tinhuviel | Entries tagged with children

When I was five years old, my parents split acrimoniously. The Father Unit did not handle it well at all, given his mental health issues. The Mother Unit was almost instantly out of the picture for a variety of reasons. The good thing was that I had bonded with Aunt Tudi, in particular, and with Granny. They were the ones who spirited me away from the house when the shit hit the fan. They were the ones who comforted me in the following days. But, because the Father Unit was my biological parent, his rights were considered before anyone else's, and he got custody of me for two weeks. I remember every detail of being taken from Aunt Tudi and Granny, of sitting in the back of the station wagon, my hands pressed against the window, weeping from a broken heart, and abject terror. I didn't know what was going on. My short life was in a shambles, and I desperately looked for the crimes I had committed to deserve this punishment. For the duration of my time with Daddy, he did not allow me to see Aunt Tudi and Granny, even though we drove over there four times over the course of two weeks. He made me stay in the car. My evenings consisted of his railing against Mama, and me counting the woven threads in the back of the couch. I cite this as the beginning of my OCPD where, to this day, I catch myself counting inconsequential things, just because. I saw Mama once during this time. He took me to where she was staying, and I begged her to come back, just to make things normal again. Obviously, that didn't happen. On the way back home from that visit, my dad got to crying so hard listening to Lobo's "Me & You & a Dog Named Boo", he lost control of the vehicle, and we almost had a fatal car accident. Honestly, I still wish we had.

Even though things turned out okay - my dad got some psych help, and I was returned to Aunt Tudi and Granny, who eventually adopted me - that separation and the associated crises endured at that time have clung to me like an undead skin of mistrust and isolation. My experience with other humans over the years only served to compound my feeling of separateness and, to this day, I am very aware of my walking wounded status, stemming from this profound upheaval in my life. Even my relationship with David is being affected, because I can't bring myself to let all my walls down. Honestly, I am not even sure I know how to pull them down anymore.

Why do I write about this, you may ask. I write about it, because I see over 2000 kids who, at the age of 50, will probably be struggling to act "normally" in a supposedly "normal" society, when their sense of normal was eradicated at their most vulnerable. This has nothing to do with politics, with social issues, or even human rights. It's deeper than that. What the Trump administration has done is damage the souls and spirits of the least of our species. It wasn't done because of mental/emotional lack of judgment, like with my dad, but with intention. How many of these kids, if they grow to be my age, look back at this time in their lives and wish they had perished on the journey to America, just like I do thinking back to that car ride from visiting Mama?

This isn't unethical behaviour. This isn't inhumane. This isn't even criminal. It is the very definition of sin and, if there is a god and he has a hell, it is my sincerest wish to watch every one of the perpetrators and supporters of this atrocity bust those gates wide open to infest the only place fit for them.

The End.

Mood: angry
Where? Home
Music: TV noise

On our way out of Wal-Mart, there dashed past us this 4 to 5-year-old kid screaming his little head off. He'd lost his people and he was heading for the exit to try to find them. I just kept on walking because I'm a misanthropist and I wanted to get out of Wal-Mart. Aunt Tudi, being the better half of our team, helped some other motherly-type women to head him off at the pass and try to find his folks. While I checked out the groceries, Aunt Tudi was being the philanthropic soul she is and had to find me in the throng after the kid's people were found. I would have stopped to help, but my methods would have been a bit different as I would have caught the little shit by his shirt and taken him to customer service to make the announcement to his Jerry Springer fambly that they'd lost one of their retarded offspring. All's well that ends well, I guess, and I didn't have to get involved thanks to Aunt Tudi being such a good person.

Mood: cynical
Where? home
Music: Oio - Sohoro

Before we got to come home, Aunt Tudi wanted to go by Wal-Mart and pick up some milk and drinks. Wal-Mart on a Friday is the next closest thing to Hell I can imagine, the first being stuck in a room with no Internet and a constant pipeline of Country music. Now Aunt Tudi has this habit of telling me that we're ready to leave Wally World and, as I'm cutting flips to the front of the store, she suddenly puts the brakes on my glee by saying "Oh my! Not yet! I forgot to get [insert inane consumer item here]." This item is invariably at the back of the store. Why I always fall for her saying it's time to leave is beyond me. Maybe the need I feel in the very marrow of my bones to get out with of Wal-Mart the minute I set foot in the place is the reason for my clouded judgment.

