Visit From Demma

My Soap-Operatic Life

"I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something".-Jackie Mason

Food And Lack Thereof: The DC is run very screwily in the summer. In the normal year you buy a certain number of meals that you can use anytime or on anyone (i.e. your friend visits and you pay for them). In the summer you have to buy exactly three meals a day, every day. Here's the kicker: You can't use them at any other time than the meal is assigned for. What that means is if you skip breakfast and decide to come in twice for lunch, sorry, you've already forfeited your meal forever. The scanner won't let you use a card twice at one meal period. You never get that meal or your money back.

As you probably guessed, that means that you can't bring a guest in AT ALL. Leaving us kinda screwed as to how both of us will eat meals without spending money. Which neither of us have a lot of right now.

Fast food, anyone?

Shopping And Lack Of Money: On the same theme, I took Demma around the stores downtown. I spent hours whining, "I wanna buy that!" But since I had about $40 at the time (knowing I'd need that for meals, emergencies, and knowing I'd have to account to Dad for spending what he thinks was $80 at once if I came home broke) I knew I shouldn't. Here's a partial list (what I can remember) of those items:

Armageddon soundtrack tape (I'm cheap) for $7(!)
A book on love addiction ($12)
Similar book, "Dating For Dummies"($12)
Dichromic (trust me, they're beautiful and rare to find cheap) beads in bead store ($7.99), plus accessory beads (various prices)
Various earrings
Gone With The Wind poster (%5.99)
Glow-in-the-dark planet poster, beautiful ($6.99)
Star Wars poster with a large picture of my beloved Han Solo (also $6.99)
Book by Cynthia Heimel ($3.49)

I managed to NOT BUY any of those, even though I still want to run back downtown and buy the posters (which are rare and beautiful) and tape (cheap!) as I type. And they'll probably be gone in two weeks when I'll have money again.

Then I went into the used bookstore in Davis, and found:

A book in a REALLY good series I started- it's #3 and I still need #2, but it was $4.16 instead of $6.99.
Another Cynthia Heimel (had to close eyes and pick one to buy) for same price
How To Write A Mystery (a really good book of Demma's I've always wanted and never been able to find), $6.50

And there went $20 (if you count lunch) down the hatch.

Chat: Apparently Demma found the chat area on Yahoo (doesn't require a plug-in) some time ago and now goes on it from time to time and laughs at things being said. So she decided to start me on it. I had never actually done chat before due to lack of ability to download that plug-in here, although I do four(!) message boards, e-mail, whatever else I find. From what I'd heard about it, it sounded kinda weird. Like, have you ever seen a transcript of what chat is like? It sounds so moronic if you weren't there (and sometimes if you were!). Tangled conversations, peppered with age/sex checks, cyberspace sex checks (as in, who wants to have some?), where you froms, and flames. Mostly written in this halfass speech that sounds like you're partially illiterate, and by names like (real ones or close to the real ones listed here. And this list ain't an eighth of it!) King Motherfucker, BUDLIGHTDRINKER, ManOfYourDreams, Softsensualkisses, NymphoAmy, etc, etc. Sounds moronic as hell if you never did it, right?

My opinion after doing it: Interesting, in a mildly boring sort of way. I didn't do much of saying things, although I commented in some places and got asked where I lived in Northern CA (he then disappeared- cow town musta frightened him off). I made one bad booboo mistake: In one spot someone made a South Park-ish joke like, "You killed so-and-so!" I happily chimed in with the next line in the show, "You bastards!" Demma then went, "Uh-oh, you've really done it now!" I panicked and changed rooms FAST.

The experience is interesting, sometimes you're all, "who are you talking to?" There's also descriptions- so-and-so kisses so-and-so, so-and-so buys a round of beers for everyone, etc. Interesting when the beers aren't real and you don't see WHO you're kissing. Fantasy Land for the 90's?

I may do this again later.

After she left, I watched one of Ami's movies, The Truth About Cats And Dogs. Excellent flick. Okay, so I kept wondering exactly how Brian (the guy) could miss how the vet was all squeamish around animals and her friend wasn't (hello, suspicious? A bit airheaded? Culture clash between Americans and Brits of some sort I don't understand? Script told him to, I guess.). Janeane was lovely, lovely, lovely- you want to go, "Why are you so flipped out about your looks? You look great!" Uma is a sweetheart of a chick, Ben's a very nice guy (and great at phone sex). I wanted the movie to end in a menage a trois of love. But still ended very well =)

11:10 p.m. Well, I recently got off the phone with my mother, and now I feel like crap.

I wanted to talk to her to find some way of either getting more money or to NOT piss my dad off when I have to tell him how little money I have left. The good news is she doesn't think I'll get in trouble because we had to buy food.

The bad news is that now I feel like total evil crap after talking to her. Basically the conversation went on how awful it is at home and how I don't understand what it's like to grow up poor and how I'm ungrateful and not understanding enough and too spoiled. Blah blah blah.

