Bloodlust--Drink With Caution
[Monday, May 14]
...you know it's not going to be a good day when your first thoughts on waking up are, "Shit, it's Monday". I suppose being late--again--does things to my mood. I don't particularly like being late. Then again, it's been a pretty OK time so far apart from when the Brats are around--I guess they have some sort of allergy to human decency or something.
I've been receiving loads of letters the past few weeks, mostly from universities in the UK--even though I'm definitely not going to any of them anymore since I've decided on NTU, I haven't told them yet because I haven't found a suitably tactful way of saying No. Even if it's to a computer... anyway, so I've got loads of letters waiting for me at the Gorillas' every week when I go back. I don't usually look forward to those all that much, since they're like an instant guilt trip, but this week I got something nicer--a letter from myself.
I should probably explain that in RBS, we were told to write a letter to ourselves just before the whole thing ended--a sort of reminder to our future selves about what we'd been thinking at the end of RBS and stuff we'd learnt and all. My letter turned out to be a very worried one, loaded down with pessimism about various issues going on at the time, ranging from university applications to the rest of my life--but there seems to be this little thread of hope somewhere in all the gloomy words. I must be one of those optimistic pessimists.
But it was a very nice letter all the same--sort of a wake-up call to myself. (Of course, it was supposed to be sent to us three months after RBS, or two months ago, but better late than never. Or quite likely all the post got lost in the mail.)
Yesterday was Mothers' Day. The Empress bugged me about the letter--remember?--so I cobbled together something on Saturday night, trying to lace it with as many garden-themed puns as I could without making it too comical--and now it turns out I sound positively emotionally unstable on that bit of paper. I'm going to have to insist on my mom reading it once only and then burning it in case my reputation goes bad.
Then again it might have something to do with the movie my church was screening on Saturday afternoon (as a kind of pre-Mothers'-Day thing)--something about a husband whose wife gets dementia and how he sticks by her even though she eats her daughter's lipstick, drives to her old workplace, and starts waving chalk at highly amused students and highly worried teachers. (She used to be a teacher.) And all this despite a company on the verge of breakdown, an irritating money-minded brother, and a couple of teenage kids (one of whom looks very much like Canal and is about to get married). Well... I guess it sounds trite, but in the end Christ saves the day. It's all very touching and stuff, I suppose, since it got Mrs. Gorilla and the Empress into tears.
I and Free Tea were chitchatting throughout, and the abovementioned two then accused me of suppressing my entire softer side to avoid spilling tears every sad movie or so. Maybe they're right, I have no idea. But at any rate I do know my tear ducts are perfectly functional--every time I yawn, anyway.
And so quite likely the Empress was looking for "improvement" in the letter I wrote. But it's definitely a once-a-year thing: no way am I going to go all emo over every other occasion that arises for it. I simply don't have that kind of energy. Maybe Claus would be able to. After all he seems to be much fitter than myself... at any rate he can jump higher, for a longer period of time, and suffers a lower change in pulse rate from it--unlike yours truly, who jumps in a most ungainly manner, never leaves the ground more than 5cm below, and hyperventilates after every self-propelled change in altitude.
I am so not going to join Copa di IBA.
[Tuesday]
I am so sleepy. I shall remember that in future, sleeping late is bad for people who have to wake up early the next morning to a faceful of Brats. Or people who have to wake up early, period.
[Later]
My eyes are getting bad, I think. Or maybe staring at black and white for too long--say more than 5 continuous hours--is bad for the eyes. Stressful on the retina or whatever--because one of the older workers is already complaining of chronic headaches (though he absolutely refuses to take any paracetamol) and personally, my head doesn't feel so good itself.
The music helps--as long as I keep it down to reasonably soft levels, it doesn't seem to bother anybody other than my uncle, who is thankfully ensconced (I used MS Word to spellcheck that) in the inner office, where outside sound doesn't reach--so he can't complain about something he can't hear.
[Wednesday]
The oldest Brat made the dire mistake of calling me an effer last night. (I have truncated the word to something far less offensive.) For that she received a sharp warning, more growled than spoken, and my right hand on her jugular for about fifteen seconds--hardly enough to be fatal, but I think I may have left fingerprints.
