You do it to yourselves

Alright, I wasn't going to do this, but you talked me into it. The last blog was clean, too clean. It was the dirary entry that I could publish without embarassment. Fuck that, that's not what this is for. This is for me to vent the shit i'm really feeling, not write resturaunt and museum guides for London. There's a tourism bureau whom I'm sure gets paid for that sort of thing. Until they start paying me, I'm going to write whatever the hell I want about how the vacation really was. This is going to be juvenille and whiney. This is going to sound like I don't love my family. Deal.

I'm a fairly sympathetic and patient person. I have great empathy and tolerance for people who get screwed by chance, fate, fortune, the government, or any sentient body. I have no sympathy/patience/tolerance for people who knowingly fuck up their own lives and then use their fucked up lives to justify fucking up other people's lives. I'm talking about my aunt. She's a nun, so I'm probably going to hell for this, but like Billy said, I'd rather live with the sinners than dies with saints-- the sinners have much more fun.

I spent my entire graudation week being treated like a secratary, servant, and personal valet by a 65 year old woman who destroyed (and is still destroying) her health, and using her feebleness to manipulate people. For an hour, it's aggravating. For an entire week, it's intolerable. For the week that was supposed to be my joyous and triumphant return to England to celebrate the completion of my Master's degree, it's justifiable homicide. Couldn't she have ruined another week of my life? Why the hell did she have to pick that one?

My parents love London. The last time they were there was 30 years ago shortly after they were married. They were really looking forward to this. I have a very dear friend who just happens to be in London at the mo. I've mentioned him before, back in September. He's a lovely lad, and I havn't seen him in years. Mom, dad, and I all had things we wanted to see and do. Did any of us get to do any of them? Nope. All I wanted was 30 minutes with Eric. Do you think my self-absorbed geriatric relative could spare me? Guess. She had things she wanted to do, too. She got to do all of them. Never mind that in the last 10 years she's had 2, 2-week, all expense paid trips to London, thanks to her job.

How does a woman get to be so lazy that when she's sitting in the bathtub and she drops the soap, she calls me in from the other end of the flat to come in to the bathroom, lean over the tub, and pick up the fucking soap for her? When she needs somthing, it doesn't even occur to her to cross the room to get it. It never enters her head. Her first reaction is to order someone else. She acutally had me pick up her fucking soap! She was sitting IN the BATHTUB! Gah!

All week it was the same thing. We couldn't do any of the things we (the folks and I) wanted to do because she's too feeble to do them. We couldn't walk around the walls of Chester because Sr. Aunt can't walk that far. The question here is, why? The answer is that she's a morbidly obese, an insulin-dependent diabetic who refuses to wear comfortable shoes because she doesn't like the way they look. She could help herself, but she's so lazy she refuses to make any effort or change any aspect of her life.

She's been given a diet by her doctor, and she claims to follow it, but then declares that it's unreasonable because it forbids her from eating thick pieces of white bread smeared with 3 Tablespoons of butter and huge globs of jam for breakfast. "But that's what one eats for breakfast! What do they expect me to eat? Fruit? Cereal? That's for rabbits! I've eaten bread and jam for breakfast my whole life! Why should I change now?" Um, because it's killing you?

Sweating, mind you, is unladylike. She won't take any excercise of any kind. She lives 1 block, yes 1 block from church, and she drives there. It's undignified for a lady to be seen walking down the road.

Her feet are sore. She's spent the entire day trying to keep up with the 3 of us (who have been walking so slowly our backs hurt) in a pair of $200 flat Italian dress shoes. (What vow of poverty?) She claims that because they're expensive and Italian, they are supposed to be comfortable for wearing all day. She won't wear sneakers (unladylike) or even black leather shoes with orthopedic support (they would make her look like an old nun). She's spent so much time worrying about her image and trying to stay young that she's aged prematurely and destroyed her image.

If you are debiltated by some disease or circunstance beyond your control, I will go to the end of the world for you. I will cheerfully undergo Herculean labours to increase your comfort, make you laugh, clean the wax balls out of your ears or the jam from between your toes. I will give you a kidney, a piece of my liver, or a bottle of my bone marrow. But if you take a 38 police special, point it to the floor, and blow off one of your toes, don't bother asking me to fetch you the goddamn fucking newspaper. Taking care of your health is not only the best thing you can do for yourself, it's the best thing you can do for those who care about you.

Ah. I feel better.