No, I don't understand what it's like to grow up poor. I haven't had the experience, so it's a little beyond my first-hand comprehension. (In case you're wondering, I suppose we were semi-upper middle class. No nice house, but good jewelry/clothes/cars (especially cars) until my dad had to retire. Only one kid to spend money on, so hence why I'm a spoiled brat.) Heck, I don't comprehend it NOW when I AM having first-hand experience. What I know about being poor is from watching The Moron work himself to death all the time (I hope to God I never become like that. Just kill me then, please). I don't know what to answer to that that doesn't sound terrible.

You see, here's another reason why I don't wanna be a mommy when I grow up: Screwing up the kid. Everything you do has potential to screw up your child. Like, being poor really sucks, we know that. So someone who grows up poor and makes some money later will do whatever they can to spare their child that (hence spoilage). Then they complain when the child a. enjoys spoiledness, and b. doesn't want to have to scramble later on. We don't have the need, therefore no desire. Then we get in trouble. We are the monsters you created here, and you don't like us. (Note to all future parents who are poor now and make money later: NEVER GIVE YOUR KIDS ANYTHING IF YOU WANT THEM TO COME OUT LIKE YOU! If you want them to come out like me, then go ahead. Just know what you're getting into.)

I'm afraid that if I did have a kid the mom-all-powerful-love would kick in and I'd go off and spoil a kid and raise another me, only worse. I obviously didn't turn out well, and my parents did the best they could think of. I don't think I could take the guilt of monster-creating myself.

"Ungrateful." Now there's a word I despise. I wish I had my dictionary up here so I could look up what grateful means, but I can't. She always says I don't show gratitude. How the hell DO you show it, I sometimes ask. I say thank you and publicly enjoy whatever it is, what more can I do? She then sometimes says, "start doing things for us around the house." Tonight she was all, "You do things for the girls to be nice, right? Why don't you do that for us?" She seems to be saying that if she gives me something I have to give her something. Somehow that doesn't seem to me to be exactly what she means by gratitude. More like trading favors. I wish she would just SAY that- "I buy you this, you clean the bathroom" so I know what to expect here. I personally don't work like that or understand it. I don't expect the girls to pay me back by doing something, that doesn't seem right to me. You do it for the joy of seeing someone happy. I still don't see why cleaning the can makes my mother estactically happy, and frankly, I don't want to know. I'm still confused.

As for understanding: Again, I wish I had the dictionary. But my guess is that she means this to relate to getting me to do what she wants somehow. Frankly, I'm feeling a bit burnout on being told to "understand" the situation. I have no choice now though. "Understanding" means that you can't object to anything bad, because "it's the situation, he/she can't help it." But I am sooo sick of putting up and shutting up and stifling. After trying to understand poor/having to work with The Moron, I am fed up. I understood at first. Then I tried to understand. Then I got too fed up to buy the excuses anymore.

One more thing that I know sounds off-topic here, but it's been bothering me for a while, and in a way it vaguely relates: I am sick of people saying things aren't good for you. It's gotten so bad in the bad-for-you department that now the bad things are contradicting each other. Like "It is bad to turn your computer off because it hurts the switch." coupled with "It is bad to leave your computer on because that erodes memory." What the hell are you supposed to do?

The girls here are really paranoidish about foods- most don't eat beef, one vegetarian, some semi-vegetarians, one dairy-free- and every meal they go on about how toxic this item or that is for the body. Like "we aren't designed to drink milk, so if you don't drink a lot of it you'll lose the enzyme that allows it and become lactose-intolerant." I don't know if this is true (probably), and I don't want to know. I find it incredibly depressing. They said the same about beef. And other things. The list is going on and driving me nuts. Sounds to me like everything you can eat is bad for you!

For chrissakes! Nowadays you are told that eating and breathing are bad for you! What are you supposed to do then? If you don't eat and breathe you will DIE!!!! (Thus rendering the whole thing pointless.) I'm sick of people saying that if you do this or that it reduces risk of cancer. If you have kids early and breast-feed it reduces cancer. If you stay out of the sun it reduces cancer. Being young lessens your risk of cancer. And then you read about women who did all of that AND STILL GOT CANCER!!!!! It sounds like most "preventive" behavior nowadays isn't preventing for everyone! My uncle Bill hadn't smoked since he was a young guy in the military. In great health. No family history. Got lung cancer and died in four months. What the hell is the point of it all?

I now firmly believe that every person in the world (if they don't die of something else before they get it) is going to get cancer. Every one of us. Half the population is already there. I semi-recently heard that all men WILL develop prostate cancer in their lifetime if they don't die of something else first. My God. We are doomed more than this than by any goddamn comet or asteroid.

Links to other sites on the Web

Animation Station (cat, dog)
Graphic Station (swearing, phone)
Icon Bazaar (e-mail)

Any doomsayers out there, please don't e-mail me right now, because I do NOT wanna hear it.

© 1997 jdrutherford@ucdavis.edu

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