Today, it was pickle relish. She forgot the pickle relish for tuna salad. My version of tuna salad is a blob of mayonnaise in the middle of a blob of tuna, mix vigourously, plop on bread, and nosh. But Aunt Tudi is a tuna salad connoisseur, so pickle relish must be had. She'd also mentioned a loaf of bread, so I suggested I'd go get the bread while she backtracked to get the pickles. I took the cart because I was heading in the right direction and could hold our inane consumer items hostage, if need be, until Aunt Tudi gave in and agreed to leave with me.

On my way to the bread, I ran into a snag, in the form of....children. They were in my way. They were between me and the bread I needed. There were four of the little things, two of which were obviously "BFFs" because they were about 7 and holding hands...awwwww, isn't that cute? ::balls fists and places them together, squinching up my face in pure childhood squee'ness:: Every time I tried to get around them and their typically oblivious mother, the BFFs would barr my way. After the third time of this insanity, I chuffed loudly. The woman looked up and gave me this "oh ya know kidz rite?" look, which I did not return, because I don't want to know her kids nor anybody else's. A little confused that she wasn't getting the motherly code signs in return, she said to the BFFs, "Girls, I hope you get run over! I swear, you've been nothing but trouble in here and, if you keep this up, you're gonna get your toes squished! Now move over here and let this lady pass."

As I began to walk by them, the woman continued her sweet-talking diatribe. "Now, please try to stay out of the way. You are really going to get your toes squished and then someone is gonna feel bad." She then flashed me a "ya know kidz rite?" grin, I guess in the hope that I would clue in to the whole code sign thing and we could do the Breeders Bond. I flashed her something back. I flashed her my smirk with just a slight tightness of the eyes. Just like Jeff Goldblum getting his arse chased by a T-Rex (not the band, although that's scary too), the woman was "fairly alarmed" because, when I flash this particular expression to parents, it squeegees away any hope they may have had that I would understand their brats' poor behaviour or their own obvious lack of parenting skills. And this person, with her brood and their attached BFF, caught me on a particularly rancid day. Actually, I've had a series of them, but each consecutive day simply tells me that I need to avoid the Great Unwashed Masses until I'm feeling a tad more charitable. She may think I don't understand Breeder (which I do, I just choose not to acknowledge it as a language), but I got no doubt whatsoever that she understands...well, whatever it is I am. She gathered her kids around her very quickly and removed herself and them from the bread to which I needed access so I could get out of Wal-Mart.

Now, what could she have possibly seen in my tiny little grin? Well, I know what was going through my head when she said "You are really going to get your toes squished and then someone is gonna gonna feel bad." I remember it like it was just four hours ago! If my glance in her direction allowed this woman to read my mind, this is what she heard: Oh, you've got the wrong chica here, you barely-sentient brood sow. Nothing would please me more than to squish your dirty little brats' toes with my cart's wheels. In fact, if I had the chance, I'd affix their heads to the floor with some Krazy Glue, which can be found on aisle three in hardware, and slowly squish them instead with my Monster Truck Birkenstocks. No no, lady. I don't play the "ya know kidz rite?" game. Take your walking petri dishes and your limited brain capacity to the next aisle so I can get my bread and get out of here before I come hunting you down with a stolen tube of Krazy Glue.

I got my bread. About that time Aunt Tudi came up with the pickle relish. Holding my breath until we actually got to check-out, I was then confident in the fact that we'd be leaving Wal-Mart and I wouldn't have to make quick detour to hardware, aisle three, to pick up a little needed tool of the trade...

Mood: moody
Where? home
Music: The Everly Brothers - Cathy's Clown

This needs posting.

I think I'm developing...mad kid skillz.