I, myself, made the mistake of slamming the bathroom door open (she'd thought to lock it before muttering the insult) and cracking the lock mechanism. My aunt went ballistic over that, but I didn't bother boiling over on her. One attempted murder a day is enough, wouldn't you think?
...I'm not writing this down so I can look back on it in future and glow with pride in myself. I'm just putting down a reminder to myself that rage, like wine, is intoxicating. It's stronger than the cigarettes Drain gave me, and offers a small way for me to take back control of my life in some small way. Very tempting... and I should know. After the Brats (there were witnesses) left, I took a bath. And every time I thought of them for half an hour, my right hand went automatically into a claw shape and the whole arm... well, I must sound very melodramatic, but last night was one of the few times my arm has ever jittered from rage. I daresay if I'd got her to cry or drawn blood, I'd have almost completely lost my temper and vented the last few months' anger on her.
And... I suppose the really worrying thing is that I still don't have any guilt about striking her. My guilt is in giving in to my anger--I'd thought I'd managed to suppress it a long time ago, but obviously I don't have total control of it yet. If I were to be completely honest about it, I'd go so far as to say that if I'd killed her last night, I would merely think of it as decreasing the surplus population--but I would be whacking at myself about doing it in such a paroxysm of emotion, so sloppily, so... whatever. Am I insane? I don't think so, but then that is one of the distinguishing marks of the insane. But if I suspect that I am, then does that make me at least partially sane?
Whatever.
My aunt went ballistic, as I have mentioned. A great deal of sarcasm about my "strong principles" and "dislike for many things" was spewed out, along with insinuations that I ought to behave better and let the Brats be brats. I simply used my poker face, trying to let as little emotion as possible seep out into my words. I defended myself as politely as I could, but when she finally announced that she doesn't care what I try to say, I decided that this will be my last month under her employment. There simply cannot be a workable relationship if one of the parties has decided that the other party is not worth listening to.
I've a good mind to type her a long, rancourous letter after leaving employment, listing in chronological order, every single one of her children's faults that have offended me. Of course I'll limit it to only those that have any direct bearing on me--insults, thefts, and the like. How she brings up her Brats is, as she so eloquently stated last night, is wholly her business; but when her Brats begin to tresspass on my privacy, they forget conveniently that I am not her child, and in consequence--unless she wishes me to point out her own glaring fault--my behaviour is wholly out of her control. Of course, since she claims to prefer simplicity, I shall put it in simple language indeed.
You wrong. Me right. You evil and stupid. Me crever and me have IQ fifty-six point three five times yours. And me can make your children behave better than you ever have before... in half an hour. Me doesn't care how loud they scream before they listen, not like you's sensitive ears. And me certainly doesn't care how many bruises they go to school tomorrow with.
...and the above ballistic-ness was merely because she heard me slam the door open. When she heard about the attack on the Brat's neck, the veins on her neck stood out and she tried to loom over me (easy, because I was sitting at the time) and began screaming at me to never do it again. Never mind that I studied Biology and the average human body can go without breath for up to five minutes before permanent damage is done, and never mind that the Brat had just grossly insulted me--I had touched her precious, and so must be attacked verbally.
I don't care any more. I just hope we don't get a repeat of this episode, because next time I don't think I'll be able to get a grip on myself before permanent damage is done. But the baser side of me is already rubbing its hands, waiting for the next verbal sally from the Brats so I can meet it with fatal force. The advantage of studying Biology and reading too much Ludlum is that one knows where to touch to elicit incapacitating pain. Of course, people formally trained would know better; but I'm merely an amateur who happens to read a lot about death.
The day I see the Brats' obituaries in the paper, I shall throw myself a mini-party. And I shall check for the cause of their deaths... and I shall hope that it wasn't peaceful. People who went around making others' lives miserable have no business dying happily. I'm reminded of one of the people who greatly annoyed me in early secondary school... he died some years ago in a car accident, I believe. I haven't the details. But then why would I care?
[Wednesday]
So far the Brat's continuation of the ongoing war consists of trying to restrict her immediate family from all non-antagonistic interaction with me. This takes the form of rather imperious commands, sounding something like: "Father! Why are you talking to that... that... thing?" which sounds a bit incongruous considering it's coming from a 12-year-old.
Still, she's carefully avoided the eff-word AND locking the bathroom door for the past one day in a row, so it's got results. And the best thing is that she's not talking to me now, merely about me.
