Alone, for real

I truly am alone now.

I have felt  isolated  for most of my life.

Yesterday, my father called and asked for my help. He asked me to leave work early, and come help with the kids. My mother already had been at the hospital with Mothra for 24 hours when he had called. He couldn't be with her; there is no way to safely bring a near 3 year old with bronchitis into a hospital room with a 6 month old with pneumonia.

Hell, most of the time,  I  isolated myself.

I have always despised social situations.

I haven't been writing this blog for you to know the gravity of this request. My parents, as a rule, don't ask me for help. They certainly don't ask me to leave work early to profer my help. Yet that's what happened yesterday.

At parties,  I  am all too happy to stand on the side and watch others have fun.

I, up until now, have had only the perception of alone.

My parents have been the only two people in my life in whom I trust enough to share my emotional troubles. My friends are emotionally stunted, and have problems of their own. I am their rock, not the other way 'round. I fear breaking them if add my issues to theirs.

I have never actually been alone.

My penchant for  vicariously living  may be why I take to the parenting thing so easily.

My parents are getting old. They are less capable, both physically and mentally of taking care of two kids than they think, and than I thought. I will soon, be unable to unburden my demons onto my parents, lest they break. That day may be sooner than I think, and is likely sooner than I hope.

I will be alone soon.

Godzilla & Mothra are both sick. Godzilla has bronchitis, and Mothra is in the hospital with pneumonia. This is God's way of saying, "D-Rock, you thought you were powerless before... wait 'til you see this." Kids shouldn't be allowed to be sick. It's just wrong.

For those of you without kids: imagine you just got as a gift: a top of the line BluRay player, complete with Bose surround sound system and 40" plasma screen. Now after, using the best of your new system's capabilities for a few months, suddenly the only thing will play is BioDome. In mono. And the disc has scratches on it. And you think the person who gave you all this cool stuff is going to take it away because you took lousy care of it, but you know you took great care of it, including using fiber optics instead of regular cable, cleaning the dust off everyday, and turning it off at night at a decent hour. Okay, so you didn't clean the dust of every day, but that wouldn't make it break, would it? It's not like you took a hammer to it or dropped it in a swimming pool. But this is a precision instrument. Maybe a little dust could hamper performance. So you call up that techie friend of yours, Doc. Doc looks at your setup and says, "looks like you've got a little Pauly Shore infection." He pulls out a screwdriver. Well, you're pretty sure it's a screwdriver, but you've never seen one like this before. He turns one of the screws on the sound system a half a turn clockwise, and the stereo sound returns. He hands you the screwdriver and tells you to turn one screw a quarter turn clockwise twice a day for the next ten days, and everything will be fine. After that, what's left of the screwdriver will be useless, so don't try to use it anymore, but don't use it any less than that either.

Doc never asked if your stuff got dusted every day, if you used cable, or what time you shut it off each day. This all seemed very normal to him, like Pauly Shore is on every new TV in world once in a while.

Captain Godzilla

Godzilla is dressed as a pirate right now and will soon wander the streets with Lost Sheep and Pollyanna begging for candy. He will probably be done begging before I get home. This disappoints me. His costume came with a long hair (a la Jack Sparrow) attached to the hat. This is unfortunate, because Godzilla is 2, and can't grow facial hair worth a damn-- the poor lad looks like a girl.

Absence makes the heart wither

Since I started my current job, I have had plenty of time to contemplate my existence. Between the 9 hours a day at work, and the 3-4 hours commuting, the voices in my head have a captive audience with little distraction more than 12 hours a day (with the exception of when Cuddly Porcupine drives us both to work- then the voices only get 6 or 7 hours). What I usually end up focusing on is how alone I feel. After working 6 hour days a half hour from home, with my days off usually being weekdays, and being unemployed after that, I miss my time with Godzilla. I used to be able to take him to the playground, walk around the neighborhood, or just sit and read with him for hours at a time. And when other people that he loved came around, he still wanted to spend time with me. I did not fall to the side like I have the past few nights. Godzilla and Mothra are the only things worth anything to me. To be ignored by him, like I have, hurts.

I know he is two. He can't possibly know how much this hurts. I put on a brave face and be happy when he is near me, partly because of my perceived responsibility of eliminating sadness from small children's lives, but partly because if I don't, he'll want to be around me even less. I know he loves me, but I am humanly selfish and want him to love me most.

1st pic

Diet Mountain Dew doesn't suck as much as other diet drinks. It's still not that good, but my new job has me sitting most of the day, so I must make sacrifices.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and for the first time, this disappoints me so. I am now working what one could call a "grown-up" job, an am required to answer a phone in a (sigh) professional manner. I work for a large company, and I work in an IT support department. I've already been told that answering the phone "Ahoy! Thank ye for callin' IT support. What can First Mate Dick" (my pirate name) "be doing for a landlubber like yeself?" would not be good for my future employ here, especially if the CEO's executive assistant calls. I hate being a grown up.