Getting It Right

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For the first time since I began, I finally got into the Live Chat given by my professor, Dr. Debra Shingledecker. The point is that I was using the expected time as the real time and not the actual time, which is an hour ahead of me now that I am in EST (eastern standard time). I was all right when I lived in Colorado. That was Mountain Standard Time and 2 hours ahead of here in Ohio. I should have stayed in Colorado then I would already be set and be on time since I have been dealing with EST and living in MST (2 hours ahead of the east) for nearly a decade.

I did not have trouble with the time change and already figured the time was earlier or later due to the time zone, except that I do not have the time zones set now that I am here in Ohio. I will have to fix that.

At any rate, I do not have to do the extra credit of writing a summary on today's live chat since I lived through it. Dr. Deb already gave me the credit for attending the Live Chat today and I will have to deal with that instead of writing another summary.

Dr. Deb replied to an email I sent her and she praised my scores already (100%) and mentioned that I am doing fine and that my plans for resuscitating my drawing skills are good and ahead of schedule. I may not be able to stand it -- kudos and a pat on the head without the inevitable stab in the back I came to expect from Mom -- and now my siblings. It is all part of the paradigm of being caught up in Mom's dysfunctional and often abusive parenting style. Carol has picked that up from Mom and now she will have to unlearn Mom's style after she reads my new book, "Tattletale".

What do I know best -- how to journal and write about myself and my family -- and my life. Everything is game because I am a writer, but also because Mom taught me that telling the truth is preferable to the lies and games she played her whole life. She was abusive and lied frequently, but calling someone a liar was not always the truth when it came from her. She was setting me up so that no one would believe me and she could continue to abuse me psychologically, and sometimes physically, without compunction.

There are a couple of truths I learned from my parents. Mom was a liar and she loved to play games with other people's heads (mostly mine, but often all of her children) and Dad was a gossip. Dad loved to gossip more than a woman gossiping over the back fence, but Dad preferred to gossip about his children, me and the other three biologically born children. Dad gossiped most often when throwing one of us under the bus to get himself out of whatever hot water Mom had boiling on the stove ready to push him into the pot. Throwing someone else, especially one of his children, was preferable to being flayed alive or boiled in the pot.

The things one has to do to make a marriage work. I never learned to work the system which is why I have been twice divorced and have taken MEN off the menu. I like men, and I liked boys, but not at the cost of throwing them under the bus or playing with their heads.

Dad threw us under the bus or told on us, but Mom patted us (mostly me) on the head before shoving a knife into our backs -- or slapping us in the face. First the praise and then the slap in the face. That was Mom and no doubts about it.

I do not think Mom fooled anyone about her favorite child (my brother) and her favorite target (me). the neighbors all knew what to expect with Mom because they saw her in action every single day. She did not even fool her brothers and sisters in the church. Often they would come up to me to let me know what they thought of her and what they thought of me -- "You didn't deserve that." Some of their comments were not lost on me and I knew they came from a heartfelt place where they were letting me know they would have treated me better than Mom. I thanked them and nodded and went on about my business. I knew better than to be seen by Mom consorting with the enemy (from her perspective) and that telling Mom would have ended in tears and regret (mine). I was smart enough not to get caught in the trap and wise enough not to let Mom know what people thought of her -- not that Mom would have believed me anyway.

I am sure somewhere within Mom she knew that she was not coming off as innocent and nice as she believed herself to be. Carol believes that no one sees her as I see her -- and have written her in the story of my life. Carol believes that everyone sees her as nice and law-abiding, even generous at times, but Carol, like Mom, believes her own press.

Many of the people we have known over the decades of our lives have characterized my sister as a brat -- and she is. I do not add spoiled to the brat, but I do not need to do so since Carol knows she is spoiled and has had more perks than most people. Carol also knows that she is not the first in Mom's affections because she is not Jimmy, our younger brother and the apple of Mom's eye. Even Beanie, the youngest, knows that in the hierarchy of affection, she comes last because Jimmy her elder brother is still the boy and Beanie is just a girl and not the BOY in Mom's affections.

This is the order of favoritism in our house. I, the oldest, am last; Carol, the first born daughter, is second in Mom's affections, but still far above me, the adopted daughter; Jimmy is first and foremost because he was born with a penis; and Beanie is last because she was born last and was disappointing to Mom because she was not born with a penis. Even so, had she been born a boy, Jimmy would still be first in Mom's affections -- and in her eyes.