...you know it's not going to be a good day when your first thoughts on waking up are, "Shit, it's Monday". I suppose being late--again--does things to my mood. I don't particularly like being late. Then again, it's been a pretty OK time so far apart from when the Brats are around--I guess they have some sort of allergy to human decency or something.
I've been receiving loads of letters the past few weeks, mostly from universities in the UK--even though I'm definitely not going to any of them anymore since I've decided on NTU, I haven't told them yet because I haven't found a suitably tactful way of saying No. Even if it's to a computer... anyway, so I've got loads of letters waiting for me at the Gorillas' every week when I go back. I don't usually look forward to those all that much, since they're like an instant guilt trip, but this week I got something nicer--a letter from myself.
I should probably explain that in RBS, we were told to write a letter to ourselves just before the whole thing ended--a sort of reminder to our future selves about what we'd been thinking at the end of RBS and stuff we'd learnt and all. My letter turned out to be a very worried one, loaded down with pessimism about various issues going on at the time, ranging from university applications to the rest of my life--but there seems to be this little thread of hope somewhere in all the gloomy words. I must be one of those optimistic pessimists.
But it was a very nice letter all the same--sort of a wake-up call to myself. (Of course, it was supposed to be sent to us three months after RBS, or two months ago, but better late than never. Or quite likely all the post got lost in the mail.)
Yesterday was Mothers' Day. The Empress bugged me about the letter--remember?--so I cobbled together something on Saturday night, trying to lace it with as many garden-themed puns as I could without making it too comical--and now it turns out I sound positively emotionally unstable on that bit of paper. I'm going to have to insist on my mom reading it once only and then burning it in case my reputation goes bad.
Then again it might have something to do with the movie my church was screening on Saturday afternoon (as a kind of pre-Mothers'-Day thing)--something about a husband whose wife gets dementia and how he sticks by her even though she eats her daughter's lipstick, drives to her old workplace, and starts waving chalk at highly amused students and highly worried teachers. (She used to be a teacher.) And all this despite a company on the verge of breakdown, an irritating money-minded brother, and a couple of teenage kids (one of whom looks very much like Canal and is about to get married). Well... I guess it sounds trite, but in the end Christ saves the day. It's all very touching and stuff, I suppose, since it got Mrs. Gorilla and the Empress into tears.
I and Free Tea were chitchatting throughout, and the abovementioned two then accused me of suppressing my entire softer side to avoid spilling tears every sad movie or so. Maybe they're right, I have no idea. But at any rate I do know my tear ducts are perfectly functional--every time I yawn, anyway.
And so quite likely the Empress was looking for "improvement" in the letter I wrote. But it's definitely a once-a-year thing: no way am I going to go all emo over every other occasion that arises for it. I simply don't have that kind of energy. Maybe Claus would be able to. After all he seems to be much fitter than myself... at any rate he can jump higher, for a longer period of time, and suffers a lower change in pulse rate from it--unlike yours truly, who jumps in a most ungainly manner, never leaves the ground more than 5cm below, and hyperventilates after every self-propelled change in altitude.
I am so not going to join Copa di IBA.
[Tuesday]
I am so sleepy. I shall remember that in future, sleeping late is bad for people who have to wake up early the next morning to a faceful of Brats. Or people who have to wake up early, period.
[Later]
My eyes are getting bad, I think. Or maybe staring at black and white for too long--say more than 5 continuous hours--is bad for the eyes. Stressful on the retina or whatever--because one of the older workers is already complaining of chronic headaches (though he absolutely refuses to take any paracetamol) and personally, my head doesn't feel so good itself.
The music helps--as long as I keep it down to reasonably soft levels, it doesn't seem to bother anybody other than my uncle, who is thankfully ensconced (I used MS Word to spellcheck that) in the inner office, where outside sound doesn't reach--so he can't complain about something he can't hear.
[Wednesday]
The oldest Brat made the dire mistake of calling me an effer last night. (I have truncated the word to something far less offensive.) For that she received a sharp warning, more growled than spoken, and my right hand on her jugular for about fifteen seconds--hardly enough to be fatal, but I think I may have left fingerprints.
I, myself, made the mistake of slamming the bathroom door open (she'd thought to lock it before muttering the insult) and cracking the lock mechanism. My aunt went ballistic over that, but I didn't bother boiling over on her. One attempted murder a day is enough, wouldn't you think?