I got Aunt Tudi to the hand doctor and decided to sit next to the massive saltwater fish tank in the waiting room because I have a deep love for fish (this has nothing to do with Barry Andrews' fish fascination..it's a coincidence). I hadn't been sitting a full minute when this woman comes in with her 3.5 and 4.5 year old girls. They both ran squealing to the tank, about a foot away from me. I just know I'm gonna end up with a cold. Those kid-things are walking germ factories. So they started tapping on the glass and acting like idiots despite their mother telling them to stop. I couldn't be angry with the mother, she was in a cast and couldn't very well jerk their little asses up and put them into seats. Still though, if the mother had been doing her job all along, the kids wouldn't have been so out of control.

Just when I was about to get really pissy with them, because I don't tolerate animal abuse, and tapping on a fish tank is abuse as far as I'm concerned, I saw a clown fish emerge from behind the coral. I said in my sweetest voice, "Hey! Ever see Finding Nemo?" And I pointed the hapless fish out to them.

"Nemooo!" they screeched in chorus, and my head just rattled, but I kept my cool.

"Yeaaah, it's a Nemo fish! Now, you remember when Nemo was captured and put in a fish tank just like this?"

"Unh-huh!"

"And do you remember how the fish got all freaked out when people would tap on the glass of the fish tank?"
"Uh-huh..." Their voices were smaller this time.

I nodded at the fish and looked really sad. Then I said, "Well, you're kinda freakin' the fish out, including Nemo there." And I cocked my head in the clown fish's direction. They sobered up immediately. The mom mouthed a 'thank you' at me. Wha?

The rest of our lov-er-ly time together was spent with their hands behind their backs as they asked me questions about the various fish in the tank. The mom was called back before Aunt Tudi because we got there a little early and the mom apparently had an earlier appointment time. She called her girls to come with her to the back and the eldest got right in my face and said, "You have pretty eyes!" Then she ran off.

So I didn't have to kill any children today and one of them is apparently a Goth in the making. Sa-weet. I took some pictures of that tank by the way, but I don't have time to upload them right now. Maybe tomorrow.

Now back to my regularly-scheduled whatever.

Mood: accomplished
Where? home
Music: Heart - Magic Man

I think I've pulled a muscle in my left shoulder. I hope that's all it is. If it's arthritis, I'm just gonna lie down and put a lily on my chest.

Time flies when you're having fun. Fruit flies eat your bananas.

Chester has had diarrhea for the past 48 hours. I'm giving it one more day, then off to Dr. Patch he goes. They'll just have to hold a check.

I don't work this week. Röchling is closed the entire week for Independence Day. Aunt Tudi and I are teaming up with Uncle Michael and Janice for a huge flea market expedition in hopes of recouping some of our losses on the job front. Janice is off this week as well. How can anyone maintain any measure of independence when we miss a whole week's paycheck, eh?

Aunt Tudi and I have a date for Friday. We're popping some corn and popping Independence Day into Ye Olde DVD Player.

Onions are of the Devil.

beechelfromhell sent to me a lovely box full of lovely things. Pictures and official thanks are forthcoming, probably tomorrow.

Also tomorrow, I'll be grooming Fat Boy Boo Boo. Something tells me that my shoulder is gonna love that little job.

Speaking of dogs, I saw a man who looked uncomfortably like Leonard Nimoy strolling through the flea market holding one of the ugliest chihuahuas known to planet Earth. It was like a shaved tribble with Spock ears. The chihuahua, not the Leonard Nimoy lookalike.

My contorted filbert has its yearly infestation of June bugs. When I was a kid, it used to piss me off to witness other kids tie a string around a June bug's leg and make it fly around in circles. I wanted to tie a string around those kids legs and make them run about in a circle until their legs came off. And I would collect those legs until they were bones, then make myself a small kid leg bone chair to rival HR Giger's ghastly throne.

The end.

Mood: owies
Where? home
Music: Jem - Come On Closer

Motley has critiqued my book by placing a poo-covered paw print on the cover page. She came out of the litter box and put her stamp of disapproval right there underneath the title. That pretty much says it all and tells me that I have my work cut out for me. It also tells me that Motley wants to be a critic when she grows up. She's vicious enough for such an occupation. Oh, and I think my feelings are hurt.