It does not matter that Beanie, like me, can do anything a boy can do (sometimes better than a boy), but she still suffers from the handicap of being born a daughter when everyone knows that boys (men) come first in the world. Like me, Beanie should join the #MeToo movement because we have been abused and set aside because she is short and small while I am tall and well built -- both born without penises. We may be fond of the penis, being heterosexual, and our only accomplishment has been in producing sons.

Although Beanie and I had sons, our sons do not carry our father's name of Cornwell. They carry the names of the men we married who planted the seeds of their sons inside of us. In Mom's eyes, we can be forgiven -- to a point -- because we bore sons, but only to a point.

Mom sided with Beanie's first husband, abuser that he was, and told Beanie that she would stand against her when the issue came to court even though her son-in-law was an abuser of the first order and abused Beanie because Beanie chose to ally herself with other men who were not her husband. Beanie preferred the company of men, most of them pleasanter in her eyes than her husband, but sinful since they were not her husband. Beanie had affairs and neither her husband nor Mom knew about these affairs. Only I knew about them because Beanie trusted me. That was back in the days when Beanie told me everything and I kept that knowledge to my journals and then in my public journals online where Laura, our cousin, could dig it up, read it, and send Carol to do the dirty work of telling Mom about her daughter's sins. The real point was Laura getting Carol to tell Mom who would tell Beanie who would then jump on me.

Laura had her own agenda -- fixing her aunt's wagon by putting all of her daughters in the soup and getting some of her father's own back from his older sister, the one who had caused him so much grief and suffering his whole life because Mom pitted their mother, our grandmother, Lottie, against him. It was the one instance when Mom preferred to be the apple of her mother's eye and align herself against her own children, Jimmy excluded because he was the apple of her eye. Mom supplanted her older brother, Jack, the man for whom I was named and who died of leukemia five years before I was born, and her younger brother, Bob, the selfsame man for whom Laura set her sights on her aunt's sinful daughters -- me, Carol, and Beanie.

That is the problem with dysfunctional families -- not only does the family get it in the neck, but first cousins set their sights on making every cousin pay. Jimmy got out of the trap because he did not get involved. Jimmy was sacrosanct. He was the boy. He was perfect in her aunt's eyes and untouchable -- at least where Laura was concerned. Laura was canny enough to leave Jimmy out of her plans and schemes because she could not get purchase where he was concerned. It was easier to get her aunt's three daughters in the soup since we were all suffering because we did not have penises.

Maybe I am being too harsh in my characterization of Laura -- or maybe not. I have far more experience writing about my own family, my own siblings and Mom and Dad than I do when I add in the cousins. It is not that I do not see the cousins clearly or recognize the dysfunction when I see it, but I just have more experience writing about my immediate family and have only mentioned my Uncle Bob in glowing and almost reverent terms.

It is not that I do not see my cousins as shining examples of honor and truth but that I see my siblings so much clearer and have far more decades of experience writing about them. I may get into the cousin side of things later.

Or not.

I see the same dysfunctions in my cousins, but not as clearly as I see my own familial ring of dysfunction and issues. When it comes down to it, I guess I am what Carol called me decades ago -- a tattletale. Though I have chosen to follow my Mom's example by proving my case and verifying the truth of my allegations, I am what Carol decided about me when she first wet the bed and I got blamed for it, a tattletale. I prefer to think of myself as a historian or biographer, but you call it what you will. I put things in a new light and I get to shine the light.

That is all. Disperse.

Called On The Carpet

Since we are a senior community and not residents of a nursing home, we should not look like we belong in a nursing home, so no bedclothes in the common area. It did not even matter that I had hard soled shoes on my feet and was covered from neck to toes, it was just that I was in flagrant rebellion of the rules. Jean told me that the only reason she had let it go so far was because I was sitting on a bench in the hallway and would not be moving about among the residents and visitors wearing a nightgown. Worse yet, I was working on a puzzle in the common meeting area in my unsuitable clothing. 

I was suitably chastised, according to Jean's way of thinking. Basically, that was not the only fraction of the rules I had broken. She let me know that once or twice during my tenure here, I had taken a bag of trash to the trash chute unsuitably clad. Basically, I had taken the trash to the chute wearing a long shirt and no long pants. Since it happened at 3 or 4 AM, I did not think it was an infraction since no one saw me leave my apartment or return from the chute unsuitably clad – or not suitably clad. 

The only way Jean could know I had done so was to check the tapes from the weeks before. No one saw me leave or return unsuitably clad, but Jean must have watched the tapes on the monitors in her office when she arrived at 7 AM or thereabouts and watched the whole time to catch me out – and to inform me she had seen me do so.

