The After Christmas Blahs

Who gives a fuck?

PMS, More Talk of Divorce, More Tears

I don't think I can handle my situation anymore. My wife says she hates me all the time and has nothing but mean things to say to me. She says she wants to leave, she wishes she never married me, and she has nothing but contempt for the person I am. She says if I don't become a completely different person, she will continue to hate me and plan her escape. She said to research online how to be a husband. 

I had to miss work today. It got late because we were arguing about an argument we had last night in which she said that all day long she sits there in bed and just hates me. 

I give up. I am not inhuman. She says I am not a man, that I am soulless and don't do anything for her. Although nothing I did triggered this round, it is the stuff that I have neglected or been too busy to do that she is bitching about now. And she attaches all kinds of mean statements to anything she says, to where I can't address the real problem, and I have to confront all the mean things she is saying. And to do this is arguing, which is a no-no. 

So, all I get is a wife who thinks I am a jerk, even though my life is devoted to trying to take care of her the best I can. I wake up and empty her commode, I make her breakfast, help her in the shower, make her bed, do her laundry and do any little thing that she asks. I don't make a fuss or get upset that I have to do this, it has become my life to just take care of her. 

She absolutely does not think that anything I do is worth a damn and tells me every day. She says she'd be out F***ing someone, anyone else if she were not disabled. She tells me these things knowing that it will hurt me and then tells me to be a man. I don't know what kind of man is expected to take all this abuse from someone who they love and care for. 

I know she is not OK. Her MS has fucked up her body, and now it is going after her mind. I can love her for the person I thought she was when I married her, but she tells me she hates the person she married and has nothing but regrets. 

Divorce is horrible, and I don't want it. It doesn't solve anything, it is just 2 people giving up. I don't want to give up, it's just that I don't know if there is anything to save. How do you stay married when the person you are married to hates you and everything that you are? Anyone reading this? Didn't think so...

Enjoy the New Me, Bitches

I can't not be agitated as I sit here and wait for work and think about stuff that pisses me off. I get to work before the gate opens and people who stroll in late get the good work passed to them.

Ok, here's exactly what happened. I, and 3 other techs were out in the shop and waiting for the intercom to page someone to get the one job that came in. I was closest to the door, so I made a mock sprint to be first. When the others fell back I said, "No--let's all go,"and I held the door open for the other two. Well, the service adviser gives the job to the first guy through the door. No "thank you Sparky D" no offer to flip a coin or something. He just takes the work (a major service) and the service advisers laugh at how I got punked. I can sit here and do nothing, I can sit here and be hateful or I can sit here and think of happy thoughts. (Yeah, fucking right.)

Only there aren't many. I passed my ASE's. Whoopie. I still sit here with no work. My wife apologized to me for yesterday's latest session of keeping alive the Thanksgiving Day Giblet Blowout. I think she realizes that it is tearing me down too much and there won't be much left if she keeps going. I have stopped acting up around her, I know she can't take it.

So here's my new plan, which I came up with in response to David's taking my work and my role in letting that happen. I am going to be nicer to my wife and fuck everybody else. I can't care what the world or the little old lady in front of me are doing. I have to be as greedy and selfish as possible and screw the next guy. "Lesson learned." So, enjoy the new me. If it plays in Boopieville, I don't give a fuck where else it don't play..

In an unrelated note: Stanford is not making new appointments and they are starting up a clinical trial related to CCSVI and MS. What this means is my wife will have to wait longer to possibly get in and not necessarily get the surgery which she may or may not require. We have been waiting 2 months for a phone call from the scheduler which now, I suppose, may not come at all. I have calls and emails in to them and they are not responding. I know, they are busy. But my wife is busy progressing with her symptoms daily. She can almost not even transfer from the bed to the wheelchair. I don't know what will happen then. But I will be there, evil inside and nice and sweet outside like a reverse Oreo cookie. Enough bitch-logging for one day. Out

Is the Dog Going to the Pound?

I don't know, I just know that it's been a week, and every day she still mentions how "Charlie" thinks this or that. Lately, it's "Charlie thinks I should divorce you." 

Charlie is an ex-"boyfriend." He has been out of the picture since we were married in 2003. Well, not really. We came back from our honeymoon and there was an answering machine message from him. I was a little taken aback and told my wife that it was time to put that one to rest. 

She said she had been stringing him along for the whole time we were together so that he would leave her his life insurance money. 

I said, "We are married now. You really need to let that whole thing go." 

She agreed to do this. However, two months ago I am standing there, and the phone rings at 8 am on a Monday. It is Charlie leaving a message. I asked her what was up. 

She said, "He contacted me again after all this time. I get things from him that you don't give me." 

