You're Not Supportive At All

Wow.

That one hit me out of nowhere. One of my sisters-in-law made it clear to me a long time ago that my wife's family would cease visiting us if we moved out of state - we were contemplating a move to New Hampshire at the time - and my wife dismissed it as a misunderstanding, saying her family would visit and that her sister was just being dramatic. That I didn't understand. That didn't stop me from throwing her out of my house, though.

And now tonight, my younger sister-in-law, the one I thought was a bit more "with it", dropped the phrase above on me when I said I really wanted out of this state, to move away and get away from Massachusetts. I even said I would leave and seek joint custody, the kids being able to split their time between me and trish. And then carolyn dropped that little gem on me. Took me by surprise then and I haven't been able to shake it since.

Not supportive.

I suppose the 4 years Trish wanted to tay at home and be a full time mom, forcing me (more or less) into 50 + hour weeks in order to pay the bills wasn't being supportive. I suppose encouraging Trish to make and keep all contacts with her family and friends here in MA has not been supportive. I guess not interfering with Trish's religious beliefs and bending to accept them in a sense so that the kids don't wonder why I'm not a religious man is a fault of non-supportiveness. i guess freely allowing her family to get involved without impedence falls into the non-supportive category.

"You're not supportive at all", she said.

"What do you mean?", i said. "Not supportive of what?"

"Trish.", she said, as they pulled on their coats to head out to the movies. Ironically, I'd left work so they could go out, despite the fact i could have earned some OT tonight, as little as there is these days. I left against my better judgement to come home so Trish could go out with carolyn tonight.

not supportive? Just what the fuck does "supportive" mean?

Sometimes, i really wonder whether or not the allowance of females to stay home, manage the family money and then bash men for going out to earn a living - essentially earning their keep via raising kids who spend the majority of their time in school, hanging out with their friends or talking on the phone, banging through some housework and an occassional spread of the legs - is worth it.

Not supportive at all? That stung me. i really thought Carolyn was above that shit.

Night Shift

I'm supposed to work one week of night shifts per month. That was part of my job description when I started here. As I age, though - bouncing back from them gets harder and harder. It's not so much that I have a hard time stying awake during the night. Not at all. I can still go all night if / when the moment calls for it. No problem. What gets me is the ride home in the morning, the lack of sleep I wind up with following a few of these shifts and the ever-lengthening time it takes to reset my internal workings.

- sigh -

I can't believe I haven't touched this thing since Jackie's dance. That's crazy. he blog itself seemed like such a good and fun idea when I started it and now, after almost a year ha gone by with a handful of entries to count down my final year before turning 40, I have to say - I pretty much suck at keeping up with a promise I made to myself. And the worst part is - there's a shitload of life stuff going on day after day that would make for a decent memory-type, digital scrapbook. What am I doing?

We found a water leak today. I woke up at one point this afternoon to the sound of something either dripping of falling on the cover of a library book on the floor. Dry, intermittent snapping of something hitting the cellophane cover. I looked up and there it was - 4 beads of water lined up on a crack in the ceiling paint.

Trish and I went into the attic to find the source and we found the water leak. Now, the question really boils down to how serious it is and what we need to do about it. She was able to brace a bowl beneath it to catch the drips, as infrequent as they were, but we're gonna need it looked at.