kingtycoon | (no subject)

I really ought to get this down while I'm in the mood to do it, to be circumspect and a little thoughtful about the course of things. I don't know if I mentioned it here but I probably did because I kind of yell it at people, but it's, you know — my desperation to seem like I'm not just utterly without ability or utility of any kind — but I did really make 17 books last year — so I feel like it's not my fault that I didn't keep this up to date as well as it could have been. Now I worry that this reads as some kind of false modesty fake humility thing, I don't know. I don't fucking know, I went crazy. I had a crazy year last year and... Fuck, you'd know if I was bragging, because it'd be about how handsome I am. Bragging about the things you do is like bragging about the stuff you know. Anyone else can if you can.

So yeah — I'm still pretty crazy I suppose if I think achievements aren't ever enough but purely arbitrary physicality is the only essential virtue. Hey, good for me.

Anyhow I probably only sold enough books to be able to fuck up my tax situation anyway... Perverse incentives.

Oh — so here's the meat of it — lately, I was terribly sick all weekend — deliriums and everything it was terrible. I lost track of days and woke up to the alarm on monday and went to work out of spite (?) I had this whole hostile attitude about how if I didn't go I'd be scolded, which would have been true — there's a lot of official sarcasm going on at that place and I'm getting more and more hostile to it, fucking don't sass me. But then people were nice while I was there and they asked me if I shouldn't just go home and so I did, and then I worked at home on Tuesday and everything was alright. But I worked a lot, and I have been and I... My attitude about my job is that I only like it to a certain point — and really it's easy to push past that point & especially this — if I wanted to work really hard; I would get a better job. It's that whole thing where I resent having to work at all, that I write my congressional delegation angry letters when they go on and on about jobs- because they can't conceive of a social order not based upon making rich people richer at the expense of the lives of others. I like my job, but only to a point where I'm not made to think hard & often that I'm just wasting 10 hours of all my days to make rich people a little bit richer.

So normally on tuesday me and A hang out a little & she hit me up to beg off saying she'd been ill & know all about that and said I'd had the same situation an it was tough. Yesterday was fine, it was an alright day just generally but also really busy and I'm starting to crack, you see, because I can only tolerate so many fucking daily emails before I want to re-break the email system (the sabotage of which I've had to spend the first two weeks of the year arduously repairing). Plus our website went down, hard, and that sort of feels like my responsibility... Ugh. I just wanna be left alone! I got weird. Then I'm catching the bus up the hill & it's stupidly late and I have to take a different one and walk a longass way besides and cross a lot of streets where the cars are aggressive — I had to punch this car a lot and hurt my paw — this was back around christmastime, actually — because it tried to hit me, in the crosswalk, I had to jump away and then I got so mad and chased it and was hitting it and they sped off, like real fast down euclid — it was a whole dumb thing. And so... mad about things. I walk home last night, all mad about things and kind of in a rush because A's messaged me saying she's coming over — and I'm not sure why because we always have different plans on wednesday. This seems, eh, I don't know what it seems like, she's about to be 15 and obviously I want to hang out with her when I can, but she's like, she needs to get out more. I get suspicious when she wants to spend a lot of time at our house because... I'm a bad person? Sometimes she wants to IM with someone unimpeded, which I'm good about — so she'll want to come over and it's because she's got some girl on the line, or some new map is available on the video game she likes. I mean — always she wants to hang out and we love being with each other, but... I kind of stumble home in icy dark and she shows up eventually and she took some half-chat we had on IM to mean I was gonna make a big dinner? I felt crummy because, well I got nothing — I was so sick the other day it took all I had to just limp to the drug store for medicine & cookies — which is what got me through but I mean I couldn't really even lift up the coffee carafe to make coffee properly — I was crazy sick. Maybe I am a little still? Crazy part mainly. Anyway I put together a little bit of quesadilla for her and we watched an X-Men movie and talked about the X-Men and their overwhelming superiority to Harry Potter.

Then she helped me take out the trash and I walked her back to her mom's house and we had a little bit of discussion, an okay talk. I love her. I think about how she's almost 15, I'm in a kind of rush about this — I can't remember ages that well, I remember middle-school self and early teens — those weren't good times for me, I feel like my folks were pretty mad at me all the time too — I get it, I see what it was about — impatience growing, especially when you see kids in the neighborhood who can & do — on their own. Some with hustle, trying to sell candy or whatever, rake leaves, being baristas. I think about how much I worked at that age. I'm getting to a place where I'm probably gonna fall down on my fatherly graces cause I'm starting to expect a bit of performance, y'know? Hustle. But we have a good talk, about a little of that even.

I come home and lay down and feel so much better so suddenly, which is weird because I'd been in bed for about three solid days out of the preceding 5. But I felt better all over and I thought about what it would be like to be 15 at old Professor X's school and fell right to sleep.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

Punching a car seems like...more of a main point than you’re making it here?

I can’t believe she’s going to be 15. Like. The mind boggles. I remember reading about when she was born. It’s so cliche but oh well.

15 as a girl was like my innocent years. Still didn’t care about looking grown up or whatever, that came at 17 I think. That was a huge transition though.

From:

kingtycoon.livejournal.com

I totally understand that you had to step away because of russia & so on. My reasoning is - well shit, I live in the US, hard to throw stones.

