We had our annual spinners guild holiday potluck today, and now that I’m all full of food and treats (one of the guild members makes fantastic candy), I just want to curl up and take a nap. I’ve convinced Andy to come home early from work so we can cuddle down and watch a show that I got from the library, so I’m basically marking time until he gets here.
The most interesting moment at guild was finding out that the (really very nice) lady who sat next to me today believes that Google hands over all your search data (and email content?) to the government and that the government is paying attention to that information. Oooookey, dokey. I might worry about that if I was doing anything remotely scandalous on my computer, but even then I still probably wouldn’t bother. What department is supposed to be reviewing that information? The whole idea just boggles the mind.
Tomorrow we’re going to a birthday lunch for my grandma who is turning 95. I feel lucky to have her good genes. I wish I felt more at ease to be my real self around my family (I will not be crowing to them about my little blogging experiment), but it’s only a couple hours and then I can come home and relax and go back to being who I am the rest of the time.
The one part I always have to grit my teeth for is when they ask me how is my brother, and I have to tell them I have no idea, because my brother is so anti-telephone (he tells me it’s not that he’s anti-me) that he doesn’t return my calls. And none of them have tried to call him and find out themselves how he is, mind you. I’m sure they’re just being polite, showing an interest, but am I the only one with his phone number? If they want to know that bad, can’t they pick up the phone and call him? Hasn’t me delivering the pained answer I don’t know, he never returns my calls the last 20 times they’ve asked me sunken in yet?
It’s the time when I miss my mom most, because she was the one who kept everyone informed about everyone else. I mean, she was his mom, so my brother returned her calls, and they lived in the same city so she saw him in person all the time. Everyone in our family talked to her if not to each other. We’re like a wheel with the hub gone, not rolling quite as well as we did when she was here.
And with that, Andy just pulled into the driveway, so I’m off. Have a great weekend, y’all.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Darcy, what an amazing yet sad metaphor – a wheel with the hub gone.
I have the same communication issue, too. My brother is pretty anti-me; I am lucky to even get a Christmas card from him; yet everyone seems to want to know what he’s been doing. My mom is living on a ranch in Texas and she’s rather eccentric, so I get lots of questions about her status, too. I just want to scream, right by the punchbowl, “Look! My brother hates me, and my mom is irreversibly damaged by being married to a terrible person for the best years of her life, WTF do you want me to say about how they are when most days I can’t even figure out what is up with me?!?!!?”
Sorry for the rant.
Oh, Elise, your rants are so entirely welcome here, please don’t apologize. Especially when your rant echoes my own thoughts of the kind of things I would love to say sometimes. They ask me what’s going on with me and there’s plenty, just nothing I’m willing to share.
My brother actually called me back last night (after I fell asleep, alas), so I at least had a voicemail’s worth of an update to give my uncle when he asked (the only one, thank heavens). For the record: brother’s doing fine, the weather where he lives is crappy.
I’m glad your brother called you back! My brother lives in Nevada (I’m in Texas) and we rarely talk, either. He never calls me (unless he happens to remember my birthday) and when I call him, it’s pretty clear he doesn’t want to talk. We don’t have that much in common, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in his life, ya know? I get annoyed because it’s so freakin’ hard to keep in touch with my family. They don’t return e-mail or phone calls or letters. I just give up. But then I feel guilty when one of them says they haven’t heard from me in AGES or wants to know how {insert relative I never talk to, but “should”} is doing. Family! Gah! I’m with you and Elise. Rant-rant-rant!
Sherron, wow, do I totally understand. Brothers, for crying out loud, what is with them?? I know that as boys they aren’t socially conditioned to keep the family connections alive and strong the way we are, but still. Frustrating.
I feel like I’d be able to have a relationship with my family… if I was willing to do all the work to keep it going. And the guilt of not having a good relationship with them, because I feel like I *should*, kind of undoes any potential benefit of saying screw it and deciding to just wash my hands of it all and go about my own life. I’m still figuring out how to navigate the whole business in a way that feels more like winning than losing.
Let’s start a co-op and put our brothers in it. Then at least we can have some variety in the boring interactions and/or avoidance.
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