Independence Day

Dear friends/readers (as if I have posted anything to read in aeons!),

Today is Independence Day in the nation of my birth. I have not been able to celebrate well today; instead, I have been ill at ease. I may have concerns about the trajectory of this country, but my problems are much more personal of late.

About a year and a half ago, I left my temp job. My job did not go as well as I had hoped. One of my classes went very well and was brimful of vibrant people who made me eager to come teach/share every day. The other class was a problem. A gestalt git. A holistic asshole. "Serious" language students who complained that I could not make literal translations of grammatical structures that have no analogues in English or Spanish. One student who looked at me like _I_ was a fuckwit for trying to explain that a personal infinitive works as a noun grammatically despite its derivation from a verb. Had she never used a gerund in English before?? I have never met more truculent people in my life & they had massed as this amorphous, vapid whole that sucked the life energy right out of me every day. It did not help that I made some very silly tactical mistakes in that class (it was the first time I had ever taught it, I had misapprised what the course goals were in relation to other classes being offered in the future). It did not help that the textbooks did not arrive in time (it didn't help that they sucked, either). It certainly didn't help that I was continuously distracted by my father's serious health issues (which I alluded to in an earlier post). It also didn't help that I had no fewer than 7 notes from the Dean that one or more students in this hellclass had issues of their own. In all the years prior at that University, I had received two such notes. Seven for one class? My evals in that class were horrid, as I felt they would be. Of course, there is probably a special place in Tartarus for the evil git that talked trash about my sick father in their evaluation. Anonymity befits your cowardice and gracelessness. Of course, any U that would use those vapid gits as the sole arbiters of my prowess are doomed anyway, but it still left me disillusioned. I made mistakes, but they were coupled with the most obstreperous group of churls I have ever known.

Nevertheless, I was going to come home to help my father recuperate and rehabilitate. I love my family, despite loads of issues including those I have not come out about. We are very tight-knit. My relations with my father have always been...difficult. Noah Mayer's relationship with his father matches mine very closely, although Noah is younger and much cuter (dammit!). :D At any rate, my father had had some major surgery and was in a physical rehab center druing my Spring Break of 2007. He had come home before I was able to return to help. When he got home, he dismissed his rehab workers and all other aides. This man was then 84, but he had fought in WWII and Korea. He had fought at Iwo Jima, been wounded several times. He has 2 Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. Why this was when he chose to give up, I can never understand. My mothermartyr was 78 years old then, in need of a hip replacement, and in pain. Nevertheless, she attended to his every need, even feeding him herself. When I came home, he was confined to bed by his own choice. His hands and legs were atrophied to a state that a return to his mobile state was nigh impossible. Mothermartyr continued her nursework. Unemployed I was impressed to her aid. For the past year and a half my day has been: Get up, fix breakfast for self & father, clean father up from his wastes, feed father (sometimes), clean house, prepare lunch, eat for myself & then feed my father, run errands in town, prepare supper, eat for myself & then feed father, clean dishes, clean father, prepare father for night, wash hands for 100th time of the day, go to bed until the cycle starts with the new dawn. This went on for more than a year with little variance. The days bleed into each other like raw sores. Very little dissertation work has gotten done. My chronic sore back groans like Poe's iron bells.

Then, two weeks ago, my father had a doctor's appointment. We had to arrange an ambulance to transport him. He had to have part of an inactive foot amputated. Mothermartyr finally decided it was time to move him to a facility. This facility has had many flaws, making me very angry, necessitating many, many hours stuck there and many invocations of Erzulie-Ge-Rouge. I had hoped that the move would allow me to get on with my pathetic life, but thus far it has availed me not. I continue to age and have none of the things that I desire most: a steady, fulfilling job, steady contact with the friends I hold dear, a loving relationship. The fact that a dear friend managed to marry in the midst of flood conditions only makes my solitude something that makes it impossible to listen to Billie Holiday lately.

As the song says, "I am what I am. I don't want praise, I don't want pity." I merely found a few scant moments to vent a little and to try to explain my seeming absence to some of those I care about.

I nevertheless am hopeful that I can get my work done, that I can find a meaningful job, and that I can find happiness and solace.