I Love TiVo

I do. I love TiVo. Rock Starr gave it to me for Christmas. I love this gift. I can tape All My Children now without having to worry if I remembered to leave the cable box on and the t.v. off. I can tape American Idol now while I'm at work. I love this gift. It was almost my favorite Christmas gift. Almost.

My favorite Christmas gift? My mom gave me the first season of The Muppet Show on DVD. That was my favorite gift. Is that freaky? To quote Denis Leary: We love the Muppets! We do love the Muppets. Omar and I spent three hours watching the first disc and we giggled through the whole thing. Veterinarians Hospital! Gonzo! Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear! The song from the Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper commercial (which was also featured on the BBC version of The Office)! It is too cool for school. The Muppets, for God's sake. I felt like I was in heaven watching it. I felt childish and all grown up at once. I had forgotten the simple joys of the Muppets. It was, without doubt, my favorite gift. It edged out the TiVo, but not by much.

So, besides being in love with my TiVo and my Muppets DVD, I am otherwise pretty bored with what's going on lately. I watch American Idol on Tuesday and Wednesday, Lost and Invasion on Wednesday, and The Office on Thursday. That's pretty much it. There's nothing else on that I love. Baby Sis hooked me on Grey's Anatomy, but if I miss an episode, it's okay.

Omar and I registered recently at Macy's, Crate and Barrel, and Linens N' Things. We still need to pick pots and pans out, though. We're thinking about buying a house after the wedding, so I'm thinking about alternatives for my job. I want to drop down to part-time keyholder, go to school at night and on the weekends, get my paralegal's license, and then get a good job. Hopefully, all before the holidays so I don't have to deal with this garbage again. If I can do all this, I'll be really freaking happy, but I'm not sure it'll fly. My manager will be pissed, but I don't care. I'll have benefits through Omar so I don't care about anything else. And I really want to go back to school.

I gave Omar my cell phone when I came into the house, because Eva called me as I was pulling into the driveway and I had to pee. He's been on the phone with her for almost an hour now. I don't think I'm getting my phone back!

So Done

Seriously, life would go a lot smoother if people would just do what I tell them. If everyone just listened to me, we would be in much better shape.

Lucy, you egotistical bitch, you're thinking.

Yes, yes, I am. So suck it.

I'm just tired. I'm tired of running around like a maniac doing wedding stuff, I'm tired of going to counseling sessions with a priest who's never been married but feels like he's qualified to lecture me about marriage, I'm tired of work, I'm tired of dealing with my family's shit. I'm fucking tired.

I wish in a lot of ways that things could be different. I wish Baby Sis felt better about her life, I wish she had some enthusiasm for something. I wish my mother wasn't neurotic, I wish she would stop reminding me of all the things I have to do to get ready for my wedding. I wish my dad had some peace and that he wasn't so closed off sometimes. We all get so exasperated with each other about such trivial things, and yet we don't discuss the trivial things because we don't want to hurt each other's feelings, or because we don't want to deal with the inevitable shitstorm bringing up these things will cause. So it builds and it builds and it builds and suddenly we're having an even more horrific reaction to something not even related to these things because we need to explode but even in the explosion we don't talk about the things truly bothering us.

Omar and I aren't like that, thank God. But it's also just the two of us. Silence in this apartment is too overwhelming. We shout at each other, cry, throw something (well, I throw something), slam doors, and continue to thrash at each other until it's done. We don't let anything fester because that's not who we are. Me because I'd prefer to let him know exactly how irritated I am with him so he'll stop being irritating. Him because he's genuinely not like that. Something bothers him and he, for the most part, tells you. It's why I'm continually afraid he's going to get fired: he tells people at work all the time that they're stupid. They are, but Jesus, babe, have some tact.

When I was a junior in high school I suffered from some nasty depression. But I never told anyone until it was just too much to handle. I honestly thought I'd learned some lessons from bottling it up, but I guess not. I still don't talk to my family about what's truly bothering me. Part of it is for the sake of keeping family harmony. No one wants to bring up all the bad shit on the few visits I get to make there. So we smile and we laugh and we drink (which, admittedly, probably doesn't help), and we don't talk about the things that just sort of sit there.

I will be the first to admit I'm not willing to bring those things up. I don't like to fight with my parents or with my sister (at least not anymore. Sometime after seventeen that gets old). So I sit on my hands or I bite my tongue or I suck it up and there a thousand reasons why. I've never been the person in my family who anyone would call the peacemaker. More like instigator. I never had an off button or knew what it was to keep my mouth shut. Baby Sis being a brat? Tell her. Mom being a bitch? Scream at her that she's unfair and that I hate her. Dad being uncommunicative and silent? Do something to irritate him so much he starts to scream. That's just the way it was. But now I find myself keeping quiet about stuff I never would have ten years ago. Maturity and wisdom with age? Possibly. Not wanting to deal with the aftermath of letting loose on the people I love? More likely. A combination of both? Probably.