I didn't react too badly, but I was upset. I decided not to pursue it and told her, "Talk to him if you want, I can't stop you." 

Now, it seems they are talking constantly about all my fuckups and my bad attitude, which she calls "abuse." I don't do anything for days, and she brings up the last thing I did a week ago and says she is still hurt by it. 

Then she tells me her parents are coming down and they are concerned that I am not treating her well. She is now telling everyone how she wants to leave me but can't because she is disabled. 

She said, "If I was well I'd leave and not look back," and "I don't love you anymore." 

I said we have made love several times since this incident, and yet, you keep bringing it back up. 

"Oh, sex...I'd fuck anything..." 

So, I guess I'm not special. I guess I just have to accept that she is going to hate me unless I do everything she asks me to and never have a bad attitude about anything.  

I know MS is making her life worse by the day. I want to help her. It is just frustrating when nothing helps and she picks on every little thing. I can't make her see that I am not evil, I'm just a person who has problems, too. I swear I do more and more every day to keep her above water, but it's like she is slipping away from me. 

I can't take what life is dishing out. I keep on doing the things that need to be done, but with a feeling of futility. My self esteem is in the dirt. I get it. I should suffer because I am an asshole. I am going back into my hole now. 

I don't think this blog is such a great idea.

What to Do?

I got through Thanksgiving, but it wasn't over. Since I didn't do anything bad since the giblet bag blowout, I thought it was over. It wasn't. She must have buried the anger she felt under a one inch layer of smiles just long enough to get through the day and the next two days of my working. But on Saturday night she informed me that she was still very upset and brought back all the same arguments that I thought we had finished on Thurs. I hate to bring this up because I will sound sexist, macho or whatever, but I think she waited until Sat. after it appeared that we wouldn't be "doing it" that night. She will wait for me to make the appropriate overtures and if they aren't made she will get all disgusted and make sure that nothing happens. Like if she doesn't get it, she didn't want it and besides she's pissed and ____ is why. What she doesn't get is that sometimes I get put off by her being so mad at me, that I can't think that she will want any sort of affection from me. She is good at hiding her anger when it isn't practical to have a big blowup. But then PMS shows up and watch out. I don't ever try to argue with her. I get sucked in sometimes because I don't want to think of her as unable to have a conversation in which I don't totally agree with everything she says. Yes and sometimes I do have a bad attitude which I don't hide. But anymore she is so fragile, even though she will rip me a new one. So I walk on eggshells and try not to cuss when I stub my toe. When we do finally do it she will feel much better towards me for a while. All I can do is keep trying to do what she wants and point out to her that I am indeed doing what she wants at any given moment. Or at least behaving acceptably within the given parameters. Am I a whipped bitch or what? I could never intentionally hurt her or try to make her feel bad. It is unfortunate that this occurs despite my trying to keep it from happening. I don't feel any better for having written this. I don't guess I will feel better until something positive happens for her such as getting to use the new shower. Or getting to go to Stanford and trying to fix her MS. I just don't know what to do. I will post later a day in the life of Sparky D (aka Hoodyup) so all can know what I do from the moment I wake up til I fall asleep. Maybe it will make me look better to some or maybe it will expose me for being the wimp that I am. I don't know anymore. I'm no one's hero, that's for sure. I will keep getting up and going on as if I still have a life to live and a wife to love. I hope things get better sometime.

The After Thanksgiving Blahs

Here I am at work blogging. I should be working, but there's no work right now in my automotive service department. I would be working on Honda cars and raking in the big bucks as an evil mechanic, but it is Black Friday, and everyone is out spending the government's money on toys and other useless gadgets for the holiday season. 

So, with all the things we have to be thankful for mine is, well, I'm still married despite having a hard time finding the giblets in the thanksgiving turkey. I am working on my attitude, but I'm telling ya, it isn't easy. I have had a short fuse my whole life. Comes from being spoiled as a child. Too much ice cream every time I whined. 

So when something goes slightly not my way, I act up and give the world the finger, and this gets me in trouble with my dear, MS suffering wife, Boopie, or Boopieup, if you have already checked out her blog/rant page. I figured every story has two sides, and even the evil villain needs to have a voice. If only so that people learn "don't be like him." 

Consider me the Hitler of caregivers. I don't say that to make light of it. I really don't know where the evilness arises from, kind of the mid-chest region, and then the ears will tingle and turn red, and possibly a wisp of smoke comes out, I don't know. 

Any-hoo. I like cats and beer and days off of work. I love my wife, Boopie, although it is harder and harder to avoid all conflicts. Partly because of her MS and partly because of my piss-poor attitude. 

