What's happening in your life? Part 2

Fangirl Three wrote:It is very sad, but maybe - if I could choose how long I could have a painful terminal illness - I would prefer a week or so rather than months.

I suppose there is something to be said for that yes. A few days v a long drawn out affair - pros and cons to both.

I haven't had my vaccine yet.

I'm feeling very disconcerted. The other day I gave away a minidress I've always liked - specifically this one...



This evening I nearly bought a long flowing and fully sleeved floral dress, buttoned up to the neck. It looks like something Kate Middleton might wear to the Chelsea Flower Show. I've closed the website down to sleep on things.

I was thinking about my father there. Of all the various nightmares in his life, he once told me the second worst was the night I decided he should pack and get out just before Christmas. He'd just returned from a tour of some nightmarish warzone, and my mother was completely out of control - never in.

This suited me so well that when he returned I started my campaign to split them up. One Thursday night I was doing my homework at a pub lock in when it all kicked off - he thought I should go home, I thought he should mind his own business. Somewhere along the line my mother turned up and the whole pub became involved.

A friend of theirs gave me a cigarette and said you know neither of them are capable of making decisions right now so you'll have to decide - it's her flat, so do you want him to stay or go. Victory wasn't what I thought it would be. I said he should go. Within about ten minutes he was packed and outside waiting for a taxi.

I went out and said to him when will I see you again? He just snorted with laughter and continued looking down the road. Wouldn't look at me. When a cab did stop and agree to go south of the river, he just shut the door on me and left me standing there alone. I didn't see him again until one of the nights England played in the 96 Euros.

That was only in passing, while his mother was introducing her sons to a couple of people who'd been bothering me. She was there of course, as one of these people was female - quite a hard lesbian biker (nothing my nan couldn't handle in her sleep), so she obviously couldn't be dealt with by the boys.

That was the end of all that trouble. I didn't see him again until a funeral - as is standard with the paramilitary wing of the family. I thought of Covid-19 as a respite from my sons interest in this stuff - I thought it might've been parked by the time he was freely circulating again, but it most definitely hasn't been.

I don't know why he can't be more interested in all the cultured and cosmopolitan things about my mothers side of things, charity, current affairs, links across the world. He just seems to take that for granted - too similar to everyone else maybe. He's more interested in links across the Thames.

Maybe I thought that too at his age. I wonder if I should've been more circumspect with him. I have to say Phil Collins hour on whatever radio station this is isn't helping my mood. I've always rather liked Phil - he's one of my uncoolest loves, but he isn't half depressing. One More Night now.

I suppose I'm concerned he's going to go over there one day without asking. Every contact I have had with any of them over the last decade or so has been extremely unpleasant.

I rang once at my half sisters request, to get our fathers phone number for her. For my trouble I ended up being punched directly in the face by an uncle who'd been sent over to do that. I had two stitches.

He was a bit sheepish at my own fathers funeral a couple of years later, but only because they needed my cooperation until it was completed. I don't really want my son near these people.

In spite of myself, I sent a cousin some little outfits for her offspring - I wasn't even sent a thank you. Her wedding was at some indebted golf club the terrified owners had been forced to provide.

What kind of people play golf? There's only two options there - boring git or person with more than one use for a golf club. The lawns do look quite nice I must admit, but that's about it.

I sort of ended up quite friendly with an aunt. One of these incredibly glamorous little Cockney dollies, ridiculously tiny, nose job, fake tan, husky voice containing all kinds of implicit threat, beady eyes, acrylic nails, trophy house, always dressed like she's on holiday on the Costa Del Sol, all that 'sweetheart' and 'darling' stuff.

The sort of person you only realise has been shockingly and thoroughly offensive after its too late to say anything. Always disguised as a sense of humour. The way she spoke about my mother was incredible. Being divorced from them herself, you'd think she might have a little more compassion. As morally bankrupt as the rest.

Absolute f****** ***t.

She asked me once if I'd made provision in my will for her 'girls'. I was truthfully able to say that, yes, I had. I didn't say it was 'under no circumstances...'

I was called before 6am by my brother, who is staying with my mother for the weekend. She was already drunk, and had decided it was the perfect time to try out a chainsaw she'd had delivered yesterday. Apparently she was hanging out of her bedroom window, singing along, hanging onto a drainpipe, trying to chainsaw her way through a tree branch that was interrupting the view from her bed. Good morning to everyone in hearing distance.

