This week is just not going well. I'm not really sure why, I've just been generally unhappy everywhere except work. It's a sad state of affairs when I feel happiest and most peaceful at my whacked-out workplace, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

It started on Monday when I spent a good chunk of my day off babysitting E, who has been getting progressively more mean to me as the weeks go on. It started out fairly low-key, where she would say, "I don't like you," to me randomly through the evening which I tended to translate as, "I miss my parents and wish you were not here because then they would be home." It has been escalating, though, and Monday she told me she didn't like me about 50kabillion times interspersed with calling me a "poopiehead," telling me to "go away," and telling me I was "stupid." (This would then usually be followed by her telling me that 'stupid' was a bad word and that she shouldn't say it.) She also has taken to lying to her parents about me, telling them that I called her stupid or that I said I didn't like her. It's quite tiring.

It was at that point that I realized that I am 30 years old and still babysitting for money, and that I really needed to evaluate if the $250/month or so that I bring home is worth being insulted by a preschooler. (Her parents, for the record, don't believe the stuff she says about me and are mortified at the way she's been treating me... so it's not like I don't get support.)

This is a really long week at work, as most short weeks are, because trying to compact 5 days of work into 4 is usually a disaster. I got home at about 7:45 tonight and will turn right around and head back in 12 hours for my first visit at 8am. Instead of my usual early Friday, I'll be in visits all day, mostly making up Monday's. Grump.

Some crap has gone on at home and that is always a drag. Life would be so much easier if everyone had the same ideas of what goes into a partnership. When I find the magical solution to all of that, I'll be glad to pass it around. I promise.

The weekend can't come soon enough. I wish I had a working cycle like a real girl so I could blame all of this blah on hormones or PMS or whatever, but sadly, I guess I'm just a grumpy old goat.

One of my clients died on Friday night, rather unexpectedly, only a handful of hours after our last telephone conversation that ended with, "And remember, I'm still going to call you on Monday to check in about stuff." She was the mother of one of the many beautiful children I visit on a weekly basis - actually semi-weekly in her case, because Mom wanted two visits a week. She was chronically ill but not at all expected to die on Friday - or, heck, any time in the semi-near future. I still can't even adequately register my shock. I returned the call to her boyfriend this morning and didn't even know where to begin talking, except to tell him how sorry and shocked I was.

Instead of the HelpLine tomorrow night, I'll be going to her wake. I believe I'll forego the funeral/burial stuff, however. One day of being that young white girl that no one knows is enough for me, thanks.

I am so tired of going to wakes this year. So tired.

I have no idea where this journey will take me, having moved predominantly from parent support person to family grief counselor in a time when I'm still trying to work through the effects grief has had on my own family. I have so many questions: who will be the primary caregiver? where will the baby be living? will they still want services? is this going to be the most awkward case ever?

Mom had a whole laundry list of things she wanted us to accomplish together, like babyproofing the house, making a scrapbook of the baby's birth, planning her first birthday party, coming up with a nice Christmas on no money, finding more accessible housing, etc. Gah, so many things and it was so overwhelming - the first task was to try to prioritize and from there, we only got as far as babyproofing materials, holiday gift help, and numerous reminders to call her housing advocate. I just wish the scrapbook had been a higher priority for either of us. Damn, but I want that baby girl to have a baby scrapbook made by Mommy, for when she's old enough to have the words to ask where Mommy is.

We were supposed to have a home visit on Friday afternoon, but she called me to let me know she was in the hospital and she wanted her parents to bring the baby to see her. I waited around for her all day until finally she said that her parents were coming with the baby and I wouldn't be meeting with her or the baby that day, but that I would call on Monday to arrange two times - one to see her at the hospital and one to see the baby at the grandparents' house. I must have called the hospital a million times on Friday, returning her calls and later calming her down when she was so upset that her parents had only stayed for 20 minutes - far too short a visit with the baby. She apologized for having the receptionist ask me to call her back when I'd already left for the day. Such was the nature of our relationship, though - she nudged the boundaries of what I could/should be doing a little bit every time, always asking for a little extra, always wanting a little more time, always needing a little more help - all with the best intentions.

My head is swimming again (time for more decongestant), I've been mildly nauseous all day, it's freezing and snowy outside with the promise of more snow overnight, one of my clients is dead, and now I need to go babysit all night. Definitely a Monday. Chalk it up as one of the most challenging workdays ever.

I really just don't know how much more I can juggle and still remain somewhere close to on top of things.

I got into a rather interesting conversation with my Jennifer yesterday about friendship and about some of the many different friendships we've been in throughout our lives. I remember when I was getting ready to go off to college and my aunt pulled me aside to tell me that college was the best time of her life, and that I would never again make the kind of friends I would make in college, so I needed to really take good care of those friendships and appreciate the time for what it was.

