backyard crowing



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pot and a comparison of my relatives' romantic relationships

i was just watching desperate houswives...

i've realized part of the reason why i've never smoked pot, and i don't particularly want to...ever. jimmy smokes pot, or at least he did regularly in the recent past. he's now an estranged family member, nobody really knows what he's up to...except me to some extent i guess, because of facebook. i know pot is not addictive (at least they say it isn't), but it would still pull me apart from my family, and i don't want that. even if they never found out, i would be racked with guilt.

why?

because though my chemist friend says very little pot is laced (according to him it takes more time to make with extras added), what if my joint did have a bit of fatal poison in it, or a date rape drug? i don't want to die, be raped or be mugged. and what am i supposed to tell my family when i'm lying on a hospital bed because pot caused me to fall down the stairs and break something? i've decided one's peers are no reason to smoke.

perhaps i'm only mentioning this to reaffirm that i'm not a smoker, and because the subject of "to smoke or not to smoke" was brought into my head again thanks to the chemist. he's 30, by the way, and only looking for friendship. he had a wife, for nine years. he said it was all very rushed..she was the first person who thought he was cool, he said, and so their relationship sprang out of that.

when i first heard about jimmy's marriage, new daughter, unenrollment, and pot, my granddad's reaction was to tell me to get off of facebook completely and not contact him in any way. he said in essence that the kid could be dangerous and could potentially manipulate me into getting him drugs. i honestly don't know all the drugs that my cousin is into, i'm hoping pot and alcohol are the end of it. hopefully he's vain enough to limit his consumption of them, and he wants to be a good example for his new daughter.

granddad's other reaction saddened my mother and i, and i think my grandmother as well. he "casually mentioned" that my cousin's new step daughter was black.

mom said, "but that doesn't matter." and he responded with, "yes, it does." they had a short duel thereafter that i watched with wide eyes, but i can't remember everything.

mom later talked to me about it and she must have been so livid at him for being racist in front of me that she forgot i had ears or a mind of my own. i hope he changes...it's always possible, even when you are old and "settled in your ways." otherwise, what hope do young people have for the future? why would the youth say the elderly can't change their ways? why would we stereotype them, when in a few short seconds we'll fill the very same hospital beds and retirement homes? and if they can't change, then who can? we're all settled in our ways...until we change. why limit ourselves, or any one age group?

i wonder what it's like to be my maternal grandmother. to wrassle with alcoholism as a grandmother? she's recovered, but she still goes into AA. and that is good, i believe that is probably as it should be. i feel i must learn more about alcoholism, on her behalf. of course i wouldn't know how to talk to her about it, but i still feel it is important to know what her struggle is like.

what everyone's struggle is like, for that matter. perhaps this is why i love movies and books. or why everyone does. art imitates life, life imitates art. sometimes the best relief from a devastating situation is knowing you're not alone.

"Even if we're all alone, in that, we're together."
-- the mother character in "P.S. I Love You"

i think granddad is a good man in many ways, deep down. i can't imagine what it must have been like to live with an alcoholic wife or mother. i don't know what i'm talking about at all when it comes to these issues/situations. and yet i think my mother's anger stems from the way her mother treated her.

i am tempted to ask granddad about the war, but...he never talks about it, so quite perhaps i should continue to leave him in peace...i have no idea how i would broach the subject, anyway. no need to stir up awful memories.

i don't blame my mother for wanting to get away from houston. i want to get away, too. it seems strange to me that anyone in their right mind would ever want to live with their parents for the rest of their lives. i want to be there for abbie, and i hope she'll be there for me. for the most part, she is..i wonder if her wanting to live in b-ville for the rest of her life, parents just a room away, is truly her wish, and not someone else's. i really do hope we will be in each other's lives forever, despite the miles. unless we have a royal fight, i definitely see her in my wedding. that's in, not at. currently she's sitting at "maid of honor." :)

my maternal grandma didn't say much this new year's celebration. then again, i don't think i said much to her, either. is my heart going? i don't know what to say to her. is she okay? who knows? i didn't ask.

when i spoke with my aunt k. last Christmas (a few days ago) she said that she had been married to my uncle (also an alcholic) for 6 years.

"Feels like 26," she said to me. "I wish they wrote a manual for this stuff."

It seems to me that most things that mess people up are because of peer pressure outside the family circle. And then the negative effects of these messes affect family members.

if there's one person i really want to do right by in this world, it's jimmy. he amazed me so, and now he's gone.

but mom said a few months ago that she thought he would be back. i believe her, because i don't want to believe any other way.

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i'm surprised when i look at my maternal grandparents and compare them to my parents. the maternals must have gone through hell with grandma's alcoholism. how did they deal? what was it like? how often did she drink, and where, and did she hide the bottles? was her work life ever in jeopardy? was their any abuse of the children, her, or him? what haunts my mother?

dare i ask?

i don't think so. i think that is for her diary to tell. maybe someday she'll pass hers on, just as i believe i may pass mine on. still, it would be much easier to ask her about the alcoholism than it would grandma. i don't want to rehash old wounds, they smarted badly enough at the time. i think the lesson from whatever their stories are amounts to "don't drink too much." but then, i'm sure there are several other morals that i'm not thinking of.

i have a feeling that the place i will go wrong in life and in marriage will be due to something mom couldn't teach me.

how did my grandparents go through such a rough time, and still remain together throughout, when my parents' rough time was seemingly easy in comparison?

either growing up with an alcoholic mother was not as bad as i imagine (VERY improbable) or my parents' marriage was a lot more hellish than they let on.

so what happened to them, then? they've said the divorce was due to several issues...

1. he read her diary (big mistake, idiot)

2. he once threw a mug and it hit the wall behind her

3. they both bought too much stuff and got into debt

4. he didn't like the way she packed his lunch, and would complain (lame!)

5. he put too many articles of clothing in the washer and broke it a couple of times (understandable)

6. his mother would try and weasel her way into my parents' vacations. in some ways, my mom said my paternal grandmother the marriage. she said grandma would not want family vacations with just mom, dad and i--that she always wanted to visit with us when a vacation opportunity popped up.

7. my mom and dad have VERY different patterns of living. she's the type a, straight and narrow person, while he's a nighter person. he's into math, she's not.

8. she wanted things organized--"just so." he didn't care, and wouldn't clean, so plenty of shit went down over that.

9. he wouldn't tell her where he went at night if he was working late, which made her angry when she expected him home and he didn't call

10. i think she thinks that he's depressed--at least she has said so on a couple of occasions

11. he was always late--she HATED that with intense passion

12. she hated how he always tried to get an exception to the rule for whatever he needed at the time

13. she was unhappy with how he spent his bonus. instead of paying bills/necessary stuff, he bought three gifts: a kurzweiler for himself, a breadmaker for her, and a sega genesis for me. i was thrilled of course, i didn't really understand. i wasn't paying bills, either.

14. i'm exhausted on the reasons, i'll update with more later...most of these come from mom's complaints about dad.

the stuff they did to each other was outrageous...but it wasn't alcoholism.

i never want to be "edgy" or "cool" or "tough" because of being a divorcee. i've done divorce once; i don't want to do it again.

i'm pretty sure my mother trained me to hate my father, just as she does. sometimes she speaks well of him, but on the whole, it's negative. with him, there are very few redeeming qualities. (according to her.)

- Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008
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