Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Cold Moon 09, I

JESUS GOD AND ALL THAT IS EFFING DIVINE. This shit? This shit should've been written up on JANUARY FUCKING 10TH, but both our lives have been so NON-EFFING-STOP since the demise of our 2008 Christmas holiday that I was -lucky- just to be able to hammer out shorthand notes in mostly (MOSTLY!) chronological order. Now that we've gotten THAT out of the way, let's bore you to death with the details!

SATURDAY, 10 (FIRST FULL MOON OF 2009)

ITCHING, ITCHING, ITCHING. All fucking night long. Even after an anti-histamine, even after another trip to the bong bucket, even after ingesting the first Melatonin tablet in months. (To cope with sleeping during days I would pop a Melatonin to ensure I got the best possible rest, but then, after weeks of doing THAT it got so ingrained into my bedtime routine that I began taking it at night, too. And then (AND THEN!), and then weeks became //years// and after a few of THOSE - and a recent scientific something or other than warned against the flagrant abuse of Melatonin (unsurprisingly your brain, getting melatonin from another source, just sort've shuts that shop down and begins relying solely on the external dealer) - I decided it was time to turn in my metaphorical tourniquet and call it a day (LOL, NIGHT?).)

It was one drugged up, itching night too many. The second Italics was up the following morning (the 10th) I announced to him, the rest of the sleeping house, the world, universe, and the building blocks of life itself that I was washing bed sheets that day...BUT NOT THE DUVET. (Never the duvet! NEVER!)

(We, supposedly, have a double-sized comforter, but for whatever LOLERIFIC reason it doesn't actually -fit- our double-sized duvet. So washing and cleaning the comforter and duvet involves a bed making autopsy - first I have to unbutton all the damn buttons that never seem to stay buttoned but manage to be buttoned when I don't need them to be, then I have to fish around at either end of the bottom corners to find where the safety pins holding the duvet to the comforter are to remove them, once they're removed I have to flip everything over and undo several more safety pins ON THE EFFING OUTSIDE OF THE DUVET, PINNED TO THE UNDERSIDE SO THE 1 FUCKING FOOT OF EXTRA MATERIAL DOESN'T HANG PATHETICALLY OVER THE SIDE OF THE BED LIKE A DEFLATED POOL TOY, when that's loosened I have to crawl into the sandwiched mess so I can turn it inside and out and undo another set of pins on the side and three more pins at the very top. FINALLY, THREE YEARS LATER, THE TWO BED PIECES ARE SEPARATE AND READY TO BE WASHED, BUT, LOL, NEED THE SAME EXACT PROCEDURE - ALL REVERSED - TO PUT BACK TOGETHER. It's an ENTIRE DAY EVENT that I often don't observe or celebrate, and now you see -why-.)

SO NOT THE DUVET, BUT THE SHEETS. Which meant the white mattress cover, the blue fitted sheet, the blue loose sheet, and the 18 pillowcases. (FINE, OKAY, 12. EXCUSE ME FOR EXAGGERATING BY JUST 6 TO BETTER ILLUSTRATE THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF THE NUMBER OF PILLOWCASES WE HAVE. Part of it, admittedly, has to do with needing to double bag feather pillows so ducks and geese who have been long dead don't extract their revenge by brutally attacking our faces with their quill points of wrath.)

And, fuck, if I was already doing all of that effing shit I might as well liberally Febreeze the bed. And the pillows (all six of them!). And Catfish, who probably smelled like Dorito Fish at the time. (WHEN CATFISH, OUR 6 FOOT LONG CATFISH PILLOW, BEGINS TO SMELL LIKE DORITOS YOU KNOW IT'S TIME TO FEBREEZE HIS SKANK ASS.) And wash Catfish's shirt to ensure that he wouldn't ruin clean sheets with the scent of COOL RANCH (or nacho cheese).

