Wednesday, March 09, 2005
I donated blood at the library this afternoon. The shirt I received reads, "Today I donated blood. I saved a life!" Below that I am going to write, "Bitch". Since I saved "the world entire", I decided I never have to do anything good ever again, so I skipped all my classes. I felt liberated.
I e-mailed The Father Friday, because I needed certain information out of him for filing the FAFSA. He didn't respond over the weekend, so Monday I e-mailed him at his work address to see if he had gotten the one I sent to their home:
Father:This morning he sent this:
Did you receive the e-mail I sent Friday to -----@pdq.net? I would
appreciate that information before midweek. Also, you may need to find your
FAFSA PIN to electronically sign the application.
-your child
Lauree,I replied to this angrily, but I did refrain from correcting his grammar mistakes:
You will get a much faster response from us if you would just find it
possible to do two things:
1. Email us at home. I was not at work these last two days. Despite what you are insinuating, I receive every email you send to OUR home email address. I also, just in case it still hasn't sunk in, send every email from this address home so we can have it saved on our home computer.
2. If you want something from US, ask nicely. I know some words like "...could you please forward to me...", "...I would be grateful if...", and "...thankyou for the info..." are not normally in your vocabulary; but using them would go a long way for you to get things that you want in a timely manner.
-your father
btw...since, by your signature, you feel it is necessary to remind me that
you are my child; by my signature, I feel it is necessary to remind you
that I am your father.
Father:
The first e-mail I sent was admittedly more brusque and impolite than usual, though I did add "Danke schon" at the end. You know full well what "danke schon" means! I figured that would do- I typed it hurriedly because I had to go to work soon and I worried I would forget later. Friday I sent it to your home address, as you have requested I do. I know you and Terri check that e-mail regularly, and when I had received no response by Monday I worried you hadn't received it somehow, thusly I e-mailed you at work. I didn't "insinuate" anything- we have enough communication difficulties as it is, so please try to read my few correspondences calmly. I certainly don't TRY to write anything upsetting. I'm not "demanding" that you e-mail me immediately- I know you have other things to do and that it requires time, especially when I request information (such as tax stuff) you might not have even gathered yet- but if you think something might take more than a day or two, just e-mail me back to let me know. I'm patient, and I can wait, it's simply the not-knowing that makes me a little anxious.
Second, when you feel I have injured or insulted you in some way, insulting me back does not serve you well. If you do desire I take a respectful tone of voice when I address you, then make yourself worthy again of my respect, of which I granted you a tremendous amount my entire life because you then did deserve it. You rarely displayed this sort of meanness when I was a child, and it still shocks me more than a little that you are even capable of doing so, though I suppose everyone is. Behaving basely when I am rude merely emphasizes that you don't want to move forward.
Also, when I write letters to you, I am writing them to YOU, not YOU ALL. I understand quite well that Terri [Hi!] reviews and apparently critiques everything I write, but I do not write them for her. That I do not do so is not supposed to indicate anything against her; I'm not being exclusive, but I do still consider my e-mails, phone calls, etc. to be private ones to you, which you choose to share with her regardless of my wishes.
Something you both seem to have been ignorant of from the day you married is that Terri is not my mother, nor is she my legal guardian- you married the month before I turned nineteen! You've been married barely a year. You took me into your new home and expected me to regard Terri as an authority figure, but the simple fact of the matter is that she isn't. That means nothing negative, and it does not mean I could not have come to view her with more affection. I liked Terri immediately, but you both expected me to behave as though I had known her my entire life. I like Terri genuinely, but she does have her limits with me, and I, in turn, have limits with regard to her. Not once in her/your/but not my house did I ever raise my voice or talk back to her, no matter how upset or wronged I felt. I cannot yell and stomp my feet at anyone to whom I am not intimately related.
