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he's gettin a jay oh bee 2007-11-01 I've been having some trouble with Sharky lately, and the last two days have been B A D. Really I'm far too depressed to talk about it, but I hope a decision I made today (and have notified him of, via a letter on his bed) is going to help. If it doesn't, then I just don't know what. I saw, when I was home at lunch, that he had an internet window open on his computer to "Teenagers' Guide to Emancipation", and seeing it made me sick to my stomach, but a little bit I thought how nice it would be for ME to be emancipated from HIM. I can't imagine he'd really go through with such a thing; probably he was reading that out of anger and to make himself feel that he had options other than living with such horrible people. And we really Are terrible--I'll just go ahead and admit that. We have the temerity to expect that he will actually do some work when he's at school, and in fact we sometimes open our mouths and tell him we think learning is important. Furthermore, we expect such impossible things from him as keeping his room clean and not talking to us like we're stupid assholes. Really, we are unbearable and I wouldn't blame him if he liberated himself from our fascist household. * * * * * * * * Okay, so that was weird. When I had just finished typing that last sentence, my phone rang, and it was the Shark, sounding very upbeat. He is happy with the decision I informed him of in my letter. Since it seems like it'll work out, I'll just tell you that the decision was twofold: Firstly, that he can get a job. He broached the subject a couple days ago (he was filling out an application for a fast food place a couple of his friends work at) and I said I thought I should talk to Francisco about it. Francisco said he wanted to wait on the decision until Shark got his report card, two weeks from now. Shark was v. angry about that because the fast food place is hiring NOW and if hired he might even be able to start work on Saturday. I thought it over thoroughly and got input from two of my coworkers who have teenagers, and felt that it would be good to let him start work now, and also: Part Two of the decision is that even though he is definitely flunking math, I want him to still manage his own schoolwork, and if he flunks, he flunks. We don't want him to flunk, and probably we could force him to improve his school performance, but that wouldn't help him learn how to succeed on his own, and I think it likely he would find other, sneaky (and possibly scary) ways to rebel. I figure about the worst that can happen (or rather, the worst that is likely to happen) is that he wouldn't graduate with his class, but in that case he could repeat a grade, or get a GED. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, ever, but Francisco dropped out of high school and got a GED, and he has ended up with a PhD, for all intents and purposes [he did the class work and wrote the dissertation but never defended it]. High school performance is not indicative of future life performance, it would seem, so flunking would not be the end of the world, by any means. I think being granted this measure of independence is what he needs right now, and fortunately Francisco (once I reached him by phone) agreed that we should try it. I'm glad he agreed, because I'd already left the letter on Sharky's bed. Meep! So everything seems to be working out. Sharky is ebullient at the thought of being his own man, and I have a pounding migraine, as a result of 1) my leaf mold allergy and 2) being super upset all day long. Hurrah! As Shark and I were ending our phone conversation, he said he was going to vacuum the house, do a load of laundry, and take out the garbage, and is there anything else I wanted him to do? Well, damn this migraine, but I couldn't think of a thing--my mind was a blank. If only I'd come up with some heinous task to give him while he's on his independence high DAMMIT. And now onto other things: Last night we had exactly two trick-or-treaters, and they were our nieces. Lou was dressed as a witch (so cute!) and Baby F was a dog--a Dalmatian, I think. Also so cute--her hair was put into little buns that looked like ears. I took some pictures of them and will try to remember to post them to Flickr tonight. I had bought a massive mixed bag of Swedish fish and sour patch kids (individually wrapped), thinking we'd have a number of trick or treaters, so as you can imagine we had a lot left over and I wish I'd stuffed it all in Lou and Baby F's trick or treat pumpkins. I brought the whole huge bag to work today for our student workers to consume, because that is not something I need to have in our house. I like both of those kinds of candy but even if I was eating sugar, I don't like the way they stick in my teeth. I like the show Life With Ed--have you seen it? It's surprisingly engaging, and I love getting all that information about energy saving whoosits and environmentally friendly whatnots. Add to shopping cart! Also in the world of television, I like the show 'How Clean Is Your House?'. It's sometimes hard to look at all the filth, but they have such good tips about cleaning, and especially about cleaning with nontoxic products. Today I learned you can clean off stuck-on meat grease (not that my pans ever get as dirty as the sample one was) with meat tenderizer. Who knew?? Not me, that's who. This week I've been making exchange ornaments and I have only one to go before the AtomicTonic swap ornaments are done, but I'm thinking I'll make more and use them in the exchange I'm doing with the 10 Cakes Flickr group. There's some crossover in the groups, so the people in both exchanges will get different things for the 10 Cakes exchange, and I don't know what that will be yet, but hopefully something great. Photos of the Day: Tonight for dinner we're having salad and something else. I was thinking grilled cheese sandwiches, but I'm still thinking that's too much fat, so something else. Veggie burgers maybe. Too bad I hadn't bought any tofu--with Sharky's good mood, this is an ideal time to foist it upon him. Have a great night! Love,
come over some time & see me - 2011-02-25 |
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