the Dalaverse

My mother's birthday was Wednesday, I'm going home Thursday, and I have yet to buy her a gift. She's difficult to shop for. First I was thinking flowers, but then what would I do for Mothers Day? And I would really like to make her a necklace, which has the added benefit of being a homemade gift to offset my dad's to-be-homemade gift in March (they sell little wooden lighthouse models in Michaels and I'm going to paint one), so they're equal. This is very important for an only child.

Problem being, I don't have any jewelry-making material, and the only shop I can think of is Bedazzled in Dupont, which I could visit on Friday, but who wants to take the Metro alone? Unless I could convince Beth to blow off work and go with me. Come on, donkeyriding, you know you want to. It'd be like old times. We could have lunch at the Front Page, and hang out in your bookstore, Lamda Rising, and that music shop, and we could even get accosted by Scientologists.

Mehhhh. Anybody in the area who's willing to hang out in D.C. with me on Friday, poke me.

Dammit. I really, really have to write this stupid thing on Caleb Williams. Which is at least finally over, but still, fuck you, William Godwin.

*squeak* Yet another sign that fandom has ruined me for all other pursuits.

I'm watching "American Idol" (shut up), and they are currently auditioning in a major city in Florida. The tiny man who is also a ginormous tool Ryan Seacrest, after a string of bad auditions, says something along the lines of, "It sounded like Orlando needed some serious warming-up."

And I'm all "WHO PUT THE PORN ON TV?!"

Daddy wants to see "Million Dollar Baby" this weekend, and yeah, but..."The Wedding Date" OMG. There's no possible way I'm talking him into that one.

Augggggh ::tears hair out:: So. Frustrating.

Traditional post-"Gilmore Girls" (now actually post-"Veronica Mars") call from home

Dad: So I started back at work yesterday.
Me: Yeah? How was it?
Dad: Well, my blood pressure shot up, and I got pretty tired, so I'm just going to work half days for a little while.
Me: Good. That's good.
Dad: Yeah, I figure I'll go back full-time on Friday.
Me: Um, WTF? How does it do you any good for just two days?
Dad: The doctor said it was okay.
Me: ::breathes slowly::
Dad: The good news is, I got done the stuff I was worried about that's due in March.
Me: What? What were you worried about? When were you worried? You're not supposed to worry --
Dad: I'm not, I just said.
Me: But you were worried and that's bad. You can't tell me this kind of stuff when I'm a hundred miles away, Dad.
Dad: ANYWAY...

(later)
Dad: We had spaghetti last night. Your mom made the [low-fat, from the American Heart Association cookbook] tomato sauce and then I put some mushrooms and some spices in it.
Me: Nothing bad though, right?
Dad: No, I can't cheat yet.
Me: DADDY.
Dad: The nutritionist said --
Me: I don't CARE what the nutritionist said. You're not even close to being anywhere near able to think about cheating on your diet.
Dad: I'm pretty close.
Me: GAHHHHHHH.


I understand that this is hard for the man who used to salt his fruit. I do. But Jesus fucking Christ, I hate not being there. I hate sitting here, freaking out and completely useless.

My parents smoked through all of my childhood. Everybody in our family did, but none of my friends' parents. I cried once when we did D.A.R.E in elementary school because they show you those pictures of blackened lungs and tracheotomy patients and the statistics and basically tell you all smokers die horrible horrible deaths. Which basically meant, "You, in the pink glasses, your mom and dad are going to die very soon." In fifth grade, I held a protest for about a day. I carried food up to my room, stuffed a towel under the door, and put a sign up proclaiming that I wasn't coming back out into the secondhand smoke ever and I hoped they were happy when I was left orphaned. They finally quit when I was twelve, cold turkey.

Point. A couple of years later, we were staying at a beach house with a bunch of aunts and cousins and whatnot from Dad's side of the family, and I caught my mom taking a drag from somebody cigarette. On the drive home I bitched her out as only a self-righteous fourteen-year-old girl can do, and she laughed it off and said Dad had had five over the course of the week. They assured me that it wasn't like they were starting up again. I still had nightmares about it -- real, honest to god, wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat nightmares.

This is so very much worse.

I want to go home.

And now I need a cry. Which dovetails nicely with the plan to sit all the way through "Titanic" this weekend. Perhaps I'll take "Edward Scissorhands" and "Seabiscuit" along for good measure.