( Long rambly post about friendship. Whiny. Skip. )

Maybe I just need to stop rambling and get ready to babysit.

It feels so insignificant and selfish to continue writing about my day to day affairs when there is catastrophe out there. Part of me knows that there is always catastrophe out there somewhere and that the entire idea of life going on is exactly what keeps it moving. Indeed, without a little selfishness, our existence would just be a continual dwelling on past bad events. True.

But at the same time, I can't help but feel like a major heel writing about things like work and eating junk food, when there are people and animals floating around dead in a flooded and toxic city I have never had the privilege to visit and know only through the eyes of Hot Mormon Julie on the Real World. I know that I can't write All Disaster All the Time, and I know I can't fall into my lifelong trap where a bad situation somewhere leaves me guilty feelings where I don't deserve any enjoyment. But still.

My heart just goes out to all of those creatures, four-legged and two, living and dead, out in the Gulf Coast area. I still keenly remember buying toiletries and bringing them to Ground Zero. I wish it were equally as easy for me to help out, even in a little way, this time. (Aside from donating to the Red Cross, we've already done that.)

I think I have a real bias against rich people. Like, really rich people. The kind who flaunt it. These also happen to be the same people who come into contact with my smoochie on a daily basis, because they feel the need to come into stores like Levenger, and Montblanc, and other such ridiculous establishments. I'm still reeling over the guy who was inquiring about ordering 2 diamond-encrusted ballpoint pens from Cartier to the tune of $100K. $100K for 2 ballpoint pens! Is he MAD??!?!

I guess I just find that sort of show of wealth so socially irresponsible. Granted, I'm much more pro-distribution of wealth than probably a majority of the people I know, but even with that aside... couldn't he maybe buy ONE diamond-encrusted pen and give the other $50K to help the world? Does anyone really need TWO? (Especially because he wants them to match his two diamond-encrusted fountain pens or somesuch crap.)

Jen always tells me that this is normal behavior for people with disposable incomes. I guess I don't get it. Part of it, maybe, is that I don't know enough people with disposable incomes, but I know that my grandparents, in my lifetime, have always had enough to do what they want. But they were never terribly showy about it, so that's what I'm used to. Besides, they also support the church and other charities. Heck, both of my grandparents are in clubs (a men's club and a women's club) whose sole purposes are to raise money for a "pet" organization! But I digress.

I can't say I mind having a little extra money for things like high-speed internet or dinner out or to buy Jen a laptop. It's nice to be able to go to the grocery store and know that I can buy everything I need without having to really count it out or put things back or fret about whether I'll be able to gas up the car after. And I know that we are fortunate, even though our combined salaries equal most of our friends' single salaries. We are WAY ahead of a lot of people.

But while I would like to have more income so that we could safely talk about things like baby-raising, I don't think I could get that at the expense of having a job that I feel is helping something. I can wake up in the morning and dislike my actual job but feel good about what I'm doing, that I'm helping the world turn instead of trying to make it crumble down upon itself. What I want is to make more money because society finally gets its head out of its ass and starts valuing the work that I (and others) do.

REVOLUTION.

I used to have a "smash capitalism" armband. HA! I wonder what happened to that. Aaah, my idyllic youth.

A little while ago, technodyke got the amazing idea to ask her readership to state and describe those parts of our bodies that we hate. It was very eye-opening, both to see what things were hated by people whom I happen to think are totally beautiful, and also to see how common everything was, how normalized. So often in my work I try to make people feel better by normalizing their fears/difficulties, but never really knew the total effect until I participated in her little experiment. And people were able to get great feedback from other people, which was also awesome.

Since I (and a lot of other people) found it so helpful, I thought I would try to start a similar dialogue about another touchy subject: personal flaws. We have them. We don't like to admit we have them. We don't like to talk about them. And when things happen because of them, we look for anything or anyone else to blame. We say we're working on them, or we need to work on them, and then we let things go along swimmingly and put them aside until the next dilemma.

I'm going to start the hard work now by telling you all some of the flaws that I have, some of the issues in my life and in my personality that I really and truly need to work on. And you might think less of me and you might not, but I encourage you to list some of your own just the same, if you dare. Come on, let's see how painfully /human/ we all really are. Shall we?

( The gory details. )

That's enough for now. Do you want to play? Come on, admit it, post it, let it go to the wind. Read the others, see you're not alone, see how strong and self-aware and passionate you are. Support each other. Offer each other suggestions. BE REAL WITH EACH OTHER. This is your life, and it is ending one moment at a time. Make this one count: for you, for me, and for all of the others who are brave enough to post here. No flaming, please.