Everyone has family shit. No one has a normal family. Dysfunction is normal. Anyone who says his or her family is not in some way, shape, or form dysfunctional is either a liar or so deeply in denial there's not even an analogy or simile for it. We all have crazy families. I spent most of Thanksgiving informing my younger cousins that everyone in our family was in fact a fucking lunatic. Or loon. I forget which, but same basic concept. And while my cousins laughed, they also didn't disagree with me. They are lunatics. But we're all bound together which is why we don't talk about the stuff that we need to. We don't want to rock the boat. We don't want to hurt each other's delicate feelings.

It doesn't stop us from genuinely enjoying each other's company. It doesn't stop us from having a good time together. When we're all in a room together, we get along pretty well. Sure, those issues sometimes sit in the room with us and we ignore them. But for the most part, we just hang out and let them drift around and over us without confronting them. It's not worth the little time we spend together to spend it bitching at one another.

This is not to say that these issues don't come up. They do, every now and then. But we don't usually see them until someone explodes. Mom gets mad at Dad and takes it out on Baby Sis. Baby Sis is mad at herself, takes it out on Mom. Dad gets mad at Mom or Baby Sis and doesn't speak to anyone. For days. I get pissed at my mother and screen my calls for three days. It is what it is. We live that cycle for awhile and we move on. And the issues continue to be unresolved and we dance around them until there's no more room to move and we let loose with primal screams, tears, and accusations that have nothing to do with why we're really stuck in one spot.

It would be easier if we could just say, "You know what? I hate that you're disengaged or neurotic or selfish or whatever." But we don't. For one thing, you don't talk to your family like that. You find more diplomatic ways to say it. "You know what? I've noticed you've been irritable or sad or quiet or whatever. What's up?" Even when you want to say, "Lucy, get over it. You're not the first person to simultaneously be getting married and hating their job. Stop being a whiny fucking brat."

See? I'm aware I'm just as much at fault as they are!

It is a difficult balance. On the one hand, they are your family. If you can't tell them when they're being assholes, youo can't tell anyone. On the other hand, they are your family. And there is no more bizarre dynamic than that. They are simultaneously the people whom you love and hate the most, the people you rely on and wish to be independent from the most, the people you always come back to and the people you sometimes never want to see again. They make you cry, make you laugh and make you absolutely freaking crazy. They are the only people who understand you while claiming at the same time to have no idea where you came from. They are the only people in the world who are glad to see you at three o'clock in the morning when you wake them from a sound sleep. They are also the only people who can put such rage into saying your first name.

They're also the people who have the naked baby pictures and aren't afraid to use them.

They may make you want to scream, to cry, to laugh. They make you homicidal, nostalgic, happy, and neurotic. They know you and they love you anyway. But it is always a balance. There will always be things you can't say. There will be arguments where the subject of the argument is not actually what you want to be fighting about. There will be moments where you will desperately wish you'd been stolen from a millionaire's family and that these people are not actually related to you. But in the end, no matter how many times you bite your tongue, rant on the phone to someone not in your family about your family, or even screen your calls, you will always know that this is where you belong, that they do love you even when they don't like you much, that you love them even when they're embarrassing or maddening, and that no matter how done you think you are, you wake up the next day ready to start over.

People Are Stupid

And that says it all right there, people.

There are days I really enjoy my job. This very adorable little girl named Claire gave me a big hug today and was so cute I wanted to take her home. Then there are days when I think that these people are sucking my brain cells out one by one and making me stupider with them. It's like they're born dumb and they just get dumber as they get older until there's no intelligence left in their brains and there's just this vacant look in their eyes.

Vacancy, my friends. It's there and it's taking over.

So, in keeping with the stupidity thing, I watched American Idol. People are completely delusional. How can these people think they're talented. Little Claire who gave me a great big hug today has more talent than these people and she's barely two! (Can I reiterate how adorable little Claire was? Cute little pudgy girl with big brown eyes, silk fine sandy brown hair that was static electricitied up around her head and just the cutest, most adorable kid I've seen in awhile. That's saying a lot since I work in a kids/baby/maternity store. I see cute kids all day long) Anyway, I watched it because they had auditions in Boston this year while I was still at The Store and a couple didn't show up to work during those so I'm dying to see if any of my girls secretly went to check it out. the store has people too old and too sensible to go there so I don't expect to see any of them.

Tom Cavanaugh is one of my favorite tv actors. I loved Ed. I thought it was a great show. Love Monkey not so much so far.

I love how networks make shows look so incredible in the promos, then you watch it and it's crap. I mean some shows, no matter how much the promos make it look great, still suck and you can still tell they suck even in the promos (like that crapola Heather Graham show that got cancelled after one show). But this one looked like it had promise. Plus Jason Priestley is a pussy in this show. And he got fat. And now Tom Cavanaugh's character is hitting on a woman at the bar talking about his ex girl friend and I've decided: this show sucks. Law and Order SVU it is.

