The more things change My niece has a birthday tomorrow. I texted my sister for ideas and discovered that my mother - whom I haven't spoken to since the invasion of Ukraine - has decided to tap out. She's incontinent, she's throwing clots, her husband is deeply, aggressively demented (with a diagnosis this time!) and it's maybe time to look at long-term care. My sister took charge this time, which means she's the bad guy. It's been interesting watching her figure that out. I'm mostly sanguine about it. It's not my problem. They're worse off, they have fewer options, and things are shittier now than they were three years ago, when I was moving heaven and earth to provide a soft landing. That's all been squandered. And I'm mostly counseling her to let his son get eaten alive by this bullshit, not just because the son was the one who caused the plug to be pulled on everything I'd set up. But because having him killed and eaten means he can't interfere when the rubber hits the road. But I'm very angry that if she'd backed me up three years ago we wouldn't be here. I was supposed to have a lunch date with a friend I haven't spent nearly enough time with. He's dying of cancer right now. Not really in a place to see anyone. We have a mutual friend who is closer who keeps me apprised. And the guy who made my chess board is busy dying of cancer right now. Brain tumor first, then loss of short-term memory, now loss of continence. And my mother and her husband deserve so much more suffering than these people. I'm doing better than most anyone I know and I'm doing poorly. It's humbling. I wish we still lived on a planet where people cared about each other but I'd best get the mote out of mine own eye, right? I almost did. But I can't.
Dude. The amount of emotional energy needed to interpret and navigate that set of circumstances with your mother - even though estranged, and even through the intermediary of your sister - at the same time as: - being a father - owning and running a birthing clinic - drawing down on your finances hard to preserve your house - watching the world as we know eat its own head is going to be beyond brutal. I hope you're being kind to yourself.
Like I said. I got friends with hella worse. But yeah. Emotionally I'm pretty sure I'll be long dead before this house is habitable; it's the only logical outcome. The only thing that balances the scales. The house is being paid for with crypto, BTW. I don't know if you've noticed what a nasty bunch of jerks they've become. It's like watching the arc from the Whole Earth Catalog to Pump.Fun as a four-year speedrun, except they used to be your tweeps. My sister was pretty shell-shocked by the whole affair. She's now acclimated to the ocean which means 7000ft high desert in February gave her a sore throat, burning lungs and bleeding mucosa... which basically puts her on par with the rest of us. Four days in Albuquerque left her with laryngitis. It also - obviously - nearly curtailed her daughter's first teenage birthday so she decided to splurge and buy the kid a DSLR, which means I got to advise on the DSLR (and buy the kid a Gorillapod; I hope she thrives). I opted not to tell my sister my "my first camera" story because it would be sour grapes. But I'll tell you guys. It's actually my "my second camera" story because I had asked for a camera in 6th grade, expecting maybe some $30 Kodak point'n'shoot. Instead my father saddled me with a Zenit Automat. On the one hand? it was before Iran-Contra so having a Soviet camera was fuckin' badass. On the other hand? It was a primitive piece of USSR junk with wretched build quality, a go-nogo gauge for a light meter (that ran on Soviet batteries so... no light meter) and the nasty tendency to cause UFO trails across my pictures from a poorly-clearanced shutter mechanism. That, combined with the need to bike four miles round trip to get film developed proved an insurmountable challenge for learning photography. But when I was about to graduate college, my (manic) mother decided that she wanted to get me a camera, I should pick one out. Knowing her generosity wasn't boundless I settled on a used Canon for $400 that looked pretty bitchin'. I let her know. She (depressed) told me that not only would she disown me if I ever used a Canon, she would disown me if I said the word, because she had a Canon microscope that she hated, apparently. So I went and looked at Nikons, which had much shittier ergonomics, but were apparently acceptable, and she goaded me into looking at better and better cameras until I'd picked out a $1200 combo. That was acceptable. So I put it on my credit card and waited - waited for the camera store to actually ship it (they took long enough that I missed every summer flower) and waited for my mother to pay me back. She never did. Her graduation present was $1280 of debt at 18.9% APR. A year later my mother (manic) informed me that my sister had taken up photography, and following the advice of the camera store they had bought her a Canon. Unfortunately it was a broken Canon, so they had paid $700 for the camera, $400 to get it fixed, and then $900 for another Canon because the first one was un-fixable, and then my sister had lost it (sold it for drugs). When I asked her what happened to her fatwa against Canon she assured me that the camera shop -run by a guy she was sweet on - knew best. And when I asked if she ever intended to pay me back for the camera she said "well but yo'uve already paid for it, haven't you." I didn't mention any of this to my sister. I just told her she was doing a good job supporting her daughter in her artistic pursuits. I figure that's about the maturity called for, and adheres to my "whatever you do, don't fuck shit up for your sister's kids" mantra, which kept me from jumping off a cliff in 1992.
I am glad we talk. Looking forward to it next time. turning to everyone hey everyone! we talk!! wooooo