...I'm not writing this down so I can look back on it in future and glow with pride in myself. I'm just putting down a reminder to myself that rage, like wine, is intoxicating. It's stronger than the cigarettes Drain gave me, and offers a small way for me to take back control of my life in some small way. Very tempting... and I should know. After the Brats (there were witnesses) left, I took a bath. And every time I thought of them for half an hour, my right hand went automatically into a claw shape and the whole arm... well, I must sound very melodramatic, but last night was one of the few times my arm has ever jittered from rage. I daresay if I'd got her to cry or drawn blood, I'd have almost completely lost my temper and vented the last few months' anger on her.
And... I suppose the really worrying thing is that I still don't have any guilt about striking her. My guilt is in giving in to my anger--I'd thought I'd managed to suppress it a long time ago, but obviously I don't have total control of it yet. If I were to be completely honest about it, I'd go so far as to say that if I'd killed her last night, I would merely think of it as decreasing the surplus population--but I would be whacking at myself about doing it in such a paroxysm of emotion, so sloppily, so... whatever. Am I insane? I don't think so, but then that is one of the distinguishing marks of the insane. But if I suspect that I am, then does that make me at least partially sane?
Whatever.
My aunt went ballistic, as I have mentioned. A great deal of sarcasm about my "strong principles" and "dislike for many things" was spewed out, along with insinuations that I ought to behave better and let the Brats be brats. I simply used my poker face, trying to let as little emotion as possible seep out into my words. I defended myself as politely as I could, but when she finally announced that she doesn't care what I try to say, I decided that this will be my last month under her employment. There simply cannot be a workable relationship if one of the parties has decided that the other party is not worth listening to.
I've a good mind to type her a long, rancourous letter after leaving employment, listing in chronological order, every single one of her children's faults that have offended me. Of course I'll limit it to only those that have any direct bearing on me--insults, thefts, and the like. How she brings up her Brats is, as she so eloquently stated last night, is wholly her business; but when her Brats begin to tresspass on my privacy, they forget conveniently that I am not her child, and in consequence--unless she wishes me to point out her own glaring fault--my behaviour is wholly out of her control. Of course, since she claims to prefer simplicity, I shall put it in simple language indeed.
You wrong. Me right. You evil and stupid. Me crever and me have IQ fifty-six point three five times yours. And me can make your children behave better than you ever have before... in half an hour. Me doesn't care how loud they scream before they listen, not like you's sensitive ears. And me certainly doesn't care how many bruises they go to school tomorrow with.
...and the above ballistic-ness was merely because she heard me slam the door open. When she heard about the attack on the Brat's neck, the veins on her neck stood out and she tried to loom over me (easy, because I was sitting at the time) and began screaming at me to never do it again. Never mind that I studied Biology and the average human body can go without breath for up to five minutes before permanent damage is done, and never mind that the Brat had just grossly insulted me--I had touched her precious, and so must be attacked verbally.
I don't care any more. I just hope we don't get a repeat of this episode, because next time I don't think I'll be able to get a grip on myself before permanent damage is done. But the baser side of me is already rubbing its hands, waiting for the next verbal sally from the Brats so I can meet it with fatal force. The advantage of studying Biology and reading too much Ludlum is that one knows where to touch to elicit incapacitating pain. Of course, people formally trained would know better; but I'm merely an amateur who happens to read a lot about death.
The day I see the Brats' obituaries in the paper, I shall throw myself a mini-party. And I shall check for the cause of their deaths... and I shall hope that it wasn't peaceful. People who went around making others' lives miserable have no business dying happily. I'm reminded of one of the people who greatly annoyed me in early secondary school... he died some years ago in a car accident, I believe. I haven't the details. But then why would I care?
[Wednesday]
So far the Brat's continuation of the ongoing war consists of trying to restrict her immediate family from all non-antagonistic interaction with me. This takes the form of rather imperious commands, sounding something like: "Father! Why are you talking to that... that... thing?" which sounds a bit incongruous considering it's coming from a 12-year-old.
Still, she's carefully avoided the eff-word AND locking the bathroom door for the past one day in a row, so it's got results. And the best thing is that she's not talking to me now, merely about me.
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