Dick Wolf uses a lot of people from Homicide and OZ. I didn't really watch the former, but my roommate Ford and I were getting HBO free for like two years (I have no idea how; they never turned it off after a free weekend and we weren't going to complain). We did watch OZ. Hey, Sissy Spacek's daughter is playing a murderer on L&O SVU. She was funny in Orange County, but who wasn't? Tom Hanks' kid looks like a dork, but he was funny in that movie.

Kevin Kline's in the new Pink Panther movie. I love Kevin Kline. French Kiss is one of my favorite movies. "When people tell me they are happy, my ass begins to twitch." Best line in a Meg Ryan movie.

Wow the guy playing Schuyler Fiske's father looks like shit. He never looked that bad on Homicide.

I miss Omar. A lot. I want him to come home. At least everything here stopped vibrating, though. That was completely freaking me out. Today I thought the new car got stolen because I couldn't find it in the parking lot. Also freaked me out. I've decided I'm just completely susceptible to freak outs. It must be a Starr girl thing, 'cause my mom and Baby Sis are the same way. Freak first, ask questions later.

Which is why stupid people drive us so nuts. They make us freak out more than anything else.

This and That

The Object of My Affection went to Toronto today for a week on business. He's been gone all of five hours so far. I don't like it much. For one thing, my apartment is vibrating and it's freaking me out. Yes, it's vibrating and I don't know why. The floor is vibrating, stuff in the kitchen is knocking together, and I can feel the vibrations as I'm sitting here on the couch with one ear on The Matrix and the other listening to the shit in the kitchen.

Ever notice how Keanu Reeves has a funny eyebrow twitch? It's kind of like the way George Clooney always ducks his head, no matter what the role. Keanu does the same thing with his eyebrow.

I really wish I knew what was making the apartment vibrate like this, because it's totally and completely freaking me out. I think TNT cut out the "There is no spoon" part of the first Matrix movie. Isn't that like a key portion of this movie?? This vibrating thing is making me very nervous. I turned off the furnace, but everything still shook, so I turned it back on. I turned off the tv, still vibrating. I went into the hallway outside my door. I didn't feel stuff vibrating, but the hallway felt charged somehow. I don't know what the hell is going on here, but I keep thinking my apartment is going to start collapsing in on itself.

Sometimes when Omar goes away for extended periods of time, I just completely freak out about the weirdest things. I hear people in the apartment that aren't there, think I hear the front door opening and closing when I know it's not. I'm definitely not meant to live by myself, or at least without Omar. He's a very calming influence on me.

So my best friend Eva and her Heinous Asshole Nitwit boyfriend broke up a couple months ago. Han and Eva had been dating for a few years and they'd just started to talk about marriage. I always liked Han; I thought he was good for Eva and I thought he brought out a very soft and girly side to her. Omar hated him. Turns out Omar is a way better judge of character than I am. Han moved to NC about a year ago and he and Eva were doing the long distance thing. Eva was looking at grad schools around his area because she felt like she was ready to cut the cord with her old life and start building a totally new one with him. They bought a dog together. They talked on the phone every day. Then out of the blue, he decides that before he can commit to Eva for all time, he needs to make sure "she's the one." So he dumped her.

Yeah, I don't get it either. And Eva - she really didn't get it. I don't think in all the years I've known her I've ever seen her like this. Self-hatred, rapid weight loss, talking about making some incredibly drastic and somewhat ridiculous changes. She didn't sleep more than a couple hours a night for over a month and she lost ten pounds in less than two weeks because she was too depressed to eat. Omar was ready to fly to NC and totally kick Han's ass. And I was going to go with him and help because I can't stand seeing someone like Eva, who's self confident, bright, pretty, and funny, feel like shit because he wanted to sleep with other people. They kept talking, trying to decide if they were going to get back together, etc.

They share a lot of the same friends and Han told people they were just taking a break. Well, he told Eva a few weeks ago that he didn't want to get back together, he knew when he broke up with her that they weren't going to get back together, and that he thought she was more invested in him than he was in her. So now she's beyond pissed off and she hates all men. She especially hates Han.

I can't say I blame her. For three months know, he promised her they were keeping the lines of communication open, they were working things through, etc. What kind of asshole does that? He just didn't want to feel guilty about breaking her heart. Which he totally did. And I totally hope awful things happen to him for the rest of his life because of this. Eva was good to him, better to him than I'd ever seen her be with anyone else. And he took all that and he crumpled it up and tossed it away because he wasn't getting laid regularly enough.

Eva's a bridesmaid and I feel bad that I have to ask her to do all this stuff that's about me and Omar making a lifetime committment to each other while her idiot boyfriend just took that away from her. But, as everyone keeps reminding me, May is just around the corner and I'm getting into this wedding thing.

Yesterday, Omar and I met with the reception hall. We picked our entrees, settled a whole bunch of questions about booze and timing and all that stuff. We got a lot done. This week we registered at Crate and Barrel and Macy's and Linens N' Things. It was fun, but it was a lot of work too. We picked out 90% of what we wanted and we still have to finish it. I think we're going to next weekend when Omar gets back. My bridal shower is on March 5 and I'm excited about it!

I just wish my apartment would stop vibrating. It's really freaking me out.