But that was all like 5AM, or something, and I began getting REALLY, REALLY into it, and thought FUCK IT, TO HELL WITH IT, IT'S THE FIRST FULL MOON OF THE YEAR, I BETTER WASH ALL THE GODDAMN SHEETS - DUVET INCLUDED - AND GET IT OVER WITH.

(I, uh, don't often wash the sheets. We only have one set - the set we're currently using. And as I've already explained WASHING THE SHEETS IS, EMOTIONALLY, THE EQUIVALENT JOURNEY OF ODYSSEUS, OR SOMETHING. That, and I'm fastidiously, crazily, verging on anally clean, so I've never turned in knowing that I smell like a herd of cattle. And, hell, I'll admit it - I love the lingering, waning scent of our perfume (we still wear department store toilette waters, but more often than not we're wearing eau de parfum grade perfume), our bodies, our heat in the bed. It marks it - claims it - in an animalistic sort of way.)

So I did it. I did //everything// with a self-made promise that even though I had peeled the duvet from the comforter - 10+ safety pins and all - I wasn't obligated to put it back together that night. Instead I layered each crisp, clean sheet (HOW CAN I MANAGE TO MAKE A BED SO PERFECTLY YET STRUGGLE BUILDING A VIDEO GAME BURGER VIA THAT ONE ATARI GAME WE PLAYED DURING CHRISTMAS?) on top of one another, and, for the first time in years, we slept with our old blue and white batik sheet. (Normally we wrap our large black ritual candlesticks in it, but since our altar was still out there were no sticks needing rolled up.)

The sun rose, the world woke, and the mail was delivered. A letter arrived, Stateside, with a bizarre, totally unknown return address but with my grandfather's name on top. Apparently, my grandfather (the only grandfather I've ever known, the only grandfather I've ever had, the only grandfather who gave me drunken rides on the lawn mowing tractor on balmy Wisconsin summer days) passed away...in September. It took until I sent him his annual Christmas card and gift for someone in my immediate family to tell me. (LOL, AND NOT EVEN "I THINK YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS SINCE YOU HAD A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR GRANDFATHER" BUT MORE "HE'S DEAD NOW, OKAY, SO STOP SENDING SHIT OVER, THANKS".)

I already wrote about it. (RIGHT HERE.) Well, sort've. That was my initial, first reaction to the news. (HOLY FUCK, DUDE, SO YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT YOU SENT ME A FUCKING -EMAIL- TO LET ME KNOW THAT SOMEONE IN MY //IMMEDIATE FAMILY// DIED. YOU SENT ME A FUCKING -EMAIL-, WHICH IS, OSTENSIBLY, A FUCKING TEXT MESSAGE, AND ADMITTED THAT YOU KNEW THAT THE EMAIL ADDRESS WAS NO LONGER BEING USED BY ME BUT YOU SENT IT THERE ANYWAY. I AM SO AMAZINGLY BLOWN AWAY AT HOW ANY ADULT - ESPECIALLY ONE DOUBLE MY AGE, AT LEAST - THOUGHT THAT SENDING AN EMAIL TO AN ACCOUNT THEY KNOW ISN'T BEING USED ANYMORE WAS A TOTALLY APPROPRIATE, TOTALLY SUFFICIENT, TOTALLY ADEQUATE WAY OF CONTACTING SOMEONE TO LET THEM KNOW ABOUT THE PASSING OF A MEMBER OF THE IMMEDIATE FAMILY.)

I'm 100% not done with this shit, but I am within this entry (otherwise this'll be MGM epic as opposed to disturbingly epic). MOVING ON...

An hour was lost. Lost to anger and grief and guilt. (How did he die? My uncle didn't say. Did he suffer? My uncle didn't say. All he said was that my grandfather had died in September, and I would have known if I had bothered to reactivate an account that he knew was dead for at least two years. Jesus, was it long? Was it drawn out? Did he know? Was in the hospital, just waiting? Did anyone send cards? Did anyone send flowers? Did anyone, other than me, bother caring at all? How fucking ironic that the one person who did care wasn't even given a chance to say good-bye, or even given the ability to send flowers to the funeral.)

