring his), but it's my parents' house and my dog never gets to run around except when we go to their yard and I've been so effing busy lately with work that we haven't been in ages and he's getting cooped up in my apartment way too much. Yes, I am just rambling to assuage my own guilt.

ASSUAGE is an anagram for SAUSAGE and every time I type the former word I think about the latter.