I don’t mean to be such a stranger.
I’m nearly finished with organizing, making and getting out the big mailing to nearly 200 organizations in Washington State for CONNECT. It’s crazy how hard some of this has seemed: I’ve clearly gotten spoiled over the years by new media. The funny thing is that way back in the day in the early 90’s, when I ran my little alternative school, I was the queen of all things paper: I refused to use any kind of computer at all, even a basic word processor for the first year. For several of those years, I produced a pretty involved alternative ECE newsletter and doing that and I don’t remember getting it out being this big of a deal.
However, it’s looking shiny and awesome and once it’s off my desk, I will be one very happy chick.
I’ve also been overwhelmed with just trying to run two programs at once, getting the voting guide done for Scarleteen, and trying to keep up with all the usual work there. I’ve been distracted — though that’s likely not the best word — with the elections, national and local. And per usual, I’m still just not feeling well. I don’t think I have ever had a stretch of time where I’ve gotten so much sleep every night (I’ve been managing to get 7 or 8 hours a night), and yet, I feel like I could sleep all day, every day, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
I keep thinking that I should be very personally concerned about the current financial crisis, but then I realize that a) I own nothing, b) most of the contributions to Scarleteen aren’t even from the U.S., and c) I don’t make shit now and don’t know how much worse it could really get. I also remind myself that I have enough to worry about already. I guess sometimes freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose.
My Dad is coming up here in a couple of weeks, and staying for a couple of weeks. He’s been in a really bad way lately, which at times means my having to have one or more long phone conversations with him in a day, where his moods and what he is saying are just all over the place, which is really tough to deal with. One of the most recent several-day conversations involved me patently refusing to cancel his plane ticket simply because he was certain that the dreams he has been having about plane crashes were prophetic and that he would die on the way here (which is a strange concern for someone with a long history of being suicidal to have, but so be it). Unfortunately, this dream stuff has gone on before, and it’s tough to expect him not to believe them: his mother, my grandmother, stated she was going to die to everyone mere hours before she and half his family were in the truck accident that killed them when I was young.
I’ve had times in my life where I’ve gone through phases of this with him, but it just feels like it’s happening more frequently lately, to the point that I feel like I might need to start looking into what exactly someone in my income bracket can do to find residential care for a parent. Him living with us just isn’t an option: he would never agree to it, and even though we’ve lived well together before — more harmoniously than I live with most people, to be truthful — I don’t see it being a good answer.
How on earth, if I could find something, I could convince my father to even consider such a thing, I don’t know. In so many ways, he’s so progressive, but there always remains some very prototypical Italian pride my father clings to. I honestly don’t even know how I’d bring this up to him, and explain why I feel we need to consider it without hurting his pride and also triggering his guilt: he expresses guilt constantly (always has, but more of late) that I’m the only person he has in the world to lean on and that I have no other help or support when it comes to him. But I’m just getting really worried, and I just feel like I have lived long enough with my parent living like this. It’s breaking my heart, and I just can’t stand it anymore.
The place he stays at is still in one of the worst parts of the city, worse than it was when we lived in that neighborhood, and it’s just really vile. Last week, he had this major freakout — validly — because in his dank little room the size of your average bathroom, four huge rats had gotten in. He was so scared and wigged out that he wound up blowing his disability check to sleep in a motel for a couple of nights. More then once while I have been talking to him, I can hear freaking gunshots. Given how he is mentally, as well, the isolation that he has very clearly just is not healthy for him: he’s so much better when he’s here, around people, somewhere safe.
I don’t suppose there’s any of you out there around my age who have been in a similar situation with any idea of where I’d even start when it came to looking for this kind of care?
Anyway, that’s most of my stuff. Things at home here are totally fine, including that my boyfriend found a way to turn bacon into flowers last week, his new brag of late.
Apparently, if you’re at the farmer’s market, and you indulge your carnivore-sweetie’s longing for good bacon by giving him five bucks to buy some from the butcher, and he buys it, but then turns around and buys you a $5 bouquet, bacon has been turned into flowers. Now you know.
I’m very lucky, dead pigs notwithstanding, to have his whimsy around. I was just remarking to him the other day that it’s one of the things I appreciate most about him, and a quality I find it pretty rare with a lot of people: I need creativity around me, I need silliness, I need to be whimsical with someone. I can go without a lot of things in my life, or in a given week or day, but if a day or two passes and I haven’t laughed my arse off, I just can’t deal. While now and then that means that sex gets shelved — because we tend to take a left turn at silly, to the point that there is just no turning back — I’ll take it.
And on that note, I leave you with something I begged him to let me have a while back, which he penned during a meeting he was clearly very interested in at his day job. I don’t think his boss would be particularly delighted, but I’m fairly certain I don’t care.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Do I sense a new photo set? I think I do!
October 9th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
About your Father
I don’t know if things work the same out there as here and in the east but there is an organization called Catholic Worker here and at home that might offer a solution. They are not officially part of the Roman Catholic church but are a charity organization. Very grassroots, they have houses and farms all over that support themselves and each other and run shelters and soup kitchens. Each house or farm has a small community/family that serves as staff on a permanent basis. I am sure that each group is different but at least the ones I have known have always been very open and accepting regardless of beliefs (they often work with Quaker communities, hence my contact with them). If your father is able to help out he would probably be able to live with them. Then he would have the nonblood version of family to help him and he can help others as part of the deal. The catholic worker houses I have worked with in the past were very much like communes which might appeal to your Dad.
As I said, I don’t know anything about those western lands out there and every group is different but it might be worth some research. If you can’t find info about them shoot me a message and I’ll ask my local house if they can get me in touch with someone out there. It may not be a permanent solution but it may buy you a few years. My local house knows what I do for a living and they still like me which says something.
Anyway, its just a thought
October 9th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
This is exactly what I’ve been dealing with, though I have the benefit of a parent who is ok with accepting charity. I’m moving her into a CommonBond community (http://www.commonbond.org/) in MN at the beginning of next month, where the rent is 30% of her income. The hardest part was doing all of her paperwork (though I have POA, which allowed me to sign everything without her being involved), because they required diagnoses, bank statements, etc.
Social service organizations have not been the most helpful in the universe, but I did get some good leads from Jewish Family and Children’s Services (after Catholic Charities basically sucked.) One advantage you may have over me is that your dad is probably a senior citizen–my mom only gets services because she’s bipolar, and it will be much easier when she’s over 62. If your dad is considered homeless, it will also be a lot easier to get residential services.
Sorry to ramble, but it’s been hell these past few months, as you can probably imagine. At any rate, your best first stop for information is probably the Area Agency on Aging for wherever your dad would live.
http://www.n4a.org/