But I have Italics, so I was - and still am - okay. When my mother passed away a few years back - the end of January 2005 - my father, who was then divorced from my mother, informed Italics that he felt I wasn't -grieving appropriately-. Because, after years of taking zoloft and anti-depressants and reading Dr. fucking Phil, my father was an expert on what was appropriate and normal for a child to undergo during the first stages of grief over the loss of a parent (the only parent they even gave a fuck about).

(I wasn't upset enough. I wasn't upset enough, and I didn't hang on him (my father) like he wanted me to, screaming and crying and wailing like a woman on the Maury show who learns that the 12th man she tested for the paternity of her baby wasn't the father. When I wasn't able to deliver that rich pageant of over-the-top grief I was labeled "crazy" and my mental health was put in serious question. What no one seemed to understand was that EVERYONE DEALS WITH GRIEF THEIR OWN FUCKING WANT, AND, ON TOP OF IT, -I HAD/HAVE A HUSBAND-.)

(I've had a husband for SIX OR SEVEN YEARS. (LOL, I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT YEAR WE GOT MARRIED, JESUS.) I've been involved with only person, ever, in my entire life, and I've been involved with that person since I was -16- (and I'm now -28-). I handle grief because I HAVE A FUCKING HUSBAND WHO IS MY BEST FUCKING FRIEND. I have SOMEONE WHO FUCKING TAKES CARE OF ME; I've made the normal, biological, sociological progression from PARENTS/PARENT'S HOUSE to HUSBAND/HUSBAND'S HOUSE. I'm a 2-fucking-8 year old woman, AT THIS POINT IN TIME, AT THIS AGE IT'S NOW //MY HUSBAND AND WHATEVER FAMILY WE DECIDE TO CREATE// THAT BECOMES MY WORLD. And that's TOTALLY NORMAL. You leave home, you build your own family. Your own family - the flesh and blood you've built after 10+ years of living, coping, building, dreaming, and loving. YOU LEAVE YOUR PARENTS' WORLD THEY CREATED FOR THEMSELVES AND GO OUT AND CREATE YOUR OWN. THAT'S TOTALLY NORMAL, BUT NOT IN MY FAMILY, APPARENTLY.)

(My family, if you haven't already came to the conclusion yourself, is the undisputed bastion of what's considered NORMAL and what's considered CRAZY, although, LOLTASTICALLY ENOUGH, I've never met a bunch of more dysfunction, irrational, and completely immature people sharing the same gene pool. If it gives you any indication as to how blinding insane they are - I'm the sanest, most rational member of my family. THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES, RIGHT?)

HOW DID I MANAGE TO GET INTO THAT BULLSHIT? JESUS EFFING CHRIST, ANY EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN AND BITCH ABOUT IMMEDIATE FAMILY, YOU KNOW?

You know how sometimes when you start cleaning you just can't stop? Especially when you're finally tackling something YOU KNOW SHOULDN'T HAVE EVEN BEEN AN ISSUE IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU LAZY FUCK. Just as you're almost done with the monumental task you undertook you find yourself searching for something else - ANYTHING ELSE - that needs to get purged, or cleaned, or dusted, or straightened out, or whatever. And at first you use the extra cleaning as an excuse because you need to kill time, anyway, but then it becomes A CRAZY OBSESSION, AND YOU BEING SHAKING, AND EVEN AFTER YOU'VE STRAIGHTENED EVERYTHING THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE RIGHTED YOUR EYES ARE STILL DARTING AROUND TO FIND SOMETHING THAT LOOKS SLIGHTLY OUT OF PLACE.

It was one of those days. (Plus, I had time to kill between switching dripping wet laundry from the washing machine into the dryer and from the dryer to the bed.)