Rewind 10+ years. A partly-unemployed screenprinter and VCR tech meets a cowgirl down on her relationship luck and sweeps her off her horse and into his one bedroom shack in Paradise, CA. Although she becomes partly domesticated, and he gives up some of his batchelorism, they both have baggage from upbringing and past relationships. 

After 5 years of dating and living in sin, they commit the final act of courage and take the plunge to get married. They have had much fun together and look forward to much more. She goes back to school and lands a dream job working at the college. 

After a few months on the job she develops some strange symptoms: blurry vision when standing, numbness on her left thigh, and occasional headaches behind her right eye. A few visits to doctors, eye doctors and a neurologist confirm a diagnosis of MS. Who knew what that meant back then? We were just relieved it wasn't cancer. 

After much reluctance and a worsening of symptoms she is forced to take a 5 month leave from work. She keeps her head up and tries to go on with her life despite the worsening symptoms. So many things she could still do, but time wasn't on her side. She is forced to go on disability in 2005. 

In 2008, she still had enough drive to try to make her dreams of having a ranch and horses come true. On Valentine's Day, we both found a place that seemed perfect. Three months later we were moving into the 5 acre ranch/home. 

Misty, our beloved Tennessee Walker did not live to see the move. She died before we could close escrow. Huckleberry, our Basset hound also died in 2008 along with Stinky, the boogery, toothless tomcat. Time may be the great healer, but it is also killing us all slowly. I have type 2 diabetes, but can control it with strict diet and exercise. I still have my feet. 

By 2009, she is no longer walking or doing much of anything. It is hard to transfer to the wheelchair or the shower without risking falling. 98% of everyday is spent in bed doing stuff on the internet (dial-up) listening to audio books or watching tv (3 channels). 

We had a $10,000 bathroom remodel done with a 401k loan, but are still unable to use it due to the manufactured shower pan not being truly a "roll-in" shower. It has a bevel 1-1/8 high which defies all but the 8" casters of a regular manual wheelchair. We now need to dump some more money into finding a shower wheel chair to make it up this ramp. 

I went from being a carefree, fun-loving dude with minimal responsibilities and not so much economic prosperity to an overworked, soured, evil caregiver with lots of responsibilities and not much in the way of fun. I know this sounds selfish, because look at the deal my wife got. She got MS, deteriorating health and an evil sourpuss of a husband/caregiver. 

I mean, I don't set out intentionally to be an ass, it just comes out in the course of a day if I don't really fight it. I don't do evil caregiver stuff like beat her or tie her to the bed (even if she begs). I just let the occasional bleep out or make an abrupt movement which she interprets as bad body language. I rarely deny it anymore. I just apologize and try to do better. 

Lately, she has been threatening to move out, or worse yet, having some 70-year-old ex-boyfriend move in to take care of her. I could scream, but this would just aggravate the situation, so I have to bite my tongue and just be a good boy. I understand how she feels better than I understand my own feelings. 

This is where I am at right at the moment. Sort of in the doghouse and out of second chances. I need help sorting out my anger and frustration issues. I need to have a better attitude toward life, but don't know how to start cuzz I hate it right now. Ever just hate everything? I don't know how to stop being me, and I don't like who I am. 

So who reads these blogs? No one, I hope. I don't anticipate any fan clubs. I expect more the cave man type clubs and pitchforks and torches. Out with the evil caregiver! Out I say! Oh, and the giblets were right there where she said they would be.

Goat head Fred (2009, the state of the state was...not good)

So Bad

So it’s six o’clock

And I’m takin’ a shot

Some tequila or whatever you got

2 hits of weed and

That’s all I need

To get all funky and become what I’m not

‘ts no sin

To be wasted again

When what goes on inside me could waste me alone

I got stress

Can you guess

What this dirty old bastard is sufferin’ from?

Goat head Fred

Wishes he was dead

‘stead of eatin’ Kellog’s cornflakes again

His head’s a mess

He’s wearing a dress

Passed out on the floor with something leaking from his brain

…and he does it again.

Don’t do me any favors

Unless it’s choc-o-lot

Don’t expose me to the neighbors

Cause I likes my pot, …I likes my pot

Journal entry for Feb 24, 2009 (the State of the State rap)

The state of the state is a total wreck
I'm so confused, it's even worse than you'd suspect
To keep throwing parties I need a stimulus check

When I get --raw-- I start wars
It's on son, don't ever forget
When I'm on one, bodies hit the floor

I smoke so much weed my teeth turned green
It's no joke, I got a deadly disease
Called "fuck you, I'm gonna do as I please"

Senseless to try to stop it
Even worse to deny or interrupt it
I'm more corrupted than seven politicians all named Bush
And every one of them the devil's puppet

You got some beef...
I got more chicken and pork than most folks stomachs could put up with
Plus I got the knives, the wine, the forks and a big fat smile to serve them up with