You told me to go to her, for instance, when I needed to make payments and deposits for school- I felt extremely uncomfortable asking a woman I had barely met to write checks for my schooling; asking YOU for money is discomfiting enough. I didn't appreciate being put in that position, but when I told you that at the time, you shrugged me off, saying Terri was in charge of financial stuff. That you share one account is perfectly reasonable, but how am I supposed to ask someone I don't know well to send money somewhere on my behalf, making her responsible? If Terri was the only person who had time to make online payments and such, why couldn't you have left her a note or something, instead of forcing me to do something you knew I felt awkward about? You accuse me of constantly making demands- even saying "please", I was still "telling" Terri I needed money, which is more of a commanding action.
Terri isn't my mom. I can't just walk up and say- "Hey, I need this..." She isn't obligated to me for anything, whether or not she is willing to be. Accepting anything from her- the rides every day to work, her doing my dishes every night, her doing my laundry, etc.- made me extremely nervous only partly because I knew I could never express my appreciation adequately enough. You both keep a mental account of what I owe for every resource I use- the too-long showers, the accelerated rate at which the bar soap disappears, long-distance phone calls lasting more than five or ten minutes, additional laundry loads, the extra food (tuna) you bought last summer, the money I have to someday in the future repay for the PLUS loan you took out- but no amount of "would-you-pleases" has seemed to dispel your resentment.
If you couldn't afford to pay for my college, you shouldn't have told me you would. If you minded paying higher utility bills, then you shouldn't have invited/forced me to live with you. If you feel I took these things for granted, perhaps you ought to consider I did so partly because you enabled me to.
In near conclusion (and I swear absolutely I AM NOT BEING SARCASTIC), could you please, with cherries on top, (all right- that might be sarcastic, but how could I resist?) send me the information I requested? If not, I would indeed appreciate your letting me know, so that I may figure out how many and how much in private loans I need to take out.
Also, bond money- negligible in the grand scheme of things, but perhaps I can get a computer or contribute to a down payment on a car- could you please provide specifics with how and when I might acquire that? And at the end of the semester I presume your company no longer covers my insurance- what, exactly, am I losing, and what do I then need to seek out? Will I need to provide past records when I apply for insurance? In addition, if I need "x" medical record for "y" reason, would you have that, or should I contact Dr. Gillick's office?
I thought I might include a Lauree Update, for good things have happened to me lately, but I am reluctant because I suspect you might not care. If you do, I would appreciate your indicating thus more than all of the above.
And thank-you for the reminder, but I do not require a reiteration of who my father is. On my wall is a Marx Brothers movie poster reproduced in tin. I listen to albums by Willie Nelson, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Eric Clapton Lynyrd Skynyrd, Janis Joplin, and Jethro Tull. I ask for "soda" or "soda pop", never "coke" (the graduate linguistics advisor I met with last semester thought I was from the midwest). I still have the college Latin textbook I stole from your closet in eighth grade. I am a declared double-major in Classics (history minor) and German (philosophy minor). Your third-grade picture is framed on a shelf and next to the photograph of me with my mother. The only sports I ever watch and am somewhat versed in are golf, baseball, basketball, and Nascar racing. I know what is written on Thomas Jefferson's gravestone. Morgan Freeman is probably my favorite contemporary actor. You wouldn't like some sixty percent of my college friends, because they are architect majors. I don't drink because I didn't grow up with alcohol in any context besides its association with barbecuing and occasional football-viewing. I enjoy reading quick novels about detective characters who must determine who keeps raping and mutilating attractive women for unfathomable (but usually occult) reasons, because you had a whole stack of such literature in your closet. Anyone in a wheelchair irritates me for reasons ineffable. These things and innumerable others I can never eradicate from my dorm room or from my being. I am proud of these things that have made me who I am.
You have a copy of my birth certificate, two or three boxes containing my high school letter jacket and European history notes, photographs in albums that are stored in boxes you never intend to reopen except to file the albums away elsewhere, a set of yellow towels, and an air mattress. You do not love me and you have never felt a moment of pride that I am yours- it is all quite evident by the fact that the moment I left your domicile you did not then frame the air mattress and nail it to your bedroom wall.
-The Daughter
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 9:59 PM]