I've come home - she's even drunker now. One of the things she does to prove she's just like normal people is she pulls out all the contents of her fridge freezer - as in 'look, I'm a normal person who has normal things in the fridge'. If you object to having to stand there and be talked through the items, it's screaming time. I left when she staggered over to talk me through a box of strawberries I'd already been shown and compelled to appreciate in great detail.

The Call of the Wendigo wrote:

She was already drunk, and had decided it was the perfect time to try out a chainsaw

It broke down. It's still where it stopped, frozen in the offending tree branch.

I can actually climb trees very well, and I'm fine with heights, so I could've climbed up and got it, but I was so unamused by the whole thing I refused to.

No, a plug in thing that chainsaws through trees. She's thrown it out.

A day of some tension but also thoughtful reflection here. As I arrived home, my son whizzed by on his new electric scooter and I recognized him immediately. Evidently it's been stored in the bin areas under the pavements, so I don't see it. My mothers boyfriend bought it for him a couple of weeks ago. We are opening negotiations over the next few days about it all. He did point out that having frequently allowed him to cling onto the back of madly driven mopeds in Marrakech, I was in no position to warn of danger. I suppose I naively thought that by allowing some such excitement early, he'd rebel by choosing safe and boring things as a teenager.

I wonder what on earth my mothers boyfriend was doing. He seemed a little offended when he rang a couple of weeks ago to ask if I or my brother could convince our mother that he should sell up and move in with her. I spoke to him just as frankly as I would any other relative. After clarifying a few financial/will things, I suggested that the unhappiness he has been feeling might be alleviated by looking into options with Dignitas. They do take those battling with things aside from physical pain. As she quite likes living alone, that would accommodate everyone's needs. Just a suggestion. He's been quite cold ever since, and this scooter has appeared.

I ran into someone earlier that I last saw over 25 years ago in complicated circumstances. There she was, with a grown up (and now disabled) daughter I used to informally babysit. Us both being masked, the recognition was quite slow. It was her humour that made me turn. I said 'excuse me' to get ahead, and she said 'yeah, don't mind me love, I'm just here to f***ing well decorate the place' - I thought, I'd recognize that tone anywhere. It's by far the most unexpected thing that's happened to me all year. Despite my not smoking much at all now, I accepted four cigarettes in a row while we all chatted and hugged.

It was the most surreal and wonderful encounter.

Another surreal encounter. I opened the door to someone by simply pressing the buzzer instead of confirming who and what, and have been 'served' with notice of a debt for something I'm sure was fixed at the time. On my second gin of the evening.

I feel like I've been cornered. I opened the door all casual and friendly, in a vest and a pair of old tracksuit bottoms with a hole in the knee, Run DMC blasting out of the radio.

I can't get in touch will all those I need to be in touch with about all this, into the middle of the week. This bottle of gin won't last the night, I'm going to have to open the Moet.

Getting through the vagaries of my life without a full pack of Marlboro lights, as it were, is proving to be more challenging than I'd lulled myself into thinking. I should've known.

I was just thinking there, my son said to me only last week that he'd noticed all his friends mothers were all either much older, or my age but much richer and without having to work. How do you tell a teenager that clinical depression and 'events' derailed your ability to dig for gold? I made a promising start, and then became purely reactive. I can't begin to think how I'm going to have to pay this off, if indeed I have to. I'd allowed the pandemic to comfort me that I could live a more low key life, working as and when the need or interest arose. At this rate, I'll be one of those people hoping their 70's will offer a few years of respite from the unavoidable debts of life.

I feel like I might be on the precipice of a good four or so decades of f***ing hard graft. Some people seem to sail through life, I'd hoped against hope I might finally become one of them. A few months ago, a friend left me part of her house in her will. Far from going spare, that won't even cover the majority of this horror.

I've never invested in a private pension - has anywhere here done so? At this rate, I'll be scrubbing out public lavatories to supplement whatever bread and water the state has to offer.

Where did you leave your self respect
You look like a reptile, your house is a wreck
Your existence an insult
Stains that are suspect cover your clothes
The standards have fallen
My value has dropped
But don't shed a tear
Some walk like they own the place
Whilst others creep in fear
Try if you can to walk like a man
But you don't come near

I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. People talk about their pensions as if everyone is soundly investing in a reputable and sustainable way. I've never quite known what to say, other than 'f*** that'.