Caught again. I thought I was safe since no one was up at that hour and no one was in the hall when I slipped out, dumped the trash, and returned. Jean had held onto this infraction about the trash in the middle of the night until today. Now that is a joke, especially since it happened a couple of months ago and only happened once or twice. Jean must be spending her time going through all the tapes and had kept that fact to herself until today. Vindictive and petty. 

Jean caught me and informed me I was in violation, not once, but twice. I had been duly informed and chastised – again.

I asked if anyone had complained and Jean shook her head. No, no one had complained, no one but her since she watched me on the monitors on tape. Caught again.

I am a bad, bad tenant. I keep my apartment clean and now have sufficient quarters to get my laundry done this week, but now I need to be cognizant of not wearing my nightgown with or without my long legged pants and to wear my pants and a suitably long shirt or sweater when out and about in the common rooms.

I had fewer rules to put up with when I lived at home or when I lived in the rehab. I pay for rent here, but I must be suitably attired according to residential rules and not wear my warm and comfy nightgown anywhere but here in my apartment.

Basically, I have broken the rules often, but then what else can I do since Jean insisted that I come downstairs and be available to let the MOW volunteers into the building. I'm not the only one who gets Meals on Wheels, and evidently I am the only one who has been ordered to wait downstairs to let them in. I guess none of the other recipients can see when the MOW volunteers arrive on channel 13 and is dressed to go downstairs and let them in. Oh, well, I guess even unsuitably dressed and clad in hard-soled shoes, I have been chosen because I've been doing it for weeks. The task is not onerous and I've been doing it fully and suitably clad for weeks, so I guess I am it.

One more mosquito in the salve, and so it goes.

I am the responsible one, if not the always suitably clad one. I can wear my nightgown in my bed or in my apartment, but cannot wear it to take the trash to the chute and return as long as there is no one to watch me. No worries. Jean will watch me on the monitors when she gets to work and checks out the tapes from the night before. Oh, well.

That is all. Disperse.Since we are a senior community and not residents of a nursing home, we should not look like we belong in a nursing home, so no bedclothes in the common area. It did not even matter that I had hard soled shoes on my feet and was covered from neck to toes, it was just that I was in flagrant rebellion of the rules. Jean told me that the only reason she had let it go so far was because I was sitting on a bench in the hallway and would not be moving about among the residents and visitors wearing a nightgown -- so no one would know.

I was suitably chastised, according to Jean's way of thinking. Basically, that was not the only fraction of the rules I had broken. She let me know that once or twice during my tenure here, I had taken a bag of trash to the trash chute unsuitably clad. Basically, I had taken the trash to the chute wearing a long shirt and no long pants. Since it happened at 3 or 4 AM, I did not think it was an infraction since no one saw me leave my apartment or return from the chute unsuitably clad – or not suitably clad. The only way Jean could know I had done so was to check the tapes from the night before. No one saw me leave or return unsuitably clad, but Jean must have watched the tapes on the monitors in her office when she arrived at 7 AM or thereabouts and watched the whole time to catch me out – and to inform me she had seen me do so.

Caught again. I thought I was safe since no one was up at that hour and no one was in the hall when I slipped out, dumped the trash, and returned.

Jean caught me and informed me I was in violation, not once, but twice. I had been duly informed and chastised – again.

I asked if anyone had complained and Jean shook her head. No, no one had complained, no one but her since she watched me on the monitors on tape. Caught again.

I am a bad, bad tenant. I keep my apartment clean and now have sufficient quarters to get my laundry done this week, but now I need to be cognizant of not wearing my nightgown with or without my long legged pants and to wear my pants and a suitably long shirt or sweater when out and about in the common rooms.

I had fewer rules to put up with when I lived at home or when I lived in the rehab. I pay for rent here, but I must be suitably attired according to residential rules and not wear my warm and comfy nightgown anywhere but here in my apartment.

Basically, I have broken the rules often, but then what else can I do since Jean insisted that I come downstairs and be available to let the MOW volunteers into the building. I'm not the only one who gets Meals on Wheels, and evidently I am the only one who has been ordered to wait downstairs to let them in. I guess none of the other recipients can see when the MOW volunteers arrive on channel 13 and is dressed to go downstairs and let them in. Oh, well, I guess even unsuitably dressed and clad in hard-soled shoes, I have been chosen because I've been doing it for weeks. The task is not onerous and I've been doing it fully and suitably clad for weeks, so I guess I am it.

One more mosquito in the salve, and so it goes.

I am the responsible one, if not the always suitably clad one. I can wear my nightgown in my bed or in my apartment, but cannot wear it to take the trash to the chute and return as long as there is no one to watch me. No worries. Jean will watch me on the monitors when she gets to work and checks out the tapes from the night before. Oh, well.

That is all. Disperse.