like a tiger with a gun
Aug. 15th, 2018 12:00 amAw, geez, I guess I forgot to update for the last...several weeks. Again. Yeah. But in good news, I got some ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pensnest mail the other day that crushed my Summer Malaise into a fine, fine powder and swept it into the gutter, and now I'm thinking I might have to write a long, sappy ode to her greatness. As soon as I have a chance to read up on cephalopod anatomy.
(Meanness, I can withstand -- like. Ho, boy, can I withstand it, but why does any hint of kindness turn me into a shaky, watery mess?
You know what? Nevermind. The malaise may be gone, but I can already tell this is not a question to be pondering on an oppressively humid summer Tuesday. I know myself. It will end badly.)
(By the way, Summer Malaise is a whole different animal than Winter Malaise, I don't care what anyone tells you! I mean, I guess I've mostly just been zoning out and watching a ton of Bob's Burgers, which, for me, isn't THAT different, but still.
But.
Still.)
Um...what else? Last week would've been my grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary. August 5th, 1948. Except they were divorced in the late sixties (the same year their last child was born) so I'm not sure it really counts?
Either way: gaaah. Of all the many regrets I regret, one of them is definitely not asking one or both of them when I had the chance: whyyy??? What attracted them to one another in the first place? Because that level of incompatibility? I mean, I never knew them as a couple, but I did know them, and. Whoa. Look, I know, we're living in a golden age of lousy marriages, they abound, they're all around us, but you're just gonna have to trust me when I tell you that this was a bad match for the ages. They were inexplicable. Lydia Bennet running off with Colonel Brandon. Professor McGonagall eloping with Gilderoy Lockhart. (My nerdiness is showing and I don't even care, 'cos these examples are golden, people. GOLDEN. Also, Lydia Bennet is absolutely my Grampa in that scenario.)
My mom thinks my Nana was just desperate to get out of her parents' house and away from her many dozens of siblings, but she (my Nana) spent the rest of her life talking about her mother and brothers as if they'd been literal saints on Earth, so. I just don't know.
Oh, and hey, speaking of, I just recently found out that when I was born, my Nana lobbied HARD for my mother to name me Helen, after her own mother (my mom's grandma). Now, I've been hearing horror stories about the OG Helen since before I could walk, and...yeah. She was a six foot tall, shrieking Gorgon woman who made her grandchildren eat off of the floor -- out of dog bowls. Yes, you heard me. Dog bowls -- when they were getting on her nerves and once shoved my Aunt Eileen down a flight of stairs, so my mom's response was a very understandable, "hell, naw. Hated that bitch". And, aside from an additional decade of whining that there's never been a Saint Jessica, the nuns'll never take her seriously with a name like Jessica, what in God's name were you thinking?? That was that.
I'm not sure why this is blowing my mind so much. Helen isn't really any better or worse than the name I ended up with. Just different. Very different.
I wonder if I would've made a good Helen. I wonder if Helen!me would've earned her drivers license at seventeen and had a healthy respect for the police and gotten, like. Pedicures and stuff.
pensnest mail the other day that crushed my Summer Malaise into a fine, fine powder and swept it into the gutter, and now I'm thinking I might have to write a long, sappy ode to her greatness. As soon as I have a chance to read up on cephalopod anatomy.(Meanness, I can withstand -- like. Ho, boy, can I withstand it, but why does any hint of kindness turn me into a shaky, watery mess?
You know what? Nevermind. The malaise may be gone, but I can already tell this is not a question to be pondering on an oppressively humid summer Tuesday. I know myself. It will end badly.)
(By the way, Summer Malaise is a whole different animal than Winter Malaise, I don't care what anyone tells you! I mean, I guess I've mostly just been zoning out and watching a ton of Bob's Burgers, which, for me, isn't THAT different, but still.
But.
Still.)
Um...what else? Last week would've been my grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary. August 5th, 1948. Except they were divorced in the late sixties (the same year their last child was born) so I'm not sure it really counts?
Either way: gaaah. Of all the many regrets I regret, one of them is definitely not asking one or both of them when I had the chance: whyyy??? What attracted them to one another in the first place? Because that level of incompatibility? I mean, I never knew them as a couple, but I did know them, and. Whoa. Look, I know, we're living in a golden age of lousy marriages, they abound, they're all around us, but you're just gonna have to trust me when I tell you that this was a bad match for the ages. They were inexplicable. Lydia Bennet running off with Colonel Brandon. Professor McGonagall eloping with Gilderoy Lockhart. (My nerdiness is showing and I don't even care, 'cos these examples are golden, people. GOLDEN. Also, Lydia Bennet is absolutely my Grampa in that scenario.)
My mom thinks my Nana was just desperate to get out of her parents' house and away from her many dozens of siblings, but she (my Nana) spent the rest of her life talking about her mother and brothers as if they'd been literal saints on Earth, so. I just don't know.
Oh, and hey, speaking of, I just recently found out that when I was born, my Nana lobbied HARD for my mother to name me Helen, after her own mother (my mom's grandma). Now, I've been hearing horror stories about the OG Helen since before I could walk, and...yeah. She was a six foot tall, shrieking Gorgon woman who made her grandchildren eat off of the floor -- out of dog bowls. Yes, you heard me. Dog bowls -- when they were getting on her nerves and once shoved my Aunt Eileen down a flight of stairs, so my mom's response was a very understandable, "hell, naw. Hated that bitch". And, aside from an additional decade of whining that there's never been a Saint Jessica, the nuns'll never take her seriously with a name like Jessica, what in God's name were you thinking?? That was that.
I'm not sure why this is blowing my mind so much. Helen isn't really any better or worse than the name I ended up with. Just different. Very different.
I wonder if I would've made a good Helen. I wonder if Helen!me would've earned her drivers license at seventeen and had a healthy respect for the police and gotten, like. Pedicures and stuff.