Insomnia had me in her hateful grip last night. I think I got maybe a couple of hours sleep at most, and that wasn't all together. Right before I went to the bedroom around 2 AM, I turned on the telly to check the weather. Noticed that Soylent Green was on and amused myself with thoughts of how fun it is to blurt out "Soylent Green is people!" at the most inopportune times, particularly during social gatherings. That was really the only good thing about the movie, that exclamation. It came in the last five minutes of the movie, but you knew this was the fact in the first five minutes. The hour and fifty minutes in between was tedious at best and made you want to gouge out your eyes with your thumbs.

How did Charleton Heston turn from being a 1970s super-dooper sci-fi b-movie groovster into a 21st Century gun Nazi? Was it all the damn dirty apes? Was it an overdose of Soylent Green? Was it hanging out with fugly Italian mobster vampires? Just what prompted the transformation? Inquiring minds want to know.

And what is it about John Leguizamo's abdomen that's so damned sexy? He's got a face like butt, but a body like a Greek god. I usually don't notice things like that, but Mr. Leguizamo is different for some reason, and I can't figure out why. It's maddening, I say, maddening!

Another thing I wonder: how on Earth can people keep more than one journal? I can barely keep up with this one and forget to post half the stuff I want to most of the time because I'm daft as hell. Better question: why would someone want to keep more than one journal? Why not keep everything in one big clump where it can all be found? Is it just me? Am I simpleminded or something? It just boggles my mind to think about keeping a separate journal for writing, one for religious matters, one for pets, and so on. Communities are different. I think they pretty much maintain themselves depending on the willingness of members to participate. I really don't feel obligated to communities, even though that may be the wrong way of thinking. But a journal should represent the whole of the person in my opinion. To fragment that is a disservice to oneself. Same goes for filters. I have very few filters because I can't be sussed to keep up with such. Call it laziness or an unwillingness to fragment my journal for the convenience of others. It's my journal. What you see is what you get. Feel free to skip over the crap in which you're not interested. Yo.

In other news. ....DUM DUM DUM: My biological clock is ticking like a sonnamabeetch. I'm pretty sure it's a combination of PMS, the abandoned baby on the taped Law & Order: SVU, and having just recently been assaulted by Angel. It would be a bleak day in history if I ever became a mother. I'm not mother material. I can tolerate and even enjoy the antics of a baby animal, but a human child pisses me right the fuck off. I want to squeeze its neck 'til its head pops off. Take Motley for instance. She's meaner than shit, but I think she's cute as can be. If she were a human, I would have already beaten her like an old rug. So, I will do the world a service and not get pregnant now.... or ever. Or maybe I'll end up being John Leguizamo's babymama and my child will have a fabulicious abdomen.

Mood: blah
Music: Law & Order: MCA

When I was a kid in school, I was the one who had to sit by herself in the lunch room while other kids would periodically come up and say something to make me feel like a piece of shit. Usually, it was about my weight. Sometimes, they'd pick on me about my eyes ~ how they were silver and unearthly and how creepy I was staring at people. I learned to not look up, ever. I was the kid who always got picked last to play ball, any sort of ball ~ soft ball, kick ball, dodge ball. In regard to dodge ball, I was the kid the others always took an extra effort to hurt with the ball when they threw it. I was the kid who got ganged up on and teased in public. I was the kid with no friends in school.

And I was an only child, raised around adults with very little contact with other children. And I was the fat kid...and the poor kid. I was the pariah.

I was the kid who, if given half the opportunity, would have gone into my school with a gun. I was the kid who fantasised about being Carrie White just so I could kill all the little fuckers with my mind.

So, when others see kids and they think "oh how cute!" I see them and wonder who they terrorised in school. I assume the worst with children because my entire life experience with them has been one of torment, humiliation, and ostracism. I don't think they're cute. I see the potential for suffering when I see children. I've been told, "well, children can be cruel. That's just kids for you." Yeah, well, that's why I don't like them.

And children are honest. They are what humanity is really all about. What a fine example!

Is it any wonder I long for the Alpaca Lips?

Mood: gloomy
Music: radio ga-ga