Today I engaged in some grossness, also known as rinsing out some nasty crap in glass bottles. Jennifer and I went through Dad's kitchen and emptied out every open food/drink/condiment container so they could be rinsed and recycled. I swear the man had spices from the 70s, including Karo syrup and molasses in glass bottles instead of plastic. There were also several open jars of jelly, which was nasty mainly because when I finally got it to splut out of the jar, I then had to physically break it up and mash it down the drain. I think we polluted all of RI today.

We also dumped and rinsed all open bottles of liquor, which made the kitchen smell pretty disgusting by the end, let me tell you. A little Sambuca goes a long way.

We Coinstar'd Dad's penny jar and came up with $40 in pennies! Damn, that thing was freaking heavy.

Otherwise I'm having a pretty blah night. It's one of those nights where I pretty much feel like I'm wrong about everything, destined to be wrong, wrong all the time. Which then makes me second guess every thought I have. It used to sound like moving into Dad's house was the best idea because it would be a great financial steppingstone. But it would be a social nightmare. And would involve uprooting again. And starting over again. And on and on.

I just want things to be easy for about 24 hours. That would be swell.

p.s. I hate when we get home late on a Sunday because then we scramble to get everything done (like laundry and preparing for another work-week). This rushing around at 11:30pm is making my mind whirr all crazy and is going to inhibit sleep like WOAH.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that my father is dead. It's not denial, more like disbelief. It's just so surreal and weird.

I suppose a sudden and unexpected (and totally preventable) fatal illness is a lot like an accidental death. There's just no preparation, no warning signs, no tidying up affairs. Everything is just a big mess, much like his apartment and business. Empty safe deposit box. Missing will. Lack of organized documentation. Garages full of stuff. Attic full of stuff. Basement full of stuff. Workplace full of stuff. Apartment full of stuff.

I just keep occasionally thinking about how I should call him, how I need to get a Father's Day card, how I should try to get some Sox tickets. And then I need to remind myself that I don't need to do those things anymore. What I /do/ need to do is continue writing these blasted thank you cards for funeral gifts, continue planning trips to RI for cleaning and such, continue being gracious when people offer sympathy.

My director picked flowers from her own garden and arranged them in a vase on my desk yesterday. She was on vacation the last two weeks, and was just bowled over when she heard. She's quite sweet and I enjoy her very much. She also thinks I am one of the most hysterical people ever. (That's good for my ego.) And says I can never, ever leave my job. She's paranoid that we're moving to Rhode Island.

It feels so weird to be digging through my dad's drawers and cabinets, because privacy was always terribly important to him. I don't know how many times I got pissed in college because I had late bills and notices that I didn't know about because he refused (out of privacy) to open my mail. It feels so weird to bag up all his clothes, drawers after drawers of t-shirts that he bought to commemorate occasions and never wore. I took back the Dead Milkmen t-shirt that I got autographed for him in 1992. And an old school Mickey Mouse t-shirt. And his Montreal Canadiens jersey. And a Red Sox World Series t-shirt he hadn't even had for a year.

Heck, when he said he could die happy at any time now that the Sox won the Series last year, I guess he wasn't frigging kidding.

I think that maybe I don't know how to grieve properly or something. Oh sure, I know there's no right way or whatever but I got to thinking about when A. and I broke up and it was much the same thing. I sat around and felt like I should be more upset, more unable to cope, something. Anything.

When A. and I broke up, I was mostly okay all the time and then would occasionally get totally pissed off at him. And that was it. From Acceptance to Anger to Acceptance and back again.

I went into work for a little bit today to drop off some things (like my time sheet) and make some phone calls without my cell phone. Several of my coworkers stopped by my office to make sure I was okay (which was nice) and they all commented on how surprised they are at how well I'm doing. It just makes me wonder when people say that, you know? *shrug* I mean, yes, it's sad. Yes, it's terrible. Yes, it's hard for my family and we will miss him horribly and we miss him already. Yes, I'm concerned about his affairs, and his debts, and his belongings. I'm concerned about the effects on my brother. But how can I be so overcome with grief on this beautiful day, with beautiful sun and beautiful sky and fresh sea air in my lungs? In the dark, late at night, that's a different story, I suppose. But the joy of public life and diving into work is the Gods-given ability to compartmentalize, right?

I know there's plenty of time for me to be beside myself with grief, and I know that I should take these days as a blessing instead of wondering what is wrong with me. But I can't help it, I wonder. What is wrong with me?

I'm not a heartless person. I know I have a huge heart, a lot of love, a lot of compassion. Where is it? Is it still in there somewhere and I just don't know it? Or does it just choose not to manifest itself in tears?