But You're so right- the time! I'm really glad I have this kind of chronicle of our lives together- spotty & underdeveloped as it is, I'm glad I kept track of things because the time... well it went awfully fast. I mean Penny's got to be pushing 10 now no? And Dorothy probably reads & goes to school even?

Young Agatha... Well she's young for her age, and when her adolescence does show it's... strange. She's into dating girls & so we find ourselves int he strange territory where I (no slouch at dating but also... probably a terrible person in this capacity as well, like, indifferent & promiscuous - that kind of jerk) And I'm all... Well listen, if she invites you over and then waves you off saying she's got a girlfriend in another state - probably you can expect a few things. First, she knows what she's doing - she doesn't invite you by unless she thinks she might like to cheat on her old lady. Second - if she changed her mind, well, I'm sorry but that's on you. Maybe work on your outfit? And finally - people will cheat on each other & run around with you because they can blame you - they won't like thinking that they're the cause of their misbehavior, just understand that if you do what you want, and you take responsibility for it - well, you're virtuous but also kind of a monster in the eyes of others. It's nice that we can have these conversations. It was weird getting used to it though. Daaang.

Anyhow car-punching is part & parcel of the pedestrian life. I'd say 2x a year this type of thing happens.

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

This is brilliant(ly funny) but also omg Agatha might need some grown up lesbian friends to balance out your POV. Or to spend a lot of time on queer tumblr, but sounds like she’s got that on lock. Although I’m not lesbian I am queer and I would read that situation slightly differently, especially at that age. The blame/monster thing is spot on at any age (sadly) but the ‘cheating’ thing is so different when you’re young. Identity is so much more fluid, as are relationships and the decisions you make and how you understand (or not) or plan (or not) their consequences. Especially when your girl friendships are so important at that age, friends who are on that tricky will-we-won’t-we line of lust/love end up in so many weird situations. Experimentation, performativity, fluidity. Anyway. Being honest about your feeeeeeeelings with another human being as a prelude to sex is ridiculously hard but also kind of the main point of being a lesbian. And also probably the hardest thing to do at that age.

Penny’s 8 and Dottie will be in Kindergarten next year, but yeah. We are old and our children are growing up and somehow this terrible world hasn’t been bombed into a million pieces yet. Our daughters will save the planet. I hope.

Can you just imagine when they’re drinking with friends and telling stories about their weirdo fucked up parents? (Second gen Supper Club, I can picture it, in the post-post apocalyptic city) I think about that sometimes bc I take comfort in reminding myself that they will only know a tiny sliver of the fucked up parts of my life. Let them think they know the worst of it, you know?

From:

kingtycoon.livejournal.com

I think part of the reason that parents grouse about their teen kids is that you can really start to see them collapse the wave-function. 8? 5? You can't even guess what it'll be, post-apocalyptic warlord's as good a guess as any. Time goes by and you start to see them slough off some of the possibilities- narrower and narrower routes till they've kind of come into definition as people. For me these steps, where whole swathes of potential Agatha's were slashed away - those were the hardest times - because you have to really acknowledge - This is who my kid is. And it takes some doing to get over that and get back to the right kind of love.

I wonder if being married for a long time is that same kind of feeling. I just could never get over this type of thing with anyone else before. Not in that way, where revelations are abrupt or... I don't know, you know though.

Man do I know a lot of lesbians, and maan were they excited that young A is strongly aligned toward their team.

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

I am honestly a little afraid of being biased the wrong against my kids if it turns out one is straight (Penny, I think) and the other is not, haha. Like okay that’s cool you like boys HAVE YOU CONSIDERED VAGINAS AS WELL just sayin...

When you say “this type of thing” do you mean the accepting of who they are part? Like accepting that there are potential selves the partner could’ve become but didn’t?

From:

kingtycoon.livejournal.com

Well, I think about my models for love - my Dad & Grandma and in them I see people who didn't get to do what they wanted because of love, that is, they put off their dreams & wishes in favor of being in relationships that didn't seem like great alternatives. I think that I always look at attachment as being bound, held, y'know. And when you're involved with someone - their problems are yours. It's hard to want to have another person's problems, and as time goes by it's easier to see people as that- a collection of problems that you'll be bound to, if you join up.

So when you love someone and they develop problems, or shifts of identity or changes in outlook or preference- well you're on the hook to comply. I just hate that, I guess. I don't know. I think about it all in terms of confinement and being trapped & that's how I've felt generally concerning love - that it is like a cage.

From:

aslant.livejournal.com

Yikes, that is depressing as shit, no wonder. I think past generations had so much weird cultural stuff around marriage/having kids, like being/staying married was in itself the goal, which is nuts. I think my grandparents (grandmothers, lets be honest) accepted crazy limitations if you look at it that way...but they had no ability to see outside the box, I guess.

My parents didn’t have a fantastic marriage and my marriage is flawed, but my perspective is more that no matter what changes I’m still interested in being with this person. It’s like being friends. It trumps whatever the person is going through, unless they reject you I guess.

From:

kingtycoon.livejournal.com

I'm cool though, I guess I don't see it as depressing. I really do consider being single/alone/what-have-you to be a luxury. Kind of an ostentation that people of any other time or place couldn't even grasp at. "You mean you don't need to huddle with others for warmth? You can house, cloth & feed yourself by yourself?"

I was just saying the other day that I guess I'm pretty independent, as a person. I hadn't even thought of it. But I think maybe it's a definitive quality.